Bosnian parliament, security officials warn of high presence of foreign spies
BBC Monitoring Europe (Political) - April 15, 2008 Tuesday

Text of report by Bosnian Serb privately-owned centrist newspaper Nezavisne novine, on 13 April

[Report by Adis Susnjar: "B-H Teeming with Spies"]

According to many politicians and political analysts, dozens of foreign intelligence agencies are active in Bosnia-Hercegovina. No one, however, knows the exact number of foreign intelligence operatives working in our country, what their goals are, and to what extent they affect the events in Bosnia-Hercegovina with their activities.

There are also grounds to suspect that still active in Bosnia-Hercegovina are the "domestic" spies, who could not fit into Bosnia-Hercegovina's common and single Intelligence and Security Agency (OSA). OSA is composed of ethnic intelligence agencies that previously operated in Bosnia-Hercegovina's entities.

Mirko Lujic, the director of Bosnia-Hercegovina's State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), confirmed that the situation in Bosnia-Hercegovina was indeed chaotic.

"We may not say to the citizens that they are protected from illegal eavesdropping. We have a large number of agencies that have enough manoeuvring space to listen in to the citizens. In Europe, the current price for small eavesdropping systems is between 250,000-1 million convertible marks [KM]. These are systems with which you can eavesdrop with impunity," Lujic said. He pointed out that equipment suppliers informally notified them that these mobile systems had been delivered to our country.

"In Bosnia-Hercegovina there is a number of systems to intercept communications, but I do not know who controls them. I really do not know the total number of people eavesdropping in this country. I am the SIPA director, but I do not know who could be eavesdropping on me," Lujic said in a recent interview for Nezavisne [Nezavisne novine].

Mirko Okolic, the chairman of the B-H Parliament's OSA Oversight Committee, said that eavesdropping was a complex process that required a court warrant.

"Abuses by individuals are possible, but such abuses are not legitimate and may not be used anywhere. Unauthorized eavesdropping is a criminal act," Okolic said.

Banning Foreign Operatives from Coming to B-H Is Impossible

Okolic pointed out that it was very likely that there were many illegal intelligence agencies in Bosnia-Hercegovina. He said that no one knew their exact number.

"Only one agency is allowed by law, and this is OSA. Under B-H law, all others - be they local or foreign - are illegal. Considering the events that happened here in the 1990s, when we had, apart from the local intelligence agencies, a large number of various foreign intelligence agencies that established contacts in that period, it is very likely that they and their intelligence networks are still active here. We should not forget that Bosnia-Hercegovina, owing to its important geo-strategic position in the Balkans, was and continues to be interesting to many intelligence agencies," Okolic said.

Slavko "Slavuj" Jovicic, a deputy of the SNSD [Alliance of Independent Social Democrats] in the B-H House of Representatives and former operative of the Yugoslav secret service, alleged that there were a certain number of people in our country whom OSA identified as a threat to Bosnia-Hercegovina.

"They are being followed. These are not large formations and they currently do not pose a threat to B-H citizens. In the previous system, it was impossible for UDBA [Yugoslav secret police] not to know about the appearance of a foreign spy. The situation is different today because Bosnia-Hercegovina is flooded by visits of foreign citizens for various reasons, and this is how operatives who do not always have a well-intentioned attitude to Bosnia-Hercegovina infiltrate the country," Jovicic pointed out.

"The CIA or agencies of some other countries exist in order to collect information and conduct intelligence policies of their countries. It is normal that they conduct operations in all countries of the world; likewise, it is normal that OSA conducts operations outside of the country in order to protect the interests of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Intelligence agencies do not come to us and ask whether they may come. They have their own infiltration mechanisms," Okolic said.

Those with Money Have Important Information

According to Okolic, if we have indications that some incident against Bosnia-Hercegovina or its citizens is being planned outside of Bosnia-Hercegovina, OSA then should conduct its operations there and prevent this activity.

"There are intelligence agencies whose intentions are aimed against Bosnia-Hercegovina, its interests, and its citizens. It is OSA's task to detect them in a timely fashion and prevent them from doing this," Mirko Okolic explained.

Okolic added that these agencies might be better organized than our agency, because they have money and easy access to equipment and information - and the one in possession of information is also in control of the situation. Okolic stated that Bosnia-Hercegovina was one of the most open countries in Europe and the world, especially to foreigners, and that any international organization, registered to conduct any kind of activity, could come to Bosnia-Hercegovina without problems.

"We do not have the kind of filters that normally organized countries have. We still do not have enough mechanisms to check whether their intentions are sincere or malicious. By creating OSA, however, we have created the first filter for such organizations," Okolic said.

He added that there was good cooperation between OSA and the CIA in the field of global threats that were also a threat to Bosnia-Hercegovina, such as terrorism, trafficking in humans, money laundering, and trading in arms and narcotics.

"Also not harmless was the official statement about the danger of 'white Al-Qa'idah' originating from Bosnia-Hercegovina during US President's recent visit to Zagreb. As a citizen of Bosnia-Hercegovina, I am not at all pleased that there is a negative view of the elements in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and we are trying to prevent this. This is the reason why we are cooperating with other agencies, because there is no agency that can prevent everything on its own," Okolic pointed out.

OSA Will Also Operate in Other Countries

OSA General Director Almir Dzuvo said that relations between intelligence services in the world had significantly changed since the end of the Cold War. He added that the overall improvement of relations between world countries had contributed to this change.

"We moved from completely isolated and hostile relations to the establishment of many bilateral ties. This type of cooperation has many positive effects on the countries and their agencies, from defining common risks, through exchanging experience and information, to opposing concrete threats," Dzuvo explained, adding that OSA had also established cooperation with other agencies with which the state of Bosnia-Hercegovina shared the same interests.

"In this context, it is customary for representatives of foreign agencies to stay - under previously defined rules - in Bosnia-Hercegovina. We have the same legal foundation when it comes to OSA's presence in other countries, and this will soon be carried out in some countries," Dzuvo said.

Okolic said that his committee established that OSA was involved in many tasks where it had cooperated with intelligence agencies of other countries and had also taken the lead in some of the operations.

"Most of its work was in the areas of narcotics smuggling, organized car theft, and trafficking in humans. The value of the work done by OSA is great, and is even greater than we can imagine. Its activities have also helped other countries," Okolic said.

Bakir Izetbegovic, a deputy chairman of the SDA [Party of Democratic Action] and deputy in the B-H Parliament, thought that there were many intelligence agencies in Bosnia-Hercegovina because the international community had a high level of presence in the country and needed good information to make decisions.

'Fear-Sowing Notoriety'

"In Bosnia-Hercegovina, being tied and untied are some knots important for the entire Europe. They thus certainly have strong agencies like the CIA here. Logically, Bosnia-Hercegovina should be teeming with intelligence operatives. This is going to decrease over time because it also costs them a lot," Izetbegovic said.

Slavko Jovicic said that OSA could not compare to the pre-war intelligence service, "which was one of the best developed services in Europe."

"As for the activities of foreign agencies, Bosnia-Hercegovina is at the very top, mainly because notoriety has been created in Europe that there are terrorist organizations in Bosnia-Hercegovina that sowed fear in the war," Jovicic said.

Bakir Izetbegovic pointed out that there as yet had not been a consensus in Bosnia-Hercegovina about important political matters and this possibly was reflected on the B-H intelligence agency.

"The more we define the common interests of all ethnic groups in Bosnia-Hercegovina, the more these agencies will be unified. For the time being, they are not efficient. For example, there was a terrorist attack on my father's [Alija Izetbegovic] grave but nothing has been resolved to date," Izetbegovic said.

Okolic said that OSA, judging by the controls and checks carried out until now, was unified and there were many examples illustrating this.

"However, it is likely that there is a certain number of people who worked in the three ethnic agencies and who could not find themselves in this team, so they must be secretly working on some things. I do not know how deep their involvement is," Mirko Okolic said.

[Box] Mujahidin 'Interesting' to Foreign Agencies

Esad Hecimovic, Dani journalist and author of the book Garibi, which talks about the mujahidin in Bosnia-Hercegovina, pointed out that, during the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, foreign intelligence services were interested in certain people who were members of the El Mudzahidin squad. Hecimovic said that many countries were looking for Shaykh Enver Saban, who was the actual leader of the El Mudzahidin squad.

"In 1995 he was killed near Zepce under unexplained circumstances. He was the actual leader of the El Mudzahidin squad, while formally the leader was Abu Mali. The HVO's [Croat Defence Council] Special Unit killed him in Zepce. This is the official version, but it is not the only one. The mujahidin were not the foreign agencies' only task. They primarily set the targets for air attacks and took care of security of foreign troops in Bosnia-Hercegovina," Hecimovic said.

Source: Nezavisne novine, Banja Luka, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 13 Apr 08
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