Madam Speaker, first I must tell our NDP colleagues how much the Bloc Quebecois appreciates this further opportunity they are giving the House to debate and discuss the Kosovo issue.
This House will not have too many opportunities to voice its opinion, allowing each party to give its point of view on this serious crisis, which is not only threatening peace and security in the Balkans, but is also threatening or could threaten even more international peace and security.
The Bloc Quebecois and the New Democratic Party are of a same mind with regard to favouring a diplomatic approach, a diplomatic solution to the crisis which has been going on for too long in Kosovo and in this particularly hard hit area of the Balkans.
We should all want to see this conflict settled through diplomatic means, especially as we as a country and member of the United Nations are committed to settle conflicts through diplomatic means.
I would like to read for the record one of the purposes of the United Nations, the organization the New Democratic Party is referring to in today's motion. The first paragraph, article I of its charter states:
The purposes of the United Nations are:
- To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
We should always keep in mind this important purpose, the fundamental goal of the United Nations, and its Charter, which should guide our collective actions in this area.
This is the reason why the Bloc Quebecois must support this motion from the New Democratic Party. As the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas often mentioned in the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and in this House, and as his leader pointed out, it is a diplomatic solution that will put an end to a conflict that has already cost too many lives, including civilian lives. Any war, including non-international armed conflicts, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs likes to point out, results in deaths, mostly among the civilian population.
The Bloc Quebecois has always maintained that a diplomatic solution is to be favoured. We supported the negotiations and actions that took place within the contact group. We supported the Rambouillet negotiations. We asked this government on numerous occasions whether it was supportive of the will expressed by both sides to reach, through these negotiations, an agreement that would prevent the use of armed force.
We also insisted that the Government of Canada attach some importance to the peace plan proposed by the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, because for us, and for other parties and individuals, including many Quebeckers and Canadians, the ultimate solution to achieve peace is a diplomatic solution.
Today, the Bloc Quebecois is glad to see that efforts to negotiate a diplomatic solution are being stepped up. Today, American deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott is negotiating with Russian special envoy Mr. Chernomyrdin. These negotiations could pave the way to a diplomatic solution.
Members of the European Union and, in particular, representatives of the Federal Republic of Germany, who will be chairing the Union for the next six months, have also focused on a negotiated and diplomatic solution, an approach that has had our whole-hearted approval.
We are also fully aware of the important role that the Minister of Foreign Affairs could play in the discussions in which he will take part on Thursday with the Russian president's special envoy and his foreign affairs minister. We wish him all the best in this worthy endeavour. It deserves the support of this House. We believe that, coupled with the other negotiations taking place, it could culminate in a proposal that could be put before the UN security council, because that is the body where the issue of how to restore peace to Kosovo must again be debated.
The security council was always the forum where a solution to this international dispute should have been negotiated. It is unfortunate that the council had to be left out of the loop, and not consulted on important decisions regarding a peaceful resolution of the dispute in Kosovo.
In our view, the solution will lie in negotiations to bring about a settlement and give the Kosovars, who have suffered too much during this conflict, a say in their own future, which was what the Rambouillet agreement set out to do.
The Serbs and their representatives will see that a people's call for autonomy cannot be ignored, that these demands must be dealt with, and not be considered inappropriate.
This was the focus of the Rambouillet negotiations, and must be the focus of negotiations at this time as well.
Moreover, our party has always believed that the use of less peaceful means to reach a peaceful and negotiated solution ought not to be excluded. We have supported the air strikes, and continue to do so, for one reason and one alone, albeit a vital one. When it is a matter of putting an end to ethnic cleansing, of preventing genocide—and we may learn in the coming weeks that there was genocide in Kosovo, although we are not in a position to know that today—and of putting an end to such crimes against humanity, the use of force cannot be excluded.
Needless to say, this use of force is not the most appropriate means of settling differences, and I trust that all the negotiations currently under way will attain this much desired settlement.
I join with the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas in supporting a motion focusing on this aspect and also inviting Russia to take part in an international military force to ensure peace in Kosovo.
I will close with a quote from Montesquieu. I like to quote great authors on peace, war and power. In The Spirit of Laws , Montesquieu speaks of power as “an eternal experiment, and one any man with power is tempted to abuse. Power will grow until such time as it is curbed. Even virtue needs limits. If power is not to be abused, the world must be so organized that power puts a stop to power”.
In this case, political power and persuasion must put a stop to Milosevic, and freedom must be restored to the Kosovars.
