Mr. Speaker, I am always pleased to follow my colleague from Scarborough East. He was speaking about the meeting, which I think was last week. Kim Phuc was there. I agree with his sentiments about the people who listened to her.
Just to refresh our memories, she is the girl in the classic picture of a little girl running down the road naked, having just been struck with napalm in the Vietnam war. I know as she told her story that all of us were very cognizant of the fact that we were engaged directly in a campaign of dropping bombs and other so-called military hardware in the area of Serbia.
I do not think we can ever forget about the realities of war. It is very nice to be able to sit home and look at it on our television sets as if it were a strategic, very clean process. I do not think our television sets tell us about the horror and suffering of whatever side it is, whether Kosovars or Serbians or others are involved in this tragic affair.
It is with great reluctance that we deal with the whole issue of aggression, whether we are aggressive or whether we are trying to defend a group of people from further aggression among their own people.
I just came back from Brussels where I attended the interparliamentary union. This is a group of parliamentarians from 130 nations around the world. It meets on a biannual basis. The discussion there was basically about Kosovo.
It was a great opportunity for me. I know the Reform Party does not like to participate in these things, thinking they are a waste of time and money, but for me it was a great opportunity to talk to parliamentarians from that area of the world. The Yugoslavs were there. The Russian federation was represented, as were Bulgaria and most of the countries that surround the former Yugoslavia.
It was interesting to talk to these people about some of the history of these conquests. I had the opportunity before that to look at an art museum. I went in and looked at the various pictures. There was a very tragic picture of a murder, of somebody stabbing somebody with a knife.
I looked at the bottom of the painting where it read “The War in Kosovo, 1825”. It tells something about this conflict which seems to have been going on almost indefinitely. I believe it started with the penetration of the Ottoman empire into Europe and the gradual withdrawal and downfall of the Ottoman empire. As this happened different ethnicities mixed within Europe, specifically in the areas of the Balkans. The Kosovar people are basically Muslim while the Serbian population is Christian. This seems to be the nucleus of the conflict.
Those of us in Canada think this as kind of absurd. The object of the exercise is that we can all live together in spite of our cultural differences and religious beliefs, but apparently that is not so in that part of the world.
Another element that is very much a part of the process is the whole issue of sovereignty as has been mentioned a few times today and in other debates. What is the limitation of sovereignty? The member who spoke before said that he did not think we had attacked a sovereign country since the second world war. That is probably the case.
The world population is now changing to the point that it recognizes there is such a thing as human rights. Human rights to a certain basic fundamentalist supersede the rights of sovereign countries and how sovereign countries deal with the people within those borders.
A Canadian jurist heads up the World Court. It is very unfortunate that the World Court is not as strong as it should be. We need to support the World Court process a lot more. If people like Slobodan Milosevic thought they were involved in this war, that bombs were going to land on them, or more important that there was a higher court, a world court that would actually try Slobodan Milosevic for some of his atrocities, this conflict could have possibly been nipped in the bud before it got totally out of control.
We in Canada and our international partners have to be more judicious in bringing a form of justice throughout the world. We have to temper our views about sovereignty to the point where we will not tolerate its entrenchment or overriding of the basic fundamental human rights we believe in.
It is an oddity that the nations which are the strongest critics of NATO's actions invariably are countries with their own human rights problems. It is an odd case where the NATO forces have got together and basically said it is time to draw a line in the sand concerning just how far we think a nation can go in ethnic cleansing, or whatever the case may be, to show that we are not willing to tolerate it any more.
A regrettable crossing of the line has occurred here. It is appropriate that we take this kind of action. It is regrettable because I do not think anybody wins in a war. Nobody wins by the destruction of assets. Nobody wins by the expenditure of large amounts of money on military hardware and other things. Everybody is a basic loser. It is unfortunate that the international community has let this situation get to the point where we have to take this action.
On the good intentions of my NDP colleagues who want to address the need for a diplomatic solution, I do not think there is any question that Canada, its NATO partners and others in the United Nations have tried to arrive at a diplomatic solution to the issue through the former Yugoslavia, from Bosnia to Croatia and so forth. It does not seem to be in the cards. I do not know why we do not seem to be able to curb the desire of Mr. Milosevic to cleanse that country. I know his policy is Serbs for the Serbians and the way to do that is simply to remove that element within his population that is not homogeneous.
That is why we cannot let Mr. Milosevic be successful. The fifth point of this is the one that is bothering everybody, which is the continuation of some kind of force after the conflict has been resolved. It is clear we must resettle these people in their homelands. It will be very expensive because their homes have been destroyed. Their businesses are gone. It will take significant amounts of capital. It will not simply be expending money on the military or peacekeeping forces within the former Yugoslavia. It will also require capital assets to rebuild businesses and so forth. It has to be done because there is a fundamental human point here. We cannot allow ethnic cleansing to be successful.
When I was in eastern Europe I was surprised when I talked to people, for instance in Poland. Poland before the war was a multi-ethnic society. Today it is homogeneous. Mr. Hitler's policy was successful in Poland. It is a homogeneous ethnic group. We must not let this be successful in the eyes of the world.
Furthermore, having the Russians on board is a good idea. When I got to the conference, the Russians moved a motion condemning Canada and the NATO forces for their aggression. Mr. Speaker, you would be surprised to know that none of the countries, in spite of the fact that they dislike the military conflict going on, not one country bordering on Yugoslavia supported the motion, other than Russia itself.
It is regrettable we have had to come this far. We are trying to find a diplomatic solution to the problem. The Russians are not nearly as significant a force as some people would like to believe. Remember that Russia is likely to declare bankruptcy as a nation this year. It has defaulted on significant amounts of its government debt. I question how much of an asset it would be to resolving this matter for us. It is always nice to have friends on side.
Canada has never said that only a NATO force can occupy the area but we have to have a force. It has to be armed so that we ensure this conflict does not start up again and a long term peacekeeping solution can take place.
To resolve these conflicts will take at least a generation. A lot of the skills that our armed forces have in the area of peacekeeping will be very much in demand in that part of the world. I am happy to be part of a country and part of a government that supports this humanitarian effort. I can only hope it ends in success shortly.