Aid Memoir. Larry Hollingworth

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СКАЧАТЬ President arrived. He looked gentle, confused and exhausted. His daughter Sabine was with him. She acts as secretary and sometimes translator. He understands English and in a one to one conversation is prepared to use English, but he prefers to use a translator. He sat in the corner of one settee. The shelling began, and there were two loud bangs very close to where we were. The president appeared not to notice them. He never even paused in his speech. He wanted to discuss aid in general and aid to Gorazde in particular. He had with him a senior officer Hadzihasanovic. The Bosnian Government was not strong on military ranks, so it was safest to address them as “commander.” Enver Hadzihasanovic I was later to meet in Zenica and again back in Sarajevo. He is one of the ablest Bosnian leaders. Handsome, silver haired, and charming.

      We were briefed on the reports coming out of Gorazde. They were horrendous. A hospital with no medicine. A population with no food. The commander discussed the options for getting aid into Gorazde. The Bosnian army had a mule route. But it could take very little and was frequently attacked by the Serbs.

      I’ll bet it is—I thought to myself. It was an open secret that the mule route took in mainly ammunition for the defenders of the town.

      The president was strong—There is not enough aid for Sarajevo, but Gorazde is of a higher priority. I could see that it was. Strategically the last thing the president wanted was major towns to fall to the Serbs. Also, he was testing the strength and will of the UN and its agencies. It was a short meeting.

      The following day was my return visit to the office of Mr. Pamuk for a meeting with the five to discuss distribution. We had to pass through shelling, which was heavy and dangerously close. It was my first trip at the wheel of the car. Leyla Hrasnica was my translator and guide. She showed to me the “back route,” the quieter one. We arrived at the Municipality a few minutes late. The building had taken a few hits, and there was machine gun fire bouncing off the walls. As I parked the car under the direction of Leyla, I had two thoughts which I voiced.

      – Leyla, if that was the quiet route, what would the other route have been like?

      – The shelling would have been a little closer, but…—she added with a smile—we would have been a little quicker.

      – Leyla, just as a point of interest, when are conditions considered to be too bad to cancel a meeting?

      – When the other side cancels.

      We passed the empty offices and arrived at Mr. Pamuk’s. He was there. He had two other people with him. Two of the five. He introduced them to me. One was Professor Kljic, an economist who was to be the architect of the distribution plan after consultation with us.

      There was a tremendous bang as a mortar hit the base of the building. We waited a few minutes more for the other three to arrive. The professor and I began to talk. He was hoping that I would have a blueprint for feeding the city. He was not to know that I was as confused and as overwhelmed as he was. I explained that my own experience was with refugee camps where I had been responsible for almost one hundred thousand people—a little exaggeration, but I thought acceptable in the circumstances.

      Mr. Pamuk wanted to know for how long the Sarajevo airlift was guaranteed. I was able to answer clearly and truthfully that it had been funded for one month. We began discussing the Berlin Airlift. There was a knock at the door and the secretary to Mr. Pamuk came in, we were not to wait for the others. They had been seriously injured in the shrapnel from the mortar that we had heard explode. I was disturbed by this. But the others were not. They were used to it. I needed more time there before I too accepted the macabre as commonplace.

      The professor wanted us to give him the aid which we received as quickly as possible. Furthermore, he wished to sit on it until he had enough to be able to issue a little to everyone or at least a little to everyone in a district, “to issue by rings.” The first thoughts of UNHCR were to keep the aid in our possession until we knew the day of the issue, then to hand it over, so that we could see and monitor the issue. We wanted to see it issued to the most vulnerable, the widows and orphans, the elderly, the homeless. We also wanted to issue it rapidly. The people were starving now and they knew that aid was arriving. Given a little aid their morale would improve. Given no aid they may storm the warehouses.

      Not only was there a difference of opinion on method of distribution, there was the age-old shadow boxing between donor and recipient. I hate this mutual mistrust. It happens with every operation. Basically, we believe that the only way to guarantee that all the aid will be distributed to the needy is if you yourself put the spoon into the mouth of the beneficiary. Clearly this we cannot do. We have to trust and use the local agents. Sarajevo was a Central European capital. The professor was a man of honour but I’ve been ripped off by foreign royalty with degrees from Oxbridge, so I am cautious. My first thoughts were that he had been told to get the aid quickly because his masters wanted some of it to go to the army. I could understand this. Every resident in Sarajevo was happy to see the defenders of the city fed first. They were their own sons and husbands.

      If there was enough aid for everyone, I wanted every person in Sarajevo to get his or her share—be they doctors, dentists, pensioners, nurses, or soldiers. If there was not enough to go around, then I wanted the distribution to be to the most vulnerable, to the children, to the aged, to the homeless.

      The professor I learned to like and respect. The job that he had been given was the worst in Sarajevo. He was criticised by everyone. The citizens never appreciated how little we were able to bring in and accused the professor of either stealing it or misappropriating it. The authorities accused him of being too honourable. We accused him of being too slow and weak. His task was Herculean and Solomonic. I was later to visit his home. He had far less than anyone else. His family suffered because of his position. Initially, I gave him a hard time. I did not accord to him the respect he deserved.

      At the end of the meeting, whilst we were discussing the terrible plight of Sarajevo, both the professor and Mr. Pamuk requested that we divert aid to Gorazde. The citizens of Sarajevo who have little, wish to share that little with the citizens of Gorazde who have nothing. I reassured them that we were negotiating the entry of a convoy. But I knew that Fabrizio was having little success.

      Having visited the Government side, it was time for me to see the Serb side, to discuss their needs and their wishes.

      Fabrizio Hochschild had set the policy. He knew that aid to one side was morally wrong and practically impossible. There were many thousands of refugees in the Serb held territory around Sarajevo, mainly Serbs, but also some Croats and a few Muslims. All aid coming into Sarajevo passed through Serb territory. There was no way the Serbs would allow aid in to feed the population of Sarajevo without a share going to them. He was put under pressure to choose the suburb of Ilidza as the Serb side delivery and distribution centre but he chose the quieter area of Rajlovac. Hence a percentage of the aid arriving into Sarajevo was to be sent to the Rajlovac depot for distribution by the Serbs to the displaced and vulnerable in those parts of what had been the District of Sarajevo which was now in Serb hands. Both sides referred to these territories by the same names: “free Sarajevo” and “occupied Sarajevo,” but to each, of course, it had the opposite meaning.

      So I took my first trip across the front line to Rajlovac, which is, as the crow flies, close to Sarajevo airport. The warehouse is next to a huge railway yard and a small aircraft landing strip. I was met at the warehouse by the man responsible for distribution and his assistant. Milivoje Unkovic is an artist by training, a painter by choice. He was wearing an army uniform, but as an artist. It did not restrict him. It was as if a Bohemian was wearing army surplus. He is a neat, gentle, and handsome man. His assistant, Ljerka Jeftic, is the power. She is dark haired with a commanding voice. Polite but firm. Also present was Ljubisa Vladusic, the Commissioner for Refugees for the Serb side, from Pale. He is young, very tall, СКАЧАТЬ