and cerebrally. A fluent speaker with an enviable vocabulary he was, without a doubt, “in charge.” He exuded command and confidence. A brilliant choice. I learned that his hobby is racing cars. If I had to guess his hobby, racing cars would have been alongside sky diving or big game hunting as my first choices for him.
I took my inaugural trip into the city to visit the UNHCR warehouse at the Zetra Olympic stadium and to see the city authorities. It was an opportunity to view the devastation already suffered in the opening days of the war. The newspaper office of Oslobodjenje with the core of its tower still standing, defying the Serb gunners who can see it but whose skills are not sufficient to demolish it and symbolising to the world the spirit of the Oslobodjenje staff bowed, battered but not beaten. Daily, they produce a newspaper, regardless of the intensity of the shelling, the appalling conditions, or even the lack of proper “news.” It had a multi-ethnic staff. Sadly, it could not avoid single side propaganda which, on occasions, demeaned its excellence. Next to Oslobodjenje is the garish building, known as the “Rainbow Hotel,” built to house old people but taken over by the UN as an accommodation block. The location of one of its first ignominies. It flew the UN flag but was shelled. The UN vehicles in the car park were destroyed, the patches of white on the shattered and burned vehicles were to remind generations of UN soldiers of the first insult. We passed by the PTT building, which was the headquarters of UNPROFOR, the turning marked by an abandoned tram. On the left is the TV building. A concrete monstrosity which, pre-war, attracted tremendous criticism for its prison-like exterior. In war, it was to prove a gold medal winner. Its windowless walls, its solid exterior, its construction, rejected the Serb calling cards. It became office and studio to many international journalists and home to some.
Our first port of call was to the Municipality, a dark brown stone building next to the Presidency, to pay a courtesy call on Mr. Pamuk the director of the city. His title initially confused me, but he explained that he was the senior civil servant in the city and the district of Sarajevo. A powerful post. He was pleased to see me. My grey hairs pleased him. So far, he had been told how to run his city by men the age of his sons. We had an immediate empathy. I had neither youth nor solution. He is maybe forty-five, on a bad day he looks a little like Brezhnev, on a good day like Lord Healey. He has a craggy face, dark thick hair, prominent eyebrows, eyes which laugh a lot, and a voice honed and trained on rough tobacco. He wears a dark grey party suit. He is a product of the party but has a mind which has easily adapted to the circumstances of today. I liked him, I knew that we could work together. I promised to return later in the week when he would have in his office the committee for the distribution of aid.
We then moved to the Holiday Inn hotel, home of many journalists. We were to meet Minister Martin Raguz who was responsible for Refugee Affairs. The Holiday Inn Hotel is a magnet for Serb shells, in truth its hideous yellow outer walls would be the target of many a brickbat in times of peace. We were driven to the main entrance, made a quick dash to the front door. It was part glass, part fresh air. To the right of the entrance is the reception desk where bored staff deal with tired journalists. A notice board near the door attempts to answer the most routine enquiries. We crossed the reception hall. Our presence was noted by the cabals of media men pocketed about the bar area. We climbed the large but clumsy central staircase and turned to the right. The Minister was waiting for us in a private dining room. Martin Raguz is a young man, perhaps thirty. He is a Croat, tall, dark and presumably attractive to women. As it turned out, he was accompanied by two very attractive secretaries.
We were served a meal. My first meal away from the hangar. It was called burek, a pie with meat inside it. They were war economy portions but it was more than I expected. The Holiday Inn survives because of its clientele. The journalists are paid well, many have a generous expense account. They pay in hard currency. The hotel management is therefore able to do deals with checkpoints to bring in food to satisfy customers as voracious at table as they are on the streets.
This meeting was very important to me. It was the first time that I realised the significance of working in Sarajevo. Mr. Pamuk and I had been talking about the needs of Sarajevo. Minister Raguz was talking about the needs of Bosnia Herzegovina (BiH). The UNHCR man in Sarajevo was thus double hatted. Talking to the local authorities on Sarajevo and to the government on BiH. Martin Raguz wanted to talk about aid to his nation. He wanted us to support computer links to the principal towns, he wanted to know how much aid had been delivered to each region, how much was planned. He talked as if there was not a war raging around us, as if communications were normal. I realised that he thought that we, the UN, were better organised than we were. He was presuming that we had a great plan and a system to match. He talked about aid to those areas which were isolated. He mentioned Gorazde, the first time I ever heard the name. He asked if we could send a convoy there urgently. I left the table realising that I had a lot to learn. Feeding Sarajevo looked as if it was only half of the job.
I returned to the airport and sat with the drivers and a map. They showed me where Gorazde was. They explained that it was in Eastern Bosnia. It had been a multi-ethnic town with a Muslim majority but was now surrounded by territory which had fallen into Bosnian Serb hands. They patiently explained that to get there I would need Serb approval and that it was not in the interests of the Serbs to permit aid to enter Gorazde. The Serbs wished to starve the Muslims into submission, then to move them out to Central Bosnia, releasing the whole of Eastern Bosnia to the Serbs. My drivers showed me two other places also besieged, Zepa and Srebrenica. Gorazde was enough for me in one night.
Now that I was aware of the dual role of UNHCR, I needed to know who was who in the government as well as in the city. I began to do battle with the names. The President of Bosnia Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegovic, I could manage. The mayor of Sarajevo, Mr. Kresevljakovic was going to take some time.
My second evening was noisy. I stood with the RAF boys and the drivers outside the hangar and watched a battle begin. A tank on the Serb held hill began firing into Butmir. Government-held Dobrinja replied from behind us, Serb held Lukavica joined in over our heads, and Butmir replied. Serb held Airport settlements then fired on Butmir. The rounds flew above our heads, low enough to hear their passage, high enough to avoid frightening us. As darkness fell the tracer rounds flew like rockets across the sky. Following tracer shell is fascinating but macabre. The trace disappears at the end of the trajectory of the round, there is a delay, then an increasing rumble, and slowly flames flicker into the sky. It is at first easy to be taken in by the event and to forget the reality of the action. Perhaps at first we see it as we see a movie film. Later, when I was close enough to see the action and to hear the screams, the fascination had gone, replaced by the horror of the result and my hatred of the perpetrators.
On this second night in Sarajevo, we were reminded of our own vulnerability as a rocket exploded close to us. Its multi-head spitting shrapnel close to where we stood. Steve Potter decided that the priority for tomorrow was the building of a bunker. I went to bed tired but excited, my head reeling with “ic’s.”
Each day started with a conference at seven thirty. It was chaired by the military commander of the airport, a French officer, and attended by the heads of each of the units. UNHCR and UN Civilian Police were the “civilian” units. The runway was swept every morning before the conference by a road sweeper vehicle. The shrapnel, and the rounds, the debris from the previous night’s battle were collected and weighed. The weight was solemnly announced at the conference and the more interesting items were handed around. A light night was one sandbag full of malicious metal. The French battalion commander or his deputy, usually my friend Eric, would then brief us on the activity as seen from his positions on the roof aided by infrared night sights and the reports of his sentries and liaison officers.
Whilst we slept, the airport, like the desert and the jungle, came to life. Men, women and children from all sides would attempt to cross the airport to the “safety” of the other side. The majority of the traffic was from the city to Mount Igman. The French who were responsible for the safety and the neutrality of the airport would turn a blind eye to some attempts but were compelled to challenge the majority. The IR or heat-seeking devices would locate a large group elbowing their way across the airport. The searchlight would be switched on and the people invited to stand up. They were then returned to their own side with no further action taken by the UN. Many were escaping never to return; some wore their best clothes. The sister of my