5

A quick 'phone call to the 'Toronto Sun' and a fax back to the United Nations and I had my UN accreditation. Then a drive to the Croatian military offices and I had my Croat military accreditation. The UN also provided me with a long list of essential medical supplies I needed to have on me anywhere near the conflict area - essentially anywhere as even Zagreb had come under attack. I found a cheap place to stay not far from the UN but once or twice I'd simply sleep in the back of the Volvo rather than drive from the conflict area and have to drive back the next morning.

The accreditation nobody [I knew of] had was the one I'd need to pass Croat police roadblocks. To keep people away from the fighting, the first road block you ran into was either military or police. The military were fairly easy to deal with but the police would just turn you around back to where you'd come from.

The UN offered several informative lectures to 'new arrivals' and I chose to take 'mines awareness' and 'vehicle hijack.' Mines awareness was a must. There were hundreds of minefields and a dozen or so different types of mines including the nasty PROM-1 which, when triggered, jumped to roughly groin-height before exploding - a real setback if you are equipped with body parts usually found on the male human species, but not the female...

Within twenty-four hours of arriving, I'd also been approached by a Canadian officer who invited me to his office. The outer office had several NCO's working too. The officer explained that the UN soldiers had to get permission from the Croat military before they could go to any sensitive area's. The media, he explained, saw much more of the country than the UN. Would I mind coming by his office each night and letting him know where I'd been and what I'd seen? So this as the uniformed side of James Bond. This officer, no doubt, was part of CSIS - the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service. The Canadian equivalent to the British Security and Intelligence Service, as MI6 was now known. I suppose that although the chance of me passing on any useful information was slim, the cost was as good as it gets. I was now a spy of sorts. I did give him a chuckle, a few days later, when I asked about the possibility of Dutch mercinaries fighting for the Croats. I hadn't seen Croat military licence plates before and they are very similar to the Dutch national plates. He put me right, then pushed a large scale map of the conflict area across his desk. "I'm not allowed to give these maps to journalists." He then stood up, turn around and studied another map hanging behind his desk. It gave me time to slide the map from the desk into my jacket pocket.

My daily routine was to shower and shave, then drive the short distance to the UN HQ. I would park on some waste ground opposite the main entrance. No matter what the time was, I'd try and get in early. The Swedish UN troops guarding the headquarters got to know me quickly but still checked my UN accreditation every time I wanted access. There was always some shady-looking older men hanging around the gate - Croatian police officers, I was told. At the press office, I'd read the 'wire' output - all the previous days stories. I'd developed an inside contact, an Aussie or  Kiwi civilian  working for, I believe, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. If he saw me in the compound, he would wander over and give me tips. 'Karlovac, mate. Big battle. get there.' If it was something I hadn't read about in the wire copy, it was going to be very fresh. I'd often then forgo the daily press briefing, which was mainly a soundbite for the television crews, and head out immediately. If I stayed for the briefing, the fifteen minutes before the scheduled start was tough for me, a 'new guy.' Everyone got into their own chat groups.

Military roadblocks could be quite risky. If my plan was to head out to the conflict area, I would try and set off as early as I could.  By lunchtime, some soldiers would have consumed quite a bit of alcohol, which could sometimes throw all the rules out of the window.

I had a small Sony short-wave radio which was invaluable for getting hourly updates on the fighting. The speed of the BBC World Service reporting was nothing short of amazing. You'd literally be watching smoke rise from a village in the distance and fifteen minutes later... 'We can report heavy shelling by Serb forces into the village of...'

There were times when it felt safer not to shoot a picture than to shoot one. One morning I was driving south of Zagreb when I chanced on a group of about twenty Croat soldiers crowded around a couple of benches outside a cafe. All the soldiers were each wearing a kind of straw hat. I guessed it was maybe a festival of some kind. They'd seen me driving past and had not reacted but as soon as I touched the Volvo's brakes, all the conversation stopped and every pair of eyes was on me. I simply kept driving.

I tried to go through the town of Velica Gorica whenever I was covering stories in the area's south of Zagreb, mostly beyond Glina and Sisak. There was a superb ice cream shop in Velica Gorica and I'd often park in the town and get my daily fix of comfort food. The owner got to know me and what flavour's I liked.

My experience of Zagreb fast-food was less pleasant. I parked the Volvo outside the railway station and walked over to a food stall outside the doors. There was a hamburger and a cheeseburger pushed to the front of the glass cover, both crawling with flies. But a fresh cheeseburger sounded like... paradise? Anyway, I pointed to the cheeseburger and waited for the assistant to locate the ingredients from below the display. But she simply took the cheeseburger from the display and put the burger on the grill. Never has food been faster... into a bin.