WINTER JOURNEY TO SARAJEVO or IMPRESSIONS OF AN ESCAPE FROM KISELJAK
After a Night Shift from 7.30 pm to 7.30 am and remaining for the 8am telephone Conference call of the Deputy Chief of Staff and dealing with one piece of e-mail, I disappeared from the OPS Room for a morning, leaving my room and desk-mate, Maj Mike Vokes TD to man the Day Shift. It meant losing the majority of my sleep time but it was a rare opportunity to get out 'beyond the wire'.
There are 2 shuttle runs daily from ARRC REAR in Kiseljak to various stops in Sarajevo, where ARRC HQ is located, the round trip taking about 4 hours. A Land Rover and a 4 tonne truck are normally used. Delivering mail and taking anyone waiting at the various halts to their required destination is the aim.
Even if there is only one official passenger, vehicles must move in a minimum packet of 2 and both need a co-driver. Having donned body armour and helmet, before even sitting in the Land Rover there were some formalities to complete at the former Hall Porter's cupboard, now the Guard Room. Check that pistol is in holster (and not still under pillow!) and sign out 10 rounds of ammunition. Book out - name, rank, blood group, destination and expected time of return.
String together the worst set of post-winter potholes you have ever driven through or into. Then conceal the holes with slush and bump over them for 40 minutes in a Land Rover. That was the journey into Sarajevo. Mainly rural but with a considerable number of houses, the snow covered fields and verges concealed the potential danger of mines. There are an estimated 3 million of them and some can destroy a tank. 8000 minefields have been mapped so far. Under no circumstances do we or vehicles go on to the verge or off the road, even to go round a broken down vehicle. Recently, a French vehicle towing a trailer unfortunately moved onto the verge when faced by an oncoming wide load and the trailer was destroyed.
A surprising number of vehicles were on the road where black market fuel is sold in tins and plastic bottles. After years of war, livestock is scarce and a valuable exchange commodity. No grass was visible on the snow covered land so the animals were no doubt indoors. Two cows were being led on a halter by elderly men, all slipping and sliding on the frozen verge. In the valley settlements a few shops were open, displaying a small range of fruit outside in the traditional English way. Some houses had been stripped of roof, doors and windows by residents departing for their new ethnic area. We followed a family on a farm trailer, piled high with furniture and possessions, a bony horse between the shafts. Negotiating tight mountainous bends near Sarajevo was a convoy of 4 Armoured wheeled vehicles, in the midst of which was one bearing 3 red stars. It was COMARRC, Lt Gen Sir Michael Walker.
In Sarajevo we passed 'The Residency', Admiral Leighton-Smith's IFOR HQ. It was the former official residence of Tito and where Archduke Ferdinand spent his last night. We also passed where he was assassinated in 1914. In the city centre, near the Holiday Inn, and especially around the airport, houses and blocks of flats were gutted or at least shrapnel pocked. Factories and commercial premises in the city environs were totally vacant. Once again I was shocked by the immensity of the devastation. All that remained of one skyscraper was the central core lift shaft. The collapsed floors lay like a pack of cards. Concrete blocks are all that remain of park benches, long ago stripped for firewood.
A French Armoured vehicle was on a bridge, its main armament aimed down the boulevard known as Sniper Alley. The resurrected tram system, with a few operational trams, runs along the middle of the wide dual carriageway in the city centre. The service was frequent but those waiting assembled in large groups and in African / Indian style many travelled by hanging on to the back. Dozens of derelict trams, lacking windows and with the extra ventilation of shrapnel holes, were jammed in the depot. Apart from twisted tracks in places, many of the overhead power cables are damaged and loose ends dangle along parts of the trackways. It is also still mined!
Showing IFOR passes at the French-manned sandbagged bunker and passing French Armoured vehicles we entered the grounds of Zetra Stadium. Parking the Land Rover in the shelter of mounds of earth defences, my driver and the driver and escort of the accompanying 4-tonne went for a game of pool, saying, 'We'll be ready to go in an hour.'
The metal cladding of the stadium was flapping like rags on barbed wire. The week before, at 8am, a rifle grenade had exploded 20m above the stadium! I found my way inside and was surprised the lobby was intact. The floor tiles were undamaged though the tunnels and stairs were largely without lights. Two lanes of the bowling alley had been restored by resident soldiers. I stood - and slipped - on the ice in the Zetra Stadium where in the 1984 Winter Olympics Jayne Torville and Christopher Dean won their Gold Medal. It was not the white ice you have seen on ice rinks. This ice was from where water and snow was entering through gaps in the flapping roof. The tiers of spectator seats were partly covered in tarpaulins. Elsewhere, oil drips from the parked Signal Squadron generators and vehicles made walking precarious.
ARRC Main HQ is at the Hotel Serbia. The facade had been damaged by mortar fire but was very smart inside.
At none of the halts was anyone waiting - a daily occurrence said my driver.
In the town were water stand pipes and out in the countryside a young woman was collecting water in a plastic container from a field drain outflow into the ditch. I saw a woman doing the family washing in an outside water trough. Serbs departing city areas due to come under Croat-Muslim Federation control had stripped the telephone exchange. Some are firing and even booby trapping their houses. After hand grenades were thrown at an appliance the Fire Brigade now refuse to turn out in one suburb!
The too often used phrase 'looking as if a bomb has hit it' took on a real meaning after visits to Mostar and Sarajevo. Not just a block of buildings but whole areas of cities appear as I recall London was in the late 1940s. So many of these scenes have appeared on the news. Being driven along in the warm, in relative comfort, knowing hot meals, warm accommodation and a safe future awaits for the foreseeable future heightens my awareness of the plight of the people around me. (Notwithstanding freezing chalk rubble floored barns and limited sleep - by my own choice - on UK exercises with 19 Mechanised Brigade!)
On our second trip to the airport the road was jammed with a long queue of Serbs leaving the city. We gave up and headed back to Kiseljak.
I hope no one was waiting for a lift!
JL Raybould March 1996