United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Colonel Gaddafi does not do peaceful. Benghazi may be relatively safe for the moment, but what about elsewhere in Libya? That really worries me.

As my—dare I say, with some trepidation?—hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) suggests, I have had experience in this respect. I remember very well that when I was the military commander in Bosnia in 1993, a little girl of six was brought to my house by a delegate from the International Committee of the Red Cross. She had been in a prison camp for 10 days. The Red Cross delegate said to me, “This girl needs shelter.” I said, “I’m the military commander.” She said, “You’ve got plenty of room in your house, and you’ve got two soldiers who look after you.” The soldiers turned to me and said, “We’ll look after her, sir.” They took her away, put her in a bath and washed her, and cared for her. They put a bed for her between their two cots. Three days later, that girl did not want to leave. I am worried that what had happened to her might be happening to people in Tripoli tonight. She was dragged out of her bed at 5 o’clock in the morning, with her mother, father and brother, told to get downstairs and made to lie on the grass by brutes with rifles. As she told it, her mother, father and brother lay down and did not get up again. This weekend, I spoke to members of the opposition in Tripoli, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Mr Gaddafi will be sending his thugs searching around there tonight.

What can we do to help? We cannot invade, we cannot assassinate—it is up to the Libyans to decide what we do. I have seen people with pitchforks try to take out tanks. How are those people going to be protected? They need help. Perhaps the Arab League could help a little more in that respect. Perhaps it could go forward. We cannot do it.

Nobody knows the endgame—we all realise that. If we were God, perhaps we would, but we do not. We live in hope. We do not have the endgame plotted out carefully.

We acted morally on the highest authority in the world—the Security Council of the United Nations. Thank goodness we did, because last Friday Colonel Gaddafi suggested he was going to go through houses in Benghazi and butcher everyone who opposed him. That did not happen. We have, by our actions, saved life. Politics can sort things out hereafter, but one thing is quite clear: there will be a lot more people around to watch what happens from now on than there would have been if we had done nothing last Friday. Thank you very much, Prime Minister. Thank you very much, Foreign Secretary. Thank you very much, the Opposition, for your full support. It is deeply appreciated by all of us.

Let us hope that someone has the brains of Methuselah and that we find out what the endgame is in due course. Perhaps the Foreign Secretary has the brains of Methuselah.