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- Herausgeber: Merlin Unwin Books
- Kategorie: Lebensstil
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
Nick Sawyer is a young soldier and fisherman. His military career has already taken him to 22 different countries and whether he is peace-keeping amongst the burning villages and mass graves of the Balkans or being attacked by hornets in the jungles of Malaysia, he always has a hook and line to hand. In between soldiering duties, he slips away to fish. Often he meets locals by the river, and the common language of fishing cuts across the bloody backdrop of the war. Nick Sawyer, grandson of the great Wiltshire riverkeeper Frank Sawyer, takes the reader on a fascinating trip to the heart of some of the terrible conflicts of the modern world - yet he also shows the humour and camaraderie of soldiering. It doesn't matter whether he is raiding a terrorist's house at dawn or dodging bullets in a grotty third-world street, there is always a humourous quip to make light of the situation. He fishes for trout, huchen, kelah, mosquitofish, tilapia and sheatfish with nets, rods and traps. 'There are no half-measures when it comes to the dedication of a fisherman or a soldier,' he writes.
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FISHING ON THE FRONT LINE
Nick Sawyer
Contents
To Melody, my love, supporter and better three-quarters. And to Fyrne, Freddie and Tilly, each as beautiful and gifted as their mother.
Introduction
‘Only a dead fish goes with the flow.’
Ethan Evans
When I first considered writing this book I wasn’t sure whether to write as a soldier who enjoyed fishing, or as a fisherman who happened to be a soldier. Now that the book is finished, I am still unsure which of my alter-egos wrote the book. Fishing and soldiering, at first glance, appear to be well-suited companions. Both require an understanding of one’s surroundings, the perfection of certain skills, and a hunter’s instinct. But a more detailed look exposes them as rather polarised bedfellows. Soldiering is ultimately about teamwork, interaction with others (whether friend or foe), and the understanding and mastery of human nature. Fishing, on the other hand, is a solitary pursuit, undertaken away from people, and requiring no consideration of man’s character.
I think, for me, that the attraction in both activities is that, in order to achieve maximum fulfilment; there is a requirement for total immersion. The Brigadier who recruited me into the Army told me during my first interview: ‘Being an Army Officer is not a job; it is a way of life.’ There are few professions which demand so much, and fewer still which reward so fully. It is a way of life that involves travel and adventure, friends and camaraderie, and an existence few outside the Forces can imagine.
Fishing elicits equally strong opinions. My grandfather, the late author and river-keeper Frank Sawyer, was as insistent as the Brigadier when he said: ‘Everyone must work and everyone must have leisure, and to my way of thinking, if this leisure time is to be of real benefit, the pastime needs to be completely absorbing.’ Anyone who has cast a fly delicately towards a feeding trout, waited patiently for a float to dip under the surface, or simply held rod and line poised for action will know exactly what Frank is talking about.
In this book I have tried to express the complete absorption of fishing, and to articulate the Army Officer’s unique way of life. Whether it is hand-lining in a muddy jungle river of the Far East, or peacekeeping amongst the burning villages and mass graves of the Balkans, there are no half-measures when it comes to the dedication of a fisherman or a soldier. If he or she is not completely engrossed by the angling, or totally occupied by the mission, fishing and soldiering become irrelevant mechanical activities.
So far I have been to 22 different countries with the Army and I have absolutely no doubt there will be many more to come. Most trips have been training exercises and a few have been operational tours. I have been fortunate enough to fish in many of these places. The waters have ranged from limestone rivers, not dissimilar to our English chalk streams, through to murky pools in the African bush. The fish vary hugely, but there is something uncannily similar about fishermen all over the world. Kikuyu, Serb, Malay, Bosnian or Berber, it makes little difference. They may have radically different cultures and religions, or hate certain other peoples with fanatical fervour, but they all understand the common language of fishing. Trout, huchen, kelah, mosquitofish and tilapia are but a few of the species; and nets, rods, grenades and traps are a few of the methods, but the end result is the same.
British soldiers also demonstrate a common language in the sense of humour they display in difficult and uncomfortable situations. Whether it is training in the unique but miserable weather systems that seem to pervade most UK training areas, or dealing with the fear and uncertainty of conflict in some foreign land, the character of the private soldiers and NCOs is ever present. It doesn’t matter whether they are raiding a terrorist’s house at dawn, or dodging bullets in a grotty third-world street, there is always a humorous quip to make light of the situation. It would take more than a few hundred pages to describe even a fraction of the funny and ironic moments I have shared with my fellow soldiers, but I hope I have given a small flavour of the British soldier’s character.
As you turn these pages you will find no underlying philosophical message, no debate on the rights or wrongs of war and no instruction on how to cast long distances or hook a wary fish – there are far more qualified people than me to talk on these matters. Nor is this book a list of exotic places I have fished or baddies that I have fought and killed. The big game fishermen and the increasing number of ex-SAS writers are the experts in these areas. Fishing on the Front Line is simply an account of an ordinary Army Officer who has been lucky enough to fish and soldier with some extraordinary people in a few rather unusual places and in very interesting times.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Jean-Francois Helias of Fishing Adventures Thailand for permission to reproduce the photos on pages 45 and 53. My thanks also to The Field for allowing me to reproduce the photo on page 157 and the Salisbury Journal for the photo on page 162.
Chapter One
Bosnia
“No language can describe adequately the condition of that portion of the Balkan Peninsula – Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and other provinces. Political intrigue, constant rivalries, a total absence of political spirit, hatred of all races, animosities of rival religions and absence of any controlling power… nothing short of an army of fifty thousand of the best troops would produce anything like order in these parts.”
Benjamin Disraeli, 1878
It was late spring when I flew into the Balkans. A few of the harsh, grey peaks thousands of feet below still had a light covering of snow, while the bright green lower valleys with their villages and towns relaxed in warm May sunshine. More importantly, the deeper gorges, clearly visible from thirty thousand feet, all had a reflective ribbon of icy cold water flowing from the snow-covered mountains. Bosnia was a prime fishing area and I wasn’t going to let Europe’s bloodiest war since 1945 stop me fishing such legendary rivers as the Sana or Una. There was the odd problem of minefields, criminal gangs, rogue military factions, mass graves and war-damaged infrastructure, but then it wouldn’t be real fishing if some hardship was not involved. There was also the significantly larger challenge of persuading my distinctly non-angling Commanding Officer (CO) that fishing really was going to help bring peace to the Balkans. My previous travels around the world had shown conclusively that fishing can be a useful catalyst for interacting with the locals. Wherever there are fish, there are men and women who dedicate much of their lives to catching them. It was perhaps a forlorn hope to think that a love of fishing could transcend the ethnic hatred found in the Balkans, but it would certainly give a neutral party, such as a NATO peacekeeper, a good starting point for conversation.
My pre-tour training had focused primarily on the political and military situation in the operational area of the British-controlled Multinational Division South West, or MND(SW). However, there was a small amount of time for a bit of personal research and I had managed to turn up a few gems about the fishing. After all, if I was going to converse with any authority on fishing in the Balkans, and, more importantly, successfully land a large local specimen, then I ought to acquire a few salient facts on the subject.
The most sought-after fish in the region is Hucho hucho. The Eurasian Huchen is indigenous to the Danube Basin and can grow to over one hundred pounds in weight. It is sometimes called the Danube Salmon or bull trout, but is non-migratory, moving only a small distance upstream to spawn. The Game Fishing Association lists the largest huchen caught at 130 pounds, making it the biggest salmonid in the world. The huchen is not common in the Balkans and few stocking programmes have been successful. It was listed in 1967 as ‘scarce’ in Yugoslavia by Muus and Dahlstrøm in their extensive work Guide des poissons d’eau douce et pêche.
The first positive piece of information on Bosnian fishing was found accidentally when I was sorting through some of my grandfather’s old notes. On the back of an article published in an unidentified French magazine from the 1950s was a piece about fishing in Yugoslavia entitled ‘Dans Les Eaux Yougoslaves’. With the help of a French dictionary at the bottom of the same box, I was able to carry out a pas mal translation of the document. The article contained photos of Yugoslavian rivers and contained captions such as: ‘In the river the average trout is four or five pounds and specimens of 12 pounds are not rare.’ Or, ‘There are rumoured to be very big trout of about 45 pounds in the larger gorges.’ While I found the idea of a 45-pound wild trout a little difficult to believe1, the photographs and other articles were enough to convince anyone of the excellent rivers to be found in Bosnia.
The second item was a little closer to my profession and was an account by a refugee in 1993 describing how a group of 30 villagers had hidden in the mountains and survived on fish caught from a nearby stream. The refugees survived for nearly two months on a fish and wild herb diet and the headman described the streams as ‘…an endless source of sustenance.’ Clearly a description of rivers containing a large number of fish. What’s more, the area was close to where my unit was due to deploy. The final temptation was a single line from a previous unit’s war diary2. The line from June 1996 read simply: “I met a commander from VII Corps on the Eastern bank of the destroyed bridge…..saw several massive fish in the river.”
The biggest decision to make in the pre-tour preparation was not whether to take a pistol or a rifle (I took both in the end), or to top up my life insurance policy (the gamble obviously paid off), but what fishing tackle to take. I prided myself on having never bought a rod or reel. I had survived for nearly thirty years on hand-me-downs and didn’t own a rod less than twenty years old. But what I really needed was a ‘Gucci’3 little travel rod that would fit in my webbing or Bergen4 and could easily be taken on foot patrols. Unfortunately my pocket money didn’t go far enough for a new rod so I decided to take an old fibre-glass two-piece rod of six feet that had been in the garage for years.
The more discerning fisherman would probably scoff at such a puny measure of manliness and question whether it was possible to cast far enough with so small a rod. Fortunately distance casting has never been a problem for me. I am terrible at casting any distance over fifteen feet, so out of necessity I have become proficient at creeping closer to fish in order to reach them with my pathetic little casts. Although I frighten the fish a lot of the time, it is distinctly less often than when pulling line out of trees or flapping large amounts of uncontrolled tangles onto the river surface. Yes, my little rod would be fine although it didn’t exactly fit neatly into my Bergen.
As a weighted nymph purist on my native Avon5, it took a great deal of soul searching before deciding to take anything other than Killer Bugs and Pheasant Tail Nymphs6. The few bits of literature on Yugoslavian rivers had not made a single mention of suitable dry flies, so a motley collection of red spinners, black gnats and some white flies without a name, seemed like a fairly good selection. I don’t normally fish with dry flies so, in my ignorance, the big difference in colours seemed to be the most sensible approach to cover all contingencies. If it came down to it I could always colour in the white flies with a felt-tip pen.
In the weeks before deployment I had done a mission analysis and combat estimate7 on the military mission. The attitude of the former warring factions in my area of Bosnia was relatively benign, largely due to the huge amount of firepower NATO had at its disposal. In my assessment of the situation, the biggest threat to the safe and secure environment came from landmines. Indeed, how could the environment be safe in the first place if millions of mines still littered the countryside? I decided that my contribution to the military mission would be to try and get some of the mines cleared. My analysis of the fishing challenge was much easier. I decided to find a local fisherman and ask him where to catch a huchen, and what fly to use.
I was going to have a number of other officers and soldiers to help me with the military mission and some of them were sitting around me on the aircraft as we made our descent over the Adriatic Coast. One of the subalterns who worked for me was Bertie Richardson. Bertie’s real name was Brian, but his fellow subalterns decided that Brian was not an officer-like name. They wrote to the manning and records division in Glasgow to inform them of the name change from Brian to Bertie and even got the Regimental Administration Officer (RAO) to make a permanent change on his computer record. To make matters even more ‘officer-like’ Bertie was also given the middle name St. John. Bertie was a solid and dependable officer, well liked by his soldiers and NCOs, although they wound him up relentlessly about his ‘fat arse’.
Another key individual was my right-hand-man and operations assistant Bombardier8 Harris. Bombardier Harris was known as Fireman Sam as he had been in the Fire Brigade for six years before he joined the Army. He was also a gifted drummer and played drums on Elkie Brook’s hit ‘No More the Fool.’ Sam was a typical Bombardier: innovative, hard-working, and utterly relentless when it came to getting a job done. Neither Bertie nor Sam were fishermen, and I made a mental note to try and convert them before the end of the tour.
Most of the passengers on the plane were peering out of the windows as we made our final approach into the area over Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast. The scenery which spread out below the charter aircraft, particularly the many small islands, were more reminiscent of a tropical archipelago than Southern Europe. The coastal area had not suffered rampant hotel building despite being a popular holiday destination during the pre-war days of Tito’s Yugoslavia. In fact, the whole area was largely untouched, consisting of occasional fishing villages and the odd larger town.
The bigger islands had one or two houses and a small beach. Fishing boats were sporadically placed among the islands and I could only begin to imagine the type of fish found in between the white beaches and rocky cliffs. Strangely, I found this aerial view disturbing. Many weeks of intensive pre-tour training, and hours of burning the midnight oil studying the Balkan conflicts, had prepared me for a dark, rugged and war-torn region stuck in the Dark Ages. Yet below me sparkling in the clear hot sun was a virtual paradise that seemed to ooze peace and tranquillity. My dream holiday destination had always been my own private island, a small boat and some fishing tackle – and there it was below me.
‘Bloody Hell,’ said a nearby soldier, ‘I didn’t realise we were going to be next to the sea.’
‘We’re not, lunatic,’ Fireman Sam informed the lad, ‘It’s an eight-hour drive from the airport to our gaff.’
It has to be said that the whole arrival experience was slightly surreal. The British Army charters civilian airlines for transporting troops to and from operational theatres, a role to which my Airtours Airbus 320 was quite clearly unfamiliar. The seat-back literature glorified Spanish and Greek resorts, while the duty-free catalogue sold such soldierly items as handbags and pearl-necklaces. The majority of the passengers were about to spend six months away from their families and the wonderful family resorts on the Costa Brava and Peloponnesian Beaches were perhaps not quite what they wanted to read about.
Our destination airport was the schizophrenic (and rather aptly named) Adriatic port of Split. Split wasn’t quite sure whether it was a historic European city, a luxury holiday spot or the remnants of some disastrous communist housing experiment. The immediate port area was made up of empty warehouses and large cranes lying idle, while the city suburbs were a patchwork of modern houses, traditional villas, abandoned factories and ghastly grey tower blocks. Some of the dock areas were still in use but it was clear that the docking industry had declined substantially since its heyday before the war. There were signs of a recovery: indeed much of NATO’s equipment and supplies came in through the port, but there was still a long way to go before Split could once again claim to be an affluent port city. The drawbacks of Split aside, the Croatians were obviously putting a lot of effort into their tourist industry – and rightly so. The potential of the area was enormous and the deserted white beaches, azure seas, classic Adriatic villas and hot sunny weather all contributed to the holiday atmosphere of Split and the Dalmatian Coast.9
The eight-hour road journey from Split to the location of our base camp in the Bosnian town of Sanski Most was like driving back in time. The relatively modern and prosperous coast of Croatia gave way to smaller regional towns while industry changed from manufacturing and shipping to a clearly agricultural-based economy. There was no mistaking the border with Bosnia-Herzegovina. The terrain became more mountainous and the flotsam and detritus of war lay alongside the roads and towns. Burned-out cars and military vehicles lying in ditches were a common feature and hastily-prepared graveyards by the roadside indicated the most bitter battlefields and areas of ethnic cleansing. Trench systems and artillery pits could be found at strategic locations and there was hardly a building without bullet holes or some other form of battle damage.
Conversely, the countryside was stunning and appeared to be untouched by the conflict. Deep wooded valleys with fertile plateaux of pasture marked the high altitude areas, while almost feudal plots and terraces made up the prime agricultural land. Bosnia was not a backward country by any means but the war had dealt a severe blow to certain aspects of the country’s economy. Rusting chair lifts and even an old steam train on a twisted track were remnants of the ski industry, while gutted factories were a common site in larger towns. Deserted and overgrown agricultural land were the other hallmarks of areas emptied by ethnic cleansing.
It was late spring when we made our journey so the rivers were brimming with snow melt and the many seasonal streams were running well. It was not uncommon to drive alongside rivers in valley bottoms for many miles or cross deep gorges on crudely-repaired bridges. Rivers and streams were such a key feature of the terrain that it was difficult to avoid them. I was surprised at the lack of fisherman on these rivers as they appeared to be wonderful fishing waters. Indeed, even from the Land Rover window at 40 mph I could see fish rising.
These beautiful Balkan waters typify the rivers where I was deployed in Bosnia. Clean, clear and full of fish, the water in late spring was snowmelt and achingly cold. A local war veteran called Selman was to introduce me to the joys of fishing these enchanting waters.
The only fisherman I saw during the whole journey was fishing next to a small lay-by where we had conveniently stopped for a leg stretch. Although the road was the main route across this particular region of Bosnia, the area was deserted. The lay-by was in a small valley bottom with a wide open pine forest interspersed with overgrown pastures. It was late afternoon and the hottest part of the day had passed but it was still uncomfortably warm. The shaded lay-by and pleasant trickles of running water were a welcome change from the sweltering Land Rover. Bertie had spent the last four hours in the windowless back section of the Land Rover and was ‘in bits’10. If he had been a dog the RSPCA would have prosecuted me. Fireman Sam on the other hand had ignored the protests of the young Gunner11 who had been sent to pick us up and was now driving the Land Rover himself12 while the Gunner sweated it out in the back along with the Lance-Bombardier who had accompanied him for the journey.13
“I’ve got a headache that would kill a civvy,” was all Bertie could manage as he staggered off into the shade for a lie down. Bertie seemed to have an unnaturally large requirement for water and, as far as I remember, spent most of the tour dehydrated. The lads reckoned Bertie’s arse was like a camel’s hump and needed gallons of water to keep it inflated. His daily requirement for a small reservoir wasn’t helped by his making most vehicle journeys in the back of a Land Rover where he would emerge at every stop not only dehydrated, but covered from head to foot in the sticky thick dust that seemed to permeate even the most tightly-closed windows and doors. He did however draw the line at taking a dip in Bosnian rivers to cool off and clean up. He was convinced that they were full of cholera, typhoid, AIDS and every other nasty disease going.
This particular river next to the lay-by was quite deep and slow moving but the water was as clear as any English chalk-stream. There was very little weed on the rocky bed but small growths could be found in the slow-moving areas. A single stunted reed patch occupied a small foothold in slow-moving backwater on a sharp bend and this appeared to be the only substantial aquatic growth. The fisherman was clearly a skilled angler. From the lay-by twenty metres away the slow relaxed casting style and well-controlled loops of fly-line were a joy to watch. As I made my way down the rocky track towards him I could see he was using a small light rod no more than eight feet in length. I had no wish to disturb him so settled to watch him from a safe distance.
Although too far away to say what type of artificial he was using, I could tell it was a small delicate fly and he was presenting it on a stretch of slower-moving water. I was upstream of the fisherman and well above him on the side of the valley. From this position I could clearly see his reactions and it was obvious there were fish to catch.
It was ten or fifteen casts before he finally struck into a fish but the bend in his rod showed it was worth the effort. The commotion and splashing in the water were the frantic exertions of a wild fish, and it was obvious that the quarry was not going to give up easily. The lightweight tackle was under real strain and the fisherman was not the most delicate of anglers. His pressure on the fish was relentless and his rod was bent to breaking point. I felt sure that the fish would be lost any moment but the fisherman persevered with his robust approach and the fish was soon in his hand and whipped out onto the bank. The fish was quickly dispatched with a stone and placed inside a white carrier bag that had been weighted with stones and left in a shallow backwater.
The fisherman must have been at the end of his day’s fishing because as soon as he was level with the track he packed up his gear, collected his carrier bag from the river and walked up the track towards the lay-by. He was a lot younger than I had anticipated and was dressed in Nike trainers, jeans and a black Calvin Klein tee shirt. His left arm and the side of his face were a mangled scarred mess. The scarring was probably caused by either mortar or artillery shrapnel14. I smiled a friendly ‘Dobra Dan’, or ‘Good Day’, at the fisherman and pointed to the fish in his bag. He opened up the carrier and showed me three fish of between 11 and 12 inches. They were all brown trout with lovely bold black spots on deep gold flanks. His rod appeared to be new although there was no brand name anywhere to be seen. His reel on the other hand was much older and had Cyrillic writing on the drum. After much pointing and gesturing I managed to get the fisherman to show me his flies. There were only about ten flies in his box and they were all varying sizes of the same pattern. The largest was a size ten and the smallest a size sixteen. They had a tightly wound brown fur body with large green feathered hackles.
‘Huchen?’ I asked pointing at the river. There was no response. ‘Hucho?’ I tried again indicating a fish of about a metre in length. Another blank look. I made one last attempt, ‘Danube Salmon?’
‘Aah, niet, niet,’ replied the beaming fisherman, ‘Austria, Austria!’ and with that he pointed northwards in the direction of Austria. I tried to ascertain whether he meant the Danube was in Austria, or whether I had to go to Austria to catch a huchen, but the poor lad didn’t speak any English and was becoming more and more confused by my questions. Although he wasn’t able to tell me where to find a huchen, he had given me a clue on what sort of flies would be successful on Bosnian waters.
We soon had to leave our battle-scarred friend and continue with the drive across Bosnia. Our ultimate destination was the town of Sanski Most. The town was to be found nestled in the Sana valley of North West Bosnia. Post war Bosnia was split into two areas: the Serb-controlled Republic Srbska and the Muslim/Croat Bosnian Federation. Bosnia itself was bounded by Croatia to the North and West and Serbia & Montenegro to the East. Sanski Most is in Federation territory but the Inter Entity Boundary Line (IEBL)15 runs only a few miles north of the town16. The town is located on the banks of the River Sana with the town named after the main bridge.
The Sana is a wide limestone river which runs through the main valley and is bounded on all sides by hills and mountains. The Sana runs into the River Una which eventually flows into the Danube. I didn’t ever manage to fish in the main river but it was clearly excellent fishing water. The two fishing tackle shops in the town had a gallery of photos depicting various monsters caught from the main river. There were eight other rivers in the area – all tributaries to the Sana. In turn, these tributaries often had significant streams feeding them. The whole area was a fisherman’s paradise and I was lucky enough to fish many of these tributaries.
Any written history of Sanski Most is invariably clouded by the ethnic persuasions of the commentator and regrettably I found it difficult to find unbiased accounts. However, I did find a Bosnian website which, rather unusually, quoted from several well-known historical sources. The website was prepared by a local called Sergio Omanovic.
Archaeologists believe that there was a settlement at Sanski Most since at least Iron Age times. Iron ore deposits and the navigable river would have attracted the indigenous tribes and evidence from digs around the area certainly supports this claim. The town has a varied and often violent history. The area was first settled by the Illyrians but events significant to the situation today started around 700 AD. Around this time the area was slowly settled by Catholic Croats and the area remained under feudal Croat control until 1463. In this year the area to the south of Sanski Most was conquered by the Ottomans after the Bosnian king Tomasevic was defeated. At this stage the Croat Sana Valley came under increasing attack from the Ottoman strongholds in the south. The Ottoman historian Hazim Sabanovic describes these attacks:
“In the first stage the Ottomans would invade a contiguous territory and loot. This was conducted with the intention to economically weaken lands they sought to conquer and reduce their population by enslaving them and forcing them to seek refuge in other areas, and at the same time to shake morale and frighten those who remained. After realising the first phase of their plan, the Ottomans would then proceed with the second stage: the actual occupation of the land, the imposition of their authority, and the establishment of their administrative, social and economic order.”
By the end of the sixteenth century many Croats had abandoned the Sana Valley. Those that remained either converted to Islam or were killed. Very few Catholics were able to stay in the valley and keep their faith. Islamic Mosques were built and many had their foundations on Catholic sites. Orthodox Serbs were also increasing in number throughout the area and they too built places of worship in the region. During the Vienna War 100,000 Catholics were moved out of Bosnia to Christian regions. Similarly, Muslims were moving from areas that were throwing off Ottoman rule and many made their way to the Sana Valley and Sanski Most.
It was not until the Austro-Hungarian Empire was given administrative powers over the region after the Berlin Congress in 1878 that any semblance of law and order returned to the area. This relative calm remained until the First World War when the Serbian rise to dominance in the area started to gain momentum. With the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the region’s stabilising influence ended and the area of Sanski Most was embroiled in the bitter land disputes resulting from the change in regional power. Yugoslavia was formed with power exerted from Belgrade, much to the detriment of Croats and Muslims living in Sanski Most and the Sana Valley.
The start of the Second World War initiated another bloody period in Sanski Most’s history. Yugoslavia disintegrated and Sanski Most joined the Independent State of Croatia. However, Serbian partisans, or Chetniks, fought against the Nazi-backed Croats and other non-Serb groups and the area around Sanski Most witnessed awful ethnic violence with atrocities committed by all sides.
Yugoslavia rose again from the ashes of World War Two and was once more Serb-dominated and controlled from Belgrade. Sanski Most reverted to Yugoslavia and a period of industrialisation swept the whole of Bosnia. The ethnic hatred simmered under the surface in certain areas but Tito’s Yugoslavia was relatively stable under a communist government. Sanski Most prospered and became the most important town in the region.
Yugoslavia started its most recent disintegration in the early 1990s. As with its previous collapse, the disorder was accompanied by ethnic hatred and violence. Inevitably Bosnia and Sanski Most were drawn into the conflict and the Bosnian War from 1992-1995 became Europe’s bloodiest conflict since 1945. It is hard to comprehend the Bosnian War and the ethnic hatred that caused neighbours to turn against each other. It is perhaps best illustrated by accounts given by witnesses to the ethnic cleansing. Here is an account of the ethnic cleansing of the village of Hrustovo just a few miles outside of Sanski Most:
“On May 26, 1992, Serb irregulars attacked and entered my home village of Hrustovo. Their commander was Djuro Simic, the headmaster of my elementary school in the village of Tomina. He was the commander of one unit, and there were three more similar organisations. These were commanded by Rade Djukic, a farmer, Mile Tutus and Bozo Dobrijevic. The Serb irregulars pillaged and burned the houses, killed four men, slaughtered two women and imprisoned about sixty neighbours.
I was in the attic of my neighbour’s house and saw through a hole between the roofing-tiles when Mile (I do not know his surname) from the village of Kozice entered another house. He was a shop assistant and used to work in our village shop. Mile stayed twenty-five minutes in that house, and during his stay I heard a woman scream several times. As he walked out of the house, I saw that he wore black gloves up to the elbows and in his right hand he carried a knife covered with blood. This took place five to ten metres away from the house I was watching from, just across the road.
Mile then went to the house next door and a woman’s scream was heard three or four times. Asema Merdanovic was in that house. Mile stayed in this house for about twenty minutes and then joined a group of Chetniks waiting for him on the road. The Chetniks left the village half an hour later. I came down from the attic and went to the two houses visited by Mile. I found Seida and Asema slaughtered there. I also saw the murder of two brothers, Smajlo and Safet Mehmedovic, from the same attic. A group of about fifteen Chetniks demanded money and gold from them, and they handed over everything they had. The Chetniks were dissatisfied with the sum of money received and demanded more.
When the two brothers said that they did not have any more money, Dusko Savic and Zika Stojakovic shot and killed the two of them. Dusko fired from a semi-automatic gun, while Zika used a carbine, although I am not certain because I did not see it too well. The two brothers were killed on the stairs of a house about thirty metres away from me.
My two cousins were killed the same day. However, I did not witness their murders. That day in the shelter of Husko Merdanovic’s house, the Chetniks killed thirty members of Husko Merdanovic’s immediate family, including Husko himself.
The Serb irregulars imprisoned some sixty men from the village. They were taken to the Vrpolje Bridge, killed and thrown into the Sana River. They killed about fifty people. Hidden in a bush about 250 metres from the bridge, I watched these murders. The executors were Djuro Simic and Vojin Sava, a veterinarian from the village of Zegar (in Sanski Most county).
The executions were carried out in the following manner: a group of Chetniks would pick up a man and throw him over the bridge, and then Djuro and Vojin would fire at him. Some ten young men from this group survived and they were taken to the Omarska detention camp. I knew J. M. from this group as he was from my village.
These murders were committed in the course of several hours, i.e. from 2:00 pm. until dark. Apart from the aforementioned men, the following also participated in the killings: Gojko Savija, the brothers Petar and Sava Vojin, Jovan Djukic and his sons Rade and Dusan, Pepo Pantos, and Rajko whose surname I do not know. They also participated in the ethnic cleansing of the village and the looting of the houses.”
The town of Sanski Most in the late 1990s was a peculiar mix of Soviet-style blocks and traditional Balkan architecture. The war damage to the town was extensive. Sanski Most was fought over twice during the Bosnian War. In the opening stages of the war, Serb irregular forces captured the town in 1992 and forcibly removed a large proportion of the non-Serb community. Sanski Most remained under Serb control until the very end of the war when a combined Muslim and Croat force recaptured the town hours before the ceasefire that ended the Bosnian War came into effect. In fact, this battle for Sanski Most in October 1995 was the last major engagement of the whole war. These final battles were extremely fierce as the warring factions tried to make a last grab for territory before the Dayton Accords15 divided up territory. As a consequence Sanski Most and the surrounding region was one of the most badly damaged areas of Bosnia.
Despite the destruction, rebuilding started soon after hostilities ceased, although it will be many years yet before the area is anywhere near back to normal. The mosque was one of the first buildings to be rebuilt. The original had been destroyed in 1992 when the Serbs ethnically cleansed the town. The new mosque was rebuilt by a Middle Eastern charity very quickly after the war. I found it strange that the charity believed the mosque was more important than badly-needed housing and amenities, but they had insisted on rebuilding the mosque as a priority. The Orthodox Church by some miracle remained virtually unscathed. The victorious Muslim/Croat force that re-took the town in 1995 claimed to have left the church intact as a sign of religious tolerance.
The coffee shops of Sanski Most were a regular stop-off point for all of our patrols. They were an excellent place to meet and chat with the locals and gather intelligence. With unemployment at over 60% they were always pretty full. The coffee was certainly an acquired taste and was drunk in the Muslim style – strong enough to stand a spoon upright, and sweet enough to instantly melt teeth. My preference was for the mint tea as it was slightly kinder on the teeth. Behind a popular coffee shop off the main street was a workshop belonging to a local fisherman and civil defence worker called Selman. This was the best approximation to the pronunciation of his name, although I was never sure whether it was his first name, surname or nickname. Whatever it was, he seemed to answer to it. The walls of his workshop were covered with tools, junk and assorted odds-and-ends along with furs, skins, and feathers. The place stank as many of the furs still had their animals attached. On a hot day the stink would waft out onto the open patio of the café but no-one else seemed to notice. This was probably due to the many open sewers that ran into the back alley.
Selman’s flies were excellent and sold in fishing tackle shops all over this part of Bosnia. I was lucky enough to watch him at work on a number of occasions and can honestly say he was a true artist. His skill was even more apparent when one took into account that he was drunk on homebrew most of the time. My dilemma over which dry flies and nymphs to use on the local rivers was neatly solved by Selman. Although he spoke a little English, it was nowhere near enough for him to explain his flies. Unfortunately my interpreter was not a fisherman or a nature lover so in the end Selman described his flies by making the noise of the animal that provided most of the tying material. For early evening the best fly is a Sheeermph, while during the day a Yuuurk is more effective. I asked Selman about huchen but he didn’t know what I was on about. I pointed to a large salmon in an old magazine in his workshop and said ‘Danube Salmon.’ He laughed and nodded his head.
‘Yes, many big salmon in Bosnia,’ offered Selman and doubled over in a fit of laughter. Thank goodness the two main tackle shops had English-speaking assistants.
There were actually three fishing tackle shops in Sanski Most. One was a grotty room off a dark alley that seemed to be devoid of any tackle. The only reason we knew it was a tackle shop was the faded and yellowed posters for some ancient brand of hooks and fishing line. The shop did not open once during our tour and the locals did not seem to know who owned it. Judging by the dead dog and piles of turd by the doorway, it was unlikely to be opening for a while. The other two shops by contrast were new and sold all sorts of western-produced tackle along with Russian hunting rifles. Some of the rifles were powerful enough to bring down an elephant at a mile but were completely legal in Bosnia. They made my issue SA80 seem like a pop gun in comparison17. Selman’s flies were on sale in both shops and I managed to speak to some extremely knowledgeable assistants on what type of fly to use. In justification of my amazing forethought, the best all-round artificial was considered to be a large pheasant tail. However, in the evenings a good dry fly was essential. Green flies tended to be the order of the day but an English name for the fly they were designed to imitate was out of the question18. I bought several of these green flies and a selection of others for closer examination back at camp. I was pretty sure the shop assistants also knew where to catch a huchen, but I had yet to persuade the CO that fishing was a good idea.
Our base camp was not actually in Sanski Most but located a few miles to the west of the town in the Kamengrad Valley19. The camp was to be found at the location of an old mine and the whole site was dominated by the old shaft tower and lift gear. Our accommodation was made up of the standard Corrimech20, found throughout all military camps in the Balkans. The camp area was very quiet as the few houses in the surrounding village had been destroyed. The quietness was shattered a couple of times a month when weddings took place. Bosnian culture demands that an AK47 is fired on automatic into the air at the wedding. In fact the more traditional areas don’t consider the wedding to be legal until the rifle has been fired! From our point of view it was a complete pain. The firing of these weapons was banned and we had to respond the moment the tracer arced over our camp or the surrounding hills. Of course by the time a patrol arrived the weapon had been spirited away and the guests would deny all knowledge of the incident. We usually got the weapon a few weeks later when Bertie mounted dawn search raids on the guests’ houses.
From the main entrance of our camp several tracks and roads led away in different directions. These became well known to everyone as Physical Training (PT) and running were an important part of our daily schedule. The shortest running route of four miles skirted behind the camp and followed a small river before looping over a hill and returning to camp. This route was known as SNAKE. The next route followed the river for much further and even had a number of pools and natural spring fountains for cooling off. At eight miles, this route was known as BEAST. The longest route followed a different river branch into a deep gorge before scaling a large hill and following yet another river back into camp. At fifteen miles this route was known as KILLER. Bertie, Dave Clarke (a fellow captain) and I would run SNAKE in the morning before it got hot, mountain bike around BEAST in the late afternoon, and run KILLER on a Sunday. Our fitness improved dramatically with the two hours of training a day, and a couple of months we were lean, fast and accustomed to the heat. Bertie even lost his fat arse and was looking almost anorexic.
This Bosnian village was destroyed in a heavy bout of ethnic cleansing. Many of the ruined houses like this were mined or booby-trapped, so we had to be careful at all times. We patrolled with no webbing and minimum equipment so that we could climb into buildings and chase the numerous gun-men who operated in these areas.
One of the great opportunities presented by the location of our camp was the ability to go mountain-biking, as well as running, through the local villages and alongside the many rivers in the surrounding areas. In fact some of the most useful intelligence-gathering patrols were carried out on mountain bikes. Bikes had the advantage of being able to get to places inaccessible by motor vehicle. They were also silent in their approach and a patrol could arrive in a village without the locals being aware of their presence. The locals were also more inclined to come and speak to a soldier cycling slowly through a village. The patrol members would carry light equipment and sling their rifles over their backs. One of the best mountain bike areas was the river valley in which our camp was situated. The long summer evenings were ideal for mountain-biking around the local area.
Along with our running and mountain-biking routes, the surrounding countryside also contained whole villages which had been razed to the ground. At the height of the war over one hundred houses a day had been deliberately destroyed during the various bouts of ethnic cleansing. Dynamite and quarrying charges thrown into a downstairs room was the preferred method, closely followed by burning. Up in the remote mountain passes there were ancient villages with their mosques or churches that remain untouched since the day they were destroyed.
Until the war, remote Balkan villages had remained essentially unchanged for decades and even centuries. Most consisted of 10-20 houses with either a church or mosque. The Sanski Most area prior to the war was a patchwork of ethnic groupings. Many villages were ethnically pure but a few miles up the valley or mountain would be a similar village of a different ethnic group. In Sanski Most opstina21 prior to the war the ethnic make-up was approximately 45% Muslim, 42 % Serb. Mixed marriages were reasonably common with children attending multi-ethnic schools.
Balkan villages are unique, beautiful and mysterious in equal measure. They usually nestle in a secluded valley surrounded by pasture and mature oak, beech or pine trees. The ground is steep
