Soldiers marching

Fx:  Marching sounds

01.00.00.00

Trainer speaking

to soldiers

Man:  The task this morning is knock out a bunker, removing 100% of the personnel ... by forcing their withdrawal ... capture ... or destruction of the enemy personnel ...

Greg Wilesmith:  Mike Sutton, infantry trainer, is an instrument of America's Bosnia strategy.  He's one of 150 former US military men forging a new professionalism in the Bosnian armed forces.

Soldiers on ground

Fx:  Imitated gun noises

running forward

Wilesmith:  A few years ago they were using what little ammunition they had to kill the enemy.  These days, so sensitive are the international agencies which effectively run Bosnia, that for now they've even vetoed the firing of blanks.  So the Bosnians must simulate the bravado of battle.

00.46

Fx:  Imitated battle noises

Wilesmith:  They know it's bizarre, but after all, this is Bosnia where nothing is as it should be.

01.10

Sutton:  Big hand of applause for the demonstration squad.

Fx:  Clapping

Map, zoom in to Bosnia Herzegovina and Sarajevo

Sutton:  Alright!  Super!

Tanks driving by, man directing tanks

Wilesmith:  When the Balkan's erupted six years ago the Bosnian Tank Corp had just two tanks.  At the end of the war, when it was winning, it had only eight.

01.30

Now courtesy of a US led rearming, the Bosnian Federation has more than 100 tanks.  And under the Dayton Peace Agreement it can have another 150 tanks.

01.40

Wilesmith walking along with Ed Brasse

Brasse:  Okay what we got going on today is that we're getting ready for the practice tank crew gunnery skills test ...

01.53

Wilesmith:  Ed Brasse is retired from the US forces after a long career but he's still a tank instructor.  His government is wary of direct military entanglement and so has privatised the defence of Bosnia.  Ed is an employee of MPRI, Military Professional Resources Inc.

Brasse:  We're gonna come up here and see Ron Serles who is my chief instructor on the M68-3 program and we're gonna talk to him about what's going on today.

12.18

Man working machine, instructor talking to Wilesmith

Serle:  What we do is start with the weapon completely assembled and they have to clear it first and they clear it and disassemble it, reassemble it for ...

02.30

Wilesmith:  The American policy via MPRI, is to build in Bosnia a strong unified NATO standard army, so strong that the Serbs dare not attack.

Serle:  Okay good, now put it back together.

02.49

Intv with Ed Brasse

Brasse:  I've been working here now since 1996 and the quality of the soldiers of the Federation Army are excellent.  I believe that they are gonna be a good army.  They just need a little more training to come up to NATO standards but they are a good army and good soldiers.

Tanks, soldiers

Wilesmith:  For almost fifty years the notion of equally matched armies was pivotal to keeping the peace between NATO and the communist block forces in northern Europe.  But will a similar strategy work in the Balkans.

03.11

Allred showing Wilesmith a map on wall

Allred:  This is a map of Bosnia Herzegovina, as you can see, we have various areas identified here of where our training teams are ...

03.24

Wilesmith:  As the Americans implement their policy across Bosnia the fear is that the retrained Bosnians may use their new military strength to retaliate for the death and destruction that the Serbs inflicted during the war.

Intv with Joseph Allred

Super:

JOSEPH ALLRED

Allred:  The way the force structure in the Federation is set up, it's designed to sustain for defensive operations.

Public Affairs

Director, MPRI

Wilesmith:  Are you saying it's impossible for them to mount an offensive operation?

Allred:  Nothing is impossible.  But would they under the current circumstances, probably not.  It's sustainment is a very key element of offensive operations and the way the force structure is structured right now it is purely defensive.

Soldiers working on equipment, soldier speaking

Wilesmith:  Teaching the techniques of war, ostensibly for peace, pays well and it's a lot safer than being mercenaries.

04.10

MPRI earns an estimated seventy five million dollars a year for managing the program.  The US has given tanks, armoured personnel carriers, helicopters, artillery and tens of thousands of light weapons, all in the name of Bosnia's self defence.

04.17

Instructor.  It's alright, I'm an artillery man.  You can grab my hand and make a wish, it's okay, I'm an artillery man.

Wilesmith:  So why are the Americans leading a program costing hundreds of millions of dollars to retrain and rearm the Bosnian military.  One answer is simply that of guilt. 

Many Americans feel that they let Bosnia down during four years of war.  Another factor and it's a major one, is that until the Bosnian army is in good shape the international forces here and that includes the Americans, can't leave.

Soldier on telephone, man speaking, pointing

Muslim soldier:  Sword three!  Didn't I tell you to follow the movement of Sword two.

05.05

to computer

computer screen, man speaking

Instructor:  Aida, check with him and see if he's been able to get Second Company to overcome their lack of momentum.   That's going to be the key to the success of his battle.

05.12

Woman:  They are moving right now.

Instructor:  Outstanding.

Wilesmith:  Near Sarajevo is what is claimed to be the most sophisticated warfare computer simulation school outside the United States.

05.23

Trainer:  The blue part up here is the Dayton Accord Boundary.  We never play in Republika Srpska.  We don't want to encourage any offensive actions at all.  And ah, we'll see how the battle goes, this will be a very good battle, a very good battle.

05.30

Intv with Elis Bektas, soldiers in classroom

Bektas:  If we are well trained, well equipped, well organised army, there are few enemies who will dare to attack us.

Wilesmith:  Bosnian officers are being schooled by in NATO style command techniques.  And having been trained, officers like Captain Elis Bektas are in turn imparting those techniques to other Bosnians.

05.56

He and his colleagues all fought during the war, Elis defending his home town of Zenica in Central Bosnia.

City and river scape, people on streets, Wilesmith speaking with

The city and it's people were spared the worst of the war, but there was one horrific day, five years ago.

06.21

Bektas on street

Bektas:  Actually here was one car, small car and suddenly two grenades came from this direction and fell one here and another and killed fourteen, fifteen people.

06.28

Wilesmith:  Elis had been on patrol the night before.

Bektas:  ... lot of people.  At the moment the shells landed, I was sleeping.  I was sleeping here - 100 metres away.

Wilesmith:  You were so tired you didn't hear it?

06.58

Bektas:  I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything.  I just heard after that, the telephone ringing.  I pick up the telephone and there was my mother - "What are you doing?"  "Nothing, I'm sleeping."  "Go down, go down to the shelter, please."  "Why?"

Soldiers on bench in park, memorial

Wilesmith:  Despite all the sufferings Bosnian Muslims have endured, Elis Bektas, captain, former philosophy student still holds to a vision of a truly multi-ethnic Bosnia.

07.23

Bektas:  This is a small memorial for the people who were killed in April 1993 when grenades fell here and as you can see here there are different nationalities here - Bosnian, Croatian, Serbians.  This is one very very strong proof that the war is nonsense because they are together in death.

07.35

tracking shots

Wilesmith:  North of Zenica you'll find little such tolerance in the Republika Srpska, especially in the military where the hard lined of an ethnically pure Serb state is still paramount.  And each day as the Bosnian Federation grows stronger, the Serbs worry about how long they can maintain their self governing enclaves.

08.04

Nicola Popsalen looking at photo, intv with Popsalen

Nicola Popsalen, a former Bosnian Serb Commander, now law professor and head of the Radical Party favours splitting Republika Srpska from the Bosnian Federation.  Not surprisingly therefore he sees dangers in Bosnia rearming.

08.26

Popsalen:  Yes that brings out a lot of fear and anxiety in Serb people.  Especially because of the fact that the training of Muslim forces is logistically connected to NATO and American forces.

08.43

We don't believe it will come to combat or a war situation in the near future - but if it comes to a war situation we will be counting on the Yugoslav forces.

Tank travelling

Wilesmith:  Keeping apart the Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Serbs in the advent of war would be the task of NATO led forces currently thirty-five thousand strong.

09.03

The British contingent in the NATO force called S4 is based in Republika Srpska.  They're constantly confiscating weapons that he Serb forces are not supposed to have.  The resistance to handing over weapons only grows strong as they watch the Bosnian Muslims being rearmed.

09.13

Intv with Nick Everard

Super:

Lt. Col.

NICK EVERARD

9/12 Lancers, British Army

Everard:  The problem is here that although we have the military situation locked up pretty effectively and as long as we remain in the sort of strength we are, that will remain the case.  The civil process has not gone as well, nobody could dispute that - in terms of elections, return of displaced people, police, de-mining, etc. etc.  - all those issues which we attempt to assist with, render the place unstable.

09.34

Bombed out building

Wilesmith:  In Republika Srpska they've obliterated the physical evidence of Serb war crimes, most, but not all.

10.05

Here on the outskirts of the capital Banya Luka, the last remaining mosque bears testimony to the systematic eradication of the Muslim faith.

10.14

Wilesmith:  There were once 40,000 Muslims living in Banya Luka, now there are only 4000, a product of the ethnic cleansing that captured this territory through the war.

10.24

Cemetary, Wilesmith walking in room, greeting Milorad Dodic, sits, intv with Dodic

Organising for Muslims and Croats to return safely is a big challenge for the new government.  Western aid won't flow until the refugees come back.

10.35

In addition Prime Minister Milorad Dodic agrees that Republika Srpska still has a sever international image problem and will have until the former President Dr. Radovan Karadzic faces the War Crimes Tribunal.

10.49

Dodic:  The issue of Dr. Karadzic is an issue which naturally burdens the authorities of Republika Srpska and we think that everybody should be involved in this process and I'm using even this opportunity to tell Mr. Karadzic to surrender himself and to go there voluntarily.

11.02

Cityscape, people on streets

Wilesmith:  Denouncing the world's most wanted war criminal to win favour with the West is a tough call for Mr. Dodic, but he balances the books with his Serbian  electorate by warning about the rearming of the Bosnian Federation.

Intv with Milorad Dodic cont.

Dodic:  We can only expect from those that are carrying out this the program will make sure the training is not transformed into territorial expansions or offensive operations.

11.40

Soldiers walking along

Wilesmith:  The Americans in addition to rearming and retraining the Bosnian Federation are offering the same service to the Bosnian Serb forces known as the VRS, but only if the Republika Srpska meets the exhaustive requirements of the Dayton agreement.

11.59

Intv with Everard

Everard:  It is very difficult for the VRS, the Bosnian Serb to understand why one side is getting equipped and they are not.  I can understand that perception. 

12.14

But I can also understand the philosophy behind the policy but a lot of what goes on here is a matter of perceptions and psychology and whether that's a good policy in theory or not can still make it de-stabilising in some people's minds, in that they'd better get a blow in first before these guys have got their equipment to a high level.

I'm not saying that's going to happen but it is a psychological factor that I think that we should not discount.

People walking along in park

Wilesmith:  Back in Zenica in central Bosnia, Spring has come early and on an idyllic Sunday it is just possible that peace might prevail.

12.55

Intv with Elis Bektas

Elis:  I don't believe in the probability of war even if the international community go out.

13.03

Wilesmith:  Why are you so optimistic that there won't be another war?

Elis:  Well, I don't believe that people, common people want war again here.  I think we are tired of war.

Wilesmith:  The great goal here of course is to demonstrate that the nationalists were wrong and that it is possible to have a true multi-ethnic state.

13.24

Elis:  Yes it is.  It is through multi-ethnic state. It needs to take time to become more cohesive. To have more cohesion here. But it will happen, just, we need time.

Elis playing with daughter and wife, kids playing

Wilesmith:  Elis has a very personal interest in overcoming the Ultra-Nationalists, whether they be Serbs, Croats, or Muslims.  For he married Zelka during the war.  She's a Serb and they have a two year old, Nora.

Nora's cousin, Miron, is also the child of a mixed marriage as they describe it in Bosnia.

14.10

Wilesmith:  What do you really hope for Nora in terms of the way Bosnia will be when she grows up?

14.16

Zelka:  I certainly want her to grow up in peace, without war, and hope I have the opportunity to offer my child as much education as she wants.

Zelka intv in park at picnic table two kids

Bosnia was multi-national before the war, until we were told we could not live together.  We lived perfectly well before that.  I hope it will be like that in the future.

14.37

Intv with Everard

Everard:  If we want success with a big 'S' - a multi-ethnic state at peace with itself, I would suggest, as a definition of success, then I suspect that you're not going to overturn the mindset of years of bitter hatred going back generations in a couple of years. 

14.54

And obviously the armed forces are tools of their respective political masters and therefore it could all boil over again in my view.

Intv with Elis

Elis:  It's the reason we must have a strong army, very violent, very aggressive army.  But we won't use that army - only for defence and for deterring the enemy who attack us.

15.19

Man walking down hall into room with soldiers and

Wilesmith:  Back at MPRI's computer simulation centre, the enemy are attacking.

15.41

computers,

computer, men pouring over maps

Soldier:  They don't need to shoot, only to lay down the smoke so I can escape, because I'm already under fire.

Wilesmith:  Scenarios for another Bosnia war are literally limitless and so for Bosnian soldiers these war games are never ending.

15.54

Man with baseball cap on:  Basically what the smoke does to me is it blinds me, I'm not able to see his forces move.

16.01

Wilesmith:  NATO doctrine is that by putting all the potential combatants - Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia Hercegovina and Republika Srpska on a roughly equal military footing no country will risk attacking the other. 

16.08

The theory has worked for this half of a century in northern Europe, yet in the Balkan's, the logic of mutually assured destruction won't necessarily overcome the enmities of history and paranoia.

Soldier on two way radio, tanks

Soldier: Hurry up - I told you to hurry up moving the vehicles.

travelling

Wilesmith:  The truth is - the only way to prevent another Bosnia war is to keep a NATO led force here, well into the next century.

ENDS

16.57

CREDITS:

Reporter:  GREG WILESMITH

Camera:    TIM BATES

Sound:      WAYNE HARLEY

Editor:      STUART MILLER

Producer:  WAYNE HARLEY