Mr. Speaker, last October members of the House debated the serious humanitarian crisis that was unfolding in Kosovo. At that time my colleague, the member for Halifax West, the New Democrat defence critic, and I rose in the House to say that there are times when the global community must respond to serious human rights violations, not just with words but with action. I profoundly regret to say that we have now reached that point of humanitarian tragedy.
It is clear that diplomatic attempts at a negotiated settlement to the Kosova crisis have failed. The Serbian government has refused to sign a peace agreement that would provide Kosovo with autonomy within the Yugoslav federation, a plebiscite in three years on the future status of Kosovars and the presence of a NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo. The Albanian Kosovars have signed and accepted this settlement.
The present situation in Kosovo is indeed unacceptable. We see villages in flames and refugees fleeing in terror. Serbian offences against the Albanian Kosovars continue as we speak. More than 40,000 Serb security forces are poised in and around Kosovo, with additional units on the way. In January the bodies of almost 40 ethnic Albanians were found at the scene of fighting at Raca in southern Kosovo in what appears to have been a mass execution.
The last time this type of ethnic violence erupted in the region was in Bosnia in the early 1990s. It took three years and 200,000 deaths and too many warnings before the west finally took action in August 1995. It was not unfortunately the United Nations at that time, it was NATO.
I visited Vukovar in Croatia and saw firsthand the terrible effects of Serb aggression against Croatia and its people there. I have often wondered since then if the international community had acted sooner in these conflicts a great number of civilian casualties could indeed have been prevented.
Since the horrors of World War II, the international community has spent many years trying to develop covenants and treaties that focus on respect for international human rights. Yet too often, while we have these human rights norms, the international community has failed miserably in enforcing them. It has only been recently that we have begun the difficult process of developing mechanisms to enforce international human rights. I note that the creation of the international criminal court, a creation in which Canada played an important role, is a step in the right direction to ensuring that dictators and tyrants will face prosecution for the crimes they commit while in office. Yet the Yugoslav government, the Milosevic government, has shamefully refused to allow Judge Louise Arbour to enter Kosovo to investigate crimes against humanity there.
On the subject of crimes against humanity, I note today how pleased my colleagues in the New Democratic Party and I are at the decision of the House of Lords to allow for the extradition of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to Spain to stand trial for crimes against humanity. We urge the Government of Canada to seek his extradition as well. I know there is a case of a Canadian nun who is seeking that extradition and others, and we appeal to our government to take that action.
The possible NATO air strikes against the Serbian government are unprecedented. It will be the first time since the alliance was founded 50 years ago next month that NATO has prepared to go into action collectively against a sovereign state. Certainly we in the New Democratic Party have not reached the decision to support this military action without much anguish and much soul searching. Our party has a long and honourable tradition of opposing NATO's military structure and doctrine, of calling for Canadian withdrawal from NATO and of strengthening the United Nations and regional security mechanisms. This is particularly the case when NATO continues to cling to a neanderthal cold war doctrine of first use of nuclear weapons.
The type of political will that has led to the decision for military action in Serbia has certainly been lacking in other parts of the world. We need only look at the humanitarian crisis in Africa, stretching from the Horn to Angola, to see these kinds of inconsistencies.
The minister in his statement to the House said: “We cannot stand by while an entire population is displaced, people are killed, villages are burned and looted, and a population is denied its basic rights because it does not belong to the `right' ethnic group and we remain very concerned about potential atrocities”.
Precisely those conditions apply in the NATO ally of Turkey with respect to the Kurdish minority and yet the Government of Canada and the world stand by. Similar conditions apply in East Timor and elsewhere. To those who say there is a double standard, I say they are right and certainly we opposed Washington's unilateral bombing of Khartoum, of Afghanistan and of Iraq. To point out these inconsistencies and to suggest that NATO is not the most desirable international institution to enforce human security is at the end not enough. We are left with the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo and the question of what Canada's response and what the global community's response should be.
Slobodan Milosevic has systematically refused to engage in dialogue and compromise. He has continued his reign of terror in Kosovo against ethnic Albanians.
The New Democratic Party supports military action against selected Serbian military targets to address the humanitarian crisis facing Albanian Kosovars. Certainly there are significant risks in taking this military action, risks to the lives of Canadian service people and to the lives of civilians in Yugoslavia and in Kosovo itself.
I certainly want at this time to indicate on behalf of my New Democrat colleagues that our thoughts are with Canadian forces personnel stationed in Italy and their families in Canada, particularly those who are in the air at this time in the four CF-18s. They deserve the support of all members of the House. As well we want to take this opportunity to salute the 63 brave Canadians who took part in the OSCE Kosovo verification mission and did their part to ensure compliance with UN resolutions for peace in the region.
Certainly any military action has to be taken with the greatest possible care for the lives of civilians and of those in the armed forces. We must do everything in our power to bring about, even at this late stage, a peaceful settlement with Milosevic.
I recognize there are those who approach international security challenges from a pacifist position of opposing the use of force in all circumstances. A former leader of my party, J. S. Woodsworth, took that position. These are strong, deeply held views and they must be respected.
As well, I understand and frankly I share many of the concerns of groups like the Canadian Peace Alliance, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms and End the Arms Race which oppose the use of force in this situation.
They have raised legitimate questions, legitimate concerns that such strikes would be a violation of state sovereignty and that the UN security council should be the only body to authorize such use of force. We in the New Democratic Party have recognized that without reform of the veto powers, of the permanent members of the security council, the UN is too often paralysed in an action.
Concerns have been raised as well that the state of humanitarian objectives cannot be reached by military means. There are valid concerns of escalating the conflict in a region that is already historically a powder keg, that this may draw in Albania and Montenegro. What next? Will Milosevic simply use this as a means of consolidating his support for standing up to the international community?
We in the New Democratic Party accept that the use of military force as a last resort is sometimes necessary in grave humanitarian crises when all efforts at diplomatic settlement have failed, and we believe this meets that test.
As Canada is prepared to back up our concern for human security with military action, we must be equally prepared to provide the necessary financial and personnel resources for humanitarian relief as a result of the conflict. This action will certainly create a large refugee crisis, and Canada should play a very generous and constructive role in addressing the needs of the refugees.
The minister underlined in his comments earlier the truth that Canada wants a world in which human rights are respected. May this be a turning point for the international community to accept that our present international institutions are incapable, sadly, of ensuring those human rights for all. We must all come together and reform these institutions to put peace and respect for human rights at the forefront of relationships between people and relationships between nations.