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

25that the safety of their personnel is endangered if they are associated with intelligence gathering.Another reason is that the humanitarian agencies are not accountable to the Security Council for theiroperations. 74 According to the military advisor to the UN Secretary-General, Major General F.H. vanKappen, who held this position from 1 July 1995, this did not apply to the UN Secretariat, in particularfor the two most important departments within the Secretariat, the Department of PeacekeepingOperations (DPKO) and the Department of Political Affairs (DPA). Although these two departmentsalso traditionally uphold the principle that gathering intelligence is undesirable, the thinking there isstarting to shift. 75Matters are complicated by the fact that the UN member states have no consistent view onintelligence. Furthermore, the discussion is clouded by problems of definition. What one member statesees as gathering intelligence, another describes as collecting information. As became clear, this was tohave serious consequences in Yugoslavia. By way of illustration, the Canadian battalion and the Frenchcompany who were responsible for reopening the Sarajevo airfield in June 1992 were given no insightby the UN into the positions and activities of the warring factions around that airfield. The UNexpected the troops to go in ‘blind’. Because of the excellent relationship with its neighbour to thesouth, Ottawa could gather the intelligence it needed by a roundabout route, which was not onlynecessary for protecting the units, but also to cover an emergency withdrawal strategy. 76It can be deduced from this that, at the commencement of the conflict in Yugoslavia, theproblems with passing on intelligence to the United Nations had yet to be solved. Indeed, there is stillno intelligence culture at the UN. Within UNPROFOR, there was even an emphatic anti-intelligenceculture. ‘Intelligence, even if it was to be used only for force protection, was still being resisted by somesenior military officers in command positions at UNPROFOR in Zagreb’, according to an intelligenceofficer who worked at the headquarters there. 77In the summer of 1992, at the start of the UNPROFOR mission in Bosnia, the UN Secretariatrejected the American offer of (military and other) intelligence. 78 At that time the Ministry of ForeignAffairs in The Hague had already concluded that without good intelligence ‘the UN operation wasdoomed to be rudderless’. 79 The American offer was later repeated under the Clinton administration,but again rejected. 80 An anti-intelligence culture was also dominant at the Department of PeacekeepingOperations (DPKO) of the UN headquarters. For example, the head of this department, Kofi Annan,stated suspiciously: ‘We have to be careful because the big powers only give us what they want us toknow.’ There was still a deep aversion to the UN gathering its own intelligence. They preferred to usethe term ‘military information’, and the gathering had to be done by military observers, who were onlyallowed to report visual observations. When some (mainly American) intelligence was passed on to theDPKO, past experience showed that no feedback was to be expected from New York to the localUNPROFOR commanders.Another reason for the UN’s objections to intelligence is that there is an element of restraint inmost countries when it comes to passing on information to the UN. This applies not only to smallerstates, but also to the United States, which until now has had the closest intelligence liaison with theUN. This restraint was mainly caused by the ‘leaks’ within the organization itself, and also because UNpersonnel were unaccustomed to dealing routinely with classified material. This was an issue not only inNew York but also locally in Bosnia, where insecure communication equipment was often used, so that74 F.E. van Kappen,’ Strategic Intelligence and the United Nations’, Paper presented at the NISA/IDL Conference‘Peacekeeping and Intelligence’, Delft, 15/11/02.75 F.E. van Kappen, ‘strategische inlichtingen en de Verenigde Naties’ (‘strategic intelligence and the United Nations’),Militaire Spectator Vol. 170 (2001) 11, p. 593.76 Confidential interview (3).77 Confidential interviews (9) and (47).78 NMFA, PVNY. Van Schaik, PVNY to Foreign Affairs, no. 594, 23/06/92.79 NMFA, DEU/ARA/00085. Memorandum of the Directorate for Atlantic Cooperation and Security Affairs (DAV) onthe Gymnich meeting held on 12-13/09/92.80 Interview with M. Albright, 28/09/01.