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

74involved in intelligence activities. 342 The ECMM, in other words, was used by a large number ofintelligence services to station staff and so to gather intelligence in Yugoslavia.Of course, Western intelligence services also placed staff within UNPROFOR and among theUNMOs, the UN military observers. Both these groups reported in the first instance mainly to the UN,but also to their own national governments. A former Chief of the UNMOs confirmed that his staffdid hold various intelligence officials. These came mainly from France, Great Britain, Russia and theUS. For example, his deputy came from the Russian Speznatz. A company in Texas ‘delivered’ theAmerican UNMOs but this company was affiliated with the CIA. The British UNMOs came oftenfrom the SAS.343 During nearly all UN operations in other countries it happened that staff ofintelligence and security services worked in UN organizations. For instance, the UNSCOM mission inIraq had a large number of CIA workers. 344 There was no great need for this during the war in Bosniafor the European intelligence services, because they happened to be ‘in command’ withinUNPROFOR. Hence, it was mainly American services used UNPROFOR for intelligence gathering.After all, there were no American ground forces involved in the war, so their information position wastherefore not always good.The same was true for Eastern Bosnia. It was often suggested in publications and interviewsthat a certain Civil Affairs official of the UN in Tuzla worked for the CIA. For instance, a former ABiHgeneral said about this official that the American services shared no intelligence with the ABiH, but thatthis person did occasionally pass on intelligence. According to this general, this official was a CIArepresentative. He sometimes went, according to the ABiH general, under the cover of Civil Affairs toSrebrenica and shared much information with the ABiH 2nd Corps headquarters in Tuzla.345 A Bosnianmilitary intelligence service official confirmed that he knew various CIA workers and identified severalof them. He received no intelligence from these persons, but did provide them with information, withthe permission of the 2nd Corps. 346 It was impossible to establish whether this official indeed workedfor the CIA. Repeated requests for an interview were declined.The position of Civil Affairs was often used as a cover for intelligence operations by Americanintelligence services (CIA or DIA). For example, an American captain in Lucavac worked for SectorNorth East, and he constantly interrogated Dutch UNPROFOR personnel about routes, convoys, andwhat they had encountered. If an incident had taken place, he asked about everything that hadhappened and how well the VRS was armed. This American captain frequently travelled throughoutBosnia. He suddenly disappeared after the attack of the 5th Corps in Bihac; he was picked up by an347American colonel and never returned.Another UNPROFOR official in Tuzla was also said to have worked for the Americanintelligence community, in particular for the US Special Forces. He was first spotted in 1994 in Sarajevoat the headquarters of Bosnia-Hercegovina Command. He had an UNPROFOR identity card and toldexciting stories about his ten-year stay in Vietnam. His credibility was soon brought into doubt,however, because he wore Airborne stripes on the wrong side of his uniform, and was thereforerequested by General Rose’s staff to leave the headquarters in Sarajevo. 348In 1995 the same official emerged in Tuzla, where he was working for UNPROFOR as head ofthe section for civil-military relations (in military terms: the G-5). In Tuzla, the US official made nosecret of his Special Forces background. 349 According to an UNPROFOR official, the American342 ‘Bundesregierung: Mitarbeiter des BND in Bosnien im Einsatz, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 21/09/96.343 Interview with Bo Pellnäss, 03/11/99.344 A. Walter Dorn, ‘The Cloak and the Blue Beret: Limitations on Intelligence in UN Peacekeeping’, International Journal ofIntelligence and Counterintelligence, Vol. 12 (1998) 4, pp. 439-440.345 Confidential interview (5).346 Confidential interview (83).347 MoD, MIS/Cie. Van Jawad to Hakort, debriefing report 101 MIS/Cie, 23/12/95.348 Confidential information (10).349 O’shea, Crisis at Bihac, p. 159.