Thanks to Blair, I am fireproof
By John Simpson
Blair presses for Ashdown to be Kosovo administrator
JOHN SIMPSON spent 13 weeks in Belgrade, at one stage coming under
fire from Labour for being 'pro-Serb'. This is his diary, from the first bombings
to his eventual expulsion.
Tuesday March 23
"The signs aren't good," says the man at the embassy when I call to find out
how the talks between Richard Holbrooke [US negotiator] and Milosevic are
going. "If it all breaks down, the bombing will start pretty much at once, and
it'll be hard." I drive back with Vlad [BBC local producer] through the quiet
streets, looking at the buildings and wondering how many will be here in a few
weeks. Back at the Hyatt [the main press hotel], Holbrooke arrives, tired and
gloomy. He tells the huge crowd of cameras in the lobby: "Our mission has
failed. I will now be flying to Brussels to consult the alliance." In the lift I grin
at a US television producer I remember from Baghdad in 1990-91. "In for it
again," he says.
Wednesday March 24
We're filming in the centre of town when Jonathan [Paterson - BBC
producer] rings to say that the first Nato planes have taken off. A curious
feeling, to think these huge aircraft are heading towards us at 500mph. B-92
[independent radio station] has been closed down. So have the European
Broadcasting Union and Reuters Television. In the evening sunlight people
queue for trams as normal. I tell Dragan [BBC local producer] to stop in a
side-street: if there is bombing, I want to be out in the open to see it. The
sirens wail. There are two flashes on the horizon; then we hear the sound. I
call London on my mobile: "The air attacks have started."
Thursday March 25
The atmosphere is nastier. "We shall have to take certain measures," says a
ministry official. Arkan arrives in the Hyatt coffee shop and settles down
menacingly to watch the foreign journalists. In the Hyatt lobby Christiane
Amanpour of CNN is marched out in a crowd of heavies. She looks strained
and frightened, and has received a death threat. The journalists all crowd
round to the Information Ministry, like Angus cows queuing at
Simpson's-in-the-Strand. Vuk Draskovic, ex-opponent of Milosevic and now
his vice-premier, is flushed and his speech slurred. "You are all welcome to
stay," he says. But the Serbian information minister, a supporter of the
extreme nationalist Vojislav Seselj, orders all journalists from Nato countries
to leave.
There is panic at the Hyatt as the news spreads. I gather the BBC group
together, and they all want to go. I decide to go, too. My cases are already in
the vehicle when I bump into Greg Wildsmith of ABC. "Unless I've missed
something," he drawls, "Australia isn't in Nato." "So you're staying?"
"Certainly am." At least I'll have company if I stay.
I dig out my cases and say goodbye to the others, feeling scared yet weirdly
liberated. I take over a suite - why not, under the circumstances? - and phone
the office. Malcolm Downing, the BBC foreign editor, sounds relieved. Me,
too.
Friday March 26
As the bombing intensifies, so do the demands. I never knew there were so
many BBC news programmes. By the evenings I have done 167 live
interviews. [By the time the crisis finishes, three months later, I have clocked
up 190 hours of calls on my mobile. Any researcher wanting to know if this is
dangerous merely has to give me a brain-scan]. Twice, thanks to some
incautious questioning, the phone-line is cut.
The hotel is entirely silent, though bombs are landing a few miles away. At
2am the Tannoy in the room orders everyone into the air raid shelters. When
the security man comes round to enforce this, I hide behind the curtains. Later
he catches me, and I find one or two other stay-behinds downstairs, including
Dave Williams of the Daily Mail and his equally relaxed and pleasant
photographer: good company, I feel.
Sunday March 28
We drive out to see the wreckage of a US stealth aircraft shot down near
Budjanovci. A wing lies in a field, and there is such competition to get a piece
of the anti-radar fabric that a local photographer jabs his knife at me when I
get in his way. Otherwise the Serbian journalists co-exist easily with us. An
old woman brings out glasses of rakija, ferocious homemade brandy, and
hands me one. "If they drink this, they won't fight any more," she says. I can
see why.
Monday March 29
We venture out into the centre of Belgrade. "Don't say anything and don't
make eye-contact," Dragan warns. The cultural centres of Britain, France, the
US and Germany are all comprehensively trashed and looted, with obscenities
spray-painted on the walls.
Tuesday March 30
Mike Williams, from the Today programme, manages cleverly to get a visa
back to Belgrade. [Gig, the cameraman, is already back.] Mike is excellent
company; he also takes a large share of the burden of radio and television
interviews from me. "What's the mood on the streets?" and "What are the
Serbian people being told about all this?" we are asked again and again.
Friday April 2
Nato goes downtown. At 2am two MUP [interior ministry police] buildings
are hit in the city centre, next to the University Clinic hospital where we filmed
the previous day. Mike, Dragan and I creep through the dark streets, avoiding
police patrols. Cameramen are beaten up around us. I talk to BBC World on
my mobile from someone's front garden. Afterwards we visit the University
Clinic, where mothers in labour have been moved into the basement. The
head of the hospital is too angry to allow us to film.
Wednesday April 7
The army press centre takes us to Pristina, where Nato has hit a row of
houses and killed civilians. We drive for hours through the silent countryside
of southern Serbia and Kosovo, looking at the torched houses and the
paramilitary thugs lounging at the roadblocks. Pristina is eerily empty,
cleansed of most of its Albanian inhabitants. The Serbs mostly stay indoors.
The only sounds are the crows in the trees and the barking of abandoned
dogs.
Monday April 12
At a special session of the Yugoslav parliament, I approach Vojislav Seselj,
sitting to the right of the speaker. I put out my hand. "F--- off BBC," he says.
We risk the likelihood of being beaten up, and go out to interview people in
the streets. The police refuse to protect us. People gather round, shouting.
"We used to like everything from West. Now we hate you." "We are all for
Milosevic now, even if we didn't like him before." "You British are the f---ing
slaves of America." I've never put so many f---s into a report before. As we
are editing, the secret police come to our hotel suite to throw Gig out of the
country. It's punishment for our hostile reporting.
Wednesday April 14
Nato hits a column of Albanian refugees. Various suggestions are proffered in
Brussels: it was a convoy, enraged Serbian soldiers shot the refugees, it's all
an invention of the Milosevic propaganda machine. I say in a 9pm news
interview that, if the Serbs feel confident about their version, they'll take us
down to see the place where it happened.
Thursday April 15
Anger in Whitehall. I have been guilty of accepting the Serbian version of
events. I am gullible, and am being used by the Serbs for their propaganda
purposes. I am pro-Serb. It had to happen: when the going gets tough in
wartime (the Falklands, the Gulf War) the first instinct of British governments
is to impugn the integrity of those who are reporting the unpalatable. The
MoD is worse than Downing Street.
This time, though, there is a difference: the newspapers rally round, MPs
object. The BBC is more robust than I have ever seen it: I get supportive calls
from Christopher Bland [BBC Chairman], John Birt [director-general], Tony
Hall [head of news] and many others.
Friday April 16
Interviews with Russian, Japanese, French, German, Italian, American and
Spanish journalists. By now the story is that the Government is trying to
silence the BBC. Opinion abroad is shocked, and I find myself defending
Whitehall. The Serbs are jubilant, of course; they think we're as bad as they
are. I refuse to be interviewed by their newspapers or television on principle,
and explain why. Thanks to Tony Blair, I'm fireproof.
Sunday April 18
Robin Cook still hasn't got the message. He tells GMTV I should leave
Belgrade.
Tuesday April 20
We film at the KGB Cafe in central Belgrade. Young people, sick of the war
and of their rotten government, come here as a refuge. Talking to them is
deeply refreshing: like the Belgrade of the old days.
Friday April 23
Tremendous explosion nearby at 2am: the state television station is hit. Nato
threatened this before, but Jamie Shea seemed to say it wasn't a target. As a
result, the building was filled with 100 or so workers. We film in the familiar
corridors, now smashed and burnt. A foot sticks out of the rubble: the
overnight make-up lady I had come to know has been killed. The station is
back on the air by 7am: she and 15 others have died to silence it for five
hours.
Thursday May 6
Real signs of war-weariness by now. "If only this were over," someone says
to us in an interview. Later President Clinton, visiting Europe, says Nato can
do a deal with Milosevic. Ministers here are jubilant. The man who promised
there would be no ground war has now given Milosevic further reason to hold
out.
Sunday May 9
Dee, my wife, arrives. She is the producer of our programme on News 24
and BBC World. Life for me suddenly becomes a great deal better.
Wednesday May 12
People in the centre of Nis are accidentally hit by cluster-bombs: a disgusting
weapon. Nato seems to be taking more risks with civilians now. Maybe it's
noticed how quickly its mistakes are forgotten. Every Serb now believes that
civilians are being deliberately targeted.
Friday May 21
I slip on wet tiles by the swimming pool and rupture my thigh muscle badly.
As I am carried into hospital, an oafish paramedic harangues me about Nato
and the bombing: I tell him to f--- off, and feel better. We decide to have the
operation - drilling holes in the kneecap etc - this afternoon. The surgeon,
who does a first-class job, tells me later that some of his colleagues have
criticised him for helping me.
Thursday June 3
The Serbian Parliament accepts Nato's terms. A beautiful sunny day, and I
am too excited to stay indoors with my leg immobile. Dragan carries me as
gently as a father into the car and we drive to the city, where I sit reporting by
telephone. When Dee and the crew film people in the street, they say they
want to get rid of Milosevic.
Tuesday June 8
I am lying on the bed editing our report on the end of the bombing [three poor
so-and-sos die at a farm in rural Serbia, which Nato has accidentally hit]
when the secret police arrive. They give me 24 hours to leave; apparently I
have upset the Serbian Information Service in London - those experts on
objective reporting. We manage to get the deadline extended by a week.
Tuesday June 15
Dee and I leave at 9.30am for the long drive to Budapest. After 88 days I
wave goodbye to Dragan and our Serbian crew, Balsa and Bata. They have
become like my own family. The British Government insinuated that I was
pro-Serb. I'm certainly not pro-Milosevic, certainly not pro the obscenities
that the Serbian forces carried out in Kosovo. But my 13 weeks here have
given me a great affection for the ordinary, decent people of this country:
those who want no part in what has been done and is still being done by their
government. They deserve better.
John Simpson is BBC World Affairs Editor
telegraph.co.uk |
