Coalition Against International Terrorism

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 6:02 pm on 1 November 2001.

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Photo of Mrs Anne Campbell Mrs Anne Campbell Labour, Cambridge 6:02, 1 November 2001

The hon. Gentleman has only just arrived in the Chamber. I see no reason why I should give up any of my precious 10 minutes for him to intervene.

My hon. Friend Ms Abbott talked about people being happy with the bombing. I do not know one person who is happy about it. I am extremely uneasy about bombing, in particular when I see the civilian casualties. I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence express his reluctance for military action. We must ask ourselves, however, whether there is any credible alternative. We should not assume that people are happy and cheerful and do not care about the civilian casualties. Those of us who support the action that the Government are taking are very unhappy and uneasy about what is happening and we wish that there were an alternative. Unfortunately, there is not.

It is crucial that we prevent bin Laden and his associates from acting again and again. People who have been responsible for the deaths of 6,000 innocent civilians will never stop. They were deliberately murdered; it was not collateral damage in any sense; it was a deliberate targeting. The people responsible will not stop now. What is to stop them? They will attack again and again, so we have to track them down. We have to unseat the Taliban regime, which is protecting them. I know of no way of doing it other than the way we are doing it.

I have had about 500 letters and e-mails about the terrorism in the United States and the Afghanistan situation. Many express unease at what is happening. I have read all those letters and e-mails very carefully, although I have not been able to respond to all of them in detail. Not one has suggested alternative action that would be effective in unseating the Taliban and destroying the terrorist network.

There is a strong pacifist element in my constituency and a very active organisation called CamPeace. It is campaigning vigorously against the war and has campaigned against military action in the past. Many hundreds of my constituents have supported the organisation, signed its petitions and participated in vigils which are held regularly. I understand that many people are against bombing a poor country ravaged by years of conflict and poor governance. However, I hope that the people who support CamPeace understand what they are supporting.

CamPeace has never accepted that Milosevic could carry some guilt for the atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo. I have taken some material from the CamPeace website. It says about Yugoslavia:

"The great majority of the refugees who were forced to leave Kosovo for the neighbouring countries fled after the start of the bombing. It is now clear that the NATO bombing, far from 'averting a humanitarian catastrophe', actually accelerated and intensified it."

CamPeace refers to Carla del Ponte as

"Chief Persecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia".

It highlights a news archive with articles such as

"Was the Srebrenica Massacre a Hoax? . . . Serbian ethnic cleansing scare was a fake, says general . . . Film proves death camp photos were lies".

That shows what kind of organisation CamPeace is. It does not even accept that it was right to intervene in the genocide in Kosovo against both Muslims and Christians. The organisation has no credibility with me and I hope that it has none with my constituents.

I hesitate to speak about the middle east after the excellent contribution of my right hon. Friend Mr. Kaufman. Peace in the middle east sometimes seems further away that ever. The vengeance attacks by the Israeli Government on the people of Palestine contrasts sharply with the attitude of the American Government, following the atrocities of 11 September. There was no quick retribution by the United States; instead, there was a thoughtful, considered period during which an offer was made to the Taliban to give up Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network so that it could be prosecuted. The offer was not accepted and military action has been started.

America's reaction was very different from that of the Israelis following the assassination of a Cabinet Minister. The incursion into previously unoccupied areas horrified many of us. Israel needs and deserves security. Palestine needs and deserves an independent state. Pressure must be brought to bear on the Israeli Government in particular to help bring about a Palestinian state and peace in the middle east. I believe that America, by its actions, now has the moral high ground and can bring not only financial but moral pressure to bear on the Israelis. That is extremely important.

I have been appalled by the many attempts to make this conflict into a conflict between Muslims and Christians. My local newspaper, the Cambridge Evening News, reported a short time ago an attack on two Muslim students who were wearing their traditional dress, their burkas. They had them pulled off their heads by some men as they crossed Parker's Piece in Cambridge. That has given rise to a great deal of anxiety. There was anxiety among Muslim women before this incident, and now there is more. I have tried to express my solidarity with the Muslim women's association in Cambridge. It does a good job. We need to stand firmly together and show that we are all on one side against international terrorism and for world freedom.