Nexus - 0706 - New Times Magazine-pages

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mission was to obtain Russian military secrets on ballistic missiles | MI6 & THE FOREIGN OFFICE'S BALKANS AGENDA and effect the defection of a Russian colonel who specialised in MI6 was itself seen as being pro-Serb in its reporting. In 1994, this area. Although, strangely, he was not given the usual two articles arguing against Western policy in the Balkans con- "immersion" language training in Serbo-Croat, Tomlinson soon _ flict appeared in the Spectator (the right-wing magazine unknow- found himself in the former Yugoslavia, whose break-up had taken _ ingly served as "cover" for three MI6 officers working in Bosnia, the Service by surprise.° Belgrade and Moldova), written under a Sarajevo dateline by a When the country fractured in January 1991 into Croatia, "Kenneth Roberts", who had apparently worked for more than a Bosnia and Serbia, EU [European Union] recognition of indepen- year with the United Nations in Bosnia as an "adviser". Written dent Croatia proved to be a critical and disastrous policy, eventu- by MI6 officer Keith Robert Craig, who was attached to the ally paving the way for Serb aggression which the Foreign Office | MoD's Balkan Secretariat, the first article, published on 5 interpreted as civil war. MI6 had been running a few federal February, rehearsed arguments for a UN withdrawal from the sources in the old Yugoslavia, but area, pointing out that all sides com- they provided little worthwhile intel- mitted atrocities. The second, on 5 ligence. March, complained baselessly about The Service lacked appropriate lin - "warped" and inaccurate reports—by guists and had to start more or less Another operation included the BBC's Kate Adie, in particular— from scratch. The JIC established a of an atrocity against the Bosnian Current Intelligence Group (CIG) on | funning as an agent a Tory MP, Serbs. Mi6s Contollerate dealing with he | _ WhO gave information about fv ihismyvecaed being invited to 2 area had recruited a number of foreign donations to the briefing by MI6 which was "ped- sources at a high level from among Conservative Party. dling an ill-disguised agenda: the the ethnic military and political pro- tagonists. During 1993, as a "targeting offi- Foreign Office's determination that there be no intervention against Serbia's genocidal pogrom". The cer" within the Balkans Controllerate carnage that took place in Sarajevo's whose job was to identify potential marketplace was described, without informants, Tomlinson spent a harrowing and dangerous six the slightest evidence, as the work of the Muslim-led government months travelling as a journalist to Belgrade, Skopje, Zagreb and which was alleged to be "massacring its own people to win sym- Ljubljana, in the process recruiting a Serb journalist (journalists of | pathy and ultimately help from outside". As Vulliamy knew, every nationality were a particular MI6 target in the Balkans, as Sarajevo's defenders were "dumb with disbelief". Despite UN they proved to be more productive than most other sources) and a Protection Force reports which found that it was Serb mortars leader of the Albanian opposition in Macedonia. In 1993, UN which were killing Muslims, the MI6 scheme "worked—beauti- blue-helmeted troops started patrolling the borders of the former _ fully", as the allegations found their way into the world's press. Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. According to sources, MI6 Vulliamy noted that "it was quickly relished by the only man who used air-drops in an operation to set up arms dumps on the border _ stood to gain from this: the Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic".’ of Macedonia as part of a "Stay Behind" network.’ Perhaps it was only an Intelligence/Foreign Office faction Another operation included running as an agent a Tory MP, which was pro-Serb. From March 1992 until September 1993, who gave information about foreign donations to the Conservative Tomlinson worked in the East European Controllerate under the Party. Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Northern Ireland staff designation UKA/7. He has claimed that in the summer of Minister, Harold Elleston was an old Etonian who studied Russian 1992 he discovered an internal document that detailed plans to at Exeter University and subsequently became a trade consultant —_ assassinate President Slobodan Milosevic. During a conversation, specialising in the former Eastern Bloc countries, during which time he was recruit- ed by MI6. He worked for them in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and during the conflict in former Yugoslavia. After visiting former Yugoslavia in 1992, Elleston, who was employed by a lobbying firm with Conservative candidate John Kennedy (aka Gvozdenovic), notified his M16 handlers that donations were reaching the Conservative Party from Serbia. Despite Harold Wilson's ruling in the 1960s that the intelligence services would not use MPs as agents, the Service received special sanction from Prime Minister John Major to. | continue Elleston's secret role. Sir Colin McColl warned Major that the party was possibly accepting tainted money via Kennedy, a key figure in arranging pay- ments from the Serb regime.‘ Richard Tomlinson running as an agent a Tory MP, who gave information about foreign donations to the Conservative Party. Richard Tomlinson NEXUS ¢ 23 MI6 & THE FOREIGN OFFICE'S BALKANS AGENDA Another operation included OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 2000