Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today on this debate. It hearkens back to what we were doing four years ago at the beginning of our first term in Parliament. Many of us made our first speech in the House of Commons in an emergency debate concerning the crisis that was taking place in Bosnia.
Although many people in the House spoke eloquently about the issue, we failed miserably. Despots were prepared to rape, murder, pillage and use their power as leaders to pit brother against brother and cause the worst genocide that Europe and in fact the world had seen since World War II. The bloodletting has not finished.
The Dayton peace accord ensured that the former Yugoslavia would fracture. It ensured that Bosnia would exist.
Through force we have managed to keep the Bosnian Serbs, the Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Muslims together. It is only by force that we have managed to do this. One thing we have to realize in this House is that Bosnia only stays together through the power of international intervention by force. If that force is removed, Bosnia will descend into the same bloodshed which existed four years ago. The killings will continue. At the highest levels of policy making in the world, leaders recognize that. We have to recognize that.
I support completely the use of our soldiers in Bosnia at this time. However unless we want another Cyprus in our midst, because that is what Bosnia is going to be, we have to recognize that the only long term future for Bosnia is for Bosnia to fracture peacefully.
The Dayton peace accord was the proverbial finger in the dyke. It served to prevent further conflict at that time and through force we have prevented that. We have largely prevented further bloodshed. In the future no conflict is going to be prevented in the long term unless Bosnia fractures into two or three separate groups and unless we are prepared to sit there for time immemorial. So much blood has been spilled under the bridge that people there will never forget that. As a result if we leave, SFOR leaves and the killings will resume.
We can see it happening now. Again Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo has started a war against the ethnic Albanians. He started a war against the Serbian president in Bosnia. He has also started to stir up problems and is in a cold war against the leader of Montenegro. This is only an example of some of the future conflicts that are stirring in this pot we call the Balkans and which we have barely managed to keep a lid on.
Unless we are prepared to stay there forever, we have to enter into peaceful negotiations to ensure that Bosnia fractures through negotiations and not at the end of an AK-47. There is much we can do.
If we accept the fact that Bosnia has to fracture peacefully for long term peace, then I challenge the minister to work with his compatriots in the OSCE, in the UN and the members of the contact group to accept that realization. Work toward a negotiated split of Bosnia and separate the ethnic groups peacefully forever.
We also have to realize there are other issues taking place. Yugoslavia represents the most egregious example in Europe in recent memory. Conflict such as that in Yugoslavia sits under our nose like a ticking time bomb for years before it blows up. The genocide that took place in the former Yugoslavia represents a very clear realization that we have learned nothing from the concentration camps of Dachau and Auschwitz. We have proven once again that we are impotent in dealing with impending conflict when it is in our face. We have tools that can solve this problem.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs has developed a great deal of capital over the last two years through his work in banning land mines, through his work on human rights in China and through other foreign policy initiatives he has produced. With that capital he can work with other countries to deal with the larger problem of conflict prevention.
There is a saying in medicine that prevention is a worth a lot more than a cure. Preventing conflict is a lot cheaper, a lot more effective and infinitely more humane than managing the conflict after it has occurred.
I have presented a private member's motion in the House of Commons. It calls on the Minister of Foreign Affairs to bring like-minded nations together, as we did on the land mines issue, in Ottawa or wherever to identify the precursors to conflict and to put in the tools to address them. If we can build this nucleus of like-minded nations, other nations will come on board.
Clearly it is in the best interest of any nation not to sit beside or have conflict within their sphere of influence. Indeed a conflict that may occur halfway around the world will come to roost within our own borders either through the egress of refugees and demands on our own social policies or demands on our defence and aid budgets.
It is also important to realize that if a conflict blows up, all the incredibly valuable work our Canadian soldiers are heroically doing will be washed away within a period of days, weeks or months when war breaks out.
If we revamp the International Monetary Fund, it can be used as a tool, not only as a carrot but also as a stick. Wars need money. If we choke off the supply of money then we choke off the ability of a despot to engage in war. Most of the countries today that are under the threat of war rely on money from the IMF. The IMF can prevent despots from using that money. It can freeze their assets.
The IMF can use its power as a carrot to supply money to moderate groups that are prepared to work together with disparate groups to build bridges of tolerance and understanding. It would reward those who are engaged in peacemaking. It would reward those individuals who would face despots and say “No, you are not going to turn my country into a hell-hole. You are not going to turn this into another civil war. You are not going to pit brother against brother. You are not going to cause my people to be killed”.
We are in an unusual position as a nation. Canada has an unusual role to play in the international community. We have the ability to act as negotiator to bring countries together to work through multilateral measures to change the IMF and use it as a tool for peace.
The United Nations needs a renaissance. It was effective when it was put together at the end of World War II but it does not have the ability to address the security threats that we as a country and the international community face in the future.
The UN needs a renaissance. Many countries feel the same way but they are looking for a leader. We can be that leader. There are very potent, cogent, economic, reasonable and pragmatic reasons for getting involved and changing these institutions. War hurts everybody. It costs us. It costs the countries involved. It costs everybody and everybody loses.
I ask the government to work with other members of the House so that we can use Canada's power as a force in changing these multilateral organizations into tools of peace to address security threats, be they military, environmental or otherwise.
In closing, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Burundi, Burma, India, Kenya and Indonesia represent security threats in the future. We need to deal with them now for everybody's sake. I challenge the Minister of Foreign Affairs to work with us in doing just that.