Bosnia-Herzegovina

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, we speak in one of the last debates on the last day of parliamentary business before recess, but the subject was one of the first which shaped my adult politics and which continues to shape me today.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Bourne for securing this important and timely debate, and like my noble friend Lord Randall, I just hope that it reaches a much broader audience. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Bourne’s work as president of Remembering Srebrenica and his ongoing commitment to shining a light on this issue.

Bosnia-Herzegovina hit the general public consciousness in two stark ways when I was growing up. The first was the Winter Olympics of 1984 in Sarajevo—which many of your Lordships will remember—where Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean performed that wonderful “Bolero” routine to win gold. The second was a few years later when the same city was under siege as the world watched a nation rip itself apart, where neighbour killed neighbour and the genocide of the Bosniak people unfolded. Today, art, music and culture once more thrive in Sarajevo—as, however, does the threat from hateful ideologies rooted in the past which are once more being adopted by right-wing politicians to further their own political and financial interests.

Noble Lords before me have spoken with great expertise and experience. I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lady Helic; we had the privilege of serving at the Foreign Office at the same time. Her work and that of my noble friend Lord Hague meant that the issue remained a priority under the coalition Government. As we heard from my noble friend Lady Mobarik, this issue has shaped so many of us for so long—long before many of us even entered politics.

I commend my noble friend the Minister and my noble friend Lady Goldie for their recent visit and refocusing of the FCDO’s attention on this issue. Through their ministerial work and wider Conservative Party engagement in Bosnia-Herzegovina, they both have many years of understanding of this issue. Therefore, it gives me some comfort that they are in office at this crucial time. I also pay tribute to the work of the late Lord Ashdown, which remains the bedrock upon which the killing stopped. We all miss him and his leadership. Paddy was brave and clear. His diplomacy produced results and was rooted in a clear sense of justice.

And it is justice that I want to focus on first today, because there can be no justice or a just settlement if those who perpetrated genocide, those who still perpetuate the hateful ideologies that underpinned it and those who prevent healing by promoting genocide denial are rewarded. We cannot and must not reward genocide. By dancing to the tune of Milorad Dodik, we are doing just that. If we continue to stand by and allow an ever-belligerent leadership from the Republic of Srpska to continue to weaken and dismantle state entities and institutions, if we do not stand strong in the face of nationalism, if we do not ensure that consequences follow those who undermine the territorial integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina and if we do not sanction those who deny genocide, we are rewarding genocide.

We must also be clear in our policy and approach about who we are dealing with. For over a decade Dodik has enjoyed the support of the European Union, the United States and this country. He was elevated to the position of Republika Srpska Prime Minister with the help of the Office of the High Representative and NATO-led peacekeeping troops. We saw him as a moderate, which of course he was compared with Karadžić, the butcher of Bosnia, the chief architect of the Srebrenica genocide and now a convicted criminal.

However, over time Dodik has adopted an increasingly nationalist stance, aligning himself with Russia, China, illiberal nations within the EU and populist xenophobic leaders within the EU. He has adopted a belligerent stance and an anti-statist position, weakening Bosnia-Herzegovina state institutions while strengthening Republika Srpska institutions and proposing legislation for Republika Srpska to withdraw from state judicial and tax structures and, most worryingly, from the state armed forces. Dodik increasingly promotes an anti-reformist stance against NATO membership and pays lip service to EU membership while doing everything to block it. As the high representative said, these actions

“endanger not only the peace and stability of the country and the region, but—if unanswered by the international community—could lead to the undoing”

of the Dayton peace agreement itself.

Can my noble friend the Minister assure the House that officials working on this issue across departments understand Dodik and the way in which he operates? Do they understand that making outrageous demands, only to pull back—but, in doing so, extracting less outrageous concessions—is how Dodik operates, all the while undermining the territorial integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina? He is no honest broker. He is no moderate. His agenda—of carving out a separate state for Serbs—is the same as that of Mladić and Karadžić; what they started down the barrel of a gun, Dodik is striving to implement through the bullying of an international coalition that is fragmented and, sadly, increasingly uninterested. If he is not stopped, if this lack of international pushback continues, then we are collectively rewarding genocide.

The second issue on which I seek assurance from my noble friend is whether the Government understand both the seriousness of this issue and the need for urgency. We have been found wanting in the past. We reacted too slowly: our civil servants urged caution in action, Ministers spoke of the need for balance, politicians made well-meaning statements, peacekeeping troops stood aside—and a genocide took place, with men and boys separated and shot and women and girls raped.

The late Baroness Thatcher accused us then of lacking resolve in the face of Serb aggression. She said we were accomplices and urged action. She foresaw a catastrophe unfolding and predicted a massacre, but at that time her views were dismissed as emotional and insulting.

Can my noble friend the Minister assure the House today that we have a plan, that we have our red lines, that civil servants are well engaged and fully informed, and that we have contingency planning for troops to respond, if necessary, to what is being described as the most dangerous moment in Bosnia-Herzegovina since Dayton? Can he assure us that the recent firefighting engagement by the US has focused minds on a more united and long-term plan and is more than a simple short-term reaction?

With this country as one of the strongest and most informed voices on this issue in Europe, can the Minister assure us that our exit from the European Union will not prevent us working closely with European partners in finding solutions? In particular, have the Government raised concerns about the visit by the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, to Bosnia-Herzegovina last month, when, in breach of diplomatic protocol, he met Dodik but not the other two members of the tripartite presidency?

I want to end on an issue that relates to Bosnia-Herzegovina but impacts us here in the UK. The slaughter of Bosniaks in the Srebrenica genocide, a cleansing of Muslims in Europe which took place in our time and near our shores, was a moment that shaped the lives of so many British people—it shaped my life and that of many British Muslims. It is why in government we established the Remembering Srebrenica programme, a programme that works across all four nations and which has resulted in hundreds of initiatives that keep alive the memories of those killed and make sure that, through never forgetting, we continue to learn the lessons and build tolerant and inclusive societies.

We fail Bosnia-Herzegovina. We fail the idea of a multi-ethnic, multiracial, multireligious nation state in Europe. We feed extremism, we feed division and we allow the powers of hate to win. As the rise of populism, xenophobia and authoritarianism sweeps through parts of Europe, we must stand strong as defenders of democracy, human rights and progressive liberal values. How we respond to the current crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina will be an early test.