Libya

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Friday 1st April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, for providing this opportunity for us to debate a rapidly changing and uncertain situation. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, posed the question as to our national interest in this and he gave a number of answers. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, asked whether we were not making an enemy for life out of Colonel Gaddafi. He has been an enemy for a very long time. We have a national interest that goes back considerably. Let us not forget that this was the man who provided shiploads of Semtex and other weapons to prosecute a terrorist campaign within the United Kingdom on both sides of the Irish Sea and beyond. This is the regime that was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing and the death of WPC Yvonne Fletcher.

Let us reflect on that event in 1984. WPC Fletcher was policing a protest of Libyan dissidents outside the Libyan embassy. They were there to protest against the regime of Colonel Gaddafi, and she was shot. Much later, the regime effectively accepted responsibility for her death. But what was it about? It was the typical reaction of this regime to anyone who questioned the regime and tried to express a different opinion—not only dissidents in the traditional sense of the word. One of the dilemmas in the medium term in rebuilding the country is that all trade unions, political parties and groups that had any disagreement with the regime have been got rid of, frequently by horrible violence. What we are about—I strongly support the line being taken by the coalition Government and their allies in this regard—is policing international law. This regime has been opposed to international law and has sought in many ways through terrorism and other means to undermine the rule of international law.

It is important for us to see this in that context. We are thinking of this in the context of Iraq and Afghanistan, where we went much further than the notion of policing and holding the peace. In the first instance in Iraq, we did have a no-fly zone in Kurdistan, for example, which went on for a long period of time but did introduce the opportunity for the Kurds to have their own autonomous area in relative peace and stability. That is how we need to understand our intervention. We need to understand it as a support for international law.

The weakness of international law as it has developed over the recent past with, for example, the responsibility to protect is that the law requires to be policed. If there is not the possibility of using legitimate force to police the law, it is weak and cannot be implemented. That is our responsibility and that is what we have undertaken. That is also the limit of what we should be doing, but we should be doing it clearly, unashamedly and firmly on behalf of the international community. That is what we are doing. We have sought the support of the United Nations in that regard.

What would be the implications of not implementing the rule of law? The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has already mentioned people fleeing for their lives from a place where they could not be safe, and coming to Italy, France and the United Kingdom. But there are wider implications. They are for all those in this so-called Arab spring or awakening. If Gaddafi is not stopped in this international policing operation, the message would be that those who seek to challenge authoritarian dictatorships should not expect any protection from the international community and in particular the international democratic community. The message to authoritarian dictators is that if they are prepared to use force against their own people—as the army in Egypt was not prepared to do—do not worry because there are no adverse consequences from the international democratic community. That would be a terrible thing.

That is why I am so disappointed by the way that the European Union has responded. My noble friend Lord Teverson indicated that it is not that there was no response from the EU, but that it was modest, limited and, as my noble friend Lord Trimble said, even a little confused. We come back to the intervention of Britain and France. Our two countries justified their place on the Security Council, because it was Britain and France—Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron—who came together and pressed the case for the United Nations to take responsibility in this matter. Sometimes we think of them as just two nations that are members of the Security Council, and we forget that our relationships within the Commonwealth on the part of the UK and la Francophonie in the case of France, are important in the context of the United Nations. If used properly and wisely they can actually bring forward much greater and more appropriate decision-making in that important forum.

That is what was done and both those leaders and their diplomatic services deserve credit for that. It shows that their position on the Security Council is important. Sadly, our German friends and colleagues did not do themselves or the European Union any good in their failure to understand that this is a matter of international law and it must be sustained. That is why when we think about Colonel Gaddafi—I do not doubt that he needs to leave the leadership of his country—there is the matter of international law. In Resolution 1970, repeated in Resolution 1973, the Security Council referred him to the International Criminal Court prosecutor. That needs to be pursued. The way to pursue that is through international law. This man has repeatedly broken international law, not just recently with his own people, but much more widely. That is how we should press the case forward.

However, if we say that international law needs to be observed there, we need to understand that that is the case more widely. I say this to our very good and much beloved friends in Israel. They, too, must observe international law. They have dealt with their difficult and perilous situation through politics and military force in the past. They have split the Palestinians, because divide and conquer is always a good way of dealing with your enemies. They have had bilateral treaties with Jordan and Egypt and have sought others with other countries but they have not been prepared to treat more widely. Most importantly, they know that the repeated illegal settlement activity is in the end not in the interests of themselves or of international law. We must say to our friends, “We will use all our resources to protect you but only within the rule of international law”.

As we move forward in this difficult operation, which will probably be messy and uncertain and is likely to be long-term, it should be not that we are backing the rebels against Colonel Gaddafi but that we are backing international law for the protection of all the citizens in Libya, of whichever side, and much beyond. If we stand as a country for that with our ally France, and with our other allies and the United Nations, I believe we will not only do good but see international law take steps forward, even in this difficult and confused situation. When things are very confused and in flux and uncertainty, the certainty of law may be an important thing to which to return.