Foreign Office 'allowing Serbs to break no-fly zone'
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Your support makes all the difference.The Foreign Office was accused last night of allowing the no-fly zone over Bosnia to be broken with impunity, encouraging the Serbs to step up their violations and increasing the risk to British troops.
The attack, by Calum Macdonald, Labour MP for the Western Isles, will be bolstered today in a speech by Paddy Ashdown, the Liberal Democrat leader. He will call for strict enforcement of the no-fly zone and the creation of UN-sponsored safe havens for Bosnian Muslims facing the threat of 'ethnic-cleansing'.
Douglas Hogg, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, said in a written Commons reply on Monday that the number of unauthorised flights over Bosnia had increased from 24 in the fortnight to 4 November, to 34 in the week to 12 November and more than doubling to 73 in the week to 19 November. Mr Hogg added: 'There is no evidence that any of these have been combat flights.'
But Mr Macdonald accused the Government of 'splitting hairs' and ducking its 'reponsibility under UN Resolution 786, 'to consider urgently, in the case of violations when further reported to it in accordance with its resolution 781, the further measures necessary to enforce the ban on military flights in the air space of Bosnia Herzegovina'.'
He said that both UN resolutions referred to 'military flights' - not to the 'combat flights' mentioned by Mr Hogg. 'The UN's ban is clearly being broken with impunity,' he added. 'The UN's failure to enforce its own resolution diminishes its credibility, thereby placing its own soldiers - including British soldiers - in still greater jeopardy, and fails shamefully to meet its obligations to the innocent victims of this war.'
Mr Ashdown, who is planning another visit to the war zone later this month, has been urging stronger government action since July, and in a speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies today he will warn that 'if minorities can be slaughtered or expelled without retribution, there are many other minority groups ready to be 'cleansed'. What we do - or fail to do - in Yugoslavia today could affect the futures of Hungarians in Slovakia, Poles in Lithuania, Russians and Ukranians in Moldova'.
He will argue that the UN should be ready to take control of Bosnian air space, adding that if conditions continue to deteriorate air power should be used to destroy the heavy guns being used to besiege the Bosnian Muslims.
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