Tuzla was a real break from Vitez. First off, it was B Sqn 9/12 Lancers all on their own up there in a few blocks at Dubrave military airfield. They shared this with the BiH who operated their Hip helicopters from there and thus attracted Serb artillery fire. The airfield was overlooked by a hill called the Vis feature about ten kilometres away. The Serbs were on that too – the name of the game in war is ‘grab the high ground’. This airfield was huge, flat and had plenty of redundant runways. Tuzla itself was half an hour’s drive away. Most of the aid agencies were up there trying to help this rather large and beleaguered town. The centrepiece was the Tuzla hotel, home to all the internationals including the press.
Conditions at the airfield were spartan. There was no fresh food as there was no refrigerator, so we were all on compo permanently. B Sqn were a very relaxed and professional bunch. Captain Tim Hercock had been left in charge while Alan Abraham was on leave. Dave Bennett was the Ops Officer and Mark Cooper was the LO in Tuzla and knew the place and ‘smells’ inside out. But the weird thing was there was no work for me there either. Not a single convoy was crossing the front line at Kalesija. One day the Mayor of Tuzla, Selim Beslagic, just ups and says, ‘We’re not accepting your UN aid until you do something about our Muslim brothers in Cerska. We can’t accept your aid while they’re being ethnically cleansed by the aggressor.’ Just like that. It floored us. Each day we’d drive down to Kalesija to escort an aid convoy from Belgrade across the line and each day zip, nothing. The BiH refused to let anything cross into their territory. Clever tactic, but they had a point – morally they couldn’t allow food aid convoys from Belgrade, transiting Serb-held territory, to enter Tuzla, be unloaded and then scoff the food while Muslims in Eastern Bosnia were being cleansed out of their homes.
This didn’t come out of nowhere. It had its origins back on 7 January. The Muslims weren’t just holed up in Gorazde. There was an enclave in a deep valley at Zepa and another in a valley at Srebrenica. On 7 January a BiH fighting patrol hoofs it out of Srebrenica and trashes a number of Serb villages along the Drina. Then the Chetniks in Sarajevo murder the Bosnian Deputy Prime Minister. Serbs in Eastern Bosnia go wild at the trashing of their villages which triggers a wave of ethnic cleansing around Zvornik, Cerska and in a broad valley called Konjevic Polje. Most of this goes unreported simply because there’s no press to report it. So the first we really hear of it is when the Mayor of Tuzla forbids UN aid.
The UN effort in Tuzla ground to a halt. Hercock, Cooper and I popped down to the UNHCR office where Anders Levinson, a Danish ex-footballer and now head of office in Tuzla, shows us his plan to relieve the town. I’m not sure he’d quite grasped what was going on. They didn’t want our food. His plan horrifies us because he’s planning to fly Herc-loads of food into the airfield, just like that. None of this has been cleared with anyone and it would have ended in disaster. The Serbs would have shelled the shit out of the airfield, destroyed the aircraft and claimed that the UN was gunrunning for the Muslims. At Sarajevo there were Serb inspectors, who checked the aircraft and the aid, but at Tuzla there were none. You just couldn’t up and do an airlift into the place, and even then you can’t force people to eat your food.
After a week of this there’s no point me hanging around Tuzla so, one night, Mark Cooper and I hoof it down to Vitez in his Land Rover. He’s off on R&R. A lot starts happening very quickly. We’re into the beginning of March now. The snow has begun to melt, Nick and Alan Abraham come back from R&R and that night we’re having a huge dinner in the Bosna restaurant because quite a few of the Cheshires’ officers are leaving early, posted to other jobs in the UK. Either Nick or I have to go back up to Tuzla; we agree that it should be me. But the next morning Nick’s up before me. I’m in tatters and not ready to catch the transport but Nick’s not bothered. He likes it up in Tuzla and agrees to take my place. That was pure fate. That’s how delicately your life hangs in the balance. Anything can affect the course of events including a hangover!
Meantime, because of the business in Srebrenica, General Morillon’s touch paper has been lit. He blasts off from the Residency in Sarajevo, comes screaming out of the city like an Exocet, turns right and disappears up to Tuzla and Zvornik, trailing hot gasses. He grabs Alan and Nick and they probe south through Serb territory, trying to make contact, to halt this wave of ethnic cleansing. Without Nick and Alan he somehow makes it into Srebrenica with his interpreter, a giant Macedonian/Frenchman called Mihajlov, and his British MA, a fluent French speaker called Major Piers Tucker. Once in Srebrenica he hoists the UN flag over the small PTT building, promises solidarity and pledges that Srebrenica will never be abandoned. Very brave, but he’s marooned there with no contact except through the Muslims’ ham radio. C130s then start dropping food aid right across Eastern Bosnia, mainly into Gorazde, Zepa, Srebrenica and Cerska.
Confused reports start coming out of Srebrenica. No one’s quite sure what Morillon’s status is there. BHC is in a flap and there’s a rumour that Morillon and his gang are actually hostages of Naser Oric, the BiH commander in the pocket. Another report suggests that Morillon, who has been in there a week or so by this time, is in dire straits – no food, nothing. And then this little message slips out of Srebrenica, ‘Send more Davidoff cigars!’ Cool! But you’ve got this general stuck in this pocket barking for more cigars while down in Split there’s this unit of French Special Forces all set to bust into the valley and rescue him. Madness! After about nine days he makes it out and reappears in Zvornik where the enraged population goes insane, kicks his car, spits at him and screams, ‘Morillon is a liar!’
He fails to get back into Srebrenica so returns to Sarajevo to plan the relief of the pocket. I remember driving up to BHC one day with Bob Stewart who tells me that one plan is to drop paratroopers into the enclave. He asks me what I think. I’ve already looked at the map and tell him, ‘Madness! Only if you want them all to get broken legs. It’s a steep-sided and heavily wooded valley, not a frigging drop zone. Can only be done by free-fall or by steerable “squares” but then not in sufficient numbers. Plan’s barking!’
In and amongst this little lot, I’ve still got Jackson’s bloody parcel to deliver. Again, the opportunity comes out of nowhere on the back of the PWO’s visit. Lieutenant-Colonel Alistair Duncan and some of his staff who’ll be taking over from the Cheshires in May are out doing their recce. One day Bryan Watters takes his opposite number, the PWO’s 2IC, Major Richard Watson, into Sarajevo. BRITBAT had a responsibility under the UN withdrawal plan called Plan 006 whereby the route through the Sierras into Sarajevo would be held by them while the city is evacuated of UN personnel. It was a distant prospect but the plan existed. Brian and Richard decide to go in and review the plan with whomsoever in HQ Sector Sarajevo. I offer to go with them as interpreter for the checkpoints. Neither of them has been into Sarajevo before. The day before, I grab the SQMS and liberate the stores of as much food as I can stuff into my bergen: whole Edam cheeses, blocks of UHT milk, bags of sugar, coffee, tea, matches, candles, just about anything I can lay my hands on. So I’m sitting in the back of this Land Rover, bergen weighing a ton, the parcel hidden away under a blanket. We bluff our way through the Sierras and get into Sarajevo.
As before, Peter Jones takes us all to Ulica Romanijska, where the Pijalovics live. I’m hoping Minka Pijalovic will be in. Bryan Watters insists on accompanying me up the stairs. This time they are in. A plump, middle-aged lady with a sweet face opens the door, sees me, and starts wailing, ‘My Aida! My Aida has come!’ We’re in her tiny kitchen and she’s hugging me, wailing and crying, asking me one question after another. We’ve only got a few minutes so I’m unpacking the bergen like mad, dumping everything on the floor. Minka is crying her eyes out. Her husband, Munir, a thin man, is weeping silently and all the