Extract from The
Dream of the Decade by Afshin Rattansi
ISBN
1-4196-1686-2
Library of Congress
Control Number 2005909384
All Rights Reserved (c) 2005 Afshin Rattansi
Extract from The Dream of the
Decade by Afshin Rattansi
Book Four, Good Morning, Britain pages 560-586
All Rights Reserved (c) 2005 Afshin Rattansi
Jonathan had never been to another country before. He had
collected and dropped off people destined for overseas from airports,
coach and rail stations but had never found the time or money to go
away.
He was keen to research the history of Yugoslavia but soon realised
from the thickness of recent histories that he would have no
time. Most of his preparation concerned how to get there.
The easiest way, so his computer said, was to get a flight with the
United Nations High Commission for Refugees which had a base in Ancona,
on the Adriatic coast of Italy. The RAF, German and Belgian air
forces were based there, in an operation run by the British. As
he sat with the printout, he sometimes looked at the pile of video
rushes that he was to log and code as a squeamishness test. The
rushes had just been fed in on the “bird”, or satellite,
and he had to check which images were suitable for Britain’s
evening meal viewing.
The notes on Yugoslavia would at first
be over-simple and then impossible. To Jonathan, the sentence
“UNPROFOR cards are essential as usual but CANNOT be issued in
Ancona, only in Zagreb or Belgrade” meant as little as the
reasons for the war itself. Quickly, he scanned which Alitalia
flights flew from Rome and Milan to Ancona. Then he looked at the
possibility of travelling from Split on Mondays, Thursdays and
Saturdays. The Split-Rome flight could then take him to Ancona
via Rome but he was told he must bear in mind that because of NATO
“air movements” the advertised flight duration of one hour
was now double that
.
Any time Jonathan wanted to devote to understanding the actual conflict
was now wholly shelved in favour of travel arrangements. Another
way to Sarajevo, he discovered, was to go to the UNHCR office located
in a cargo-warehouse next door to Ancona’s customs office.
Because the sentry on the gate was likely to be a British soldier,
Corporation staff would be well directed, so his printout said.
There was also a direct way to Sarajevo via the town of Split with the
RAF or the Royal Navy. According to one Corporation journalist,
it was thanks to Navy Sea King helicopters based at the military
heliport near Trogir that a spare part for a satellite dish was
urgently flown to a crew in Sarajevo, so in theory one could go via
Trogir too. It was also possible to fly with the Red Cross on
their “soup kitchen” flight from Zagreb. There was
another way that would have made arrangements much easier but the US
Air Force jets that regularly flew between Frankfurt and Sarajevo were
not permitting journalists to hop along on sorties.
In the back of Jonathan’s mind, whilst Jonathan organised his
journey, was that, so far, a quarter of a million people had died in
the fighting in Yugoslavia. The UN had issued customs warnings to
all travellers:
“To
all passengers on UNHCR Humanitarian airlift to Sarajevo. As
weight of baggage recently has been excessive and due to incidents
according to the content, the rules given by UNHCR AIR OPERATIONS
GENEVA as of 19 January 1993 and due to mutual agreement between UNHCR
Split and CIVPOL of 2 August 1993 are stated below in extract as
follows:
Revision 1
a. For reasons of safety
and security, the following control will be strictly enforced for all
passengers. Passengers and baggage will be subject to search for
the purpose of determining whether the passenger is in possession of,
or his baggage contains any, items which are likely to endanger the
aircraft, items prohibited under applicable laws, regulations or
orders, explosives, firearms, ammunition or any type of military or
paramilitary material or components thereof. Such searches will
be conducted at the airport of departure by UN authorities and/or by
the aircraft operators/crew. If a passenger is unwilling to
comply with such a search, the carrier may refuse to accept the
passenger or baggage.
This part was little different from advice to passengers on civilian airliners.
b.
If firearms or associated ammunition are being carried, these must be
declared and surrendered to the aircraft commander for safe custody
during the flight. There can be no exception to this rule.
Aircraft commanders may refuse to take on board such articles.
Jonathan envisaged arms dealers smiling as they offered their guns to the flight crew so that they were in safe custody.
c.
Passengers will be permitted to carry personal baggage only.
Baggage is limited to two suitcases and one piece of hand luggage and
should be properly marked with the owner’s name. The total
baggage should NOT EXCEED 20kgs.
d. Aircraft schedules will
not be delayed or amended to satisfy passenger travel
requirements. ALL PASSENGERS TO SARAJEVO MUST HAVE HELMETS AND
FLAKJACKETS. Passengers are not allowed to bring more than: 5
cartons of cigarettes 5 bottles of alcohol 5 bags of coffee (250g each)
6 private letters. The letters must be presented to CIVPOL
monitors when check takes place. Passengers are fully responsible
for the content of the letters.
A BBC journalist added:
It
is still possible to fly from Split but the French armed forces who run
air movements are very bureaucratic, none too helpful to journalists,
and inclined to tell you after you’ve arrived in Split that
there’s a ten-day waiting list for flights.
Jonathan now tried to remember his hazard course, uneasy that a
day’s training, months ago, would be sufficient for his producing
from Sarajevo. He shuffled his papers to look at what he should
bring with him.
1.
Previous attempts by the media to accompany army convoys with 2-wheel
drive vehicles have ended in tears, in one case with the vehicle having
to be abandoned. You are strongly advised to acquire a 4-wheel
drive vehicle if you are intending to operate over these routes.
2. Acquire the following and carry with your vehicle on every trip.
a. 6 x Crepe
bandages 1 x Airway 2 x Morphine syrettes (if possible) The Army cannot
supply any of the above to civilian personnel.
b. Vehicle
jack Wheel brace Tow rope Full jerrycan of fuel Hammer and crowbar
Clear plastic sheeting and adhesive tape (temporary repair for smashed
windscreens) Anti-freeze and oil Spare bulbs;
c. (High sugar
content) 5 litres of water fuel stove and messtin sleeping bags per
person torch and spare batteries Clasp knife Map and Compass Body
armour and Helmet Corkscrew and bottle-opener;
d. Finally, know and mark your blood group clearly on your body armour.
3. Military
operations are designed to achieve a specific aim with the minimum of
delay and disruption, and to be capable of also dealing with unexpected
contingencies. If you treat your operation in a similar vein you
should be able to achieve your aim, keep up with the military operation
(without becoming a burden or being left behind) and to cope with both
the hostile environment and hostile natives. Below is a checklist
you are advised to run before starting:
a. Attend P Info brief on operation, noting route, objective, danger areas and any specific problems advised.
b. Ensure your vehicle and jerrycans are full.
c. Check Oil
level Washer level Fanbelt Tyre pressure and grip (snowchains may be
required) Coolant and windscreen wash levels
d. Clean Lights Windows Press markings
e. Check your medical, vehicle and personal kits are complete.
f. Book out
with someone, leave details of who is in the vehicle, your intended
route and destination and when you are due back.
g. Finally, put your body armour on, you may not get a chance later.
4. Give any
armoured vehicles you encounter considerable room to manoeuvre.
The effects of “Panzer Rash” have already been tragically
and dramatically demonstrated. Armour bites!!!…Warrior and
CVR(T) are both capable of sustaining high speeds on road and
cross-country, up to 70+ mph. They are both capable of stopping
from speed within their own length, considerably faster than your
vehicle. When they stop their rear rises up on its
suspension. Should you be travelling behind one when it slams on
the brakes you will impact with the belly of the vehicle. The
vehicle will then sit back on your bonnet, if you’re
lucky!…Warrior weighs up to 30 tons, CVR(T) over 8 tons and
FV432 over 15 tons.
5. a.
Many of the tracks in use are very narrow and make bypassing a major
problem. Keep at least 50 metres apart at all times. This
also makes sound military sense.
b. Please don’t overtake without talking to the P Info staff or convoy commander.
6. High Risk
Areas If you are told that you are entering a high risk area the
following additional precautions should be taken.
a. Open side
windows and turn off stereos. This will enable you to hear
incoming fire and possibly the firing of mortars nearby.
b. Remove
seat-belts to be able to de-bus swiftly or facilitate casualty
evacuation. c. All passengers should look outward covering
a 360 degree arc around the vehicle.
7. For
vehicles in the convoy, the following actions should be taken to ensure
everyone the best chance of survival.
a. direct fire or
artillery fire it is important that the following vehicles do not cross
the killing area unnecessarily. If you hear firing ahead but are
out of sight of the contact you should immediately pull off to the side
of the road, using the terrain to shield you from the firing.
(There is a good possibility that the vehicles ahead will come rushing
back. If it’s armour you certainly don’t want to be
in its way.) Any accompanying P Info personnel will direct you in
extracting yourself from the vicinity. In the meantime you should
take cover away from the vehicle (large fuel tanks especially!) leaving
your engine running. Unlike the movies cars don’t stop
bullets. Under no circumstances should you go forward unless
cleared by P Info.
b. should make all speed
to exit the killing area. Trying to second-guess the man with his
finger on the trigger only wastes time. Most of the tracks are
not suitable for zigzagging and you’ll only be overtaken by the
rest or, worse, slow everybody else behind you. Once you are
clear you should go past the P Info escort and stop the car in the
nearest cover, giving consideration for the number of vehicles behind
you who will want to do the same. fire. This is the signal
to increase speed. 4-way flashers should not be used in the
danger areas for any other purpose
In the aeroplane, Jonathan continued to read and for the most part he
was undisturbed. The other passengers were from the UN and were
keen to read their own operations’ manuals. And so, after
less than twenty-four hours he arrived at Sarajevo airport, complete
with boxes of food and emergency equipment. He was due to be
picked up by a producer who was leaving Bosnia, as was the form when
new journalists arrived. Harry Colson, a twenty-nine year old
producer had been there for a month and was expected to tell him about
all current news events that might have taken place whilst he was in
transit. Colson was about two hours late, held up on Airport
Lane, a slip road that had earned the epithet “Murder
Mile”. While Jonathan waited for him, a UNHCR truck-driver
asked whether he wanted a lift, but Jonathan preferred to wait, not
keen on leaving the terminal, what with the sounds of sniper fire
echoing around the corrugated iron walls. Jonathan had never been
so scared since his first days in London.
“Colson’s mine, what’s yours?” he said,
touching Jonathan on the shoulder, “name, man…what’s
your name?”
“Jonathan…”
“I’m afraid it looks like it’s getting pretty rough
for you, down here. My job was tough and yours is going to be
even tougher. Anyway, at least you’ll have a full tank of
petrol,” he held up a rusted vacuum flask, “and, of course,
Zolin.” He pointed to a short smiling man with a knapsack
on his back who was chatting with a soldier by the terminal
entrance. “He should help you out. He’s better
than some of the others, at least.”
“Well, how have you found it then?” Jonathan asked,
intrigued by such little Corporation solidarity. He thought
Colson would have been pleased to see him.
“Scared?” Colson motioned him to one of the airport chairs dotted around the floor.
“All the information on the computer didn’t really give me
much confidence about the place and nor did the footage,”
Jonathan confided.
“It’s not so bad. The Holiday Inn even has laundry
today,” Colson took out a cigarette and lit it with a shaking
hand. He looked older than twenty-nine, perhaps because of his
large size. Jonathan followed Colson’s eyes downwards and
looked at the tins of pasta beside his own feet and wondered if he had
really needed to bring so much stuff all this way.
“Let’s see, what should I tell you? We’ve got
electricity, thanks to the hotel genny. And, there’s a
sniper who’s still doing target practice at the back of the
hotel. There’s three meals a day. Oh, and check out
the Queen of the Danube restaurant, which is still running.
There’s no beer though and nothing in the markets. Though
you shouldn’t really be going to the markets anyway,” he
was speaking energetically, obviously excited about the city of
Sarajevo.
“Well, if I can’t leave the hotel, how can I get any filming done?” Jonathan inquired.
“Best thing is to wait for the UN convoys. Move around with
them. No points for dying, you know.” Colson looked
up at what turned out to be a stopped clock on the wall and then at his
watch. “Don’t drink the water. Allan, our
cameraman is pretty ill at the hotel because of that.”
“Is he alright?”
“He’s much better now. Basically, use the
sterilisation tablets. What else? The only place to get
petrol is at Kiseljak in Croatia, some people from the pool have gone
to get some more. Also, do you smoke?”
“No, is that compulsory?” Jonathan joked.
“Did you bring any Marlboro?” Colson was very serious.
“Yes, I read about that.”
“Well, keep a lighter on you and a torch. You don’t
want to be caught out when the electricity fails. Oh and
don’t drive like the blazes when you speed off from the hotel,
just because of the snipers. If you crash the car, you’ll
be stuck outside the hotel like a sitting duck. Just use your
head. And, if you have to come to the airport for some reason
only use the UNPROFOR armoured vehicles. They’re always
going back and forth.”
“I should probably have gone with them today, then, someone
offered me a lift,” Jonathan said, as a deathly firing
intensified.
“Armoured cars can’t stop rockets,” Colson said,
shaking his head, “so it’s not much safer with them.”
“How’s the hotel doing then, otherwise?”
Jonathan asked, thinking quickly of questions he should ask and looking
up again at the stopped clock.
“Ten storeys high,” Colson gesticulated with his hands,
“except that the top five are kind of open plan,” he
laughed, “then there’s the south side of the hotel,
that’s uninhabitable, the whole thing. The other three
sides are open for business. Don’t listen to the hotel
staff though. They say that there are safe sides to the
hotel. They’ll tell you that rooms on the west and north
sides are fine. The UN gave us an unofficial briefing about
that. Apparently there’s people firing at all sides of the
hotel, and the Holiday Inn, well,” Colson stroked his chin and
smiled a stubbly grin, “the Holiday Inn has taken more direct
hits than any other building in Sarajevo except the Presidency.
Take room 216 on the North side, get your key in the lock, open the
door and with one step, you’re off of the building. That
was hit with a 105mm tank shell. A 155mm Howitzer shell destroyed
the entire eighth floor.” Colson smiled again, while his gaze
wandered to a group of head-scarved women, eyes to the floor, who had
just entered the terminal building, carrying boxes.
Jonathan looked in his box for a Coke and opened it as quietly as he could before offering it to Colson.
“Don’t necessarily sleep in your room, either,”
Colson said between sips, “there’s a discotheque in the
basement.”
“Discotheque?” he asked, watching a young boy on crutches approach from one of the corners of the room.
“That’s one of the best places to sleep. I’ve been
staying there. There are mattresses on the floor and it’s
one place where you can’t hear so much of the gunfire. As
for the food,” Colson brushed some Coke from above his top lip,
“there are three meals a day, but no choice and the washing is a
nightmare. There is water, brought in by the UN, but it’s
cold showers only, I’m afraid. But there are some good
things. You’re too late for the Sarajevo Sniper, if
you’re into that sort of thing. It’s a jolly good
cocktail they make at the bar. It’s made of basically
anything they have around. If you’re a drinking man,
it’s mainly gin and tonics. Zolin knows where all the other
places of interest are. AP are staying at a brothel called the
Belvedere, at least it was a brothel.” AP stood for
Associated Press, one of the wire services.
“I read something about the Hotel Bosna. Does AP still have an office there still?”
“It’s still there, just. It was mortared pretty
heavily…needs a bit of redecorating. Oh, by the way, all
phone calls in Sarajevo are still free. But that’s only
within Sarajevo. It’s on the 071 exchange so you
can’t call Croatia or Serbia, though. Apparently, the lines
are all routed through Belgrade and the Croats won’t let Sarajevo
use their microwave link to Zagreb.”
Jonathan looked confused, his eyelids drooping slowly as he tried to assimilate all the information.
“Let me explain,” Colson said, looking up at a mark on the
ceiling for an instant, “Kiseljak is Croat and Pale and Ilidza
are Serb. Right? Anyhow, you’ll pick it up.
Were you ever in the TA?”
“TA? Er, no.”
“Territorials? No TA-experience? Oh dear. What
school did you go to, then?” Colson laughed before they
both heard a large bang outside. There was a pause during which
Colson’s short hair began to twitch and his nose wince.
“Damn, no camera. I could have done with a last
report. How’s my stuff looking on the news anyway?”
“Good, good coverage, I suppose.” Jonathan remembered
thinking about how he had learnt nothing from Colson’s dispatches
from Yugoslavia, other than there was a lot of fighting.
“Oh, there was a bit of murmuring in the office about why you
were standing up in a street doing a piece to camera whilst there was
firing all around.”
“Oh that, that was just dubbing in the editing studio. We
just dubbed the sound over. I did try to do a PTC whilst there
was firing, but I didn’t get it right, so we just moved on.
There’s plenty of good locations for that sort of stuff.”
Jonathan nodded as Colson drained his can, vertically.
“I’ve tried to save my room for you so you should be able
to take it. The windows are all smashed in, but the phone
works. Anyway, if you want to phone outside Sarajevo, best to use
a Satphone. Zolin’s looking after it. But,
don’t forget, if you get separated, you won’t be able to
call him because calling a Satphone is technically an international
call.” Colson got up and hoisted a big bag over his right
shoulder. “Oh, and don’t turn the lights on in the
room, you’ll get shot.”
***
The
ochre-facaded Holiday Inn was built for the 1992 Sarajevo Olympics, not
that Jonathan got much of a chance to view its exterior. He was
shaken by what he had seen on the journey to the hotel and was
recovering from the trauma in a gloomy corner of the ground floor of
the hotel.
Only after half an hour could even look around to scrutinise what was
around him. He looked up and saw Mark, an experienced Corporation
producer, some twenty-six years old smiling down at him. Mark had
begun to give an impromptu briefing, mostly about how experienced he
was. What disturbed and impressed Jonathan was Mark’s sense
of excitement rather than fear. He was wearing a flak jacket that
he said had belonged to one of his cameramen, now dead.
“Look at the holes in the back, here and here,” he said,
heaving the jacket up like a matador. Whilst two others, writers
for European magazines, negotiated the selling of a carton of
cigarettes, Jonathan asked Mark about how long he’d been in
Sarajevo.
“A couple of months,” he sniffed, “I’m here for
the long term, producing for the big one,” his brown eyes looked
upwards to the dark ceiling above in an attempt to communicate who
exactly he was producing for. His lofty expression could only
mean that he was producing the main evening news reports for the
Corporation, with the Corporation’s principal reporter.
”It’s good work. Once I’m back in London, she
says I’ll go straight to the top of the queue at the Foreign
Desk, Newsnight, you name it.”
Just as Mark was about to continue his talk about Bosnia, he suddenly
seemed agitated. He had seen an older journalist colleague, a
black Frenchman with a long face, named Patrice. Patrice came
over to the two of them and looking inquisitively at Jonathan. He
was taller and looked tougher than Mark. For a few moments, he
spoke in French to someone who was trying to get a ride to the airport.
“Well, that’s my work done, or not done,” he said
turning to Mark, “I’m going to Angola or maybe
Rwanda. I’m sick of all this shit, of all your shit.
The entire media operation in Sarajevo is a sham. We don’t
understand it so I don’t know how our folks at home are going
to. The editors I’m writing for said I was doing great work
which can only mean that while I’ve been here, being fired at,
France has gone completely mad.
“Anyway, at least my stuff hasn’t been as bad as your
Corporation crap. You’ve been doing the worst coverage of
all apart from the German stations.” He turned to look at
Jonathan, like a pro to an amateur, “this war is about money,
like all fucking wars. But I don’t suppose Mark here is
going to go for that angle for his blessed Corporation….The West
has wanted to destroy Yugoslavia for half a century. And now they
have a maniac in power they’ve poured in British and German made
arms. The arms your country have built and exported around the
world kill more people in an hour than die here in a
month.” He was only just warming to his topic, taunting
Mark with unconcealed disgust. “Your country is the
absolute worst, your government is fucking giving away weapons away to
maim and murder, it’s as if they think arms are bloody medical
supplies.”
“It may be millions that are dying in Rwanda, Patrice,”
Mark interrupted, “but this is Europe and I’m sorry but
Europe counts. That’s where everything starts.
I’m afraid that 250,000 Bosnians are worth more than a couple of
million blacks,” Mark continued, sadly. “You know,”
he said more angrily, “I think I know this place a little better
than you, thank-you very much. And I certainly know a bit more
than you about Great Britain and its arms’ trade. Look, I
was here in Yugoslavia before you’d heard of the place, I took my
holidays here while you were wasting your time in Central America, like
some macho…”
Jonathan detected that this was more the banter of two friends than a
spiteful feud. There was mutual pleasure below these harsh
words. As if confirming Jonathan’s deduction, Patrice
sympathetically advised Mark that he had heard that Zaire would be the
next big story. At that, Patrice beckoned a thin, dusty-faced
porter carrying a couple of suitcases and walked towards the crowd at
the door, waiting for the next lull in the fighting outside.
“Sorry about that guys,” Mark said, slapping his
right cheek with an open palm and getting the attention of the two
European journalists. Oh, Hi Tim!… Hi Fiona!”
He looked up at a couple of British newspaper writers who had joined
the group. “I was just about to explain to the new people
all about Bosnia.”
“Oh, we missed your lecture last time, can we
listen?” said Fiona, a brown-haired, short woman with large
cheeks.
“Right, then,” Mark said, conspiratorially. He teased
opened a box of matches. “These matches are going to
represent the various factions. First there’s these people,
the Bosnian Government army or Arm-ee-ya Republike Bosn-eyee
Hertz-o-govina or Arm-ee-ya for short,” Mark’s face
contorted as he pronounced the foreign words, his mouth enlarging into
a letter-box like opening.
“Ar-mee-ya are called OS BiH in Sarajevo. It’s a
potent force and is organised regionally,” Mark began to place
pairs of matchsticks on the table, “there’s the First Corps
in Sarajevo, the Third in Zenica, the Sixth in Kon-yic. Notice
that it’s wrong to refer to them as the Muslim Army or the
Bosnian Muslim Army as there are some Croats and even Serbs in the
Ar-mee-ya. Right, now, over here,” he opened another box of
matches, these ones with red tips instead of blue, “these are the
ARS or Ar-mee-ya Republike Srpsk-a or BSA to us. The Bosnian Serb
Army is all-Serb and is heavily armed. There are not so many of
them though and they’re not so mobile. And now onto the
Croats. I haven’t got any other matches, so.”
“Here,” said Michael. A tall blonde-haired German
journalist from Frankfurter Allemagne handed over some yellow headed
matches.
“Thanks. These are the Bosnian Croats which are a little
more complicated. UNPROFOR are using local names for them.
The main initial is HVO, the Hrr-vat-sko Vee-yecce Ob-rahn, which
translates as the Croatian Defence Council. There are loads of
factions splitting off from this and some of them are against each
other. The HVO in Tomislavgrad, Prozor and Vitez are fighting the
Muslims,” he placed a yellow-headed match on the table,
perpendicular to a group of blue matches, “the HVO in Tusla are
fighting with the Muslims, against the Serbs. The HVO in Mostar,
meanwhile are fighting everyone as well as trying to recreate
Herzegovina-Bosnia, which no-one else really cares for. Then
there’s the HVO in Vares which turned against the Muslims and
subsequently lost. Now, the HVO has officially patched things up
with the Muslims, so there’s a shaky federation of both of them
in Central Bosnia.”
“But that’s breaking down,” said Danny, a red-headed
American who had sat down and was intently staring at the collection of
matches on the table.
“Some say that, yes,” Mark replied, with slight irritation.
“And the Croats,” Danny drawled, “are the ones doing in Sarajevo, right now.”
“Only with artillery, though. Now, they also have some
renegade Muslims under the command of Fikret Abdic who has split with
the Bosnian government and commands a private army in the Bihac pocket
in Western Bosnia. Right, now, if you got that straight I can
start on what’s happening outside Bosnia.”
The group smiled nervously at each other, some tipping their glasses
for the dregs of gin and tonics. Mark eased the piles of matches
to one side, giving him more room on the table before beginning again.
“We have Serbs and Croats. Firstly the Ar-mee-ya Republike
Srp-ska Kra-yeen-a. These fellows are all Serbs, but are under
separate command. You shouldn’t call them the Croatian Serb
Army as Croat Serbs are not the same thing as Kra-yeen-a Serbs.
Better to call it the Kra-yeen-a Serb Army or the ARSK, which is what
they are to the UN. As to the Croat Army, they’re
huge. Well-equipped and reorganised, they’ve beaten the
ARSK forces in Western Slavonia and are down in Knin in Southern
Kra-yeen-a. Added to this is the OS, a Croat paramilitary faction
that sometimes gets involved. They’re the non-Bosnian
remains of the JNA, the Yugoslav National Army.” Mark
paused for breath. “Now, for my next trick.”
Then he paused again and turned to Jonathan, “you see, you always
get into much more detail in a war situation. It’s not like
the reactive home-stories you’re probably used to.”
Smiling, he then took out a more expensive-looking black and gold
match. Igniting it, he proceeded to set fire to all the piles of
matches he had been setting up on the table. As they burned, the
group applauded.
***
On Jonathan’s first night, Martin Mass recounted his experiences
in the Gulf War, to the eerie peal of outside shelling. Jonathan
thought that he recognised Mass, after all. He had seen him on
television since he was a young boy. He was a senior reporter of
around fifty and had the requisite layered grey hair, shiny eyes and
smooth skin. Mass looked strained tonight, though. His talk
was being hampered by a young American journalism graduate, Clark
Berry, who had arrived the previous day. Jonathan had spoken to
him earlier and liked him. Clark had confided to him that he had
no accreditation and that he had only been able to come to Sarajevo
because a rich aunt had recently died. He had wanted to see a
European war and the inheritance had allowed him to live his
dream. To Jonathan, Clark seemed altogether more human that his
Corporation colleagues. Now, there in the gloomy darkness, he was
arguing with Mass about how journalism had had its worst days during
the Gulf War. He was reciting statistics about real kill rates
and the accuracy of Patriots.
“You know, Jonathan, this war is different. I’ve been
covering wars for fourteen years and usually, in conventional wars, two
armies face each other along a front line. What I do is basically
visit the front line and then return to the hotel or TV station and
feed the story,” said Mass, turning to Jonathan with a
smile. “Now…”
“What crap, you never went near a front line during the Gulf, you
were stuck in Amman, doing nothing but transcribing the reports the US
Government gave you,” Clark interrupted, his stick-out ears
receding more from the side of his head. “You covered the
allied bombing of orphanages by telling your audience that an
arms’ dump had been blown up and that the Iraqis were trying to
milk sympathy from the world by killing their young and parading them
for the international cameras. Now it turns out they were right
and you were wrong, you idiot,” he continued, hazel eyes flashing
with anger. Jonathan was impressed by his confidence and wished
he had had time to mug up on Mass’ reporting career.
“Don’t blame the messenger,” Martin, said chuckling
before his face regained its seriousness. “What I
don’t understand is that even if what you said was
right…well, what does that make me? What do you think I
think about it, if what you say is true. I’m not evil, you
know. I’m not some Satanic cheerleader, urging the bombing
of orphanages. What I do is just try and do the job as best I
can. You really seem to think I’m some sort of agent for
the Pentagon. I’ve never even been to the Pentagon.
Anyway, if you want to learn something then you’d better
listen.”
Clark looked momentarily unsettled and fiddled with the bristles of brown hair on his chin.
“Sarajevo is a big place,” Mass announced, “about the
size of Bristol. That’s Bristol, England in case Clark
wants to butt in about Bristol, Virginia or something.
“It’s very spread out. What you have, basically, is a
big rectangle, east-west along the valley of the river, with hills and
mountains surrounding the city. There are Serb, Muslim and
Croatian gun positions in the hills but down in the city, right here,
all is chaos. The city-centre and the old town are divided by the
river. On the north bank, there are Muslims, on the south side,
Serbs.”
“Yeah, and the Serbs have always been there. They
haven’t just arrived,” said a voice from the murkiness.
“Right. Anyway, they shoot at each other the whole
time. Now, we…we’re on the Muslim side, a few
hundred yards in from the river. That’s why we’re
always in the middle of the cross-fire. That’s what our
editors don’t realise when they say, stay in the hotel to avoid
the battles. We are the fucking battle. And all around the
city there are groups of Muslims and Croats fighting the Serbs, then
Croats and Serbs fighting Muslims. If you go to Stup, near where
the UN is, there’s a three-way split. As for the old town,
in the centre of Sarajevo you can hear machine guns and small
arms’ fire continuously, on and on, hour after hour.
That’s the sound of the Muslim gangsters. The Muslim mafias
are fighting for control of the parts of the city they want to have
control of when the war is over. What I’m trying to say is
that I might hate the Serbs for starting it all but the whole thing now
has a kind of momentum of its own.” Jonathan listened to the
silence, followed by the exchange of “Good
night’s.” Outside the gunfire seemed like it was only
just beginning.
The next morning, wearing their flak jackets and carrying first aid
bags and food kits, Mass and Jonathan ascended the stairs from the
basement. Jonathan felt tired and dirty, remembering about how he
used to live in London, all the time. In the reception area, they
met their guide, Zolin, a Muslim man of about thirty-five with a broken
nose and a red scratch on his left upper cheek.
“We’ll get a UN convoy?” Mass sternly asked Zolin.
“Yes, I’ve checked it all out,” he replied.
Jonathan nodded and was thinking about how differently their guide was
dressed. He was wearing remarkably well pressed jeans and a
spotless pink sports’ shirt. As he wondered how Zolin had
pressed his clothes, Zolin tried to make conversation.
“You know there’s a new office-block in the five mile
Muslim zone? It spans the whole distance between here and where
the UN are. And guess what flag it’s flying? The
Croat flag”
“I thought the Croats were fighting the Muslims?” Jonathan asked.
“Yes, but here the Croats are our friends. I mean the Muslims’ friends.”
They clambered onto the UN Convoy vehicle with some difficulty. Mass needed the assistance of two UN soldiers.
“What are the range of all these weapons?” Jonathan
asked Zolin, turning to Mass to momentarily joke that he had forgotten
his Corporation guide to hazards in London. Mass didn’t
laugh, instead rubbing his neck as if in pain.
“Well, what they do, I mean the Muslims, is fire mortars from the
streets, behind blocks of flats or in abandoned factories. We,
they, use the same weapons as the Serbs, all stuff from the old
Yugoslav army. Mortars have a range of about seven miles, some of
the bigger guns maybe fifteen miles. They can get the Serb
positions from down here, you see,” Zolin replied cheerfully.
Jonathan looked up at the lush green countryside that passed them,
holding his right hand with his left and rubbing it to get rid of the
pain. He had grazed it on the side of the truck.
Zolin made a whistling sound. “That’s the sort of
warning you don’t get with firing,” he rubbed his beard and
let his eyelashes flutter in the dusty breeze. “No warning
at all. It just happens. And everyone’s targeting
civilians so be aware that this is all happening around
you.” Zolin made another sound, like an eerie wind rushing
through a stone corridor, “that’s the sound of a
shell. When you hear that you go to the floor. You’ve
only got a fraction of a second, but at least there’s some
warning. And don’t go looking to see where they’re
coming from, you can’t tell because of the range of these
bombs.” Zolin fastidiously wiped some dirt from his left
shoulder.
“You’ll learn,” said Mass to Jonathan in a deadpan
voice, blinking a little because his contact lenses were giving him
some trouble, “it’s very confusing, though. It really
is, even for me. You just can’t tell how close
they’re landing and you can never tell what the intended target
is. The only thing you know is that if you hear one shell or
mortar, expect more in the same area. Sometimes it lasts for
minutes, sometimes for hours and hours.”
Suddenly the collection of UN soldiers, followed by Zolin, Mass and
Jonathan ducked to the floor of the truck as it screeched to a
halt. “Snipers,” Zolin said helpfully, “snipers
usually fire from about 800 or a thousand yards,” Zolin crept
upwards, his eyes peeping out from the side of the truck.
“You can never see them, they hide well in buildings or
bushes. Sarajevo is good for snipers. Look,” Zolin
eased a petrified Jonathan up by his shoulders, very slowly,
“nothing, absolutely nothing to be seen. The sniper’s
hiding because he thinks we might shoot back. Only we’re
not going to,” Zolin lifted the Betacam camera from another
journalist’s back and carefully pointed it outwards and set it
recording. Without its on-board microphone to capture the sound,
the footage would look like a tourist video, Jonathan thought to
himself, full of quiet countryside. As the truck got moving
again, Zolin put the camera down. “You know, these snipers
have pretty sophisticated weapons. A lot of them have
laser-sights. They can be accurate up to a range of around two
miles.”
The driver somehow managed a three-point turn and began moving back
into the shelled out city. “See these streets, they are
like New York, all grids,” Zolin said, “that means a sniper
can position himself at the top end of a street and see down, along and
up, right across Sarajevo. That’s what a sniper alley is.
“Just like the one in the airport, you remember? The dual
carriageway there is the original Sniper Alley. But some of the
others are so well known, that you’ll see boards or pieces of
plastic with paint on warning you that you’re crossing one.
Don’t forget, though, that most are unmarked.” Zolin
smiled as Jonathan shivered in the heat of his flak jacket.
After a terrifying dash into the hotel, the three of them slumped on
the floor, the sound of firing ringing in their ears like booming
popcorn.
There was an impressive, improvised editing suite in the hotel and
thanks to the UN camera, they had some rushes. Jonathan
half-listened to a journalist who was talking loudly to his editor in
London on a Satphone as Mass spun through them.
“I can’t get out of here. There’re 350,000
people who’d like to get out of here, none of them can get out of
here,” he said more softly.
Eating some cold beans from a tin, Jonathan watched Martin scribble in
his pad. He was writing the script he would voice over some of
the pictures Zolin had got. Zolin had meanwhile arranged for
Jonathan to meet a Muslim contact who was going to give them permission
to travel to another part of Sarajevo and then perhaps to Bihac.
The situation wasn’t looking good, though. For the present
time, No one, journalists or UN personnel could get in or out of
Sarajevo.
“So how’s it going?” asked Sam, a producer on
the night shift in London whom he had never met. She was talking
to him during the fifteen minutes booked on the satellite feed.
Whilst Zolin tweaked the controls on the edit deck, he had two minutes
to relay to London how they were.
“I mean, is it pretty hairy down there?” she asked.
“I suppose it is,” Jonathan replied, knowing that if he
said it was bad, he’d be recalled to London in favour of a more
experienced producer or worse still, Mass and he would be recalled and
the Corporation would stop covering Bosnia altogether.
“So it’s another four minutes we need from your end
tomorrow, along with a Martin insert, you know, thirty seconds of
Martin saying that later in the programme he’ll be talking to x,
y and z. We might not use it though so don’t get too
uptight if we don’t. It’s just we might be using
Harry in Geneva or Don at the UN in New York to talk about the current
fighting, alright? And if things continue to be quiet there, you
might have to go down to Bihac, okay?”
“Quiet? Down here?” Jonathan had flicked the
talkback switch. Communication down the satellite feed line was
only one way at a time.
“Well, not quiet, you know. Not quiet,” she repeated,
“but if it continues to be the case that you can’t get any
good pictures…”
“Sure. Okay, I’m passing it to Zolin, now,” Jonathan replied
“I’m passing it to John,” Sam replied
And then the images, looking something like a home video of
someone’s expedition to East Anglia’s fen country began,
along with the occasional shots of black screen where London was
supposed to insert better pictures from battles that had taken place
over the past couple of weeks. Jonathan frowned, looking at his
reflection in the black screen.
“Don’t worry, too much,” said Martin, later. He
was sipping gin from a small tumbler as Jonathan read through the
Martin’s script. “The viewers back home will get a
taste of the chaos, that’s all we’re supposed to give
them. Not answers, not history, not chat, just nibbles.”
***
The journey to Bihac began with a misunderstanding. Plans to advance
there were spurred on by information from the UN that Bihac was not so
far under attack. Everything was quiet there, they said.
But in London, commentators disputed this. In Sarajevo, people
whom Jonathan talked to said the town was under heavy attack.
Jonathan and Martin didn’t understand this mismatch until a young
Belgrade physicist, who was at the hotel to write a book about the war,
explained the discrepancy. “You have heard of the famous
two-slit experiment—in quantum physics? Yes? Well,
Bihac is in two places at the same time, like the photons.”
“Bihac,” Zolin said as they sat aboard a truck on a
perilous road out of Sarajevo, “is the town where
Yugoslavia’s Second World War resistance movement was born.
We’re going north-west. In 1942, General Tito began to
amass his antifascist force.” Zolin continued to talk as
they travelled on.
Across the beautiful, dangerous landscape, they made it to the town and
Jonathan saw how useful it had been to hear Zolin’s history
lesson. All the unity he had spoken about bore no resemblance to
the town before them. Martin’s cynicism had begun to rub
off on Jonathan, the hatred of the United Nations, the hatred of the
Serbs, the love of the small market traders in the central squares of
towns they journeyed through. Martin had described them as little
bright stars of enterprise sparkling amongst the deathly black of war,
before writing this down in a notebook.
The razed Bihac was a UN-designated “safe area”.
Jonathan remembered the difference between a UN “safe area”
and a UN “safe haven”. There was only one of the
latter, over in war-torn, Kurdish, Northern Iraq. He recalled the
Corporation note to journalists:
I won’t bore you with the differences between a safe area and a
safe haven—though there is one—as the greater interest is
in their similarity—they’re not safe.
Martin pulled out a Royal Air Force map of Yugoslavia on his lap and
smoothed it out. He delicately rubbed his famous grey flecked
moustache. In a series of clear-consonantal phrases he ended a
profane description of what he saw out of the windscreen with the
words, “fucking assholes.”
They were approaching the Bihac pocket, a place 25 miles across at its
widest point, a little corner of Bosnia that wasn’t part of the
Bosnian Serb Republic. The western line of the pocket marked the
international frontier between Bosnia and Croatia, though this part of
Croatia was under the control of Krajina Serbs. The eastern line
was less clear. All they knew about that border was that there
was almost continuous fighting there.
“You know what a pocket is?” said Martin, adopting an
annoyingly avuncular tone, “well, I do. I have a holiday
home in a pocket.” Jonathan looked up, rubbing sleep from
his eyes. “Pockets aren’t enclaves, mind you.
You know the difference?”
Jonathan tried to remember whether he had read about the difference in
any of the printouts he had mugged up. He looked over towards
Zolin for help as firing intensified ahead of them.
“I’m parking the truck over there, we’d better wait
for a couple of hours,” said Zolin, smiling at Martin.
“An enclave can sit in the middle of a country for centuries, a
pocket sits surrounded by the territory of another country during a
war.”
Jonathan looked out of the truck, at a long line of disheartening women distended from a water stand pipe.
“If you don’t understand this, you might as well get back
to London, you hear?” said Martin, angrily shouting above
the roar of the truck’s engine-noise.
“Yes” Jonathan replied, watching the blood-blemished bandages in the queue.
“Have you ever been to Italy? For a holiday or something,
when you were little, or a little littler than you are now?”
Jonathan bit his tongue. “No, I haven’t been to Italy.”
“Well, too bad. If you had you might have had the chance to
visit Campione d’Italia, an Italian enclave, a little piece of
Italy that’s actually in Switzerland. It’s an
excellent place: gambling, women. Oh, I had the best of times in
Lugano. For me, that’s what an enclave is all about.
Not that Bihac is an enclave, mind, and I don’t want you sending
cues back to London saying anything like Martin Mass reports from the
enclave of Bihac or any such rubbish.”
“You know,” Zolin interrupted, “this is where modern Yugoslavia began.”
“Oh, boo-hoo, spare us the histrionics, Zolin, just keep the gun
aimed straight, all right? We’ll do the history.
Listen,” Martin turned to Jonathan, “people will want you
to think that the Bihac Pocket and the UN Safe Area is one and the
same, so don’t confuse them. The Safe Area is a place for
refugees to gather, and that’s it. The UN has no commitment
to Bihac as a whole. You’ll hear Bosnians talking about
something called the Bihac Safe Area. They quite deliberately
want journos to confuse them so that NATO and the UN come out fighting
for something that they shouldn’t be involved in at all.”
“But if the pocket is destroyed, what then?” asked
Zolin, his attempts to brush grime from his sports’ shirt more
fervent and unavailing. “The Safe Area will just fill up
with refugees and then the UN will just have an impossible time
protecting them all.”
“Conceivably, yes. But that’s not anyone’s concern.”
“Except the refugees,” Zolin checked, before sinking into silence.
In Bihac, they found they didn’t have any way to send pictures
back to London. The power out, the population wandering like
sleep-walkers, they wandered about trying to get the best shots they
could as battery-levels flashed in the viewfinder. All three of
them remained quiet much of the time, except to warn each other about a
piece of rock that they might be treading on or a white balance
procedure they had forgotten. Zolin occasionally went over and
chatted to people that were queuing for food or water whilst Martin
sometimes swore.
When they realised that they couldn’t get any further, Martin
said that they had better return to Sarajevo and move towards the South
West. For two days they waited for petrol, Martin’s eyes
red with the pain of unwashed contact lenses. Jonathan and Zolin
slept soundly enough, though. With the sun rising over verdant
meadows, they set off, again.
***
“The BAFTA’s ain’t up there. They’re East
not West. Gorazde, Srebrenica. We had a hell of a
time,” said a reporter from one of the TV wire services. He
had just been to Pale, just 20 kilometres south-east of Sarajevo.
“The Serbs are getting impossible. Down in Han Pijesak,
there’s what they call an “International Press
Centre” consisting mainly of Karadzic’s daughter, Sonja,
stopping anyone from filming anything at all. What’s more,
she’s continually fighting with her father’s political
adviser which means that she doesn’t let him be interviewed by
the press. The power’s off more or less the whole time and
there are no phones, no gin, no anything at the Olympik Hotel.
Have you been to Pale, yet?”
“Er, yes, just for a short while, at the beginning,” Martin said, lying to the wire service man.
“Oh, then you’ll know all about the bloody Zvornik Bridge.”
“Yes, it’s pretty terrible there.”
“I couldn’t get any of my provisions in at all.”
“So what’s the latest from there?” he asked.
“It’s all rather funny, really. Karadzic lies in till
around one o’clock so the press conferences are never on
time.”
“I see.”
“Well, I’ve got to see whether I can get a call through to
London. Martin? I’ll see you down here in about half
an hour? Alright?” Jonathan asked, feeling woozy and
wanting to go down to the discotheque and sleep.
Martin didn’t answer preferring to stare vacantly at a bottle of whisky that a newly arrived journalist had unpacked.
Jonathan walked along the corridor, the sound of his shoes banging
across the floor like in a hospital. The Satellite Phone had been
recharged on electricity that the hotel had had for the morning, so he
didn’t need to swap batteries and tinker with screwdrivers, which
is what happened the last time he had to use it.
“Hello?”
“Sarajevo? Mass, Martin Mass?”
“I’m producing down here. It’s me, Jonathan.”
“How’s it going? We’ve heard the peace negotiations are going quite well.”
“You mean in Geneva?”
“Yeah, I suppose so. Anyway, the boss isn’t in.
But he was muttering something about getting another producer down
there to take over from you. Are you not getting on with Mass too
well?”
“He’s alright, I mean it’s okay. Everything’s okay. It’s fine, really fine.”
“Well, that’s not the impression back here.
Apparently, he’s been complaining that the boss has dispatched a
real greenie.”
“I see,” Jonathan, replied, a volley of sniper fire sounding outside.
“You not too keen on guns?” the producer at the other
end joked. Jonathan speculated on how far his star had fallen in
the office. The voice on the other end of the telephone
didn’t seem to reflect his position as Temporary Assistant Editor.
“Well, look I’ll tell the boss you rang.”
It was the first phone-conversation with London he had had in which he
hadn’t cut them off first. Slowly returning to the bar
area, he saw Martin chatting with what looked like another reporter.
Jonathan approached them and realised that Martin wasn’t going to
introduce him. “Hi,” he said, trying to be
friendly. “Look, Martin, it seems the boss wasn’t
around.”
“Yeah, I know that. That’s because you’re going home. Meet Peter, your replacement.”
Peter, his seriousness flashing in guile-less eyes, spoke up.
“Hello, I’m a trainee. The boss told me to tell you
that you’ve been doing sterling work down here. Now,
it’s time to give some others a chance. I’ve just
graduated, you see, and, well, this looks like the best kind of
experience there is, what with working for Marty and everything.”
“I see,” Jonathan rolled his eyes leftwards.
“Well, it’ll probably be a few days before I can actually
get out, what with the flights and everything. How did you get
in?”
“No, that’s all sorted out. Don’t worry,
we’ve arranged a UN car and everything,” Peter said with
his constant look of concern.
“You’re in luck,” said Martin.
“I see.”
At that, Martin and Peter turned to face each other and began chatting
about guns and artillery. “That one’s bloody good,
isn’t it?” and “the RK 20 or RK 26 is the
one. Blam! Blam! You know? I tested a real
sucker out. But you’ve got to admire the Kalashnikov, I
mean, these things are like fucking Leicas, built to last.”
As they spoke, the sound of shelling got sluggishly louder.
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