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PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: The European Council was, however, overshadowed
by events in Kosovo, which were constantly in the minds of European
Council members during this meeting and I shall begin with this.
European Heads of State and Government were unanimous in condemning
Milosevic's barbarity and intransigence and in supporting NATO's action.
Air strikes are continuing and intensifying in the wake of the renewed
repression in Kosovo. Thirteen additional RAF planes are being committed
to the NATO operation this week. I know members of this House will join
me in giving their continued full support to the British forces engaged.
Thirteen different countries have aircraft committed to this operation.
Even as we speak, there are continuing atrocities perpetrated by Milosevic
against defenceless Kosovan civilians. But one thing should be made
very clear. The idea that this barbarity, this renewed ethnic cleansing,
started last Wednesday when NATO began its campaign is simply absurd.
The massacres we are witnessing now were planned by Milosevic over
the last two months when he built up an army and special police presence
in the Kosovo region totalling 40,000 troops and 300 tanks -- a deployment
far greater than at the height of last year's fighting and savage repression.
In the two days prior to the NATO campaign, 20,000 people were driven
from their homes. 65,000 in the last month. That is added to the 300,000
last summer. It is now clear that Serb participation in the Paris peace
talks was a cover for Milosevic's offensive preparations. On 20 March,
the day after the talks were suspended, we now know armed Serbs started
summary executions and ethnic cleansing. They have continued ever since.
In my view, our response to these appalling acts, far from halting
or slowing the Allied action, must be to intensify it and see it through
to a successful conclusion. For every act of barbarity, every slaughter
of the innocent, Milosevic must be made to pay a higher and higher price.
I hope no one who has seen the utter, callous brutality with which the
Kosovo Albanian people have been treated is under any remaining illusions
about the nature of the Serb regime. The proper answer to it is not
weakness but strength.
We are also addressing the growing refugee problem created by Milosevic's
brutality. I have today set up a cross-departmental group to respond
rapidly to this crisis. A joint military and civilian team will visit
Macedonia and Albania later this week. The Department for International
Development have allocated an extra 10 million pounds as our initial
contribution to this international effort, in addition to the help we
had already committed.
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