C. Wiebes - Intelligence en de oorlog in Bosnië 1992-1995. De rol van de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten - Engels

239Comint archive and other archive material. Keywords (including ‘srebrenica’) were entered for the years1992 to 1999. This research in the intercepts and reports resulted in a good picture. It transpired thatalthough a great deal of intercepted material is present, very little of it concerns the events aroundSrebrenica in the summer of 1995. This tallied with the statements in a confidential briefing given tothe author. There is some material at Eibergen that concerns Srebrenica, but this can be regarded asnon-relevant. There is very little material about the military developments in the region. It is highlyprobable that foreign-partner material does not contain any intercepted calls between Janvier andChirac either, because their presence would always have left traces, in disguised form, in the normalMIS reports.In this way it was established that the claims made by anonymous sources that the Eibergenarchive contained intercepts of calls between Janvier and Chirac were not correct. The same went forthe archive of the TIVC in Amsterdam and the central Comint archive of the Signals Department inThe Hague. This author conducted extensive research in these archives too. On the basis of a largenumber of relevant keywords a search was made for possibly present intercepted telephone calls, suchas between Janvier and Chirac or between Mladic and Perisic. This material was not found in thesearchives either. Hence it can be concluded that these intercepts are not present in the Netherlands.Another reason why it is unlikely that these intercepts would be present in Eibergen is that the 898thSignals Battalion of the Netherlands Army concentrated only on strictly military networks, not ontelephone traffic between UNPROFOR and national governments. In July 1995, however, Eibergenwas not even capable of monitoring the military networks in view of the limited interception capacityand technical resources. The same applied to the TIVC of the Netherlands Navy in Amsterdam. It canfurther be assumed that General Janvier and President Chirac did not talk to each other on an open andnon-secure telephone line. 1265The claim that staff of the MIS have been enjoined to secrecy on this matter, as claimed by oneMIS staff member, has not been substantiated. The author was able to speak freely to every staffmember. On the basis of research in the MIS archives it can be concluded that if American high-levelComint was available on such conversations, it was not shared with the MIS. Thorough study of theMIS reports, and many interviews, indicated that nothing relating to this matter was exchanged with theNetherlands. In this respect the MIS was treated the same as the services of other alliance partners.A secret request to the MIS: a suitcase for DutchbatThe MIS would have been able to acquire a good intelligence position if a secret American offer hadbeen accepted. Staff of American, Canadian, British and Dutch intelligence services confirmed that theNSA intercepted only few conversations in Eastern Bosnia. The Americans had problems with theirComint coverage, although they intercepted fairly large quantities of information. Communications viawalkie-talkies presented a problem however, as described in the previous section. This provided anopportunity for the Netherlands. The Head of the MIS/CO Commander P. Kok – he occupied thispost from 1 January 1994 to 25 June 1995 – was approached by the CIA representative in The Hagueimmediately after Kok took up his post at the start of 1994. 1266 Dutchbat I was then about to leave forSrebrenica and the CIA made an offer ‘which you cannot refuse’. 1267Kok was told the following. The NSA, it appeared, had a serious problem: the service wasunable to intercept communications via Motorola walkie-talkies in and around the eastern enclaves.The range of such communications equipment was no more than about 30 km. The Americans wantedto set up an interception network at various points in the Balkans, and envisaged Srebrenica as one of1265 MoD, SMG, Report of visit to Lt. Col. A. Bleumink, 09/08/95.1266 Confidential interview (78). A request for a confidential interview with this American chief of station was refused by theCIA.1267 An initial indication of this operation was received during a confidential interview (6) with a former employee of theNSA.