Appendix II

Intelligence and the war in Bosnia 1992 – 1995: The role of the intelligence and security services

4. Military assistance to the Bosnian Serbs

The clandestine arms supplies to the ABiH were not the only thing to stir up feelings: so too did the supplies to the Bosnian Serbs. According to some sources, Russian intelligence services even had a secret arms agreement with the Bosnian Serbs.[1] Throughout the entire war, accusations were made that Serbia supplied arms and ammunition on a large scale to the VRS. For example, an article in the New York Times asserted that hundreds of Serbian helicopter flights had been recorded over northeast Bosnia. An anonymous UNPROFOR officer stated: 'We have not seen anything on this scale before and doubt that the Bosnian Serbs could organize this number of helicopter flights without the active involvement of the Yugoslav Army.'[2] To Annan's irritation, this article, 'which runs counter to every element of analysis provided to us by yourselves', led directly to a request from the non-aligned countries for a debate in the Security Council. Annan requested Akashi to report all messages about helicopter flights directly. Akashi had already informed Annan that cross border flights were probably not involved, and that the number of flights observed from the ground was exaggerated.[3]

It was evident that the border between Serbia and Srpska was used regularly for the clandestine supply of arms and oil. A special organ was even created for its supervision: the ICFY Monitoring Mission, a product of the Yugoslavia Conference, which was established on 17 September 1994. The Finnish General Tauno Nieminen was the head of the mission from 13 January to 14 December 1995. He maintained regular contact with UNPROFOR, but worked mainly for the ICFY. There were divergent opinions on the Serbian supplies to the VRS. In a comprehensive report, the Bosnian government complained about the Serbian support to the VRS. From August 1994 to July 1995, Serbia and Montenegro are alleged to have supplied to the Bosnian Serbs a total of 512 tanks, 506 APCs, 120 howitzers, 130 other artillery pieces, 6 MIG 29s, SU-25 and SU-27 aircraft and more than 20 helicopters. These were formidable quantities, enough to equip an entire army. For this reason alone, these Bosnian quantities were implausible. According to Nieminen, these data were incorrect, and the checks at this border were watertight. He pointed out that the checking was not random, but that every car was inspected and completely investigated. Observers were even authorized to have cars or trucks dismantled.[4]

According to staff of a European intelligence service, the sanctions did not work on the Drina, however. For example, the observers had instructions to withdraw immediately in the event of danger. The Serbs usually fired a series of salvos in the air as darkness fell to frighten the observers, who then withdrew rapidly. On the basis of reliable intelligence data, this service came to the conclusion that military equipment was often transferred at night from Serbia to Srpska, usually consisting of 2 tanks (T-54), 2 APCs, 2 trucks with artillery, 2 buses with soldiers of the Yugoslav army and 2 trucks with fuel.

This was the normal pattern of Serbian support to the VRS; they also considered the sanction committee to be a political mission. It was confirmed from the side of the VRS that much fuel had been supplied from Bulgaria and Romania to Serbia, which was forwarded in transit to the VRS. Train wagons crossed the border, and fuel also arrived on the Danube. The observers were repeatedly put on the spot by a skipper who would say that he was going to sail on, or otherwise dump the oil in the Danube.[5] However, General Nieminen persisted in claiming to the NIOD that reports of deliveries of tanks, APCs and trucks over the Drina had no basis in truth. If Milosevic supported the VRS on a large scale, then the question remains as to how this happened. Milosevic ran enormous political risks in doing so. What is clear is that support was provided from Serbia in the form of soldiers, technical recommendations, integrated air defence and financial assistance, but therefore not in the form of large-scale military equipment.[6]

A senior White House adviser confirmed this. He had never seen convincing evidence that arms had been delivered to the Bosnian Serbs via the Drina. The road via Croatia, however, was open for this purpose. He called the embargo 'fairly effective' but admitted that there were leaks. According to this source, intelligence on the violations was all Sigint, but it was not permitted to share this information with foreign intelligence services. What particularly stung the senior official was that Washington had failed in bringing about a financial embargo, because central banks in the EU, such as the Bank of England and the Bundesbank did not cooperate. The Security Council resolutions did not take this into account, and the banks hid behind national legislation. The particular culprit here was the Austrian central bank. According to this official, no progress was booked on this point against 'Serbia Incorporated'. Milosevic was able to launder his money via Cyprus. Money was also laundered in Moscow, which was made easier by the state of the Russian banking system. Otherwise, according to this official, the war could have finished earlier, because then Milosevic would no longer have been able to pay the VRS officers.[7]

According to Sarajevo, in addition to arms and ammunition, other items were supplied to the Bosnian Serbs. The Bosnian government claimed that 8700 tons of fuel were supplied.[8] According to Nieminen, Serbia supplied the oil mainly via the Krajina, and there was a back door via Croatia because of the relationship between Tudjman and Milosevic. The problem was that the mandate of his mission did not extend to Croatia. What was supplied from this region via the Krajina to the VRS therefore fell outside his field of view.[9]

There were rumours about pipelines across the Drina that provided the Bosnian Serbs with oil, but Nieminen stated that he knew for certain that they had never existed. His mission had foot and vehicle patrols in operation 24 hours a day along the banks of the Drina: they would at least have seen their tracks or trucks. The same applied to all the claims about pontoon bridges. In an official report, the Bosnian government actually claimed that 25 secret military pontoon bridges were being used. Half of them were between Bijeljina and Zvornik.[10] In one of the weekly overviews, Nieminen did report on such a Serbian pontoon bridge. According to the Yugoslav Army liaison officer, it was built in this sector to deal with refugees in case of a possible ABiH offensive.[11] Sometimes oil would be taken across in small boats or with a number of barrels at once. Trucks also drove to and fro with full diesel tanks between Serbia and Srpska.

The question then remains as to how the Yugoslav Army, the Vojska Jugoslavija (VJ), supported the VRS. According to an European intelligence service, the VJ was active in East-Bosnia. This service gathered intelligence that proved that many parents in Serbia were complaining that their sons had to go to Bosnia. The obituaries in Serbian newspapers were scrutinized, only to reveal that soldiers had perished in Bosnia. Conscripts were sent over the border in groups by bus. They consisted mostly of approximately fifty soldiers without equipment, who had probably exercised in Serbia. Furthermore, Serbian staff officers worked in Pale, VRS officers were trained in Serbia and the VRS were paid their salaries via Belgrade. Much logistics support was also given to the VRS. Repairs and spare parts were provided by the VJ, and the VRS equipment was kept up-to-date by Serbia. The transportation of tanks and APCs was coordinated by the VJ.[12]

According to Nieminen, it must not be forgotten that before the arrival of the observers, Milosevic had had all the time he needed to supply as much as possible.[13] His opposite number in Serbia, Kertis, was the greatest smuggler, according to sources within Western intelligence services.[14] He was instructed by Milosevic to keep Nieminen's mission happy. Whatever Kertis said happened, the objective of which was 'to keep us happy so that nobody would blame Milosevic', according to Nieminen.[15] Violating the embargo actually meant that the sanctions against Serbia would be intensified again.

The mission of Nieminen would run into trouble in late May 1995. There were air strikes on Pale on 25 May 1995 and hostages were taken in reprisal. On 29 May, the American embassy reported that information had been obtained about a direct threat to the American observers. This resulted in all US and ten Canadian observers immediately being withdrawn. The majority of the observers came from MPRI and the others were from the State Department. According to an intelligence officer, after much urging Nieminen, who in the first instance disagreed with the withdrawal, was finally shown reliable intelligence that proved that they actually were in danger. The CIA was said to have shown the Finnish General reports that made clear that the US service had a source or sources close to Mladic or Karadzic. They also showed him intercepted message traffic. In Pale the decision had already been made to take American observers hostage and to abduct them over the Serbian border to Srpska; after that the Finnish General agreed with the withdrawal of the observers.[16]

The original plan was that the mission would comprise 250 observers. This was never achieved, however, and the maximum staffing was 210, from September to October 1994. Nieminen's mission had total freedom of movement along the border with Serbia. The ICFY mission did not occupy all border crossings; many of them were not monitored or were monitored by hired-in Serbian personnel. The mission itself was said to have admitted that 71 potential border crossings on the Drina were not under their control. The Bosnian government then concluded that the mission was not in a position to exercise effective control. This would have required 1760 static observers, 310 mobile observers, 100 interpreters and 80 administrative staff. Furthermore, according to the Bosnian government, the mission would have to have 2 helicopters, 214 vehicles and a radar detection system for tracking low flying aircraft.

In May 1995 the number declined sharply; when the American and Canadian observers had been withdrawn, Nieminen had 151 observers left. Of the 18 Border Control Points, four were closed. There were then observers from 18 countries: mainly from the EU, Norway, Russia, and Czechoslovakia. They were professional customs personnel, who operated in every sector.[17] Other countries sent additional personnel, and in July 1995 the mission again had 185 observers who manned 19 border crossings 24 hours a day. It appears from their comprehensive reports that smuggling attempts were occasionally made over the border between Serbia and Srpska via the Drina,[18] but no large smuggling operations were recorded. Three days before the attack on Srebrenica observers even noted that on two occasions buses with men of compulsory service age were held up at the border by Serbian militias, and were not allowed to enter the Republika Srpska.[19]

Nieminen constantly complained about the lack of cooperation of the US intelligence community. They regularly took aerial photographs above the Republika Srpska, but when Nieminen asked for them, he was not given them. A White House adviser confirmed that this intelligence was not shared, and was kept for the Americans themselves.[20] Nieminen only received intelligence piecemeal, sometimes in the form of intercepts, but the question was whether it was always reliable. The Bosnian services also intercepted communication traffic, which showed evidence of Serbian involvement.[21] The intermediary concerned was Mirko Krajisnik, the brother of the chairman of the Bosnian-Serb parliament, Momcilo Krajisnik. The intercepts revealed that the Serbian Minister of the Interior and head of the Domestic Security service, Jovica Stanisic, were involved in clandestine supplies of arms and fuel.[22]

The French and British intelligence services did give information to Nieminen 'to balance US intelligence reports', and the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) contributed observers only in the autumn of 1995, who had an anti-Serbian attitude, however. Nieminen also had to take disinformation into account; the German embassy in Belgrade occasionally produced reports of suspect reliability. For instance, the embassy reported on 16 March 1995, probably on the authority of the BND, that a temporary bridge had been built over the Drina between Serbia and Srpska at Jagostica, which was used to transport equipment to the VRS. Four border crossings were also mentioned across which goods were smuggled to the VRS. The messages immediately raised doubts; the bridge would actually have been in the Zepa pocket and the smuggling of military goods destined for the VRS via a Muslim area was unlikely. The British Army sent an SAS patrol to inspect the alleged bridge. The surroundings turned out to resemble a Norwegian fjord, with a steep rock wall more than 200 metres high. The German information was therefore incorrect, and the account of the smuggling via four border posts also proved to be incorrect because all posts were monitored 24 hours a day by UN observers.[23] The information of the Bosnian Muslims was likewise not always to be trusted. Sometimes Nieminen received intercepts, but account was always taken of the possibility of disinformation. In that period, as mentioned, many Bosnian reports were sent to the UN of large quantities of tanks and trucks that crossed the Drina.

The American observers in his team were often frustrated by the response from Washington, which only complained there that their reports were incorrect. Contradictory reports came from Washington, but they also often appeared to contain incorrect information. Although one of Nieminen's closest colleagues was a State Department official, the Americans remained reluctant to share their intelligence openly.[24] Therefore the mission was constantly confronted with disinformation about sundry tanks that crossed the Drina. A member of the mission gave as an example the attack on Zepa, in which American and German services claimed that tanks had been moved across the Drina. It turned out later that the two services used different aerial photographs, where the German photo was not of the Drina but of a completely different river.

The relationship with the US services improved later. The mission then received intelligence from the CIA on trucks that were moving to and fro between Serbia and Srpska. This service was able to say precisely which trucks were involved, the nature of the cargo, and the time and the place that they would cross. However, it was only in the autumn of 1995 that the mission received this intelligence rapidly and in good time;[25] by which time American ground forces had arrived.

A 'very hot potato' were the helicopter flights from Serbia to Srpska. The following mysterious episode may serve as an illustration. On 7 February 1995, Nieminen was phoned by UN negotiator Stoltenberg. Fifteen to twenty helicopter flights were said to have passed the border, and to have landed somewhere near Srebrenica. These helicopters came from Serbia.[26] The US intelligence community had probably informed Stoltenberg of this.[27] Nieminen then drafted a special report for the Security Council. On 8 February came the Serbian denial that there had been any flights; on 22 February, Nieminen had a talk with Milosevic on the helicopter flights, which he also denied. On 2 March, UNPROFOR reported again that between 21 and 27 February nineteen helicopters had flown from Serbia to Bosnia. Nieminen demanded immediate clarification, but the VJ claimed that it knew nothing.[28] A new report was made on 27 March: this time it involved 27 helicopters, which flew at an extremely high altitude from Serbia to VRS territory. On the way back, the helicopters probably deliberately flew very low, so as to avoid the radar systems; Nieminen was told that the AWACS had problems tracking helicopters.

Nieminen had earlier ordered a large-scale investigation. On 28 March 1995, Lieutenant Colonel R. Gudmundsson presented his findings to Nieminen. Between October 1994 and March 1995, observers from the Belgrade airfield, Surcin, had recorded a total of 73 cross border helicopter flights. Radar tracks from various radar posts confirm this. All posts were linked with the two most important air traffic control centres: one in Zagreb and one in Belgrade. Four radars were available in Surcin, but they did not have a wide range. They were too far from the border between Bosnia and Serbia to be able to track low flying aircraft.

The radar tracks came exclusively from a radar post that was situated approximately 90 kilometres from the border with Bosnia. The 79 violations were distributed as follows: there were 6 violations of the No Fly Zone in Bosnia. This also included ABiH flights.[29] There were 13 violations involving flights from Serbia to Bosnia. The remaining 60 violations were helicopter flights from Bosnia to Serbia. In March 1995, in other words shortly after the Black Flights to Tuzla, a total of 30 violations were observed. These included 26 helicopter flights from Bosnia to Serbia and 4 violations of the No Fly Zone in Bosnia. The track headings were mainly in the direction of Belgrade.

Gudmundsson also had an opinion on what the helicopters were transporting from Bosnia to Belgrade as opposed to the other way around. According to him, the helicopters were transporting valuable goods on their return journey, and flying back unobserved from Serbia was no great problem, because look-out posts on the airfields and at the borders could be used to check if UNPROFOR or ICFY mission observers were in the vicinity. Gudmundsson observed further that these flights sometimes took place after one or two days of heavy fighting in Bosnia. They were apparently not medical flights, because they were permissible, and these flights were unannounced.

Gudmundsson determined that in two cases a NATO jet fighter had been close to a helicopter, but that no action was taken. Neither were the helicopters ever intercepted, but the question was whether an AWACS was able to detect these low and slow flying helicopters; according to Gudmundsson it was possible, but 'the findings are normally filtered out by the computer system'. He had noticed something else remarkable: not a single violation was seen simultaneously by both the Belgrade airfield Surcin and by UNPROFOR or ICFY. This could mean that only helicopter flights at high altitude were seen by Surcin, but if that was the case, the Serbian air defence alarm would have sounded after observation, which never happened. This could indicate that the air defence was aware of the origin of these helicopters; perhaps the helicopters were equipped with a transponder that operated on a certain military frequency, to simplify coordination with the Serbian anti-aircraft defence.[30]

Gudmundsson concluded that if a helicopter had been 'seen', it would also have to return, so that the total number of violations would have to be doubled. All in all, the air border between Serbia and Bosnia was not closed, and if the aircraft flew back from Serbia to Bosnia they would be able to transport important cargo. 'The amount of suspected helicopters turning back to Bosnia have capacity of carrying substantial operational, logistic and personnel support to local authorities or commanders.[31] On 30 March, Owen was briefed on Gudmundsson's findings. It remained unclear who carried out the flights, with what goal, and what the helicopters had transported. An attached map did indicate that there were many fights near Srebrenica.[32] Serbia responded with irritation to the conclusions of this report.[33]

On 11 April, Nieminen had another talk with Milosevic, the basis for which was an UNPROFOR report with evidence that between 2 and 7 April 1995, 25 helicopters had flown from Serbia to Bosnia. He showed Milosevic all the reports and demanded that this stop. If not, then he and his mission would finally depart. After this, the flights from Serbia to Bosnia did not stop completely, but they did become less numerous.

Western intelligence services on the support of the VJ to the VRS

The reports of Serbian supplies continued. According to a Canadian UNPROFOR worker, many heavy trucks arrived in the area, which was controlled by the Bosnian Serbs, through border crossings with Serbia.[34] At the same time, British intelligence services also investigated the supplies to the VRS. In March 1995, the British military intelligence service determined that this was taking place, and by the VJ using helicopters, according to various intelligence reports. British diplomats in Belgrade were not completely convinced, however; they disagreed with this analysis by Joint Headquarters in Salisbury of 8 March. It stated that 'the VRS are clearly being resupplied across the Drina by helicopters'. According to British diplomats, this claim completely contradicted the ICFY report of one week earlier. They wondered why, if intelligence existed, it was not made available to the ICFY. British diplomats suspected that this was 'repeddling of others' unsupported intelligence reports'.[35]

The BND and Netherlands MIS likewise reported on violations of the embargo against Serbia and Montenegro by Romania and Greece. The Greek covert support to Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs during the war in Bosnia is extremely well documented by the Greek journalist, Takis Michas.[36] Russian and Ukrainian oil supplies to Serbia took place across the Danube. Hungarian cargo vessels, officially in transit to Romania, were also said to have actually been unloaded in Serbia, and the oil forwarded to the Republika Srpska. These services also reported that Greece violated the embargo by drawing large quantities of electricity from Bosnia each day. Otherwise, this ran properly via Serbia to Greece, and the Greek state energy company paid $ 20,000 a month to Belgrade for using the electric power lines. Furthermore, according to these services, the arms embargo was evaded on a large scale via Macedonia.[37] Greek banks on Cyprus were also used and via these banks more than 770 million Euros was spent by Serbia to buy arms from Russia and Israel. The Greek Central Bank would later refuse to cooperate with the Chief Prosecutor of the Yugoslavia Tribunal in The Hague, Carla Del Ponte.[38] The trial at the Tribunal in The Hague against Serbia's retired President, Milan Milutinovic, might perhaps bring more evidence to light as regards the Greek involvement. He apparently played a pivotal role in the alliance between Greece and Serbia during the Balkan conflict.[39]

Much fuel was also brought in by train from Skopje. The British press accused Akashi of failure in this regard: 'Akashi just wanted to push this into a black hole so we could forget about it', according to an anonymous official. This reproach of Akashi is unjustified: UNPROFOR had no mandate to monitor violations of the arms embargo or to enforce the...