Aid Memoir. Larry Hollingworth

his hair, lost some of his “smiley” teeth, eyes like olives, dark and bitter, with a brown moustache. Misha is intolerably Serb and pathologically anti-Muslim. Both men speak excellent English. The third, a professor of geology, Dr. Vlado Lukic. A Balkan intellectual who knows many subjects inside and out but can only argue from one standpoint. Bright but inflexible, a tall heavy man, shy to use his English, he was closest to my age. He was teased mercilessly by Brane. They lived in one room in the PTT building. They slept around the walls. Their job was incredibly difficult. They were four doors away from the Bosnian Government Liaison officers. Whenever there was shelling UNPROFOR would run to the Serb Liaison officers and demand they stopped it. The LO’s would then use an antique field phone to contact their Army headquarters in Lukavica on the outskirts of the airport in Serb held territory. In addition to stopping shelling, all patrols and convoys were cleared through the Liaison officers.

      Dr. Lukic was the most conscientious, indeed the most pedantic. He would take ages to get a decision because he would progress the request meticulously. Brane would pressure his masters for an answer. Misha was the most sinister. I reckon he made a lot of the decisions himself. To those he had to refer, he built in a delay factor. Both Brane and Misha spent a lot of time translating for the top generals. They both know too much. Watch your backs boys!

      When I eventually left the rigours of the airport for the comfort of the PTT building, I shared for many a month the next room to them. We sank quite a few jars together. Dr. Lukic was later elevated from the floor of the office to the position of Prime Minister of Srpska Republika.

      Stopping shelling, clearing convoys and arranging interviews, all legitimate LO tasks. Hence—Brane, I would like to see your big white chief. Can you fix? If you asked Brane a rhetorical question, he answered not with words but with a smile.

      He fixed me up with an appointment at midday the following Sunday. I have only ever seen photos of Dr. Karadzic, in which he is always wearing a double-breasted suit, so I thought I had better wear mine. When I put it on, the cheeky Leyla wolf-whistled. It was the first and, with only one other exception, the only time they saw me wear it. They cruelly nicknamed it my “Karadzic” suit.

      I arrived at Lukavica on time. Serb television cameras were waiting to record the event. Not surprising, as the agency SRNA is a propaganda machine much favoured by the media happy Doctor. I was taken up the stairs and into the end room on the right. Dr. Karadzic was there on his own. There was a buffet type lunch on the table. He is an easy man to be with. He greeted me as if we were old friends. He asked me about the health of Jose Maria. He complained that Mrs. Ogata had recently seen Izetbegovic but not seen him. He asked me where I was from, and through all of this, he is helping himself and me to food.

      – I’m from Liverpool. The inevitable happened—I get his favourite Liverpool line up. We talked about the Sarajevo football team to whom he was the team doctor.

      – Why do they need a psychiatrist? Do they keep on losing?—I asked. Liverpool humour—he answered.

      I gather you are a poet—I said as we ate. I was tucking in heartily. He had more food than we did. This changed the direction of the conversation completely.

      – Do you like poetry?

      – Very much.

      – Who is your favourite poet?

      – Matthew Arnold—I replied. Actually, it is Kipling, but he is after all a doctor and a president as my mother would have said. She always wanted me to keep up appearances, whatever that meant. He knew Arnold.

      – Who is yours?

      – Njegos—he replied. Actually, I thought he had coughed. It was much later that I discovered that Njegos was a famous Montenegrin. He rummaged in his briefcase.

      – I have a copy of one of my books here—he found one.

      – Do you read Serbian?

      – No.

      – Sorry, it is the only copy that I have here. I will send you a copy in English. Who is your favourite author?

      – It is a toss-up between Dickens and Tolstoy—I replied, truthfully this time. We talked about books. I watched his mop of hair bob about his forehead. He has prominent eyebrows. At times he looked like Denis Healey.

      I was actually enjoying his company. But business is business.

      – Dr. Karadzic. What is your aim for Sarajevo?

      – Sometimes I believe the Muslims can have it in exchange for other areas. Sometimes I believe it could be an open city. We could have parts of it like Jerusalem. He is a cartophile. He takes out a map of Sarajevo and shows me the options. He then moved on to other maps, pushing the food out of the way as he spread them out. He does not do this as a general, more as a professor or explorer, a Dr. Challenger. He is not happy with Gorazde, a cancer in his midst. I watch and listen fascinated. I do not need to be there—he is talking to himself, to crowds, to parliament.

      – Do you think it would be possible to stop the shelling of Sarajevo? At least of places like the hospital?—I ask.

      – It is the Muslims’ fault. They place their weapons behind the hospital and fire on us. Sadly, I know this to be frequently true. So I do not pursue it.

      We talked about the opening of the city. He is happy to have corridors. He is happy if all the Muslims leave. He is happy for convoys to move. It is a happy day for Dr. Karadzic. There is a knock on the door. It is his Corps commander from Ilidza.

      My time is up. We shake hands. He promises me the book. I return to Sarajevo and put the suit away. Everyone is asking me—What did he say? I told them. No one is impressed. They have all heard it on the radio, seen it on the tele, read it in the press. A thousand times. I went to debrief Jeremy Brade. He can do the script and the actions better than Dr. Karadzic.

      I never did get the book.

      Meanwhile, back in the hangar, we had a reorganisation. Steve was replaced by Squadron Leader Willie Dobson. The French marines arrived in full force, and the Canadians left, which gave us one small problem, the bunker. They wanted their container back. By now it was part of the landscape. I offered to buy it from the battalion. It had a book value of about one thousand dollars, and I could have raised that in Zagreb. But it was administratively too difficult. So the Canadians came and removed it, but not until they had replaced it with a superb 1914 front line trench-type bunker. Steel girders, sandbags, the works. We missed the Canadians. They had read the mandate. They appreciated that they “were in support of humanitarian aid” and acted accordingly. They also appreciated our shortcomings. We had to learn “on the hoof.” We made many mistakes. We messed them about a lot. But never deliberately. The Canadians were good at pulling order out of chaos. Above all they were flexible. With the arrival of the French, it was us who had to learn flexibility.

      In the hangar reorg, I made myself a super hidey hole. Using pallets of boxes which had just arrived, I built a wall around my bed. It felt safe. It also felt private. I could see no one. No one could see me.

      We spent the majority of most nights in our beds in the hangar. If the shelling rattled the walls or exploded close enough for us to hear the whistling shrapnel we moved to the safety of the bunker until events calmed down.

      The new bunker was more exclusive than the old container. It was also much more tomb-like and claustrophobic. The civilian drivers, strangers to Blackadder, preferred the open plan of the main airport lounge where the French slept.

      Our next visitor is to be Paddy Ashdown. This environment should suit him down to the ground. His office in London asks me if I can arrange for him an interview with the President. I speak to Mr. Somun. The president agrees to meet him.

      It is a hot, hot, August day. Mr. Ashdown gets out of the Herc in shirt sleeves and flak jacket. He is to be bundled into a French APC and taken to meet the French commander. Mr. Ashdown is very popular, everyone wants to meet him. He sees me and kindly recognises me.

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