Western Balkans: Dayton Peace Agreement

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I had been reflecting that every other speech after that made by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, would probably be superfluous, because she set out very clearly the comprehensive warnings that I hope the Minister can reply to in an equally comprehensive way—I am sure he will—but the other contributions to this debate have all been sober and characteristically eloquent.

The noble Baroness set the backcloth to this debate with regard to other conflicts. That allowed me to reflect that at this time last year I was in a village on the Gaza border where 16 people have been murdered over the last two weeks, and over the summer—just a few days before the outbreak of full-scale war in Sudan —I was in Khartoum. Indeed, we are living in a period of conflict and it will require, I hope, a comprehensive response from leading Governments, such as the United Kingdom’s, to put peacebuilding at the heart of our forward strategies. This afternoon, I had the opportunity to meet Andrew Mitchell to discuss the Government’s proposed White Paper on development—of which the need for peacebuilding should be a central part of the consideration. I declare that I chair the UK board of the peacebuilding charity Search for Common Ground.

The warning that the noble Baroness indicated, as reflected by the noble Lord, Lord Browne—it is a pleasure to follow his contribution—is that frozen conflicts often remain frozen with a degree of complacency and are often ignited with little warning, but the warnings have been heard today. As the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, indicated, some of the assumptions we made 30 years ago cannot be made today, such as the responsibility to protect and the concept of liberal interventionism, which we thought were being established as part of our collective foreign policies. I contributed to a book on the withdrawal from Afghanistan in which I tried to make the case that there was still going to be the concept of liberal interventionism, but it was incredibly hard to do so.

As my former noble friend, the much-missed Paddy Ashdown, indicated, Dayton was a floor, not a ceiling. As my noble friend Lord Alderdice indicated, he was very open that it could not be a static mechanism: it had to be the basis on which there would be nation-building, and the necessity of having the key characteristics of nation-building was to avoid potential areas of political cleavage. He had a great ability to spot these. I fear that those areas of political cleavage are now well established. As my noble friend Lord Alderdice said so eloquently, without constant leadership and a direction of travel that is understood by the population, there can be vacuums. We know all too well that vacuums can be filled by those who do not have the same good motives that we have. As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and others, Russia has deliberately sought to fund and promote disinformation, and actively seeks to disrupt good governance. That provides the basis for destabilisation. It wishes to distract our Foreign Office and our parliaments. We cannot allow that to happen.

The Minister knows well that I have been campaigning for the proscription of the Wagner Group. I welcome very warmly the Government’s move on that. I would be interested to know, because I have been following concerns that the Wagner Group had been operating in Republika Srpska and active in some of the disinformation and protests that were falsely put forward against the Kosovan leadership, the Government’s estimate of the Wagner Group’s activities in the area. Is it still active? What would the consequences of the UK proscription be for the Wagner Group in particular? Are we getting traction with other countries following our lead on that? We know that Russia will continue to move on its disruptive policies.

A number of years ago I had the opportunity of visiting the region when the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, and I served on the International Relations Committee. I went back and looked at our report. I quote from it again. The committee’s third conclusion was:

“The region still suffers from the legacy of the wars of the 1990s. Some political leaders are pursuing the aims of those wars by different, political and diplomatic, means including calls for redrawing national borders and secessionism. Any such act would be regressive, dangerous and destabilising for the region. Progress cannot be taken for granted”.


That still stands. I would be grateful if the Minister could outline the Government’s assessment of the area’s future stability. What technical support is the UK providing to the Berlin process? What support is the UK offering on technical assistance and on the disruption of organised crime, which is linked with state capture of the state organs there? There continue to be British casualties from organised crime in the Balkans and close to 160 tonnes of cocaine and heroin: according to the National Crime Agency, the largest part of the organised crime gangs producing drugs to be consumed in the UK are from the western Balkans.

These are all interconnected but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, indicated, the area seeks more support. Will the Government think again regarding active participation in EUFOR? It was a sad moment when we withdrew from it. There is an opportunity to rebuild some of those connections and rejoin actively.

We have heard that the area suffers from too much history, and in many respects too many memories, so that, as the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, said, young people wish to leave. I hope that, with the UK’s continued support and leadership in certain areas, as requested, we will be able to provide a future so that there is not a vacuum that will be filled by those with the worst motives.