Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report for 2010-11
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Lord Alderdice
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Lothian for obtaining this debate and for his sterling work on the committee and the report that has been produced. I declare two interests, one as president of ARTIS Europe, which is a research and risk analysis company that takes an interest in areas of politically motivated violence and terrorism, and the other as a customer of the Security Service during the past seven years as a member of the Independent Monitoring Commission. We spent a good deal of our time working with various elements of the Security Service here in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere.
This is an extremely worthwhile report, which merits considerable study. I want to refer only to a few aspects of it. I could pick up on some of the positive remarks about, for example, the National Security Council, which seems to be an important development. I could pick up also on the concerns expressed about the BBC Monitoring service, an issue referred to in general terms in your Lordships' House but very specifically in this report. I welcome not only what the report had to say but some of the remarks in the Government’s response to it.
I note what my noble friend said about concerns about confidentiality in respect of our partners and material coming into the public domain. This is a very difficult area to put into structure and regulation. In the Independent Monitoring Commission, we found ourselves meeting at a very early stage, because it was a somewhat unusual body, as my noble friend knows from his own experience in Northern Ireland. Quite quickly, rather more because of the personnel than of the structure, we were able to build up a sense of confidence with our interlocutors. That was able to function adequately over a period in excess of seven years during which we published some 26 reports. That confidence was not maintained purely by the structures in place, though some were important, but because of the personnel and the relationships between them, which are very difficult to legislate for. It is extremely important to come to understand those things which you can, and should, properly put in the public domain and those matters which have to be dealt with in another way. Without that, it is impossible to do serious work in this area. Structures alone will not address that.
Let me come to the more specific areas that I wish to concentrate on. First, on Northern Ireland and republican terrorism, my friend the Minister of Justice in the Northern Ireland Assembly, David Ford, recently remarked to the Assembly in answer to a question that the level of attacks was not currently increasing, which was very welcome news, because, during our period, they had continued to increase. I am absolutely clear, as I think he was, too, that that is not because the level of activity has diminished but rather because of the excellent work of the security services, the police and the Garda Síochána. It is quite clear that there is still a very high level of dissident republican activity, but it is being foiled by excellent work. I take this opportunity, as other noble Lords have done, to convey my own appreciation to those involved, in so far as I can on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland, for the protection afforded to them and other people in the United Kingdom by their extraordinary work. One of the difficulties about it is that, as with good civil servants’ work, when it is successful you do not see anything publicly and people then take for granted that everything is fine. That is a little bit dangerous because people then let their security guard down and something terrible can happen. With good civil servants’ work and good security work, it looks as though everything is going swimmingly, which is only because of the quality of the work that has been undertaken.
I was gratified to note the recognition of cybersecurity as a tier-1 risk, as is recorded in the report. It is important to understand that this is not simply a question of traditional terrorists, whether domestic or international—although they are mostly international—using the modality of cyber to arrange traditional-style terrorism. In other words, cyberterrorism is not about people communicating with each other using the internet in order to plant bombs or all the other things that terrorists traditionally do. Rather, there are new ways of engaging in attacks that are mediated entirely through the internet—for example, the damaging of government infrastructure and the necessary national utilities. These are very real dangers not just in the defence field but in all aspects of life, including things such as water and electricity, not to mention all our own practical activities. That struck me very forcibly some years ago when some Taiwanese colleagues made it clear to me that, in the Taiwanese Parliament, every parliamentarian’s computer was being hacked into every single day. I think that some colleagues in your Lordships’ House and elsewhere might not be quite aware of the vulnerability of many of these things, although I know that that is not the case with noble Lords in this Room.
The whole area of cybersecurity presents an enormous difficulty and challenge, including on a number of elements that I note are mentioned in the report. First, the question of staff retention and pay, which is referred to, is a very difficult issue. In some long discussions that I had on this front, a young man who runs a company in the United States remarked to me that one of the problems with those who are most skilled in this area of work is that they are often—though this may surprise some noble Lords—not qualified with university degrees, but they are extremely skilled in this work and they have a very particular set of personality attributes and a particular way of working. When a number of small companies were established that became very effective in providing anti-hacking services—largely, setting a thief to catch a thief—a number of the large corporations saw this work as an ideal undertaking. There was clear money to be made and the expertise was available, so these large corporations bought over a number of these small firms. As far as I am aware, almost none of them survived because, brought inside a corporate structure, this was not the way that these young men—and they are almost all young men—functioned. Therefore, one of my questions for the Minister is: how are departments finding the challenge of engaging some of these young people who are not the traditional personalities for the Civil Service or the security agencies or the military or the police? In fact, these are the kind of young people who might be firmly outside these structures, yet they are exactly the kind of people that we need inside if we are to deal with this kind of problem. The report talks about this issue in terms of finance, but I really think that it is much more about other things in addition to the question of finance.
That leads me to the issue of psychological research in these areas. I have been to a number of conferences recently where it has become clear that huge amounts of money are being spent on hardware and on software, but very little is being spent on understanding the psychology of the kind of people who get involved in these sorts of activities. This was commented on in a recent conference that was promoted by the right honourable Foreign Secretary, at which Misha Glenney—a former BBC journalist who has recently published an excellent book on the subject—pointed out that almost no work has been done in this area. For me, that is reflected in the report, which highlights key themes as: “Organised crime”; “Hostile foreign activity” coming from Governments and so on, which is absolutely true; and “Terrorism”. However, the report does not refer at all to what is commonly known as “hacktivism”, whereby young people become involved in activities that become crime, because they break the law, but their intent is not that of traditional organised crime to make a lot of money; much of it is about gaining respect for themselves as serious operators on the internet. However, they then get themselves in trouble and find themselves on the wrong side of the tracks and on the wrong side of the law. I was struck by the fact that that is not identified in the report as a fourth area. This is not organised crime, or terrorism per se, or foreign activity in terms of Government and armies and so on, but it causes us a great deal of problems. That suggests to me that there is something about the whole psychology of this new space that has been created—as well as land, sea, air and space, we now have a new context for engagement and, indeed, for war.
That leads me to another question about legal research. I submit that if the Stuxnet attack had happened in an equivalent way on land, at sea, in the air or even in space, it would have been regarded as a declaration of war. However, despite the great problems that it obviously caused for Iran, it does not seem to have been regarded in that way. At this stage, without waiting for something to happen, a serious piece of work needs to be done in international law to explore at what point such a thing becomes a declaration of war, at what point can it be responded to only by cyber-response and at what point by other kinds of response. There is a lot of work to be done in that area.
The Marquess of Lothian
On that point, this is an important question and the real problem in this area is one of attribution. All the evidence that we have taken suggests that it is very difficult, when you get a worm of the type that Stuxnet was, to find out where it has come from.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. That is why there is a problem, to which there is no simple answer. Great damage is done whether the attribution can be established or not. Sometimes in the past people have not waited to establish the attribution. A doctrine of pre-emption, which I do not in any way recommend or commend, was created by a previous American Administration. The point is that sometimes we have to find a way of dealing with these things. I simply seek reassurance from the Minister that it is being actively looked at by those with the experience and legal expertise to address the question.
To some extent, that leads me to the question of attribution more generally and in regard to research. Some comments were made about the threat of al-Qaeda, including that in the Arabian Peninsula and other places. In looking at it, it seemed to me that there was rather a surface view of the thing. For example, many of those who get involved in Yemen in support of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are concerned about their local situation, as was the case in Afghanistan. There are a small number at the top who have all these notions about the caliphate and so on, but they are not necessarily carried forward because everyone who is involved on the ground believes that. That is extremely important in understanding how to deal with it.
Let me give a specific example from our own country. There are those who have looked at the way of thinking of young people who are potentially vulnerable to being involved in terrorism in this country. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for pointing out that this is not always a question for foreign policy; it is very much a domestic issue. The view has been taken that it is about fundamentalist views. The job is to persuade young people not to have these hard-line, extreme, fundamentalist religious views. I have always had some doubt that it is possible to persuade young people of anything of the kind. Indeed, the more adults try to do it, the less likely young people are to go along with it. However, research has recently suggested that that is not the best way to deal with it anyway. Even if these people have very fundamentalist views and, at the same time, accept that democracy and the rule of law is the only proper way to change and govern society, they are not vulnerable to becoming terrorists.
That is an extremely important question to be explored, so I seek some assurance from the Minister that research is not necessarily being done only by those inside the services, who may have a particular expectation of research. Those of us with any passing understanding of academic research know that it is extremely important that people do not come with preconceived ideas. Those inside the services cannot but have preconceived ideas. Is there any role for research that is being done externally, on a more objective basis, to inform the work of the security services?
On the issue of being up-to-date with difficult questions, we have had a strategic defence and security review, but we have just come from the Chamber where we have been looking at the dramatic and disturbing changes taking place in our own continent of Europe. Only a couple of days ago, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that he was “extraordinarily concerned” about euro survival, civil unrest and the break-up of the EU. Again, this is not a question of distant places but of our own part of Europe. I seek reassurance— I do not ask for anything more—that our intelligence services are paying attention to the real and present danger of unrest in Europe over the next few years as the weight of financial difficulty and political disjunction begins to bear down. That may be, sadly, a substantial part of the work of our security services which is not, as yet—I understand why because the report is now a few months old—focused on in the report.
Libya
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Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Lord is quite right. I am personally well aware of the damage and horror caused. Our top priority at this moment is to ensure that Libya completes its transition to having an inclusive, stable and democratic Government. However, these matters lie just ahead and we will certainly give full support through the FCO-led unit, which was very helpfully set up by the previous Government to support the campaign for reconciliation and compensation in Northern Ireland.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, and Mr Jason McCue for their work in pressing the previous Government to establish the unit to which my noble friend referred. May I seek the Minister’s reassurance that that unit will continue to operate, and that the benefits that were being negotiated—not only the victims’ compensation but benefits for the United Kingdom and its taxpayers more broadly—will continue to be pressed for? Will the current moves by the United States Government to ensure that unfrozen assets from Libya are used to compensate United States citizens mean that those benefits accrue solely on the other side of Atlantic, or will they also be available to the United Kingdom Government and citizens for what they have suffered?
Lord Howell of Guildford
Yes, I can assure my noble friend that all those matters are under close consideration. As he knows, the Government—under the previous Government and in the immediate future—are not negotiating directly with Libya. That reflects the view that the greatest chance of success is for the victims and their families to engage the Libyan Government directly, with the support of HMG. However, we will certainly take all my noble friend’s points into account.
International Democracy Day
Lord Alderdice Excerpts(14 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Howell of Guildford
I could not speak about the detail of youth organisations, but it is obvious that vast numbers—billions—of young people need to be encouraged in the values of democracy throughout the world and we play our part. On specific propositions on the website and elsewhere, I shall have to write to the noble Lord.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the celebration is not just about our own historic past and the contribution that this great country has made to democracy, nor about encouraging democracy in other parts of the world—extremely important and exciting as that is—but about a never-ending requirement to ensure that each succeeding generation of young people in our own country understands the importance of democracy under the rule of law? Is he aware of the research of Professor Peter Weinreich and others which suggests that, in dealing with radicals and politically motivated, violent young people, it is less a question of dealing with the ideas that they have, fundamentalist as some of them might be, than of ensuring a commitment to democracy and the rule of law that means that they do not turn to violence but accept democracy as the way of dealing with difference?
Lord Howell of Guildford
Yes, of course I agree with my noble friend. There is great wisdom in what he says. Democratic values need to be constantly reasserted. Democracy lies in the responsibility of each individual. I think that it was Edmund Burke who said that society only works if there is a policeman within each of us. So it is with democracy. If democratic ideas are implanted in each generation, there will be democracy. It is about a lot more than votes and party politics.
East Jerusalem and the West Bank
Lord Alderdice Excerpts(14 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Howell of Guildford
I was not explicit because, as the noble Baroness will know—she is better equipped than most of us in these sorts of areas—what one often gets when making representations that are not welcome to the recipients is a shrug of the shoulders and a polite nodding of the head but no action. I am afraid that the most visible action is of the opposite kind—buildings have continued to be demolished, which gives rise to a question about the prospects for progress.
No one can disguise the fact that most of the responsible world—the Arab world, the western world, the European Union, the United States, the UN—believes that the present fluidity and turmoil in the region provides an opportunity for Israel and a Palestine that we hope is moving towards a united Government, although it is not there yet, to start serious negotiations. That is what we want, but it has to be said that this has appeared not to be the opinion of the Israeli authorities at the moment. Their inclination appears to be just to hunker down and hope that something else will turn up.
It is not a situation in which we are optimistic. None the less, we think that continual pressure and the continuing presentation of the realities of the destructive path on which an Israel that refused to negotiate would set itself will eventually move things, but I cannot pretend that it will happen tomorrow morning.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, my noble friend made much of the fact that the Minister declared that the settlements were illegal under international law, but is my noble friend aware that if the Minister had gone further and said that there might therefore be a case for materials produced in those settlements to be boycotted, he would be in breach of the new anti-boycott law which the Knesset introduced on 11 July? What is Her Majesty's Government’s response to the introduction of that law? Does my noble friend agree that it seriously undermines not only freedom of speech in Israel but even Israel’s credentials as an open, free and democratic society?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I myself—and I think this would be a government view—do not very much like the shape of the boycott law, which seems to intrude very greatly on the freedom even of speech about what can be traded and developed in the relevant areas. However, I understand that the matter will come before the Israeli Supreme Court and has been challenged, so maybe it is premature to make final judgments on it. Generally, we think that boycotts are not the way forward—they impede the sensible development of trade—and we should perhaps not forget that, although much of what I have had to say is gloomy, trade and activity, not in Jerusalem but elsewhere on the West Bank, are developing really rather well, and many people, including in your Lordships' House, are well aware of some of the remarkable enterprises that are springing up in places such as Ramallah and elsewhere.
Sri Lanka
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Lord Howell of Guildford
I certainly agree that hideous atrocities and crimes were committed. The UN panel report is very revealing, as are other reports. It is the view not just of the United Kingdom but, I think, of the whole international community that there is an essential need for the Sri Lankan Government and others to be open and prepared to examine the past in an open and unbiased way in order to find at least a basis on which better unity can be created in the future. The noble Lord is absolutely right that to try and bury these things in the past will lead to more suspicion and difficulty, and that is not the way forward.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, the previous Government are to be commended on appointing the right honourable Paul Murphy and Mr Chris McCabe, a former Northern Ireland Office official. It is hard to imagine a more diplomatic, courteous or experienced team. Despite that, President Rajapaksa and his Government showed no interest in engaging with them. Can my noble friend tell the House whether there is any improvement in relations between the Government of Sri Lanka and Her Majesty’s Government? If not, is it likely that we will be able to achieve any engagement and understanding, either directly or through Commonwealth colleagues, or will we have to resort to pressure from the international community, including the United Nations? How will we deliver the kind of inquiry that the noble Lord mentioned earlier in his reply?
Lord Howell of Guildford
We all very much hope that it will not go that way and that there will be an improvement in relations, which have not been good thanks to an attitude which seems determined to try to put up a wall, as it were, rather than embrace the opportunity that the UN panel report offers. Clearly we do need a clear inquiry. The so-called Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission is at work and maybe it will be able to contribute to more openness. However, the pattern is not good, and I would be misleading my noble friend if I said that there had been much improvement recently; there has not.
Republic of Ireland and the Commonwealth
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Lord Alderdice
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that during the peace process I approached the leaders of all the political parties in the Republic of Ireland, all of whom said the same thing—that an application from Ireland to rejoin the Commonwealth was unlikely but that if unionists were to request it as part of the peace process it would undoubtedly be deliverable? The unionist parties did not request it so that moment has passed. However, it seems to me that perhaps an application will only follow invitations. Will my noble friend undertake to explore with the Secretary-General and other members of the Commonwealth whether the Irish Republic might be invited as a guest to Commonwealth events, perhaps even the Commonwealth Games, to help move us in a direction whereby it would not have to make an application but would nevertheless be welcomed in?
Lord Howell of Guildford
This is one of the very interesting and exciting approaches that now become possible as our relations have kept improving to their present excellent level. I cannot make any precise promises because, as I said at the beginning, we must expect the signs to come from the Irish Government that that is the way forward, but there is no reason why the Commonwealth Secretariat should not invite any country, including the Republic of Ireland, to be aware of the vast variety of Commonwealth developments, associations and branded activities throughout the globe in which Ireland or any other country may be interested.
Government Departments: Soft Power
Lord Alderdice Excerpts(14 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Alderdice
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, on securing this important debate. Particularly at times of international crisis and pressure there is a mistaken tendency for us to focus on so-called hard power, and soft power can be crowded out. The noble Baroness has enabled us to focus on this important matter.
I say at the start that it is very important to clarify that those of us who regard soft power as important do not at the same time regard hard power as unimportant. On the contrary, I come from a part of the world where I am very much aware that special forces, intelligence gathering, the increasing use of cyberdefence and all the rest of the paraphernalia of hard power are extremely important, though sometimes they are at their strongest when they are used as a threat rather than when they are actually implemented. We are seeing a little of that at the moment in various parts of the world. It is very important that we sustain the capacity to project hard power, which has been leaking away in recent decades. However, it is true that sometimes those who emphasise soft power find it difficult to bring the two together. The noble Baroness pointed out earlier that DfID, for example, sometimes seeks to distance itself in a way that is, frankly, wholly inappropriate. It is very important that the various components work together in this regard. Therefore, I emphasise that when we speak today about soft power it is not as an alternative to, but as a component of, the projection of power of this country.
In recent decades there has been a hesitation to speak about the projection of power of our country as though there was something wrong with that and we should be much more held back and reticent about these things. If our country can be a power for good why should we not be proud of that projection of power? We do not have a history of always being perfect in that regard, but no country has. Anyone who travels around the world with open eyes and an open mind can see that this country has had a tremendous influence for good in many parts of the world and can continue to do so. If we do not ensure that we project that power, others with more malign attitudes will.
One of the difficulties has been that in the country as a whole, and perhaps in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office too, there has been a feeling that there are other countries with greater population and more access to resources and commodities, which must inevitably mean a falling away of power for our own country. There is some truth to that. However, when countries fell away, it was not fundamentally because their populations diminished or their resources and commodities decreased and were exhausted, but rather because their conviction about their purpose failed them.
For me, the important power that our country has and the contribution it can give lie in some of the things that the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, was talking about—our convictions and the things we believe in. The issue is not just about our systems of government, but the culture of our government and the way that we do things. These are important and we should continue to project them. They strengthen us as a country. As they strengthen us, there are other social and economic benefits for our country. This is not merely an altruistic question.
That is why it is so short-sighted to be reducing our capacity to project our ideas through, for example, the BBC World Service. I ask the Minister to confirm what I understand was said recently to the House of Lords Communications Committee by the deputy chair of the BBC Trust: that when the BBC takes over full responsibility in 2014, it will restore the funding of the World Service, and that the current cuts are primarily the responsibility of the Foreign Office. If that is true, can the Minister assure us that that matter can be attended to directly within government at this point, and not simply passed on to the BBC, which does not yet have full responsibility? I should welcome clarification on that. A number of other noble Lords with much more experience of the BBC World Service have spoken much more eloquently about it than I.
I should like to focus on two or three other areas in the time at my disposal. It has always surprised me how few people in this country realise what an extraordinary jewel the British Council is. I pay tribute to the previous Government who increased its funding over a period. It is important that that funding is sustained as much as possible over the next period, although there are threats to it. That is not to say that I entirely go along with some of the strategic judgments of the British Council.
For example, I remember that some years ago I was concerned about what was happening in Peru and other parts of Latin America. Money was being taken away, DfID offices closed and the British Council office in Peru was closed—as happened in a number of other Latin American countries—and all the funding was funnelled away to places such as China, because that was supposed to be the big area of growth and development. Frankly, I do not care how many British Council offices you put in China, they will not make a great deal of difference there. However, they would make an enormous difference in places such as Peru. The policy was particularly extraordinary, given that this country is one of the biggest investors in Peru. Yet that somehow did not seem to matter. Here was a country where we had real links and understandings. It was a country coming out of conflict after the Shining Path. We did not pay attention. We reduced our funding and influence on programmes of government. Now we find that Peru is in the middle of a political crisis and is sliding back towards authoritarianism and political fascism. We are not there and we could be doing something good in a relatively smaller country where our budget would make possible real improvement in development. That would not be possible in a country such as China.
I want to ask questions not just about how much money we put into places but about our strategy and the way that we try to deal with these issues—including in our own country. It is surprising that the British Council is not more to the fore in teaching English as a foreign language to the many people in our country for whom English still a foreign language, given that the British Council has extraordinary experience of this throughout the world. Yet, even in my own part of the world, Northern Ireland, where the peace has brought us many people from other parts of the world, the British Council is not being used as it might be in this regard.
I come back to another area that I have mentioned a number of times, and about which I know that my noble friend the Minister feels very strongly: the importance of the Commonwealth. Here we have a remarkable institutional opportunity to use soft power in a striking way. Not only the previous Government but others before them focused on the development of our relationships within Europe and outside. I am a strongly pro-European Member of this House, but our interests and relationships in Europe do not have to be at the expense of relationships with the Commonwealth. Our friends the French have not diminished their commitment to the Francophonie with their commitment to the European Union. I sometimes think that we feel that it has to be one or the other; this is simply a dreadful mistake. I seek an assurance, which I know will not be hard for the Minister to give because he is personally very committed, that the Government recognise and are continuing to build our relationships within the Commonwealth, which are of enormous importance.
The terms of the Motion address the question of departmental co-operation. This is important. For example we have, in government departments that have responsibility for policing services throughout our country, a tremendous resource when developing policing systems in other parts of the world as part of post-conflict development. We have in our medical schools and colleges throughout the country all sorts of ranges of skills. Some of them come simply from long-term academic commitments and some from the experiences that we have had in our own country and in other places. Our educational system is a huge resource and strength for us, and yet at the moment I despair of the attitude that seems to be around that we should obstruct students from other parts of the world from gaining access to our courses because of some notion that they might decide to stay. The truth is that the vast majority of students at a senior level take what they learn from us back to their own countries and become part of a network of ambassadors for our country all around the world for the rest of their professional careers.
This is not something that only we recognise. I am working with Martti Ahtisaari, a former President of Finland and a Nobel Prize winner. He wants to do something for sub-Saharan Africa, and for north Africa. With the rest of us, he is trying to establish a fund to bring 100 PhD students to universities in this country. As a former President of Finland, he recognises that the best place in Europe for them to come is to this country, to some of our best and most esteemed universities, because they will not just learn academic subjects but become imbued with a culture that can strengthen democracy, as well as professional and academic development, in their own countries. It does not come out of books or down the line; it comes when you soak up—as young students do, like sponges—the culture of the country in which you have come to live and study, and which you then take back to your own country.
Finally, I will say something not just about government departments but about this Parliament. It is the mother of Parliaments. We should hang our heads a little at how we have behaved over the past few years, and at how we are perceived; but our reputation and standing are not yet completely gone. I appeal to the Government to understand that this Parliament, in both its Houses and in all its aspects and Members, is a tremendous resource for the development of democracy in other parts of the world, and to see this as a resource that can be used through WFD, the IPU, CPA and all the relationships that we can use and develop.
Again, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing this opportunity to us. I hope that the Foreign Office in particular will accept responsibility not for looking to a continual sliding down of the strength and power of this country, but for taking the opportunity to develop all its resources and move forward with pride and a sense of ourselves as a country that has something to give to the rest of the world.
Libya
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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.
Israel
Lord Alderdice Excerpts(15 years ago)
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Lord Alderdice
My Lords, I think we are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Dykes for giving us an opportunity to address this serious question again, albeit in a very short time. Most of us have only three minutes. I will raise just three points; the first is an observation, the second is a fear, the third is an appeal.
My observation is that in these conflicts in general, and in this conflict in particular, it is not only those who are in the conflict who are exceptionally passionate about it; those outside who have any interest and concern—indeed, almost anyone who gets involved—are passionate on one side of the argument. It seems extremely difficult to contain the problem and feel strongly about it, but not feel strongly for one side and against another. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, will recognise that very much from our own experience, and we have seen that demonstrated here tonight. When people become very passionate, it becomes difficult to think clearly and reflectively about a problem.
My second point expresses a fear. I have been going backwards and forwards to the region for a number of years. When I first started to go, I was a little optimistic about the possibilities. In Israel, I met people in the Government, in the Opposition and in civic society. I met people on the Palestinian side in Fatah and Hamas, and in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, and I had a sense that people wanted to move forward, but in the past couple of years I have felt that opportunity for progress slipping away. A two-state solution would be an ideal thing to achieve, but increasingly it is beginning to slip off the agenda. Israel is the country that needs a two-state solution because I cannot for the life of me see how you can have a Jewish democratic state unless you have a homeland for the Palestinians, yet it is becoming harder seriously to believe that a two-state solution remains possible.
I hope that I can be persuaded otherwise by the facts and I want to see it, but those who believe in an historic existential right for Israel to extend the whole way from the sea to Jordan are mixed together with those who would like a two-state solution but feel that there is no possibility of a partner for peace in the Palestinians and those who want a two-state solution but now see no prospect of one. They are all mixed together and there is almost no other side of the argument in Israel. That is extremely worrying.
My final point is an appeal for international law. I tried to address the question of Gilad Shalit, which was mentioned by noble Baroness. I met his family and senior officials in Hamas and they said, “We found that this is the only way we can get our prisoners out. We cannot get them out by legal means so we get them out this way. We have found that we can do a deal with the Israeli Government”. I hope for his sake and for his family that Gilad Shalit gets home soon. I hope that the Palestinian prisoners also get home soon, but that is what happens when international and domestic law are set aside because of passions. I appeal for a return to the rule of law, for without it there is only chaos in the Middle East.
Middle East and North Africa
Lord Alderdice Excerpts(15 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Alderdice
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford for securing this debate and ensuring that we have a good period of time in which to explore a complex but very critical area of foreign policy for our country. Yesterday, noble Lords will recall, we addressed the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. NATO came into being because of a threat to our country and those of our allies from the Soviet Union. It was remarkably successful, and one might actually say that NATO, along with developments in the European Union, won out in the end. A generation or so ago, the Soviet Union began to dissolve and the whole situation began to change. Like other liberally minded people, I can well recall the tremendous excitement and rejoicing there was at the success of NATO and the European Union in the dissolution and collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of democracy in eastern Europe. But those of us from a psychological background have a rather morose view of humanity at times, and I remember writing that I was concerned that our need always to maintain an enemy might well provoke us to find confrontation, and that the most likely groups with which we would find that confrontation were the largely Muslim states in the southern part of Russia and into the Middle East.
Some look at the developments taking place and are considering the domino effect, or tipping point, which may or may not be reached in the whole region across North Africa and the wider Middle East. They see an analogy with what happened in the 1980s in eastern Europe. Indeed, there may be some common features, but there are one or two important differences from our country’s point of view. At the time when central and eastern Europe began to change, there was no doubt whatever in the minds of the people of those countries that the West in general, this country and the United States in particular, was firmly opposed to the authoritarian regimes and therefore strongly backed the vast majority of people who were looking for freedom. That is not the case in the Middle East where many people, even those who are not antipathetic to the United Kingdom or the United States on principle, not unreasonably view us as those who have supported many authoritarian regimes, and indeed have been their allies. I cite as an example the case of Egypt, which is so much on our minds at the moment. We have poured colossal amounts of money and military aid into the maintenance of what is clearly an authoritarian regime. That is a very important difference.
We cannot quickly and deftly turn and support another approach politically and hope that we will be immediately believed. I remember well during the run-up to the elections in Gaza and the West Bank trying to encourage Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness to go to meet people in Hamas to try to persuade them that the best future was down the road of democratic politics and peace. Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness were not prepared to do that because their historic relationship had been with Fatah, and so they did not go. But after the elections, which Hamas won, they realised that the situation had changed and Mr Adams sought to go out to Gaza to meet with the Hamas leaders. He found that they were not interested in meeting with him because he had supported those whom they regarded as the opposition. So it is not possible for us deftly to set history to one side. We have supported authoritarian regimes which have been, and in some cases still are, our strong allies. We have to recognise that and be a little humble because we have not, perhaps, handled things as wisely as we might have done.
In addition, we have had the military adventures in the wider Middle East over the past number of years. While we may have largely withdrawn from Iraq from a military point of view, the memory of it remains. Noble Lords will know that I and my colleagues were not just wary but very critical of that military intervention; we thought it ill advised. I do not want to return to that, but I will say that it has always been my view that it is not enough just to criticise something that you do not agree with, you have to provide some kind of alternative. At the time, I was the president of Liberal International, a global organisation of over 100 liberal political parties. I challenged my colleagues and said that it was not enough to say that we did not agree with the Iraq military engagement. We did not support Saddam Hussein, although of course the West did support him when he was at war with Iran, and we did not accept the view of those who were saying that military intervention was the only alternative. We said that we would have to engage.
Supported by Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung fur die Freiheit, the German Liberal Foundation, I began an initiative to create a network of Arab liberal political parties. We had networks in Europe, of course, but also in Asia, Africa and Latin America, but we did not have such a network of Arab political activists and parties. So, in July 2006 in Cairo, we offered people like Ayman Nour, Mr Hariri’s party from Lebanon, three of the political parties in Morocco, social and liberal democrats from Tunisia, and others from Lebanon and Jordan the possibility of meeting together. All these people did then meet and go on to form the Network of Arab Liberals, a group committed to democracy. These people were clearly educated and thoughtful intellectuals, and in some cases with political parties behind them. Many were avowedly middle-class people.
The poor in countries like Egypt are not very politically involved because they have to strive too hard just to survive from day to day in that country. So although I agree absolutely with the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, that there are enormous social problems in the form of unemployment, poverty to the point of virtual starvation, very poor healthcare and so on, it is not the people who are suffering most in those ways who are appearing at the demonstrations. The young executive with Google who started the Facebook page celebrating Khaled Said, the young man who was killed last year in Alexandria, and who was himself recently imprisoned and then released, is of course a very well educated and technically capable young man. Indeed, the vast majority of the people congregating in Tahrir Square are people of that kind. What they are demanding is freedom and democracy while also being concerned about all the other social and economic questions.
But here we come to the problem. If we go down the road of democracy in our country or any other country, we have to accept the results from the ballot box. We have not always been prepared to accept the results of elections in the Middle East even when they were clearly free and fair, as was the case in Gaza and the West Bank. Not only did we not accept those elections or engage in a Government of national unity, despite the fact that the previous Government had indicated at the most senior levels that they would be prepared to do that, we accepted those results being set aside and covert military operations being put in place by others to undermine them.
Democracy is very problematic, but it is even more problematic to allow authoritarian regimes to continue to resist democratic pressure from moderate and liberally minded people, because the longer that that is resisted, the more it builds up the strength of those more maligned forces who say, “You’re wasting your time on democracy. The West will never accept it anyway. These authoritarian regimes will not accept it. The only thing they understand is violence”. It strengthens the hands of those who are not democrats and who want to burn rather than change the system.
On Egypt, for example, we have heard the West say, “Well, you know, my goodness, if we have democracy tomorrow, the alternatives may be Mubarak on the one side and the Muslim Brotherhood on the other”. This is nonsense. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a strong organisation. It has some 100,000 adherents in a population of 80 million. People say, “Ah, but look at all the things that they do, like Hezbollah, in terms of welfare and so on. They’re winning hearts and minds”. That is true of Hezbollah in Lebanon, with which we find ourselves having to engage because it is part of the Government and will be part of any future Government—I am very glad that the UK Government have changed their position on that and have in the past year or two been prepared to engage, albeit rather tepidly, with Hezbollah. However, the Muslin Brotherhood does not have anything of the kind. It has some six or eight clinics in Cairo, in a population of 18 million. It is lukewarm in its organisation. Indeed, Ayman al- Zawahiri's, the former head of Islamic Jihad and a leading strategist in al-Qaeda, has criticised it precisely for that; he regards it as a co-operator with the Crusaders, ignoring the importance of Sharia. We should be very careful that we do not create our own bogeymen, fight against them and then find that we have something much worse in their place.
I said a long time ago that we would end up talking with Hezbollah because it would be part of the Government, and we have. I say again that, however unappealing it may be, we will end up talking with Hamas, as will the Israeli Government. To those who say that the quartet position must be maintained, I say that the Russians have been talking with Hamas all through the period when the quartet position was in place. I do not expect my noble friend the Minister to indicate in today’s debate a dramatic change of position by Her Majesty's Government, but I think that we have got to be much more realistic in our approach. If we press for democracy, and the people express their view in a free and fair election, we must engage. I understand all the concerns about chaos ensuing if Mr Mubarak were to step down immediately. I understand wholly, too, what my noble friend Lord Trimble said about how long we took to get round to things in Northern Ireland, but we had there the containing factor of the British Government prepared to pay endlessly, it seemed, to maintain stability. We had also the relationship with the Irish Government and the European context. We had the luxury of being contained in that while we struggled to find a way forward. That is not the case in Egypt and in other countries in the Middle East. There is therefore a degree of urgency. It is hugely important for us to engage—not just demand that others engage, but engage ourselves in our own national interest.
I have discovered in conversations with a number of the Governments in the Middle East that, while they find it hugely difficult to engage on some of the hard political questions, they are prepared to do so on some of the important social and economic questions. I must pay tribute to the Swiss, Swedish and Norwegian Governments, who assisted me and a number of my colleagues in trying to help countries in the region look at water, energy and the environment—the report which comes from that work will be launched in the Lords in a few weeks. After the Second World War, we in Europe found that we could turn coal and steel, which had been used to create the instruments of war, into subjects for co-operation. Much good has come from that and at our peril do we dismiss it.
Water and energy could become the focus of violence and war in the Middle East, but they can be turned into subjects for international co-operation. A number of countries in the region, such as Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan, are prepared to engage together in a network. We should engage with them and encourage them. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will do that.
I am encouraged by what I perceive to be a new approach to foreign policy on the part of the coalition Government and by the right honourable Foreign Secretary. It is hugely important that we as a country maintain our principles and our concern for our national interest, but that we do not find ourselves on the wrong side of history because of a failure to understand and engage with a changing world.
Lord Alderdice
Both the noble Lord and I know that the situation in Iraq, both before and subsequent to the election, was substantially more complex than the way in which he has described it.
Lord Triesman
My Lords, as I know from replying to one or two debates on Iraq, Iraq is incredibly complex, so I accept that point. I am just saying that we cannot be selective about the outcomes of elections in arguing the point about history. An election produces a result, and the result is the result.
Another quick point that I want to make is that there is obviously a lot that we can do in the area of culture, including through university exchanges—ensuring that students and academics from the region come to our universities—and exchanges in sport. I had some familiarity with such exchange in the Football Association, which did a lot of work training both Israeli and West Bank referees together. They found it much more interesting to talk about the state of English football than about the things that might otherwise appear to divide them. There are lots of cultural things that we can do, not least of which is that we really ought to look at how we support the British Council and the World Service. I wholly support what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said about DfID money in that regard. It is astonishing to me that, having gone to such lengths to set up Arab and Farsi TV services, within months we cut the resources for one of our best advocates of soft power. That is just completely astonishing.
Finally, I know that whatever the difficulties of today and the past few weeks, and however difficult the negotiations at Camp David or in Washington, in my humble judgment—and this is my humble judgment; I do not say that as a matter of form—it is important to know when the tide is going to turn, what events might precipitate a favourable turn in the tide as well as those that precipitate unfavourable turns in the tide. That is why I have gone through the issues that I have, because we must be ready to catch any favourable tide available. Even in unpromising circumstances, we must be ready. For those reasons, the FCO faces a great challenge; its political skills are its decisive assets, on these occasions possibly more important than any other asset that it has, although I do not exclude the importance of generating good business with people around the world. Bringing people together, helping to find the common ground, and doing that—as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, wholly rightly said—with our own national interests at the forefront of our minds must be among the things that we focus on through these next days and weeks.
Once again, I thank all noble Lords, especially the opening speakers from the two Front Benches, for speaking in difficult circumstances on a difficult day but on an issue that, whatever its difficulties, needed this ventilation.