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ON THE RECORD
PADDY ASHDOWN INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE 23.1.94
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Paddy Ashdown, if that is what they're
doing are they right, time to pull out perhaps?
PADDY ASHDOWN MP: No, first of all I'm glad they've agreed
that they can't pull out unilaterally. We went in there as part of the UN
operation, it would be - in my view - unthinkable for Britain to pull out
unilaterally and cause that operation to collapse.
But I will concede this John, that
unless at last, we are prepared to act in a way which gives our troops the
humanitarian aid they need to deliver, enables them to do their job, makes them
less hostages in their own operation, unless we are prepared to act as we have
been calling for for so long, then it is quite possible that once the spring
offensive start, the only act that will left open to us will be the act of
withdrawal.
In the words of Larry Hollingsworth,
the UNHCR aid worker on the ground, "like bandits in the night", and the
consequence of that will be a very very difficult military withdrawal across a
hundred and twenty, hundred and thirty miles of dirt track running over the
Dinaric Alps, probably against a hostile population, that will not be a noble
sight to watch.
It'll be the snuffing out of the remains
of a state recognised by the United Nations - multi-ethnic, democratic - by
forces of Fascism and nationalism, and that will have immense implications for
Europe in the future.
It'll be the catastrophic reduction in
respect for the United Nations, very possibly as damaging to the UN in this
decade as was the failure of the League of Nations in the 1930s. And
incidentally, for Mr Major, he might like to reflect that he is not going to
be left out of the opprobrium for that event since he will then become the
Conservative Prime Minister who is known in history as the man who devalued the
pound, who raised taxes more than Labour and whose total failure of policy has
led to a British military withdrawal.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, given that we stay in, what
ought our objective to be, you're a military man, you know the military always
say you've got to decide what you're objective is?
ASHDOWN: That is exactly the point John, we put
troops in there without deciding a political objective....
HUMPHRYS: Right, so what ought it to be now?
ASHDOWN: It should be what it was previously, it
should be to ensure that we uphold international law and that means protecting
a state such as it is now remaining which has been recognised by the United
Nations.
HUMPHRYS: That's much more than delivering
humanitarian aid though.
ASHDOWN: It is indeed, though delivery
humanitarian aid is part of that, because, of course, preserving life is part
of the business of upholding international law.
HUMPHRYS: But what you're talking about means
involvement on one side of the conflict.
ASHDOWN: John, I've always said that right from
the start of this conflict, nearly two years ago, that if we didn't act and act
strongly, then at the end of the day we'd have no action left but to withdraw
and our troops would become - as they have done - increasingly hostages in
their own operation. Now any action that we now take is more dangerous and
more risky than that action which would have been two years ago when it was
first required.
HUMPHRYS: But we should still take it?
ASHDOWN: Let me tell you what I think we should
now do. We have to give our troops on the ground, some room for manoeuvre, we
have to restore some of the authority of the United Nations and we have to make
sure that they get the humanitarian aid which is now being blocked off for them
by the blockade exercised by the Serbs and the Croats. There is one way to do
that and that is to open Tuzla Airport, it's within the Muslim...the Bosnian
enclave. It would mean that that aid could be supplied, it would assert at
last, the authority of the United Nations, it would give the UN a success.
Its last success was the opening of Sarajevo Airport, as you recall, when
President Mitterrand very courageously flew into there. It would mean that the
blockades which are holding our troops to ransom and hostage, would themselves
be less effective and therefore, they would be less effective in the hands of
the Serbs and Croats and it would give us the room for manoeuvre necessary.
So that's the action that I think it's
possible to take, there are those who argue it can't be done because the Serb
guns are eight kilometres away from Tuzla Airport but as I know when I flew
into Sarajevo on many occasions, the Serb guns are hundreds of metres from
Sarajevo Airport. So if it can be done in Sarajevo, it should be done in
Tuzla.
HUMPHRYS: So let me be quite clear. You're
talking about a peacemaking role for British and other United Nations forces.
ASHDOWN: The UN had better realise that in an
increasingly interdependent world, after the end of the Cold War, it has to
move from peace keeping to peacemaking. What it has failed to realise is that
war is a serious business, it has to be taken seriously, you have to have
troops of adequate quality. You have to have a command and control structure,
you have to have a political will and you have to have political aim. None of
those things have been evident in Bosnia Herzegovina and that's one of the
reasons why it's failed.
You use the word 'peacemaking', let me
change that slightly for you. My view is that we have to move towards
peacemaking. I think the role of the UN has to be to uphold the concepts of
international law.
HUMPHRYS: But that amounts to the same thing,
doesn't it, because it means ordering the combatants to observe legal borders
which they're manifestly not doing at the moment.
ASHDOWN: If you mean can we, the UN, move in and
suppress the conflict and re-conquer the territory taken by the Serbs, the
answer is it can't, the moment for that is too late. It could have done if it
had acted earlier.
HUMPHRYS: So then I'm a bit puzzled by what you
mean.
ASHDOWN: Well let me see if I may tell you then.
What we're saying is that there is a state, there is a remaining state which is
democratic, multi-ethnic - Bosnia Herzegovina...
HUMPHRYS: Sort of.
ASHDOWN: Well sort of. We should be prepared to
act to say to the Serbs: "We will not tolerate further aggression, we will
protect". And you use your power protectively, defensively. Give you a
particular case in point. Around Sarajevo, perfectly possible, rather less
possible now than it would have been a year ago, to have said, "we, the United
Nations, declare Sarajevo to be a UN protected haven. We require a cordon
sanitaire to be established around Sarajevo. We are not here to aggress the
Serbs but we are here to say that if you now use heavy weapons from that area
to bombard what is UN protected territory, then you will feel the full response
for which the UN is capable including air power. The use of air power
defensively, in order to protect the basic concept of international law which
is that you should not tolerate aggression against people...
HUMPHRYS: And if the effect of that is that the
Serbs say "The hell with you". We are then involved, we are then combatants,
and you'd accept the consequences that flow from that?
ASHDOWN: Well, I personally believe, and every
British troop that I've spoken to out there on six visits to Bosnia
Herzegovina, has reflected the same view that it is as legitimate for British
soldiers to take risks with their lives in defence of international law, upon
which our peace will depend in the future, as it is in defence of raw British
interests, after all that's.....
HUMPHRYS: Legitimate is a rather odd word to use
in that context, isn't it? Legitimate for them to take risks with their lives.
You're a politician as well as a military man and you know what the political
effect of that would be - the political consequences of that would be.
ASHDOWN: I tell you it's my judgement that the
British people as a whole understand the consequences of this rather better,
and the importance of this, than our Government does, that has run away from
this time after time after time, and I can tell you that the British troops
I've spoken to on the ground out there say to me "We are allowed to feed these
people, but we are not allowed to save them. They've not give us the mandate
that is necessary". We have put our troops on the ground in a situation which
has, exactly as many of us had predicted it would, descended into chaos in
which our troops are now in a position where they'll increasingly become
targets for snipers and are unable to do the job they have to do. That's not
their wish.
We have totally failed and, if I may so,
though all Western leaders carry the blame for that failure, our own Prime
Minister, who was President of the European Community at the key moments when
those decisions should have been taken, carries a very specific failure. We
have totally failed to back our troops on the ground with the kind of mandate,
the kind of leadership, the kind of political support they needed in a real
sense. Our troops on the ground, who are doing a magnificent job, are lions
leds by political donkeys.
HUMPHRYS: So that you are prepared at this stage
to say to your constituents "Some of your sons and loved ones may be coming
home in body-bags"?
ASHDOWN: John, I fought in a campaign in the
jungles of Borneo in order to preserve the fact that people who had freedom
were not going to be crushed out by the forces of terrorism and aggression.
HUMPHRYS: To protect what was seen as a clear
British interest. A lot of people don't see what's happening in Bosnia in that
light.
ASHDOWN: I understand that. Just as a lot of
people didn't see what was happening in Czechoslovakia in the years before 1939
had a direct bearing on British interest. It is my judgement that in Europe if
we are not prepared to project our powers around our borders to preserve peace
and uphold international law, then we'll not have peace within those borders
either.
It is my judgement that the preservation
and upholding of international law is absolutely key to the interests of this
country, because in the kind of interdependent world, post the cold-war which
we are now having, in a situation where Bosnia Herzegovina is, in my view,
probably a very small dress-rehearsal to a much, much bigger and more damaging
event happening to the East, it is only within the construct of international
law and European capacity to project its power that we in this country will
have peace in the long-term, and it's in defence of those fundamental
principles in which Britain has a deep, deep interest that I think we'd be
doing it.
HUMPHRYS: So far from pulling out, you're saying
to the Government, and you're saying "If I were Defence Secretary, I would now
be saying let us send many more.." (well, this is an absolutely key question)
"..I would send in many more thousands of British and other troops, who are
prepared to go to war with Serbia". That's what it comes down to.
ASHDOWN: I know of no Commander on the ground who
believes that the use of our power defensively in the way that I've described
wouldn't require huge increases...
HUMPHRYS: But you'd acknowledge that we'd then
become involved in all sorts of other ways.
ASHDOWN: I accept that. But let me tell you what
happens if we don't. What happens if we don't...
HUMPHRYS: I think you've you've already told me
that, but I just...
ASHDOWN: Yes.. the answer to your question is
"Yes", but let me say this to you that if that does not happen, if now at the
eleventh hour, having failed to take this action for the last two years, having
led inevitably to this consequence, we do not act, then the truth of the matter
is that we will not be able to act, and the consequences of that, the
consequences of inaction, it seemed to me, are far greater than the
consequences of action.
If nothing happens before those Spring
offensives are launched, our troops will not be able to do a job, they will not
have the humanitarian aid, they will be stuck within their own camps and they
will increasingly be simply the targets for snipers. Under those circumstances
of course there's no point in them staying there, but let it be understood
where the blame for that lies - it lies with our leaders who have put our
troops in a position where they didn't have the backing that was necessary to
do the job we asked them to do.
HUMPHRYS: Paddy Ashdown, thank you very much.
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