Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak in this debate on Kosovo.
We have been here before. When I was first elected in 1993 I remember a debate in the House on the same conflict. What the intervening five years have proven is that we have learned nothing.
While over the last nine months Albanians in Kosovo have been slaughtered, murdered, mutilated and raped, we in the international community have wrung our hands, pointed fingers and done nothing. This has happened time and time again. The last five years have proven that we have learned no lessons whatsoever.
With respect to Kosovo, in 1989 Slobodan Milosevic came to power with a promise to rid Kosovo of its 93% ethnic Albanian population. This was a promise he made and true to his word he has been engaging in the process of ethnic and cultural genocide of the people there.
First he started to close down the schools, then he threw Albanians out of jobs. What are they supposed to do? They started the Kosovo Liberation Army to try to defend their people. They were successful initially but they have been losing quite badly.
As we speak, 250,000 innocent civilians have been displaced and 50,000 innocent Albanian people from Kosovo are in the forests freezing, starving and sick. Some have been subjected to some of the worst atrocities any of us could possibly imagine. And we still sit on our hands.
It is remarkable that as we stand here today trying to decide what we are going to do, for months people have been slaughtered. We have only one option in the face of a despot like Milosevic. That is to bomb. He understands one thing and one thing only and that unfortunately is force. I am certain that is not what his people want but he, a man of shrewd political and ruthless means, wants to do that. He will understand nothing but force.
We have tried diplomatic initiatives time and time again and they have been completely fruitless. He has played games with us. He has teased us with the hope that he will negotiate rather than fight, but this is only temporary and he goes back and continues the onslaught. No more. There are some solutions that would solve the problem.
One, Milosevic has been given the ultimatum. We know from Secretary General Annan that he is not withdrawing his troops and we must bomb. We must bomb hard military targets, hard military Serbian targets within Kosovo and move into greater Serbia if necessary.
Two, we have to ensure that in the future, after that is done, there will be a continued reinforcement of the blockade around Serbia. Right now it is a joke. The Russians and the Greeks are providing arms and cash, and military hardware to the Serbs, thereby fueling this problem. The Russians want a foot in the Balkans. That blockade has to be strengthened if we are going to meet success.
Three, the legitimate concerns of the Serbian people have to be met. Kosovo is to the Serbs what Jerusalem is to the Jews. The Field of Black Birds is a very important symbol for them. Unfortunately it is a negative symbol for them but it is an important one and one that must be respected. It is a shrine for the Serbian people. They must be allowed free and unfettered access to it.
We must not support an independent country called Kosovo. If we were to support the pre-1989 situation when Kosovo was an autonomous state, then I think we would find a reasonable compromise which would enable the Albanians in Kosovo to live peacefully and would enable the Serbs and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to have free access to those shrines.
If we do this, a compromise can be made. However, the compromise is being made much more difficult by the actions of President Milosevic. Through his genocidal actions he is polarizing communities and laying the seeds of future violent ethnic discontent for years to come. Unfortunately this tragic situation will bubble up again.
We have heard some discussions today about intervention. It has been proven over the last several decades that the world has been unable or unwilling to deal with conflicts when they occur and only get involved after a huge loss of lives has taken place. From Rwanda to Chechnya, to Cambodia, to the Sudan and to others, the world has sat on its hands while innocent civilians have been slaughtered.
That is why international law respects, acknowledges and supports intervention by outside powers within the borders of a country if gross human rights abuses are taking place. The reason it supports that is that although we support the integrity of a nation state, international law respects the integrity and safety of people over and above the nation state. In other words, a despot cannot abuse people and expect to go away unscathed.
We collectively have a responsibility to protect people not only on humanitarian grounds but also for very pragmatic reasons. What happens in a conflict half a world away winds up on our own doorstep through increasing demands on our defence budgets, aid budgets and our social programs domestically as people migrate away from an ethnic conflict and wind up as refugees on our shores.
International law respects and supports intervention. The proof in the pudding is when we look at who pays the price. Civilians pay the price. It was not always that way. In World War I 85% of the casualties were soldiers. Wars took place between nation states. In World War II 60% were soldiers. Today 85% of the penalties that are paid in blood, in death and in rape are paid for by innocent unarmed men, women and children. The civilian population pays the price in conflicts that are by and large ethnic conflicts within the boundaries of a country. They generally are not wars between nation states.
We need political will. We need a spine, we need guts and we need courage. I and my colleagues do not want to stand here five years from now on a debate about another group of people who have been murdered and slaughtered while we sat around waiting for somebody to go first.
Canada with its enormous diplomatic ability and international respect can work with other nation states to pull them together. I introduced a private members' motion last year asking the Minister of Foreign Affairs to bring together like-minded nations to have a common foreign policy in certain areas and particularly the area of conflict prevention.
I am very happy to see that the Minister of Foreign Affairs signed a treaty with Norway. We need to expand this treaty with other like-minded nations such as New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Sweden, Finland and Costa Rica for starters. There are others. We should bring them together maybe in Ottawa to discuss a common foreign policy for certain areas. We should have a common focus in a certain part of our foreign policy that deals with one thing, conflict prevention.
Early intervention by identifying the precursors to conflict and having the tools to address them are essential. We should first start with non-military means and then work up to military means.
I was disappointed earlier today. I introduced a private members' motion asking the House of Commons to call on the United Nations to indict Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes and to allow the UNHCR and NGOs free and unfettered access to the refugees in and around Kosovo. I was deeply saddened that the House did not give unanimous consent. I hope the government will take heed of that motion and adopt it as soon as possible.
I am glad we had this debate. We must remember that in the future we cannot allow this genocide in Kosovo or in other country to continue. We must work early and preventatively because the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children are at stake.