Interpreting the Peace

Peace Operations, Conflict and Language in Bosnia-Herzegovina

M. Kelly, C. Baker

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781349440252, 9781137029836
• eBook ISBN: 9781137029843
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Analysing the issues of language that faced international forces carrying out peace operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s, this book examines how differences of language were an integral part of the conflicts in the country and in what way the multinational UN and NATO forces faced their own problems of communication and language support.

1

Serving in a Foreign Field

When they were ordered to intervene in Bosnia-Herzegovina, UN and NATO commanders recognized the need for their forces to develop some level of expertise in language and culture. It was a routine requirement for troops to be prepared for the conditions they would meet on being deployed. But the conditions in Bosnia-Herzegovina were quite unlike other situations they had experienced. It was NATO’s first ‘out of area’ engagement and therefore situated outside the environments which they normally encountered. In particular, they did not have significant expertise in the language or the culture of the area, and it proved difficult to acquire it. From an early stage the military employed local people to provide language services, but it still remained a problem that so few of the military themselves were able to function independently in the field. This chapter will seek to understand how this arose, and how it was addressed, and why it proved difficult to resolve.

Existing linguistic capital

To examine the linguistic resources at the disposal of the military and to assess how they were developed, it is useful to adopt the concept of ‘field’ developed by the French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu (1991). Bourdieu used the term ‘field’ to designate a particular social arena which has its own structures, logic and rules that govern the activity of people involved in it. The concept of the field is a flexible one, which can be applied to many different settings and certainly to the different metaphorical ‘fields’ used in military terminology. In Bourdieu’s own work, a field was often identified with a particular profession, social group or region, but he also recognized the existence of a ‘linguistic field’, as a social context in which the use of a particular kind of language is valued (Bourdieu 1991: 52–7). Ultimately this field operates as a market in which individuals compete and gain benefits (‘distinction’) by possessing language skills that are valued, because they are useful but not widely distributed. Bourdieu mainly considers the language skills of people in their native French, but he notes that it also applies to classical or foreign languages, and argues:

One cannot save the value of a competence unless one saves the market, in other words, the whole set of political and social conditions of production of the producers/consumers. (Bourdieu 1991: 57; emphasis original)

Hence, the value of a particular language depends on the existence of an entire social context in which competence in the language is seen as valuable. Where this occurs, Bourdieu argues, the ability to speak a particular language becomes a form of capital, which can be traded by the individual for other things of value, such as employment or social recognition. Linguistic capital is part of an individual’s broader ‘cultural capital’, which is made up of forms of knowledge, skills, education, cultural possessions and formal qualifications. It is a characteristic of language that it exists in an ‘embodied’ state, as a set of ‘long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body’ (Bourdieu 1986: 244), and is therefore relatively difficult to acquire, through personal experience, education or training.

Applying this to the situation in 1992, it is clear that language skills had some value in the field of the armed services. Within NATO, English had operational value as a language of military communication. Proficiency was highly valued and recognized as a factor in being able to progress to more senior roles, particularly in forces where English was not a native language. To a lesser extent, these considerations also applied to French, which was spoken by officers in many forces. Throughout the Cold War period, Russian was also valued as an asset, which could contribute to understanding the activities of the Warsaw Pact and negotiating with its representatives. As a result, the languages that were valued were the subject of significant investment, and large numbers of personnel received training programmes. Individuals who developed their proficiency could expect this cultural capital to be traded for benefits such as interesting postings or promotions. The market for other languages was less certain, though for British troops based in Germany there could be advantages in picking up German, which many did. The demand for other languages was relatively limited, and take up of training was largely confined to specialists in diplomatic or intelligence roles.

With entry into the Bosnian operation, the market for languages shifted. The language of the region, then known as Serbo-Croat, had not been required to any great extent. In Britain, for example, a small course had been offered by the Defence School of Languages (DSL), to support dealings with Yugoslavia, but had recently been withdrawn. In consequence, there was an acute scarcity of service personnel with competence in the language of the new field of operations. And, since the acquisition of linguistic capital is a lengthy process, it was not an easy task to build it up to the point at which it became operationally valuable. One of the first responses was therefore to identify existing military personnel who already had a knowledge of Serbo-Croat. For the most part, they were people who had acquired the language in their family background, but for whom it had not been regarded as having value as cultural capital. In fact, in the first instance, it appears to have had negative value. This was the case for Milos Stankovic, a captain in the Parachute Regiment with Serbian links through his father, who had emigrated from Yugoslavia to Britain in 1947. He reported that his Serbian background was initially regarded as an obstacle to assigning him to the Bosnian mission, since, as one officer told him, ‘They’d no more send you to Yugoslavia than they would a Greek or Turkish officer to sit on the Green Line in Cyprus’ (Stankovic 2000: 46). Despite this obstacle, he was eventually deployed, though concern over his safety was also echoed by his father, when he informed him of his deployment:

Exactly as my aunt had predicted, breaking the news to my father was not easy.

‘You don’t know what you’re doing, what you’re letting yourself in for.’ There was a horrible pause. The phone felt like a brick in my hand. ‘Son, please, you’re making a terrible mistake ... a huge mistake.’ (Stankovic 2000: 49)

Stankovic’s memoir of this period, Trusted Mole (2000), describes his experience as an interpreter and liaison officer in the dark and complex operations of the conflict. From 1992, he served in the area for more than two years, longer than any other British officer, but was later arrested on suspicion of spying for the Serbs. He was acquitted of the charges, but his readers cannot help but sympathize with his father’s view that he was inadequately prepared for the dangers. Stankovic was not the only officer deployed who had language expertise through family connections with the area. Fred Whitaker, who was a military language instructor, recalled:

Fred Whitaker: And there were a number of people who were actually native Serb or Croat or Serbo-Croat speakers. The Army was trawled to find those people, and I think that they all went out to Bosnia. Some of whom had very difficult times and worked in very difficult circumstances. I knew four of them.¹

It is a measure of the urgent need for language expertise in the early stages of the operation that the Army was willing to override its normal reluctance to deploy individuals to areas where they might run extra risks by virtue of their personal background. In recognition of the dangers, the British Army took the precaution of allocating them an alias to conceal their real name. Stankovic was initially given the name Captain Laurel, and discovered that a corporal and a lieutenant of similar backgrounds had been deployed under the names of Nick Abbott and Nick Costello. He was eventually renamed Mike Stanley. A conversation reported in his memoir reveals his indignation:

‘D’you know what names they gave the three of us? The first two they called Abbott and Costello. Can you believe it? And then I flew out as Laurel and then they changed my name to Stanley ... Abbott, Costello, Laurel and Stanley. Big joke, Ian. Very funny if it wasn’t so serious. It’s our lives they’re playing with!’ I’m breathless, furious, almost shouting.

And then quietly, ‘Ian, Abbott was blown after only three months there. The Croats found out who he was, threatened to kill him, just because he was a Serb. He was removed from theatre within twentyfour hours. He never came back.’ (Stankovic 2000: 32–3)

Naming the three officers after film comedy actors no doubt amused those who devised the names, and they must have imagined that no one would notice. But the dangers were serious, as the example of Abbott confirms. This is also expressed in the subtitle to Stankovic’s memoir, A Soldier’s Journey into Bosnia’s Heart of Darkness. The reference to Joseph Conrad’s novel suggests not only that the circumstances of war were horrifying but that the identity and values of the narrator were deeply challenged by the experience. Whitaker, with some understatement, pointed to the ‘very difficult circumstances’ these soldiers encountered, and it is perhaps surprising that some of them survived the experience and continued to pursue successful military careers. Certainly, the fact that the Army was prepared to put these young officers in danger suggests that their linguistic and cultural background was considered vital. In Bourdieu’s terms, the linguistic market had changed, and proficiency in Serbian-Croatian language was highly sought after and in extremely short supply. The linguistic capital of the native speakers therefore acquired a high value, which outweighed the risks attached to their deployment.

At a later stage in the operation, the language issues were less pressing, mainly because the language mediation work had largely been allocated to locally employed interpreters and translators. The risks were also much less once the armed conflict subsided. So Nikola Andrijašević, a young reservist officer in the Royal Engineers with Yugoslav and Italian parents, was deployed to Sarajevo as a bomb disposal officer in 1999, without any reference to his language skills or his family background. He agreed that he knew of a few other British officers who had a family background from the area, but that he had never met any of them. In the event, his language skills proved very useful and he was assigned to escort a group of Bosnians to the UK:

Nikola Andrijašević: In addition, there was the ambition to send thirty Bosnians, ten from each of the former warring factions, back to the UK to attend a bomb disposal course, three weeks in length. And as very few of the personnel selected in Bosnia would speak English, there would be a requirement to provide interpreters, translators, and it was deemed I would probably be the best escort to bring them back to the United Kingdom and to supervise the training and to ensure that the correct level of training was achieved, and iron out any difficulties, either during transit back to the United Kingdom or any friction that might arise during the course.²

The fact that Andrijašević was of Serbian and Slovenian extraction did not pose any obstacle to his selection for the task, and from his account it appears that the programme passed off in a good-humoured way. He gives no indication that he experienced any challenges based on his background. His work was to supervise the process. It is clear that his language skills were frequently called upon to solve problems:

Nikola Andrijašević: We then had to recover back to Bosnia, which involved a trip back to Split, and then moving from Split back to Sarajevo where all the students would disperse. One of the Bosnian Serb officers couldn’t fly on the same flight because he was flying on an old Yugoslav passport, so the Croats wouldn’t allow him entry into the country, so we had to reroute him on another flight through, I believe Austria, then into, into Sarajevo from there. So there were a few diplomatic issues that had to be overcome, one related to crossing borders.

Catherine Baker: So he’d been allowed out but he wasn’t allowed back in?

Nikola Andrijašević: He was allowed out after a long argument between myself and one of the Croatian border control posts at the airport, as he’d travelled on an SFOR bus, and he was boarding an SFOR plane, which were all outside of the remit of the Croatian jurisdiction. But it did take some convincing and some finger-pointing to eventually get him on to the flight.³

In the complex arrangements that prevailed, it is evident that solving problems required linguistic and cultural competence, as well as a good deal of ingenuity and determination. Andrijašević was not specifically employed as a linguist but used his linguistic skills to carry out his duties. Deployed when the market for his language skills had subsided, he was able to use his linguistic capital to secure an interesting posting. The value of these skills was recognized, and his later duties drew more heavily on them. After the end of this deployment, he attended a six-month-long Bosnian language course and returned to Bosnia-Herzegovina as a military interpreter.

The experience of Stankovic and Andrijašević reveals the strengths and limitations of serving personnel with a family background in the area. The main strength is that they are native or near native speakers of the local language, and therefore able to communicate readily. However, their fluency is principally in the spoken language, speaking and listening, used in the context of the family. As Andrijašević explained:

Nikola Andrijašević: I also learnt Serbo-Croat at home, and as the family language, and I was also exposed to Slovenian as my grandmother that was living with us at the time, spoke it only, and often spoke it with my mother, but I never had any formal training or understood it to a great extent.⁴

He was bilingual in English and Italian, and educated in England, so that his knowledge of Serbo-Croat was entirely informal, as was also the case for Stankovic. This knowledge is valuable for everyday relationships but does not extend to the language of professional or technical spheres. And it does not extend to the written language, where they typically have had little experience of reading and writing in the language. For these reasons, Andrijašević underwent a six-month training programme in the language before being deployed as a military interpreter, which demanded the written skills. Informal knowledge does not usually include a reflective awareness of language and how it works, which is normally part of formal language education, and would certainly be required to teach the language to other people. Moreover, informal knowledge does not equip the speaker to distinguish between different varieties of the language. Abbott had to warn Stankovic of this issue:

‘Well, people ask you where you’ve learnt the language, and you have to trot out the same old lie about university and coming here on holiday before the war. Throw in a few deliberate errors, struggle a bit and you might get away with it ...’ He paused for a moment’s thought and then added, ‘... if I were you I’d keep your mouth shut here in Croatia. Save it for Bosnia.’

I was slightly alarmed. ‘Why?’

‘Simple. You speak with an ekavski accent ... obvious you’re from Serbia, whereas here they speak with an ijekavski Dalmatian accent. And the words are different too. What’s bread?’

‘Hleb,’ I replied.

‘No, it isn’t. Here it’s kruh and in Bosnia it’s hljeb or occasionally kruh.’ (Stankovic 2000: 59)

The ability to understand language differences was particularly important in Bosnia-Herzegovina...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• About the Authors
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1  Serving in a Foreign Field
• 2  The Multiple Roles of Military Interpreters
• 3  Language Support on the Ground under UNPROFOR
• 4  Improving Language Support
• 5  Foreign/Local Encounters in Interpreting
• 6  Nationality, Ethnicity and Trust
• 7  Peacebuilding in a Multilingual World
• 8  Lessons Identified
• Appendix: Note on the Language Variants in Bosnia-Herzegovina
• Notes
• References
• Index