Libya

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Friday 1st April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for this opportunity to debate events in the Middle East today. I am particularly grateful for his update on Yemen, Syria, Egypt and Tunisia, as well the very useful information provided on the status of world oil stocks.

In light of the dramatically changed situation in the Middle East and north Africa, what is needed now in the Foreign Office, the EU and Washington is a dramatic and game-changing shift of emphasis, possibly of a kind that this generation of policy-makers has never previously experienced. There are three broad imperatives that we need to contemplate in this new chapter of our international relations with the Middle East.

The first is brought about by the changing nature of international society, of which the Middle East is a good example right now. Demographics, communication and education have converged to make the populations of these countries less compliant to authoritarian rule than they were and less nationalistic in their loyalty to institutional structures that are of dubious legitimacy. Nasser’s dream of pan-Arabism can be seen in the social solidarity of Facebook on a given day and, in a less benign form, when Saudi Arabian tanks crossed into Bahrain to protect its rulers.

In Bahrain, where the US has its Fifth Fleet—and is therefore reluctant to say much about matters there—the situation is deteriorating. The Bahraini Government have halted flights to Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. They accuse these so-called unfriendly Governments of training demonstrators in Bahrain to become militant. No evidence whatever is provided for this, and every western analyst who knows the situation doubts it greatly. The US itself has said that it has no evidence of Iranian or Hezbollah involvement in the recent protests in Bahrain. The ruling family also cites Iranian involvement because Iranian television coverage of the protests was sympathetic to the protestors. On that count, so was the BBC; both showed similar pictures.

There are more sinister developments as well. Human Rights Watch has brought to my attention the fact that media and web messages put out across Bahrain now comprise Sunni clerics and others referring to Shia citizens as “vermin” and using language that is reminiscent of Hutu propaganda against Tutsis before the Rwandan genocide. Despite what my noble friend has said today, even a cursory glance at this morning’s newspapers shows that there is little evidence of a dialogue. Therefore, I think the time is now past where our Government might urge the two sides to sit at the table, and I would argue that a high-profile international mediator needs to be appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General to hold twin-track talks to bring the two sides together, at first separately and then in the hope of finding a modicum of common ground before the situation results in even more loss of life and an all-out civil war.

As regards Libya, we in the international community have learnt the lessons of Rwanda in our recognition of the UN norm of the responsibility to protect. Now, in Libya, we have put into practice the principle that every individual state has the responsibility to protect its citizens from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Where a state falls down on this responsibility, the rest of us will move to afford that protection within the framework of the United Nations, and it is right that we should do so.

However, the practical precedent established through responsibility to protect will have implications for us in Libya and beyond. In the short term, we have to confront the question of what success looks like in Libya. While our actions have been bold, our aspirations undoubtedly need to be more limited. We should accept that when we intervene to prevent the loss of civilian life, and inevitably change the face of the Government who failed to protect their people, this might not result in more congenial rulers from our perspective. What should matter to us is that the rulers are acceptable to the majority of their own people. Democracy as we know it may not be the result, but procedural legitimacy in the consent of the ruled to their rulers is surely an objective we should always strive for.

But let me also be clear that to enshrine R2P as precedent in international law requires us to tread very carefully indeed. In my reading of the UN Secretary-General’s outcome document, agreed at the UN’s 2005 world summit, we can invoke this responsibility only in very limited circumstances. Paragraph 139 clearly states:

“we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate”.

While we have been able to invoke R2P in the case of Libya, it is undoubtedly made possible due to the co-operation of the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic States and, indeed, the African Union. In these early days of developing this norm, this must be right, and I do not think anyone in this House would suggest that we should do so despite the resistance of those regional organisations, if they had indeed resisted.

What does this mean for our strategic foreign policy responses to the other countries of the Middle East which are oppressing their citizens, but not as egregiously, as yet, as Gaddafi has done? Should we employ warm words and hope that things will blow over and that we can return to business as usual? I hope not. I hope that we will work with renewed vigour to use other instruments of foreign policy to bring about the changes that we all want to see.

A first and foremost consideration here must be to extend and reinforce the precautionary principle in arms exports. While we all look forward to agreement on the arms control treaty at the UN next year, I urge our Government to lead by example and to announce a unilateral review of the criteria by which we issue licences. Stability founded through instilling fear, and supported through the use of force, is ephemeral. I recognise that there are legitimate concerns on the part of the defence industry in terms of business and employment, but I think that we can address those concerns in the slightly longer term. There is no reason why spin-offs from defence research cannot be put to civilian use—that has been done very successfully for years—and we need to reward greater innovation in that regard through the tax system and through reskilling and training.

A further set of levers is those we employ through international fora. The dexterity at the United Nations Security Council in adopting Resolutions 1970 and 1973 reflects a dramatic change on the part of the international community. This must be sustained through the use of capacity building and generous support for those countries which embrace transitions to reform and a cooling of support for those which continue in their bad old ways. The use of smart sanctions, travel bans and asset freezing all have their place in signalling that we are on the side of the people, but most important will be our ability to use the EU more imaginatively to advance a European position, which till recently has been lacking in these unfolding events.

However, we also need to build a longer-term perspective into our domestic audience here at home. People are increasingly weary of foreign interventions and wonder why we are called upon to do the right thing so frequently. We have to be clear that democracies do not establish themselves overnight, particularly in traditional Muslim societies. Civil society does not just arise when the repression of the ancien régime is removed. These processes take time, often follow a tortuous path, and we need to be patient and resilient in our support for them. We may soon be celebrating the holding of elections but perhaps not their outcome. We may encourage the toppling of dictators but may not welcome the system of rule that will replace them. Our foreign policy in the Middle East must be reprimed for the longer term on the right side of history for the Arab world to look to us as friends and partners in the future.