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Trusted Mole: A Soldier’s Journey into Bosnia’s Heart of Darkness
Martin Bell
Milos Stankovic
A high-octane account by a decorated major in the British Army of his high-level dealings with the Bosnian Serb leadership, of his running a ‘Schindler’s List’ operation in Sarajevo, and of his extraordinary subsequent arrest by Ministry of Defence police on suspicion of betraying secrets to the Serbs.Trusted Mole is the powerful and disturbing first-hand account of a British soldier of part Yugoslav origin painfully caught up in the savage maelstrom of the Bosnian war. Armed only with the pseudonym ‘Mike Stanley’ and an antiquated Serbo-Croat vocabulary, Milos Stankovic – an officer in the Parachute Regiment – worked as interpreter and go-between for two British brigadiers and two British UN generals, Mike Rose and Rupert Smith.His experiences plunged him deeper and deeper into Bosnia’s heart of darkness, where all human life was lived in extremis. His own Balkan heritage likewise drew him in: his Scottish grandmother had been a nurse on the Salonika front in the First World War; his father was a former Royalist Yugoslav who had fought in the Second World War; and his mother in 1945 had driven one of the first UN ambulances around Bosnia and Montenegro.In helping to negotiate ceasefires between rival warlords, securing the release of UN hostages and organising the escape from Sarajevo of stricken families, Milos Stankovic was propelled from one nerve-wracking crisis to another. Throughout he was engaged in the highly dangerous game of bridging the gap between alien Balkan and Western mentalities. His was a role for which there was no military rule-book, and in the general climate of suspicion and paranoia his close contacts with the Bosnian Serb leadership of Dr Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic caused him to be branded by the Americans and the Bosnian Muslims as a Serb spy in the UN and later as a British spy – General Rose’s ‘trusted mole’.In a final, horrific twist, the author was arrested by the British authorities on suspicion of being a Serb spy. At journey’s end, Milos Stankovic was now confronted with the awful and inescapable truth of ‘Mike Stanley’.
Copyright (#ulink_3a132c08-4b8d-5fb5-b689-77c5fcde8dc9)
HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk. (http://www.fireandwater.com)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2000
Copyright © Milos Stankovic 2000
Maps by Jillian Luff
Milos Stankovic, Foreword by Martin Bell, M.P. asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780006530909
Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2014 ISBN: 9780007441457
Version: 2015-01-06
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Praise (#ulink_820d8e4c-cd0f-552f-ab05-310b0ac74b6a)
Further reviews for Trusted Mole:
‘By far the best book to have come out of the Balkan wars, not because it explains the conflict simply, but because Stankovic demonstrates with wit and eloquence that simplicity was never part of the equation … This is not, however, a bleak book. Far from it. There is humour, lots of it, often (inevitably) black, but also reflecting the accidental idiocies and genuinely comic scenes that occurred in the midst of organised chaos.’
PETER MILLAR, Sunday Times
‘Stankovic’s book is far more than the outcry of an innocent man foully accused. He has a wonderful eye for detail and a natural storyteller’s gift, and passion, to get across the bizarre and terrible cruelty of what the people of Bosnia went through. At times, I laughed out loud; at times, horrible moments of my spells there came swimming back, brilliantly evoked in Stankovic’s fresh prose … Trusted Mole is rich in comic scenes … But the comedy switchbacks with the tragedy … this man was a hero, caught in the middle and discarded by a military bureaucracy that should be shot at dawn for its betrayal.’
JOHN SWEENEY, Observer
‘Now exculpated from all charges, Stankovic has written a remarkably frank account of his time in Bosnia … What Trusted Mole makes sickeningly clear is not just the absurdity of sending in peacekeepers with no peace to keep (and neither the weaponry nor the political backing to impose it), but also the corrupting effects of war and humanitarian aid on almost everybody involved.’
MARK ALMOND, Literary Review
‘This is a powerful book … the inside story, not only of the UN’s war in Bosnia … but also, of what happens to someone who spends too long in a place populated by the dead and those whose hope has died.’
CHARLOTTE EAGER, Sunday Telegraph
‘Well-written, gripping and highly informative … It is evident that he was disgracefully let down by a system which he trusted … and he is to be congratulated for writing a fascinating account of an experience that would leave most people shattered.’
ADRIAN WEALE, Daily Mail
‘Fascinating and truly exciting … As a window into that hidden period, his account is a revelation, Uttered with insights into the ordinary human chaos which lay behind the apparently calm and collected statements of the politicians and the military top brass.’
JAMES RUDDY, Eastern Daily Press
Dedication (#ulink_6559127b-071b-5044-b254-ee5796732e81)
This book is dedicated to the memory of two people. First, it is for my father, who led a full, varied and productive life. Second, it is for Dobrila Kalaba and countless others like her who were denied the realisation of those basic aspirations by the horror that was Bosnia.
Contents
Cover (#u063d2683-bb94-5dc2-bed2-809e9cf95ba7)
Title Page (#ubd99a8d4-5e0c-5b9b-8a76-4c6a63c955c6)
Copyright (#ulink_9d9f64de-9a63-5d9c-861f-89b5a31645b3)
Praise (#ulink_5c3798b8-9468-540e-b664-67780a510c8e)
Dedication (#ulink_82afbdb8-ab02-5873-a2c8-8ace4b801171)
Foreword by Martin Bell OBE, MP (#ulink_ac2f7d80-263c-5691-9194-c159ae827719)
‘Mother Bosnia’ (#ulink_f28f3242-5128-50a0-80c8-5c58073ff54a)
PART ONE 1992–1993 (#ulink_b8e0783e-e536-5f30-bf42-fcb8b1ce56c9)
Baby Blue (#ulink_b8e0783e-e536-5f30-bf42-fcb8b1ce56c9)
ONE (#ulink_8d0a10f3-483e-5e4b-9bf1-c6ddb6f2cffa)
TWO (#ulink_010b0c22-8997-5534-aa95-bcef289af9c5)
THREE (#ulink_cb4375d9-d02d-5837-9bab-fbf171255f9d)
FOUR (#ulink_26829f5d-fd2f-56dd-8e33-9920db88581b)
FIVE (#ulink_88b7164a-46ac-5b11-9cc4-d2306fcf0034)
SIX (#ulink_c2fc7b4b-915a-51e0-b2a8-a5e96cbbcbab)
SEVEN (#ulink_d6d7a71f-793e-5a5a-89b0-fd26906bf793)
EIGHT (#ulink_28f64579-d495-5600-8fda-5d6293ca61c0)
NINE (#ulink_c0a7f0c0-aa7e-50c0-a806-6b3dd505aa6f)
TEN (#ulink_6fac3b65-4302-59fb-ad81-d505b9530692)
ELEVEN (#ulink_2b10ca51-a8ab-591c-ad8e-849a5051e311)
TWELVE (#ulink_0255c8c7-a382-5e08-b493-88027be0f7ca)
THIRTEEN (#ulink_3437826a-2dfc-5dee-984a-a21cbe9a0be7)
FOURTEEN (#ulink_1c8b1a86-a3d1-5dfb-bd0f-a4f8f5c9c146)
PART TWO 1994–1995 (#ulink_fb0c8c25-b970-53ed-9695-38b0d3205d24)
The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party (#ulink_fb0c8c25-b970-53ed-9695-38b0d3205d24)
FIFTEEN (#ulink_29800764-3f51-5d92-a2a5-f3a14c9471d7)
SIXTEEN (#ulink_40fbeac1-bcc0-5872-82e5-101330ee0ac6)
SEVENTEEN (#ulink_da7edc9c-0019-5758-9b9e-e02e48834a8d)
EIGHTEEN (#ulink_bd38983d-68bb-58f6-82c4-c43b3feb25d6)
NINETEEN (#ulink_6613d529-fb01-5105-968a-ed2fd8f19cff)
TWENTY (#ulink_0d190b9a-8da4-5408-9adc-f56f7e35d99a)
TWENTY-ONE (#ulink_3150176b-6cd6-5219-89e2-19215a52398e)
TWENTY-TWO (#ulink_82d96e8e-8d19-53ec-9524-3f89bd678f88)
TWENTY-THREE (#ulink_4b8e2e4e-3eef-537e-95e3-fa1cd55e745b)
TWENTY-FOUR (#ulink_2086688e-cadd-5ce6-a597-30cd411dfcca)
TWENTY-FIVE (#ulink_337830ca-33de-5026-939c-f55358730fe5)
PART THREE
Reflections
CHARTER FOR PEACE (#ulink_6bef9aae-2bac-5c9c-bfbe-aa71776e6251)
AMERICAN FOOTBALL (#ulink_2d715c76-99f8-54b5-817e-2565afc161f7)
Glossary (#ulink_9acc8890-ef0f-5503-9f1a-84479c63900d)
Index (#ulink_da2b6c93-908d-5461-b89b-d6b2c4fbcca2)
Author’s Note (#ulink_54f36351-b8fc-5204-8e40-079c5d78c656)
About the Author (#ulink_8897141a-bb44-5aa4-9b5d-ef331f8f164b)
About the Publisher (#ulink_c7ba1023-560f-5be6-a8c1-06f00f6caddd)
Foreword (#ulink_83f54a3b-cd80-56e0-b8d0-4bfa3d409b6d)
BY MARTIN BELL OBE, MP
In January 1993 in Central Bosnia I met a British officer who was introduced to me as Captain Mike Stanley of the Parachute Regiment. There was something quietly out of the ordinary about him. He was not in the usual Sandhurst mould. He was reserved, self-contained, intense and fiercely loyal to the cause he was serving, which was to save as many lives as possible under the inadequate mandate of the UN peacekeeping force. He was at that time the interpreter and adviser to Brigadier Andrew Cumming, the first commander of British Forces in Bosnia. He went on to work for Lieutenant Colonel Bob Stewart of the Cheshire Regiment, Brigadier Robin Searby and Generals Rose and Smith, the British commanders of UNPROFOR in Sarajevo. He served longer in the Bosnian war than any other British soldier.
His real name was Milos Stankovic. His father was a Serb and his mother was partly Serb and partly Scottish. Both had served the Allied cause in Yugoslavia in the Second World War, and had been lucky to escape to England with their lives. Their son, a British citizen, chose a military career. He was accepted by the Parachute Regiment, and served in Northern Ireland, Mozambique and the Gulf. When the Bosnian war broke out he was one of only three soldiers in the British Army who spoke the language fluently. It seemed an advantage at the time – or at least an advantage to everyone but himself.
His value to successive British commanders was that he could translate the people as well as the language. Tito’s illusion of ‘Brotherhood and Unity’ fractured into barbarism, and competing warlords dragged their peoples into an abyss of psychotic savagery and primeval horror. These leaders were as indifferent to suffering on their own side as on the others’. Betrayal, mendacity and manipulation were their common currency. At prisoner exchanges they traded in bodies both dead and alive – and the dead, it seemed, mattered more to them than the living. Stankovic called this necrowar. He did not share their values but he understood their mentality. The Balkan warlords on one side and the International Community on the other glared at each other with incomprehension across a great divide. The captain from the Parachute Regiment could make sense of each to the other across that barrier.
He also saved lives. He rescued a wounded Muslim woman under fire in Vitez. With another British officer of similar background, known to us as Captain Nick Costello, and with the approval of the UN Commander, he smuggled scores of people out of the besieged city of Sarajevo – Muslims, Croats and Serbs alike – to join their families abroad. He helped to unblock UN convoys and to negotiate cease-fires. His mission was to win the trust of the Serbs, and he did so. They knew of his origins, but they also knew that he was not ‘one of them’. ‘Captain Stanley is a nice enough guy,’ the Bosnian Serb Vice-President Nikola Koljevic was quoted as saying to a colleague, ‘but you must always remember that his loyalty is to his Queen and his Commanders.’
He served with honour and distinction and received the MBE from the hand of the Queen. He was the outstanding liaison officer of his time. He did for Britain in the 1990s what Fitzroy MacLean had done in the 1940s, and in the same turbulent corner of Europe. Whenever Milos Stankovic crossed over into Bosnian Serb territory he described it as going to the ‘Dark Side’.
In April 1995, after serving in Bosnia for the greater part of two years, he returned from that theatre of operations and resumed his military career. By this stage he had been promoted to major while in Bosnia. He served as a company commander with the 1
Battalion of the Parachute Regiment and was accepted into the Joint Services Staff College at Bracknell.
It was there on 16 October 1997, two and a half years after leaving Bosnia, that he was arrested by the Ministry of Defence Police under the Official Secrets Act, on suspicion of having spied for the Bosnian Serbs. Neither the origin nor the precise nature of the allegations was ever made clear.
By that time I had embarked on a new career as a Member of Parliament. He would not have been allowed to speak to me had I still been a journalist, but as an MP I could contact him. I offered to help because I knew the man and was convinced of his innocence. I also knew he was totally alone. There is no lonelier soul on the planet than a British soldier arrested under the Official Secrets Act. The Army at that stage had not even provided a ‘soldier’s friend’, the basic right of any soldier facing a serious charge.
His treatment at the hands of the MoD Police is a story in its own right. He was extraordinarily well served both by his lawyer, Steve Barker, and by his ‘soldier’s friend’, Brigadier Andrew Cumming, who was eventually appointed, as Milos Stankovic’s choice, into that role. All I will say at this point is that the conduct of the inquiry was hostile and prejudicial, and should be used in our police academies for years to come as the textbook case of how not to conduct an investigation.
One of the many injustices of the police inquiry, in which an innocent man’s rights were flagrantly violated, was the sheer inordinate length of it. Stankovic was thirty-four when it started, and thirty-six when the papers were finally passed to the Crown Prosecution Service. One advantage of this, however, was that it gave him the time to reflect on his years as a soldier of peace in Bosnia and to set down his account of them.
That account is what follows. It is the best book yet written on the Bosnian war, certainly including my own. It is more than that. It is the most extraordinary soldier’s story that I have ever read.
Mother Bosnia (#ulink_58230aac-0de8-5901-b141-2e8b81427809)
Independence, the dream of man.
Independence, the goal of nations.
Why for Bosnia is this a contradiction?
Mother to three major creeds,
Whose devotees fight for spoils
In each other’s gardens.
