August 21, 2000
Just What Were They Doing in
Montenegro?
Something fishy is going on in this case of the
British Policemen.
WHAT'S
GOING ON?
It
has attracted curiously light interest, although it has by no means
been ignored, but the arrest of two British policemen, a Canadian
construction contractor and his nephew is getting odder by the day.
Before you expect any answers, I can't give any. My feelings, that
they have been doing something covert, may be wrong. In fact, the
men have a very good case that they were merely on holiday, but
the facts simply are not adding up.
THE
TWO STORIES
The
two sides can agree that the four men were leaving Montenegro to
go back to Kosovo, and that is about it. The British and Canadian
governments claim that the men were going for a well-earned break
from their work in Kosovo to a
Montenegrin holiday resort. In my opinion this story is given
some credence by the fact that one of the Canadians is a nineteen
year old relative of the older Canadian and has nothing to do with
the OSCE presence in Kosovo. The Serbian story is, as you would
expect, different. The men were allegedly leaving Montenegro by
a back road, they were stopped and a large amount of explosives
was found upon them. This was for training the Montenegrin police
force in the use of explosives for sabotage. Oh, and they did not
have the correct visas, that is something that everyone can agree
upon.
THE
MONTIES
The
role of the Montenegrin police, the Spezijalni (do not ask me to
pronounce it), is crucial. They are hardly what one would define
as a police force, more as a paramilitary home guard. It has been
claimed that the Spezijalni are trained by Western forces. Indeed
the state owned British Broadcasting Corporation, an organisation
that can hardly be said to hold a pro-Milosovic brief, repeated
this claim in an interview with an officer in the Spezijalni,
a 23-year-old referred to as "Velibor". In fact, the claimed was
that the hardly police-like SAS was doing the training. It is almost
certain that the Spezijalni have been trained by the West, although
this does not mean that the policemen had done any training, it
just means that they could have trained the other police
force.
LEAVE
OF THEIR SENSES
Two
other items do not match up. The first is the lack of visas. Now
it is a very sensitive subject in Montenegro as to whether one should
or should not have a visa to enter. The Yugoslavian government insists
on a lengthy process to get a visa, understandably this is made
harder for the citizens of NATO countries. None of the four men
had a visa. Now we are talking about policemen here. Not having
a visa for a holiday? I do not know about police in the rest
of the world but the English police, especially those who are sent
abroad to give training, are not the type who act like recently
graduated backpackers. The very concept of popping over to a different
country for a holiday without the proper documentation would be
alien to most of them. The other thing that does not add up is that
the policemen did
not have official leave to go to Montenegro. Now this suggests
one of two things, either they were pulling a sicky and going into
another country (albeit with only one day's leave) or they were
supposed to be there. In other words, they did not need to get any
leave because this was part of their job. There is another interesting
snippet in the OECD
statement; the policemen were well acquainted with the Serbian
community in Kosovo. Could they have been used as interpreters?
GOING
MAD
The
interesting person in the car was the elder of the two Canadians,
Shaun Going. According to a piece on the Trotskyite
World Socialist Web Site, Going is a larger than life figure,
with his fingers in a number of Balkan pies. At the moment, he is
working for NATO in Kosovo as a building contractor. Having already
been arrested in Albania, is it beyond the realms of possibility
that he was doing some extra-contractual work for his paymasters?
The detonation devices, the
presence of which is now almost admitted by the defence teams,
would have come from him – as would any training in their use to
the Spezijalni.
THE
REACTION
Obviously
to the British media, there can be no question that British
people are doing anything wrong. It
is all to do with the coming elections, or an attempt to demonise
the Montenegrin leadership, or both. Indeed, it probably will be
used to some effect for these purposes. If a car load of Serbs came
into Britain with no visas, a load of detonators and circumstantial
links to the Conservative Party I would be very surprised
if it was not used in the coming election.
ON
EVIDENCE
The
reaction of the British Foreign Office has been somewhat more puzzling.
Keith Vaz, the junior foreign office minister said,
"No evidence was produced to support these charges [of espionage]."
Now if he had said no proof, he would not be sounding so stupid.
However, evidence, i.e. four people – three of them indirect NATO
employees – trying to leave quietly for Kosovo without the required
documents and with a carload of detonators, is present. It may be
insufficient evidence, it may even be false or planted evidence,
but it is evidence nonetheless.
THE
USE OF TORTURE
Recently
the men have claimed that they have been tortured. If true then
it is outrageous. If they are innocent and have still been tortured,
then we may like to think of quite what sort of policies we are
creating that mean that being a British national is in itself a
cause for intense suspicion. Do we want to live in that sort of
world?
THE
MONTENEGRO DIMENSION
It
is an open secret that the West wants Montenegro to leave Yugoslavia
and further weaken the position of Milosovic. If you are a regular
reader of antiwar.com,
it has been one of our regular warnings. Nevertheless, it has to
be stressed that this is going to be a disaster for the people of
Montenegro. Independence may or may not be a good thing for Montenegro,
but a civil war to achieve it is not going to be so attractive.
Yugoslavia did give up Kosovo, after three months of bombing,
and maybe it will do the same to Montenegro. However,
opinion is far more divided in Montenegro, and Montenegro does
give Serbia access to the sea. With excitable talk of using legal
ruses to throw out Yugoslavia from the UN and CIA
plans to destabilise Milosovic, it looks like good clean fun
in the coming months. Montenegro will be sacrificed for its own
good.
THE
SCANDAL UNDERNEATH
There
is something in the whole affair that leaves a tremendously bitter
taste in the mouth. Maybe its the fact that the police, one of these
guys is a traffic cop, are being put in the line of danger like
arms inspectors and charity workers before them. Maybe its the fact
that not only can I not trust my government any more, but they are
not even deceiving me for my own good. It could be that the government
is training the paramilitary wing of a criminal
gang, albeit to fight another criminal gang. Whatever it is
I do hope that they free the policemen and the teenager who seem
to have been caught in something bigger than they can cope with.
Moreover, I hope that my government never orders or tricks civilians
to risk their lives for aims that have nothing remotely to do with
Britain's security. Just look at what we have become.
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