Aid Memoir. Larry Hollingworth

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СКАЧАТЬ UNHCR was the leading aid agency. Jose Maria Mendiluce was the Special Envoy. He and I had worked together in Geneva. A small, broad, urbane, and elegant Spaniard, he is a brilliant linguist with an open charm which hides experience gained as a veteran of tough tours in South America and Kurdistan.

      In just over a year, he had seen a lot of history in its making. Slovenia had fought briefly and successfully for its independence, Croatia and Serbia had gone to war. The newly independent, UN-recognised Republic of Bosnia Herzegovina had been pronounced stillborn by the doctor of medicine Radovan Karadzic, who led the Bosnian Serbs. His diagnosis was faulty as was so often to be the case. The infant state was not dead, but, nor was it healthy. Its lifeblood was regrouped and separated; its limbs stretched from their sockets. But it was alive. It was now an incubator state, vulnerable and isolated. Kept alive by infusions of rhetoric and promise and by occasional injections of aid. Sarajevo, its capital and seat of government, was battle scarred and besieged, the population shelled and hungry. To alleviate the suffering, the UN Security Council on the eighth of June had voted to open Sarajevo airport for the delivery of humanitarian aid. The airport was in Bosnian Serb held territory; their tanks and soldiers were on the runway. They protested. On the 28th of June, President Mitterand, in a bold, brave move flew into Sarajevo. The airport was then deemed to be open. The Bosnian Serb forces withdrew under the watchful blue eyes of the newly appointed Commander of Sector Sarajevo, the Canadian General Lewis Mackenzie.

      Madame Sadako Ogata, The High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, was determined that UNHCR, the organisation she directed, would run the airlift. Jose Maria Mendiluce, her Special Envoy, already had a man on the ground in Sarajevo. The task was to airlift humanitarian aid from Zagreb to Sarajevo to feed the starving blockaded population of 385,000. The decision as to who should operate the airlift lay with the UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He had an offer from the United States who wished to undertake the task. With hindsight, an amazing offer, and one which, if he had accepted, would have altered the UN involvement and maybe the whole course of the war. The Secretary General gave the task to UNHCR.

      A new task needed more staff. I was called to Geneva.

      The British Government, very quick off the mark, had agreed to send Wing Commander Angus Morris to set up an air operations cell in the headquarters of UNHCR.

      Angus is a dynamic, very switched on, silver haired, handsome RAF officer, with lots of professional charm. He is a Scot. He speaks with little or no accent, in short measured sentences. He is an officer who has perfected the art of giving orders as suggestions.

      Angus and I set up an office in a small room adjacent to the UNHCR communications centre. From there we could contact Zagreb, the UK Ministry of Defence, and the military headquarters of the proposed donor nations. America, France, Italy, as well as the UK had tentatively offered aircraft for the airlift. The Americans sent a team to Geneva to join us headed by Lt. Col. Larry Smith, whom I had worked with previously when getting aid into Turkey.

      The whole ex-Yugoslav operation was under the supervision of a senior UNHCR director, Eric Morris, a taciturn American. Bright, direct and reserved. Eric quickly realised that the Geneva end was becoming larger than the sharp end. He therefore decided that I should go to Zagreb and run the airlift. An excellent decision, as I knew the players in Geneva and they would know the man on the ground. It was also a great decision for me, as I am not a “corridor of power” warrior. Eric told me to contact the UNHCR Chief of Operations in Zagreb, Tony Land, an Englishman who had just returned from Afghanistan. In a short, sharp call, Tony made it clear that he was looking for—a man who will fight for refugees in the most difficult of circumstances. A man who will lie for them, cheat for them, and be a rogue for them. You are ex-army, aren’t you?—he concluded. You have the right background. I was not too sure if I was going to like Tony.

      I collected a satellite telephone from “comms,” a mark one edition, it weighed a tonne, came in an enormous grey box and bore a label demanding to be handled with care. I was given a quick lesson on assembling it and a handbook which was even less clear but had the benefit of being unclear in five different languages. I headed off to Geneva airport where I was to meet up with another recruit for ex-Yugoslavia, a journalist Peter Kessler, who was going out as Public Information Officer. My first minutes with Peter were not too successful. He was waiting for me and was a little irritable. I was late. The check-in desk was closing and we were in great danger of missing the flight. I was short with him. In addition to my own kit, I was struggling with this enormous and heavy satellite phone. The Swiss, to whom time is an obsession, are never happy with late arrivals, the Swiss, to whom money is an obsession, are very happy with excess baggage. Peter and plane left without me.

      I took the next flight, changed aircraft at Frankfurt, and sat next to Peter on the flight to Zagreb! Albeit he was cool and calm, I was hot and sticky. In Zagreb, I was briefed by Jose Maria and Tony. They gave me a rundown on the war so far. Jose Maria was anecdotal. He knew all the key players. Tony is like a housemaster who has a good brain but who prefers to run the school sports. He was academic and aggressive. His arms swept over the huge map on the wall. He prodded at place names, followed the course of rivers with his pen. Pointed at Corps headquarters, named Generals. I tried to take notes. But in truth, I knew where Zagreb was only because Angus Morris had pinpointed it on his map. To save my life I could not have placed my finger on Belgrade on this huge map which Tony knew so well.

      – What was the name of that man again?—I asked.

      – Prlic—replied Tony.

      – And the General?

      – Hadzihasanovic.

      – Can you point out on the map again Biljana Plavsic?

      – She is Vice President of the Serbska Republika.

      The housemaster was getting irritable. The pupil had not done his homework. I was in danger of getting detention. I decided to nod wisely, pretend to write and ask no more questions.

      Head reeling, I left the office and met Anders Levison who had set up the airport operation in Zagreb, met the first aircraft and effectively started the airlift. He is a very tall classic Swede who was eventually to wear himself out by his tireless devotion to the refugees in his charge in Zenica and Tuzla. He reluctantly handed the airlift over to me.

      We were operating from an office outside the airport. On the floor below us was Colonel Mark Cook who was in charge of the British military contingent. He was later to retire and to rebuild from its ashes the Children’s Home in Lipik, Croatia.

      I pestered the airport authorities and they offered us an office co-located with the airport fire brigade. It was on the tarmac, so it was easy to see each aircraft and to ensure that every pilot reported in, after landing. The airport operation was in two parts.

      Some aid arrived from donor countries by road and was stored at the airport for loading onto aircraft and flying into Sarajevo. Some aircraft arrived at the beginning of each day with aid loaded at their home airport. They reported into Zagreb, flew on to Sarajevo and then returned to Zagreb for further loads. Other nations parked their aircraft at Zagreb which were loaded from the ground stocks and then flown to Sarajevo.

      As the numbers of aircraft built up, so the numbers of sorties per aircraft diminished. Most of the crews were keen to fly and vied with each other for slots into Sarajevo. None were keener than the Brits. They would ensure that their aircraft were loaded faster than others, they would watch like hawks for any delay in another aircraft’s take off, and if there was the narrowest window of opportunity, they would rumble along the tarmac, slowly lose contact with the ground, and lumber into the sky. This tactic would throw out the plan and meant another nation losing a trip. The Brits were the worst for excessive zeal but they were not alone. The poor UNHCR representative СКАЧАТЬ