Lieutenant Colonel Harry Konings
Retired Dutch army officer and former UN military observer
Today, I do not represent the Dutch army, nor the Dutch Ministry of Defence. I will share with you my operational experiences, notably in Sarajevo, and give some thought on what we could do to improve the life of human beings in these contexts.
To begin with, this is a much younger Harry Konings, twenty years ago, on the observation post in Sarajevo. The physical reminders I kept are my decorations and my wounded medal for harm I encountered during my mission in Sarajevo. I look upon those things on a regular basis: although it might be twenty years ago, they still keep me thinking every day. I am also connected to the Dutch Veteran Institute, which allows me to go to schools, to talk with children about war and peace by telling them my own experiences. My main message to them:
war or any form of armed conflict is a terrible thing, for the military and everyone involved in a war, but especially for the civilian population – civilians will suffer the most in those situations.
I would like to share some thoughts with you. First, the civilian population should always be priority number one, in each operation and in everything you do. This sentence is the most important one in the Allied Joint Publication on Countering Insurgency that I wrote with rep-resentatives from many nations (I was the custodian). If you forget that and if you think that other things are as important, you are wrong, in my opinion. The civilian population is the most important entity. It is what you have to protect. Second, you have to understand every aspect of the nation where you are located, from the cultural, to the social, the economic and the political factors, its leaders and its population. Because, if you do not understand it properly, it will cost human lives. Then, you need strong diplomacy to find solutions. One should not forget that military forces do not bring a solution, they only support it. In addition to that, you also need the local civilian population to solve the problems for themselves. For instance, I served in Albania as an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observer, after the collapse of the State in 1998. The Albanian population said to us ‘well, solve the problem’, and we asked them what they wanted. They answered ‘we want democracy’
and we asked them what their vision of democracy was. They said ‘that you are allowed to do everything’. We explained that they were wrong, that this was a kind of anarchy, before telling them that democracy means that you care for each other, that you pay taxes, etc. Although the international community could help, the Albanian population had to work things out for themselves. Fourth, one should recognise the weaknesses of international organisations. I
came back from Sarajevo with a huge frustration about the United Nations (UN): the mission did not work at all. At that time, the UN used the term ‘balance of nations’, which in my view, weakens the organisation. I was leader of a team with twelve nationalities living in one house close to the frontline; we were targets for the Bosnian Serbs as well because blue helmets are nice to shoot at. My point is that it was an inadequate organisation, because people were put on post based on their nationality. I had observers in my team who could not speak English or drive a car. They did not want to go on patrol. The differences in such an organisation cost human lives, because we did not do our job properly. These last days, we have been talking about armed forces, but what about irregular parties? What about the use of irregular weap-ons systems? Then, concerning the mandate of international missiweap-ons: when I was in Bosnia, the mandate was ‘peacekeeping’, and there was an agreement between the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Yet, nobody heeded that agreement and the fighting went on.
Furthermore, the mandate of the UN forces was not adapted, and the peacekeeping force was not allowed to do anything. From the beginning, if the mandate is not correct, military forces cannot be part of the solution, nor can they protect the civilian population. Consequently, and once again, it will cost human lives. Lastly, military doctrine is also very important, especially international and coalition doctrines. For six years, I have been a Director of Doctrine in my army. It enables people to learn from each other through discussion. For example, what is meant by the term ‘insurgent’? It took us weeks to find a definition of what is an ‘insurgent’.
Both military doctrine and understanding that concept are crucial.
There is a need to control the use of ‘simple but very effective’ indirect firing systems. During the Colloquium, we have been talking about smart weapons, and GPS-guided bombs. However, 120 millimetres mortars are much more dangerous, because they are widely used, I can as-sure you that such a mortar system is something I can teach you to use in one single day.
Furthermore, these weapons systems can be used in any environment and they are easy to transport. Their ballistic characteristics enable them to be fired from an enclosed environment (e.g. a clearance in a forest) into another enclosed environment (e.g. a street between high buildings). Therefore, these were the favourite weapons of the Bosnian Serbs in Sarajevo, who fired projectiles indiscriminately into the city. They weigh twelve kilogrammes and each round produces between 5,000 and 7,000 shrapnel.
If you look at a very simple map of Sarajevo, you can see the encirclement was nearly complete at that time. With regard to yesterday’s panel debate, we can call it a siege, because the only opening was the international airport, which was only accessible to international troops for flying in or out of the city, whenever it was possible. When I was there, even that was closed because it was too dangerous, and for that reason UN personnel could only leave via Mount Igman. The Serbs, who completely encircled the city, were located all along the red line. I was
working on the left hand side of the map, in the old city part. Now, I would like to show you a short video about the impact of a 1-20 mortar. Although it was not taken in Sarajevo, you can see the debris falling, which causes casualties as well. I will come to a specific case to show you what a projectile can do, when fired into a city. I used the word ‘harassing’ at the Inter-national Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague – notably in front of Radovan Karadžić, who became very angry at that time – and I could have similarly used the word ‘terrorising’ because that is what I have learnt from yesterday’s presentations. Here is a piece of my diary, dated 28 August 1995, after the Markale incidents in Sarajevo. The first occurred in 1994. With three observer colleagues, we had to investigate and count the people who had been killed or wounded. I remember it was a very tense situation that day, because everybody in the city blamed the UN for not being able to protect the lives of these people in the area. For instance, the attack occurred on a spot where there was no military objective.
A video clip of this attack,2 used by the ICTY during the trials, shows the tile of one mortar, which killed 40 civilians and wounded 100, by blast, shrapnel and glass from the windows around. Following the investigations, the commander of the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) concluded that it had come from the Bosnian Serb side. After investigating on the spot, we wrote a crater analysis report on the following criteria: What happened? Where? In what time frame? What were the results of the attack? For every incident, we had to write such a report, which all ended up at the ICTY. Here is also a picture of the street after the attack, a very narrow area where blast and shrapnel have had an extra effect.
This brings me to my last point: international justice. If human lives have been at stake, the people who are responsible should be brought before an international court. From 1996 to 2010, I testified as an eye witness against three individuals: General Milošević, General Perišić, and Radovan Karadžić. I also testified as an expert witness in the case of General Gotovina. I thought I could do something about the situation; and if you do not bring people responsible for the loss of civilians’ lives to justice, you fail in your mission. In my view, this is what the international community should do for the civilian population.
2 International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, The Tribunal Remembers: Markale Market Mas-sacre - 28 August 1995, Youtube video, 2:13, August 27, 2014, at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=ToSSJIrWU78&feature=youtu.be>