Libya (London Conference)

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I certainly join my hon. Friend in welcoming that statement. It includes other provisions as well as those he mentions, and the ITNC has given much time and serious thought to it. It is not a rushed document: ITNC members have debated it among themselves and prepared it carefully. I encouraged them to publish it yesterday because I think it showed, alongside the London conference, that it is the people of Libya who will lead and decide their own future. It is a very encouraging document in that regard. Our diplomatic contact with the ITNC, including the visit of our diplomats there on Monday and Tuesday of this week, has included looking at how we can support it in developing capacity for, and ideas about, securing democracy and a free society in the future. Developing such links will be a prime objective of the further missions we are now planning to Benghazi.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Why cannot the Government be clear about not rearming the insurgent groups in Libya now that the NATO commander has testified to the US Senate that he cannot rule out infiltration by al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups? As an historian, the Foreign Secretary knows that in the 1980s another ally—America—decided to arm Osama bin Laden to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan, and now British troops are dying on the mountains of Afghanistan because of that error. Don’t repeat it.