Trusted Mole: A Soldier’s Journey into Bosnia’s Heart of Darkness

Horrified is the gaze of the world

While Mother Bosnia tears herself apart.

Offspring, brothers and sisters

Are set along the route to destruction

Deaf to Reason, blind to facts.

Mother Bosnia – a cradle of riches

Now becomes the spring of discord,

History repeating itself

Maiming, killing, displacing,

Robbing of land, the rule of the gun.

Seeds of a future conflict are sown,

Mother Bosnia is torn apart

The atomic age is with us,

But Bosnia is just another name for Lepanto:

Creeds disunited and waging war.

I often wonder how God must feel

When three sons with different flags

Crave for his attention:

‘In your name I kill,

Thy will be done.’

How? By killing the other son?

Mother Bosnia is bleeding

No quarter is given.

Hate is a chameleon of chauvinistic meanings,

And the World at large watches on TV

With an attitude of:

Provided it is you and not me

You can have my sympathy.

And so, Bosnians are

The perpetrators and the victims.

While the World watches on

Mother Bosnia is torn apart.

Bernardo Stella, London 1994

PART ONE (#ulink_d9ffb7f5-d7bf-5f8f-b7bf-080791e9175b)

1992–1993 (#ulink_d9ffb7f5-d7bf-5f8f-b7bf-080791e9175b)

Baby Blue (#ulink_d9ffb7f5-d7bf-5f8f-b7bf-080791e9175b)

You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last

But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast

Yonder stands your orphan with his gun

Crying like a fire in the sun

Look out, baby, the saints are comin’ through

And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.

‘It’s All Over Now Baby Blue’, Bob Dylan, 1966.

ONE Operation Bretton (#ulink_3ec5174a-9221-59de-ac7c-a96e18c5141b)

Thursday 16 October 1997 – Joint Services Command and Staff College, Bracknell, UK

‘Are you Major Stankovic?’ I catch the flash of a silver warrant badge encased in black leather and glimpse a pair of shiny handcuffs in one of the open brief-cases on the table. I nod – what the hell’s going on here?

‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector —, Ministry of Defence Police. I have a warrant for your arrest under Section 2.2b of the 1989 Official Secrets Act …’ he’s reading from the warrant, ‘… on suspicion of maintaining contact with the Bosnian Serb leadership, of passing information which might endanger the lives of British soldiers in Bosnia, of embarrassing the British government and the United Nations …’

My stomach lurches. Instinctively I cross my arms.

‘… You have the right to remain silent, but anything you say can and will be used in evidence against you. Do you understand?’

My mind is racing – say nothing. ‘Mmm’ is my only response.