Mr. Speaker, thank you for your flexibility this evening, which has enabled us to obtain from a minister the answer to what, in my opinion, is a very important question, one that is at the heart of the debate that will go on for some days. It will, without a doubt, be of interest to the Kosovars, the Yugoslavs and the entire international community, which is seeking a solution to this armed conflict, a conflict which has already left so many Kosovars dead or in exile.
I would like to begin by indicating our party's agreement with the proposals by the Reform Party. It is not often that we both agree, but where foreign affairs are concerned, we do sometimes support some of their initiatives, as we did for instance last spring when the hon. member for Red Deer introduced his motion on debates on peacekeeping operations and the role parliament ought to play in this. We indicated our agreement that parliament, this House in particular, ought to have a greater presence, be more active.
The proposal by the hon. member for Red Deer is interesting in that it is intended to be instructive. It seeks to get the members of this House more interested in foreign affairs and to ensure that MPs are aware of the issues behind major conflicts and therefore better equipped to make informed decisions on action the government wishes to make on behalf of this country aimed at keeping, or in some cases restoring, international peace.
The Bloc Quebecois supports the motion before the House this evening. It supports an initiative aimed at putting an end to the cycle of violence that has really occurred in Kosovo, in the federal republic of Yugoslavia.
As early as last March, the Bloc Quebecois drew the attention of this House to the urgent need to act before the situation in that region of the Balkans deteriorated. The conflict has been degenerating since March, forcing us today to have an eleventh hour debate as the international community prepares for more aggressive action to pressure President Slobodan Milosevic into honouring his country's commitments under the UN charter.
Canada announced that it would impose sanctions, but the sanctions that were eventually imposed in the spring and summer were quite modest, as the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra and then parliamentary secretary admitted. He even said that these measures were perhaps too modest to deal effectively with the problems at hand. Six months later, we must recognize that the sanctions imposed by Canada and other countries were not successful, and the situation is much worse.
In fact, the kind of soft diplomacy exemplified by these sanctions gave attackers plenty of time to consolidate their positions, while their victims, who are confronted to this situation on a daily basis, are forced into exile as part of a mass exodus. The member for Red Deer mentioned that in excess of 250,000 Kosovars have fled their villages and communes and sought refuge outside their country. They also took refuge in European countries that are neither immediate neighbours nor states likely to provide a safe haven for the victims of the terror imposed by Slobodan Milosevic and his troops in Kosovo.
Economic sanctions are only effective if there is a real political will to demand that the actions of a foreign government which violate human rights be immediately stopped.
The brutal acts of violence and the repression of the Kosovo people by Serbian security forces are now well documented. They have been known for a long time, in fact for too long. These acts of violence and this repression justify a response on the part of the international community, but it must act in a consistent and coherent manner. But, first and foremost, the international community must act before it is too late. Canada must act jointly with other countries, including those that are part of the contact group that the member for Red Deer would like Canada to join—it is not for lack of trying on our part, but this select club simply does not want to invite Canada to join.
Canada must work in partnership with the countries that are members of the contact group, and with the other members of the UN security council, to act quickly and decisively, so that a clear and unequivocal message is sent to Mr. Milosevic.
The numerous calls for negotiation made this summer by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and his officials have remained unanswered. These appeals have been fruitless. This is why we must now use a different approach. We must now resort to means other than diplomatic and economic sanctions, because these too have been ineffective.
It is not that there has been no Security Council intervention, for on March 31, 1998 it adopted resolution 60, and more recently, on September 23, resolution 1199, to which the minister has referred several times in his speech. Intervention by the Security Council, which has obviously had only limited, if any, effects, now must be more energetic and more significant than ever before.
It is time for the Security Council to act for reasons that are essentially humanitarian in nature. It is time to act, because too many people have been forced into exile, because too many people may be slaughtered. Many have already been the victims of massacres, but many more Kosovars have been driven out of their communes, out of their towns by the killings, rapes, inhuman and degrading treatment, and torture.
Too many fear what is going on in their homeland, and have vivid memories of what went on in Sarajevo, only a few kilometres from the capital of the Republic. Too many women and children, too many young and old people, have chosen exile because winter is approaching and their harvests have been destroyed by this filthy war, a war which has laid waste to village after village, commune after commune, a war which will leave famine in its wake.
Now the people of Kosovo are turning to the international community, to the Security Council itself, for the only ray of hope they have left. The message the international community must send to the Yugoslav Republic and its president must be a clear one: civilian populations must not be abandoned. Efforts must be made to ensure that they are spared further misery.
Above all, the international community must act out of concern for these populations. Its actions must be consistent. The international community must intervene in Kosovo, in the Yugoslav Federal Republic, to ensure that its people have some chance of a better life. Not only must it engage in humanitarian efforts, but now it must go beyond them to contemplate armed retaliation, military action, until peace is restored to this region of the Balkans.
The international community has had to intervene in this region and is still involved in Bosnia, especially in Sarajevo, in certain areas where the Bosnians, the Serbs and the Croats were killing each other and where a threat remains to the lives of all these people.
At the time, however, the international community and Canada were slow to take real action against this constant threat to peace and security by, yet again, Slobodan Milosevic and his Yugoslav government.
We also tried at the time to impose sanctions and to promote a return to diplomacy and dialogue. We hoped these measures would succeed, measures that we thought Slobodan Milosevic would act on. We were forced into military intervention only in the face of the parties' refusal to negotiate a lasting ceasefire.
We considered the problem at the time with blinkers on, intimating that the problem was in Sarajevo and should be settled for Sarajevo, where the conflict was better known, more dramatic, receiving more media attention and more symbolic. Few countries intervening in Bosnia thought that the problem could surface in Kosovo.
So today, we must consider our intervention in much broader terms to prevent this conflict, once peace is returned to Kosovo, from moving on to Macedonia, as it well might. Kosovo refugees are already on Macedonian territory. Refugees could find themselves in neighbouring regions as well.
The current situation therefore calls for consistent action, a strong humanitarian commitment by UN member countries and by the members of the Security Council and the General Assembly and of NATO, which could implement the provisions of the Security Council. Consistent action is called for.
We must act quickly in concert with our international allies. I understand the dilemma the Minister of Foreign Affairs described. Obviously, the UN Security Council could be prevented from taking action under chapter VII, if Russia and China were to use their veto.
This is a major dilemma, because action taken by the international community, through a group of countries or through NATO, may be construed as illegal under international law. The member for Vancouver Quadra is perfectly aware of the illegal situation the international community would put itself in by acting without the council's approval.
But what the minister is telling us is that the international community, that a group of countries, that NATO may act illegally, because military action is justified in this case.
We have a motion before us, a motion that may be too modest, too timid. There is no mention, in this motion, of the use of armed forces or of Canadian participation through NATO. It only refers to the humanitarian situation facing an increasing number of men, women and children, the well-being of whom we must be concerned with, even though Ottawa is thousands of kilometres away from Kosovo.
The government is asking that we take notice of this terrible situation. It is indeed time Parliament took notice of this situation. The government has announced its intention to take measures. But what measures?
Reform Party members were right to point out that we do not have here, this evening, concrete indications on the measures that Canada favours, or wants to favour, in the debates that will take place at the Security Council, the NATO council and in other forums where this issue will be discussed over the next few hours or days. We are told that these measures seek a diplomatic solution to the problem. This is fine, but what specific measures? What would be Kosovo's status within or outside the Yugoslav Republic? We should consider any solution that respects the wishes of the Kosovo people.
All this seems pretty weak. The motion does not go far enough. It should have been worded in stronger terms, because the daily tragedy of these populations deserves stronger wording.
I will conclude by saying that this is a matter of justice. I am going to quote someone, not George Washington—whom the minister likes to quote, as he did yesterday during a debate on a piece of legislation—but Blaise Pascal, a philosopher whom some of you know and like. Pascal said: “Justice without strength is powerless. Strength without justice is tyrannical. Therefore, both justice and strength must be present and, to that end, we must make sure that what is just is also strong”.
In this particular case, justice and strength must be combined to end the tragedy suffered by the people of Kosovo. We must put an end to their tragedy.
