................................................................................ ON THE RECORD PADDY ASHDOWN INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE 23.1.94 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Paddy Ashdown, if that is what they're doing are they right, time to pull out perhaps? PADDY ASHDOWN MP: No, first of all I'm glad they've agreed that they can't pull out unilaterally. We went in there as part of the UN operation, it would be - in my view - unthinkable for Britain to pull out unilaterally and cause that operation to collapse. But I will concede this John, that unless at last, we are prepared to act in a way which gives our troops the humanitarian aid they need to deliver, enables them to do their job, makes them less hostages in their own operation, unless we are prepared to act as we have been calling for for so long, then it is quite possible that once the spring offensive start, the only act that will left open to us will be the act of withdrawal. In the words of Larry Hollingsworth, the UNHCR aid worker on the ground, "like bandits in the night", and the consequence of that will be a very very difficult military withdrawal across a hundred and twenty, hundred and thirty miles of dirt track running over the Dinaric Alps, probably against a hostile population, that will not be a noble sight to watch. It'll be the snuffing out of the remains of a state recognised by the United Nations - multi-ethnic, democratic - by forces of Fascism and nationalism, and that will have immense implications for Europe in the future. It'll be the catastrophic reduction in respect for the United Nations, very possibly as damaging to the UN in this decade as was the failure of the League of Nations in the 1930s. And incidentally, for Mr Major, he might like to reflect that he is not going to be left out of the opprobrium for that event since he will then become the Conservative Prime Minister who is known in history as the man who devalued the pound, who raised taxes more than Labour and whose total failure of policy has led to a British military withdrawal. HUMPHRYS: Alright, given that we stay in, what ought our objective to be, you're a military man, you know the military always say you've got to decide what you're objective is? ASHDOWN: That is exactly the point John, we put troops in there without deciding a political objective.... HUMPHRYS: Right, so what ought it to be now? ASHDOWN: It should be what it was previously, it should be to ensure that we uphold international law and that means protecting a state such as it is now remaining which has been recognised by the United Nations. HUMPHRYS: That's much more than delivering humanitarian aid though. ASHDOWN: It is indeed, though delivery humanitarian aid is part of that, because, of course, preserving life is part of the business of upholding international law. HUMPHRYS: But what you're talking about means involvement on one side of the conflict. ASHDOWN: John, I've always said that right from the start of this conflict, nearly two years ago, that if we didn't act and act strongly, then at the end of the day we'd have no action left but to withdraw and our troops would become - as they have done - increasingly hostages in their own operation. Now any action that we now take is more dangerous and more risky than that action which would have been two years ago when it was first required. HUMPHRYS: But we should still take it? ASHDOWN: Let me tell you what I think we should now do. We have to give our troops on the ground, some room for manoeuvre, we have to restore some of the authority of the United Nations and we have to make sure that they get the humanitarian aid which is now being blocked off for them by the blockade exercised by the Serbs and the Croats. There is one way to do that and that is to open Tuzla Airport, it's within the Muslim...the Bosnian enclave. It would mean that that aid could be supplied, it would assert at last, the authority of the United Nations, it would give the UN a success. Its last success was the opening of Sarajevo Airport, as you recall, when President Mitterrand very courageously flew into there. It would mean that the blockades which are holding our troops to ransom and hostage, would themselves be less effective and therefore, they would be less effective in the hands of the Serbs and Croats and it would give us the room for manoeuvre necessary. So that's the action that I think it's possible to take, there are those who argue it can't be done because the Serb guns are eight kilometres away from Tuzla Airport but as I know when I flew into Sarajevo on many occasions, the Serb guns are hundreds of metres from Sarajevo Airport. So if it can be done in Sarajevo, it should be done in Tuzla. HUMPHRYS: So let me be quite clear. You're talking about a peacemaking role for British and other United Nations forces. ASHDOWN: The UN had better realise that in an increasingly interdependent world, after the end of the Cold War, it has to move from peace keeping to peacemaking. What it has failed to realise is that war is a serious business, it has to be taken seriously, you have to have troops of adequate quality. You have to have a command and control structure, you have to have a political will and you have to have political aim. None of those things have been evident in Bosnia Herzegovina and that's one of the reasons why it's failed. You use the word 'peacemaking', let me change that slightly for you. My view is that we have to move towards peacemaking. I think the role of the UN has to be to uphold the concepts of international law. HUMPHRYS: But that amounts to the same thing, doesn't it, because it means ordering the combatants to observe legal borders which they're manifestly not doing at the moment. ASHDOWN: If you mean can we, the UN, move in and suppress the conflict and re-conquer the territory taken by the Serbs, the answer is it can't, the moment for that is too late. It could have done if it had acted earlier. HUMPHRYS: So then I'm a bit puzzled by what you mean. ASHDOWN: Well let me see if I may tell you then. What we're saying is that there is a state, there is a remaining state which is democratic, multi-ethnic - Bosnia Herzegovina... HUMPHRYS: Sort of. ASHDOWN: Well sort of. We should be prepared to act to say to the Serbs: "We will not tolerate further aggression, we will protect". And you use your power protectively, defensively. Give you a particular case in point. Around Sarajevo, perfectly possible, rather less possible now than it would have been a year ago, to have said, "we, the United Nations, declare Sarajevo to be a UN protected haven. We require a cordon sanitaire to be established around Sarajevo. We are not here to aggress the Serbs but we are here to say that if you now use heavy weapons from that area to bombard what is UN protected territory, then you will feel the full response for which the UN is capable including air power. The use of air power defensively, in order to protect the basic concept of international law which is that you should not tolerate aggression against people... HUMPHRYS: And if the effect of that is that the Serbs say "The hell with you". We are then involved, we are then combatants, and you'd accept the consequences that flow from that? ASHDOWN: Well, I personally believe, and every British troop that I've spoken to out there on six visits to Bosnia Herzegovina, has reflected the same view that it is as legitimate for British soldiers to take risks with their lives in defence of international law, upon which our peace will depend in the future, as it is in defence of raw British interests, after all that's..... HUMPHRYS: Legitimate is a rather odd word to use in that context, isn't it? Legitimate for them to take risks with their lives. You're a politician as well as a military man and you know what the political effect of that would be - the political consequences of that would be. ASHDOWN: I tell you it's my judgement that the British people as a whole understand the consequences of this rather better, and the importance of this, than our Government does, that has run away from this time after time after time, and I can tell you that the British troops I've spoken to on the ground out there say to me "We are allowed to feed these people, but we are not allowed to save them. They've not give us the mandate that is necessary". We have put our troops on the ground in a situation which has, exactly as many of us had predicted it would, descended into chaos in which our troops are now in a position where they'll increasingly become targets for snipers and are unable to do the job they have to do. That's not their wish. We have totally failed and, if I may so, though all Western leaders carry the blame for that failure, our own Prime Minister, who was President of the European Community at the key moments when those decisions should have been taken, carries a very specific failure. We have totally failed to back our troops on the ground with the kind of mandate, the kind of leadership, the kind of political support they needed in a real sense. Our troops on the ground, who are doing a magnificent job, are lions leds by political donkeys. HUMPHRYS: So that you are prepared at this stage to say to your constituents "Some of your sons and loved ones may be coming home in body-bags"? ASHDOWN: John, I fought in a campaign in the jungles of Borneo in order to preserve the fact that people who had freedom were not going to be crushed out by the forces of terrorism and aggression. HUMPHRYS: To protect what was seen as a clear British interest. A lot of people don't see what's happening in Bosnia in that light. ASHDOWN: I understand that. Just as a lot of people didn't see what was happening in Czechoslovakia in the years before 1939 had a direct bearing on British interest. It is my judgement that in Europe if we are not prepared to project our powers around our borders to preserve peace and uphold international law, then we'll not have peace within those borders either. It is my judgement that the preservation and upholding of international law is absolutely key to the interests of this country, because in the kind of interdependent world, post the cold-war which we are now having, in a situation where Bosnia Herzegovina is, in my view, probably a very small dress-rehearsal to a much, much bigger and more damaging event happening to the East, it is only within the construct of international law and European capacity to project its power that we in this country will have peace in the long-term, and it's in defence of those fundamental principles in which Britain has a deep, deep interest that I think we'd be doing it. HUMPHRYS: So far from pulling out, you're saying to the Government, and you're saying "If I were Defence Secretary, I would now be saying let us send many more.." (well, this is an absolutely key question) "..I would send in many more thousands of British and other troops, who are prepared to go to war with Serbia". That's what it comes down to. ASHDOWN: I know of no Commander on the ground who believes that the use of our power defensively in the way that I've described wouldn't require huge increases... HUMPHRYS: But you'd acknowledge that we'd then become involved in all sorts of other ways. ASHDOWN: I accept that. But let me tell you what happens if we don't. What happens if we don't... HUMPHRYS: I think you've you've already told me that, but I just... ASHDOWN: Yes.. the answer to your question is "Yes", but let me say this to you that if that does not happen, if now at the eleventh hour, having failed to take this action for the last two years, having led inevitably to this consequence, we do not act, then the truth of the matter is that we will not be able to act, and the consequences of that, the consequences of inaction, it seemed to me, are far greater than the consequences of action. If nothing happens before those Spring offensives are launched, our troops will not be able to do a job, they will not have the humanitarian aid, they will be stuck within their own camps and they will increasingly be simply the targets for snipers. Under those circumstances of course there's no point in them staying there, but let it be understood where the blame for that lies - it lies with our leaders who have put our troops in a position where they didn't have the backing that was necessary to do the job we asked them to do. HUMPHRYS: Paddy Ashdown, thank you very much. ...oooOooo...