Mr. Speaker, I begin by expressing my appreciation to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for giving the House this opportunity to debate this very important motion.
My colleagues and I in the New Democratic Party support the motion.
As the member for Beauharnois—Salaberry said, we were hoping that it would go further, that it would be stronger, that justice and strength, two fundamental principles, would have been expressed more clearly in this motion. Nevertheless, we support the motion.
It was last week that this House unanimously spoke with one voice following the terrible atrocities that were brought to light by Human Rights Watch, the massacre of 18 innocent civilians in a forest in the Drenica region. Other members have spoken of this earlier. The House spoke with one voice urging the Government of Yugoslavia, Milosevic and the parties involved to put down arms immediately and start negotiating a solution with the help of international organizations like the United Nations and the OSCE.
It was last week as well, a few days afterward, that Human Rights Watch issued a report that documented the terrible violations of international law showing that the Serbian special police and the Yugoslav army units have executed civilians, systematically destroyed civilian property and attacked humanitarian aid workers.
The director said it has been clear for seven months that the government is conducting a brutal war against civilians in Kosovo. These are war crimes. These are crimes against humanity and yet the Government of Yugoslavia and Milosevic refuse to co-operate with the international tribunal investigating it. They have gone further and have restricted the work of domestic and foreign journalists seeking to report on these terrible atrocities.
These atrocities can also strike home. The hon. member for Churchill spoke with family members in a community that she has the honour of representing who have family in Kosovo who were terribly injured. This strikes home to her and to each of us at a very profoundly human level.
This has gone on for far too long. We have heard the same threats, the same promises of action in the case of Kosovo that we heard in the case of Bosnia, and there the international community failed terribly. It took three years, 200,000 people who died and too many warnings before finally when spurred by the terrible mortar attack by the Serbs on a crowded marketplace in Sarajevo in August 1995 the west took action.
Tragically that action was not taken by the United Nations. One of the great dilemmas and tragedies of the situation in Kosovo is that we cannot rely on the United Nations in these circumstances to definitely respond to this humanitarian crisis. We cannot assume the security council will adopt a resolution that will authorize the kind of firm military response that clearly is warranted and was likely warranted some time ago.
We saw the effects of Serb aggression in Bosnia and now we see them in Kosovo. I witnessed them when I visited Vukovar. I witnessed the Serb aggression on Croatia and its people. I will never forget walking through the ruins of a church in Vukovar and picking up a small piece of wood, the remains of a small wooden cross.
The community of nations has to say that the occurrence of this kind of atrocity is not acceptable. The United Nations' own high commissioner for refugees has estimated that over 280,000 people have been displaced by the fighting since March. This is mostly within Kosovo. Some 50,000 have not found shelter yet. Many others are living in very difficult conditions. Over 700 have died. And with winter fast approaching there is a very real danger of a humanitarian disaster.
I urge the Government of Canada to respond to that disaster, to step up donor funding for reconstruction and winter emergency plans in Kosovo and to provide financial assistance to Montenegro, to Albania and the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia hosting many of the refugees and which desperately need support as winter fast approaches.
We would prefer a resolution of the United Nations security council. We would hope the OSCE, the regional security body in that region, would be able to come to a consensus, but we cannot allow the veto power of Russia and possibly China, the consensus rule of the OSCE to prevent the kind of action that very likely must be taken, the kind of military action that must be taken to save human lives.
Let us be under no illusions about the possible risk to Canadians. Canada has six CF-18 aircraft on the ground in Aviano, Italy, 130 Canadian pilots and ground crew. They are courageous men and women who will be directly affected by the decision our government makes. I am sure that every member of this House wishes those men and women well at this very difficult time. I am sure we all recognize that when we talk about the possibility of military action, it is our sons and daughters who may very well be on the front lines, who may be fired on by those ground to air missiles that the Serbs have threatened to use.
This is a humanitarian disaster. I believe that as Canadians we have an obligation not to stand by but to act. The member for Fraser Valley has spoken at the same time, and rightly so I believe, of the fact that there is certainly a great deal of selectivity in the international response. Of course we are profoundly concerned about the situation in Kosovo and we must recognize that air strikes alone fall far short of what would be a thoughtful and appropriate response. If there is not a presence on the ground, that could exacerbate the situation and make it even more difficult.
We must remember as well that in whatever military action that may be undertaken innocent people's lives must not be put at risk, whether Yugoslavians, Kosovars or anybody else, but we made the mistake globally of waiting too long in Bosnia and we cannot afford to make that mistake in Kosovo.
The world though has stood by, as the member for Fraser Valley said, in cases of other humanitarian disasters; the genocide in East Timor, a third of the population, 200,000 people, murdered by the Suharto regime. Where is the international outcry on that? Where is Canada's voice on that?
There have been ten resolutions at the United Nations on East Timor and Canada shamefully has either abstained or voted against every one. So the member for Fraser Valley is right. There is a double standard, whether in East Timor, the situation with the Kurds, in Turkey, northern Iraq, Colombia, Sudan.
Again, my colleagues and I in the New Democratic Party support this motion. We desperately hope that Milosevic will come to his senses, pull back, respect the rights of the people of Kosovo to determine their own future, hopefully have the kind of autonomy they had previously, but to respect their rights to self-determination, and that we can avert the continued horrors, because already too many people have died, that would in many respects be totally unacceptable not just to Canadians but to all civilized people should the global community not respond, not just with words but with action. La justice et la force.