The airlift was running as usual. Zagreb informed us by satphone of the take-off of the aircraft, the tower in Sarajevo told us of the arrival time. A well-established procedure after more than a thousand flights. Mike informed us of the take-off of the Italian plane and of the flight following it. The later plane arrived first. Unusual, but it had happened before. We waited for the Italian. No news. Both UNHCR and the tower contacted Zagreb. No news. The aircraft was posted as missing. Eerily we kept looking into the sky. But it never came. In the early afternoon, the rumours began that an aircraft had been shot down in the hills close to Sarajevo. Eric de Stabenrath took a group of marines out to investigate. UNHCR sent with him Ed Bishop, our immensely bright and energetic American Programme Officer whose qualifications included holding a pilot’s licence. Tony Land was visiting the Croat headquarters in Kiseljak on his journey back to Zagreb. The Croats told him of the downing of an aircraft and the discovery of wreckage. He set off to find it.
He met Eric and Ed at the crash site. The Hercules was carrying bales of blankets. It came down on a wooded hillside. The wreckage was spread over a small area. It had destroyed trees; small fires were smouldering, the smoke curling up to the roof of trees bedecked in blankets. Blankets were strewn for miles. The bodies of the crew were brought back to Sarajevo. The airlift was suspended. The Italian Government announced that the aircraft had been shot down by a missile. The Croats were unofficially blamed.
The next day, with no airlift, we had little aid to distribute but we decided to empty the stocks at the airport. We chose a bad day. Whilst unloading in the city, heavy shelling began, and our warehouse received seven shells. One vehicle was destroyed, but there were no casualties. We adjourned and returned the following day when fifteen rounds of sniper fire zinged around the trucks.
There was a narrow escape for Ed Bishop in the hangar. I was near my bedspace, Ed was on the satphone and Seyo the driver was standing close to him. One single machine gun round came flying through the hangar window above me on a downward trajectory. It missed Ed by an inch and hit a desk. Splinters from the desk injured the Seyo.
Not a good week.
Three
Gorazde
Returning from the airport to my desk in the PTT, I found the card of M. Bernard Kouchner, the French Minister and founder of MSF. It was he who had accompanied President Mitterand when Sarajevo airport was first opened. He had been brought to my office by Mr. Leon Davico, whom I knew from his UNHCR days when he was head of public information. We had last met in Addis Ababa. The card contained greetings from M. Kouchner and the telephone number of Leon, who was staying at the Holiday Inn. I immediately rang him. Leon is a man of many contacts around the world. He was born in Belgrade where I was certain he would know everyone who was anyone. I explained to him that I wanted to get to Gorazde and asked for his help.
– No problem—said Leon. I know Mrs. Plavsic very well. This was excellent news for me. She was a Professor of Biology at the University of Sarajevo. She had a flat in Sarajevo, but now as Vice President of the so called Srpska Republika, she lived in Pale and in Belgrade and was responsible for Humanitarian Affairs. Leon arranged for us to meet her, and I drove us both to the Serb army headquarters barracks at Lukavica on the outskirts of Sarajevo. When we arrived, it was obvious we were expected. We were taken upstairs to the main conference room at the end of the corridor. We were offered coffee, and then Mrs. Plavsic arrived. She is a tall, well-built woman with a very strong Slav face. She has a fine head of mouse brown hair. Her English is slow and hesitant but fluent. She was charming. She and Leon greeted each other in their native Serbo Croat. I was introduced, and English became the language of the discussion. Leon had a few messages from Bernard Kouchner.
Whilst we were talking, shelling began. Mrs. Plavsic said that whenever the Muslims saw that Lukavica had a visitor, they shelled. For sure, these were incoming rounds and they were not very far away. Leon introduced my background to Mrs. Plavsic. He told her that we had first met in Addis Ababa, and he outlined my current task—to provide aid to all sides.
His words were interrupted by an enormous bang. A shell had landed very close. We had heard the whistle, heard the thud, felt the windows rattle and the pressure change. A soldier who was outside the door entered the room and told us to get away from the windows. Mrs. Plavsic, I noted, was unflustered. She picked up her notes and her coffee and moved towards the door. There was another great bang, but this was an outgoing reply to the Muslim intrusion.
The soldier suggested that we find a less exposed room, one with less glass. We moved down the stairs to a tiny room with only a one pane window. It was also at the side of the building.
Mrs. Plavsic took all this in her stolid stride. We resumed our talk. I took the lead and explained that there was tremendous pressure on us to get aid through to Gorazde—UNHCR, led by Fabrizio Hochschild, whom I know you know well, has tried one attempt, but the convoy lost an APC and a truck in mine explosions. Mrs. Plavsic confirmed that she knew Fabrizio well. I had supported the convoy attempt and was sad at its outcome. I have no objection to you trying a convoy, but before you attempt Gorazde, I would like you to try to relieve two other Muslim villages which are cut off and desperate.
This answer was not what I expected. Her magnanimity took me by surprise. She went on to say that—there are Serb majority villages, isolated and starving which I should also like you to attempt to reach. This was good news for me, as I knew that all take and no give would not work in this environment. I showed great enthusiasm to learn the location of all these villages.
She was well prepared for my visit. She called in an army officer and arranged a further meeting for us with some military officers to pinpoint these other locations. She implied that a successful attempt on the easier targets would earn full support for an attempt on Gorazde. At no time did she say—No—to an attempt on Gorazde.
I returned to Sarajevo, very grateful to Leon for his introduction and kind words.
I went to see Eric de Stabenrath, the Lieutenant Colonel Operations Officer of the French battalion at the airport. His battalion had rescued the last attempt at Gorazde. Eric and I were determined that we were going to relieve the siege of Gorazde together. Eric’s background intrigued me. The name de Stabenrath is obviously not French. An ancestor of his had been secretary to one of the Louis’ who had ruled France. But Eric’s father had commanded the French Foreign Legion at Dien Bien Phu. The parallels between the French position in besieged, surrounded Sarajevo and in Dien Bien Phu were uncanny. Eric’s father had died in the closing hours of the battle.
In an unguarded moment, the reserved aristocrat, told me of the time, as a tiny child, when he had told his nanny that he no longer had a father. Long before the news was known, long before it could have travelled, he “knew.”
I had another “experience” with Eric. One day we went together to the “Airport Settlement.” This was a Serb enclave next to the airport adjoining Muslim majority Dobrinje. The Serb Liaison Officer Major Misha Indic told me that civilians lived there and requested food for them. The Bosnian government told me that only Serb soldiers were there. They demanded that I did not deliver any humanitarian aid there, as it would go only to Serb “fighters.”
I asked Eric to investigate. He confirmed that he had been there, with his incredibly brave translator, and visited the settlement and found families. There were women, children, grandmas and grandads living in houses bombed, almost, to dereliction. They needed food.
We decided to take it. A small convoy was organised. Major Indic was our guide. We took in a minimum of food. It was a wild day, lots of shooting and a lot of shelling. In the middle of it all, Indic, who has an impish, nay devilish, sense of humour, took us to a house for coffee. We sat on the floor in the courtyard, the tiny, damaged, house was surrounded by the walls of others. The lady of the house prepared us coffee. In the group was a grandma. Indic knew that she had a reputation for “reading” the coffee cups. As an Englishman, I knew all about “reading” tea leaves. It had never occurred to me that coffee grounds have the same effect.
The