Milos Stankovic

Last updated

Milos Stankovic
Birth nameMilosh Radomir Vladimir Stankovic
BornDecember 1962 (age 6061)
Southern Rhodesia
AllegianceFlag of the United Kingdom.svg  United Kingdom
Service/branchFlag of the British Army.svg  British Army
Years of service1981-2000
Rank Major
Service number 515785
Unit Parachute Regiment
Awards Member of the Order of the British Empire
Website wilywords.com

Milosh Radomir Vladimir Stankovic MBE (born December 1962) is a former British Army officer and author of the Bosnian war memoire Trusted Mole .

Contents

Early years

Stankovic was born in Southern Rhodesia. His father, a naturalised British, was a Royalist Yugoslav during WW2. His mother was British and served with the 8th Army at the battle of El Alamein in Egypt 1942–43, Italy 1944 and in Yugoslavia in 1945. The family returned to London from Rhodesia in 1963. Stankovic was educated at Plymouth College in Devon, England, where he studied classics and was Head of School and head of the Combined Cadet Force.

Military service

He joined the Parachute Regiment in 1981, went to Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1982 and was sent to University by the Army to study Russian at Manchester University and at the Minsk State Pedagogical Institute for Foreign Languages in the Soviet Union. He completed the Standard Graduate Course at Sandhurst in 1986 and subsequently served with the British Army in Belize, Northern Ireland and Southern Africa, and with the United Nations forces in Kuwait, Iraq and Bosnia. A fluent speaker of Serbo-Croatian and Russian, he specialised in psychological operations and post-Cold War arms control. He retired from the British Army in 2000 with the rank of major. [1]

Bosnian War

Operating primarily as a Liaison Officer under the pseudonym 'Mike Stanley', [2] he was the longest-serving British soldier with the United Nations Protection Force during the 1992-95 Bosnian War. In the latter part of his service, he worked directly for General Sir Michael Rose [3] and General Sir Rupert Smith, [4] successive commanders of the United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. His functions mainly involved mediating, negotiating and troubleshooting ceasefires, hostage releases, and the 1995 Cessation of Hostilities Agreement with Bosnian Serb political and military leaders. Upon his return from Bosnia, Stankovic was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire for his mediation work. [5]

"Your liaison function in particular between BH Command and Pale was wholly indispensable to the peace process, and I always felt that I knew better than my predecessors the innermost thoughts of the Serbs…it was essential that we had someone who could gain their trust and demonstrate that as peacekeepers we really were impartial. All this came to a culminating point during the cessation of hostilities negotiations when you provided the 'telephone through the window!’ Without this I doubt we would have got the necessary signatures."General Sir Michael Rose KCB CBE DSO QGM, Adjutant General. [6]

"Major Stankovic has been mine and my predecessor's Liaison Officer with the Bosnian Serb Army since June 1994. He has worked for me for the past four months. The relationships he has established with key figures, not least the Bosnian Serb Army commander, his knowledge of the language and the background to the war has been invaluable...He has been under considerable pressure, operating alone in isolated circumstances where the threat of hostile activity is ever present and occasionally occurs. Major Stankovic has performed excellently. His mediation between the warring factions, his representation of me and his advice have all been of critical importance...As a character he is brave and enduring. He is calm and thoughtful under pressure. He is his own man walking his own path."General Sir Rupert Smith KCB DSO OBE QGM, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. [7]

"I have no doubts whatsoever. In Bosnia he played an absolute blinder."General Sir Mike Jackson KCB CBE DSO DL, Chief of the General Staff. [8]

Spy Scandal

In October 1997, while at the Joint Services Command and Staff Course, Stankovic was arrested by the Ministry of Defence Police on suspicion of breaches under Section 2b of the 1989 Official Secrets Act. [9] [10] Although he was on police bail for over a year, during which time the MOD Police interviewed several hundred witnesses, no evidence of any wrongdoing was found with which to charge him. In April 1999 the Crown Prosecution Service concluded that there would be no further action against him for lack of evidence. Nonetheless, for a subsequent year, he was investigated by the Royal Military Police's Special Investigations Branch to determine whether violations to the Military Services had been made. In March 2000, the Army concluded that no violations had been found. Meanwhile, Stankovic had resigned from the Army in order to pursue his case against the Ministry of Defence in the Civil Courts (see Litigation below). The events of those years were recorded by Tim Slessor in his book about dissembling and deception in Whitehall, Lying in State, in a chapter entitled: A Soldier’s Story. The Army Board reflected the lack of substance of the allegations and the failure of two investigations to find any evidence of wrongdoing in an unusual letter to Major Stankovic that is not normally written to officers retiring from the Services:

"On the occasion of your retirement from the Army, I am directed by the Army Board to thank you most sincerely for the loyal service you have given since you were commissioned. The Army Board recognises that, in carrying out your duties as an officer, you will have had to make many sacrifices, putting the interests of your Country, the Army and your soldiers before your own. This is very much appreciated and the Army Board wishes formally to express its gratitude for the service you have given and for the excellent contribution you have made."Major General Alistair Irvin, Military Secretary. [11]

Litigation

In October 2007, ten years after his arrest, Stankovic's case against the Ministry of Defence Police finally came to trial in the Royal Courts of Justice. There were only three torts in law upon which he could rest his claim: Unlawful arrest; trespass to property; and malfeasance in public office (abuse of power) – a tort that had been heard only ten times previously in civil courts and had failed on seven of those occasions. Although the trial judge, the Honourable Mr. Justice Saunders, found that the MOD Police had not abused their power during investigation and held reasonable grounds for suspicion leading to Stankovic's subsequent arrest, he did find that the trespass of Stankovic's property had been inordinate. Furthermore, the trial process revealed additional hitherto unseen disclosure, which finally named Stankovic's original accuser - a former British Army officer. In clearing Stankovic's name, The Honourable Mr. Justice Saunders summed up as follows on 9 November 2007:

"Looked at objectively, there is no doubt that what happened to the Claimant has been unfair and the consequences serious…he was an impressive and realistic witness. He did not overstate his case...He proved himself to be courageous and resourceful in Bosnia and suffered the effects of his time there more than most". [12]

Mr Justice Saunders awarded £5,000 for the MOD Police "seizing and removing items outside the terms of a search warrant", but threw out the majority of to Stankovic's case and made him liable for all costs (circa £500,000). [13]

Writing

On 14th April 2000, Stankovic published his own account of his experiences as a Liaison Officer, mediator and negotiator in the Bosnian War Trusted Mole, A Soldier’s Journey into Bosnia’s Heart of Darkness . [14] Described by The Sunday Times as "By far the best book to have come out of the Balkan Wars" and critically acclaimed in the United States and Europe, this account of troubleshooting in the extreme environment of the Bosnian War informs the philosophical and methodological approach to the agile resolution of conflict and disputes.

Recent years

Consulting & Advisory. Since leaving the British Army, Stankovic has worked in over eighty countries on five continents as a risk management consultant, and has specialised in business intelligence and new market entry in the Russian Federation. He has been honoured three times by the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles for his work with CBS TV and advised the BBC on developing proactive protection measures for BBC teams in Iraq. His expertise in psychological operations and mediation in cross-cultural environments have led to the development of innovative approaches in the fields of mediation and negotiation using agile and iterative processes for Conflict Resolution and Alternative Dispute Resolution. He uses his expertise both in security and Health & Safety consulting in the creative and media industries with a focus on hostile environments. He is the Principle High Risk Advisor at 1st Option Safety Group as well as being an Accredited Mediator with, and Member of, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, specialising in the use of archetypal application in the mediation process.

The Warrior & The Caregiver. Stankovic's training in psychological warfare found extension and expression as a performance coach in civilian life combining his unusual experiences of overcoming adversity with depth psychology coaching systems such as the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator (PMAI). He trained as a coach in the US, principally in Hawaii, California, and Sedona, Arizona. Between 2008 and 2014 he suspended his working life to care for his elderly mother until her death in August 2014. He ascribes his transition from warrior to caregiver as the central experience that helped him to understand and cope with the unique psychological demands involved with caring for an elderly parent up to their death. Central to the psychological health of the carer are coping strategies for dealing with changes in personal core identity that occur when caregivers transition from their pre-caregiver identities into caregivers, and from that identity, once the care role has ceased, to a post-caring identity. The smoothness and duration of the transition into each phase is determined by psychological self-knowledge, which he believes plays a vital role in helping untrained family caregivers better understand themselves and their own reactions to the unique and challenging pressures that domestic caregiving creates. This issue becomes increasingly relevant as the population ages, the State is unable to fund care for the aged, and the duty of care falls to family members.

Campaign. Having spent two-and-a-half years in bail custody, Stankovic supports the Justice Delayed Justice Denied campaign to restrict police bail durations. [15]

Charity

The MCC Centre of Excellence, Sri Lanka. In the wake of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, in 2005, Stankovic became the third person, and first solo person, to complete the Greystoke Mountain Marathon in under ten days. At 315 miles in length and incorporating 100,000' of ascent and descent, it is Britain's toughest mountain marathon taking in 202 fell tops over 2000' in height within the Lake District National Park. In completing the challenge, he raised sufficient funds to initiate the building of a centre of academic and sporting excellence for children and young people in Seenegama, Sri Lanka, funded for the most part by the Marylebone Cricket Club.

The Braveheart Programme Military Charity. In 2009 he co-founded The Braveheart Programme , a British military charity that funds scientific research using the very latest neuro-imaging technology at Oxford University's Department of Neuro-Science to seek neurological markers for Combat Related Post Traumatic Stress disorder (PTSD) among the veteran population. It is ground-breaking research that promises not only to help further understanding of this age old wound of war, but will also have beneficial spin-offs to civilians suffering from PTSD. The Charity is currently funding a 60-month research project at Oxford University.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Marston Moor</span> 1644 battle of the First English Civil War

The Battle of Marston Moor was fought on 2 July 1644, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms of 1639–1653. The combined forces of the English Parliamentarians under Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Manchester and the Scottish Covenanters under the Earl of Leven defeated the Royalists commanded by Prince Rupert of the Rhine and the Marquess of Newcastle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Edgehill</span> 1642 battle during the English Civil War

The Battle of Edgehill was a pitched battle of the First English Civil War. It was fought near Edge Hill and Kineton in southern Warwickshire on Sunday, 23 October 1642.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Military Police</span> Military police of the British Army

The Royal Military Police (RMP) is the corps of the British Army responsible for the policing of army service personnel, and for providing a military police presence both in the UK and while service personnel are deployed overseas on operations and exercises. Members of the RMP are often known as 'Redcaps' because of the scarlet covers on their peaked caps and scarlet coloured berets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Walker, Baron Walker of Aldringham</span> Army officer (born 1944)

Field Marshal Michael John Dawson Walker, Baron Walker of Aldringham, is a retired British Army officer. Commissioned in 1966, he served in Cyprus, Northern Ireland, and in a variety of staff posts in the United Kingdom until 1984. After being given command of a battalion, he was mentioned in despatches for his service during a second tour of duty in Northern Ireland, this time in Derry, and subsequently served a tour on Gibraltar. He was promoted to brigadier, unusually having never held the rank of colonel, and took command of 20th Armoured Brigade in Germany before becoming I Corps chief of staff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hugh Tudor</span> British soldier

Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Hugh Tudor, KCB, CMG was a British soldier who fought as a junior officer in the Second Boer War (1899–1902), and as a senior officer in the First World War (1914–18), but is now remembered chiefly for his roles in the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) and the Palestine Police.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Fergusson, Baron Ballantrae</span> British Army officer and historian (1911–1980)

Brigadier Bernard Edward Fergusson, Baron Ballantrae, was a British Army officer and military historian. He became the last British-born governor-general of New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nevil Macready</span> British Army general (1862–1946)

General Sir Cecil Frederick Nevil Macready, 1st Baronet,, known affectionately as Make-Ready, was a British Army officer. He served in senior staff appointments in the First World War and was the last British military commander in Ireland, and also served for two years as Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warrenpoint ambush</span> IRA attack on British forces in 1979

The Warrenpoint ambush, also known as the Narrow Water ambush, the Warrenpoint massacre or the Narrow Water massacre, was a guerrilla attack by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 27 August 1979. The IRA's South Armagh Brigade ambushed a British Army convoy with two large roadside bombs at Narrow Water Castle outside Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland. The first bomb was aimed at the convoy itself, and the second targeted the incoming reinforcements and the incident command point (ICP) set up to deal with the incident. IRA volunteers hidden in nearby woodland also allegedly fired on the troops, who returned fire. The castle is on the banks of the Newry River, which marks the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

General Sir Rupert Anthony Smith, is a retired British Army officer and author of The Utility of Force. He was a senior commander during the Gulf War, for which he was recognised with the award of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), and again during the Bosnian War, for which he was recognised with the award of a bar to his DSO. He later became Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Dannatt</span> British Army officer

General Francis Richard Dannatt, Baron Dannatt, is a retired senior British Army officer and member of the House of Lords. He was Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rupert Downes</span> Australian general, surgeon and historian

Major General Rupert Major Downes, was an Australian soldier, surgeon and historian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Don (British Army officer)</span> British general (1756–1832)

General Sir George Don was a senior British Army military officer and colonial governor during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His service was conducted across Europe, but his most important work was in military and defensive organisation against the threat of French invasion during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Don was also frequently requested for advisory and espionage work by British generals and was once employed by the Prussian State as a spy. In 1799 he was arrested during a truce by Guillaume Brune who accused him of attempting to foment rebellion in the Batavian Republic and was not released until the Peace of Amiens. During and following the wars, Don also served as Lieutenant Governor of Jersey and Governor Gibraltar, implementing organizational reforms with much success in both places.

The Battle of Banja Luka took place in Banja Luka, Ottoman Bosnia, on 4 August 1737, during the Austro-Russian-Turkish War. An Austrian army under Prince Joseph Hildberghausen was defeated, as it attempted to besiege the town, when it ran into a large Ottoman relief force led by Bosnian Vizier Hekimoğlu Ali Pasha.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ratko Mladić</span> Bosnian Serb military officer and war criminal (born 1942)

Ratko Mladić is a Bosnian Serb former military officer and convicted war criminal who led the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) during the Yugoslav Wars. In 2017, he was found guilty of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rupert Thorneloe</span> British Army soldier

Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Stuart Michael Thorneloe, MBE was a British Army officer who was killed in action on 1 July 2009 near Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. Thorneloe is the highest-ranking British Army officer to have been killed in action since Lieutenant Colonel H. Jones's death in 1982 during the Falklands War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gustav von Myrdacz</span> Austrian noble (1874–1945)

Gustav von Myrdacz was an Austrian noble who was instrumental in organizing the Royal Albanian Army from the early 1920s to 1945. He was referred to in Albania as Gustav Mirdashi.

<i>The Utility of Force</i> Book on modern warfare by Rupert Smith

The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World is a treatise on modern warfare written by General Sir Rupert Smith and published in 2005. Smith is a retired general who spent 40 years in the British Army; he commanded the 1st Armoured Division in the First Gulf War and served as General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland at the end of the Troubles. He was motivated to write the book by his experiences in the Balkans. He commanded the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Bosnia from 1995 to 1996, during which time the Srebrenica massacre occurred and the capital, Sarajevo, was under siege by Serb forces. Smith was instrumental in the lifting of the siege by arranging for NATO air strikes and an artillery barrage. This enabled a ground assault by Bosnian and Croatian forces that ended the siege and led to the Dayton Agreement. Smith's second involvement with the Balkans was in 1999 during the Kosovo War, when he was serving as NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, overseeing air strikes against Serb targets.

<i>Trusted Mole</i>

Trusted Mole - A Soldier's Journey into Bosnia's Heart of Darkness is a military memoir by Milos Stankovic MBE MCIArb, a British Army paratrooper of part Scottish and part Serbian blood, who was Britain's longest serving soldier in the Bosnian War of 1992-95. It relates his first-hand experiences of troubleshooting, mediating and negotiating on behalf of the United Nations Protection Force during the Bosnian War. On publication in April 2000 it was described by the Sunday Times as, "By far the best book to have come out of the Balkan Wars".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rupert Jones (British Army officer)</span>

Major General Rupert Timothy Herbert Jones, is a retired senior British Army officer, who served as the Standing Joint Force Commander from November 2018 to July 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbarossa decree</span> Criminal order issued by the Wehrmacht during World War II

During World War II, the Barbarossa decree was one of the Wehrmacht criminal orders given on 13 May 1941, shortly before Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The decree was laid out by Adolf Hitler during a high-level meeting with military officials on March 30, 1941, where he declared that the upcoming war against the Soviets would be a war of extermination, in which both the political and intellectual elites of Russia would be eradicated by German forces, in order to ensure a long-lasting German victory. Hitler underlined that executions would not be a matter for military courts, but for the organised action of the military. The decree, issued by Field Marshal Keitel a few weeks before Operation Barbarossa, exempted punishable offenses committed by enemy civilians from the jurisdiction of military justice. Suspects were to be brought before an officer who would decide if they were to be shot. Prosecution of offenses against civilians by members of the Wehrmacht was decreed to be "not required" unless necessary for the maintenance of discipline.

References

  1. "No. 55928". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 August 2000. p. 8453.
  2. In Harm's Way by Martin Bell, Soldier by General Sir Mike Jackson
  3. Fighting For Peace by General Sir Michael Rose
  4. Utility of Force by General Sir Rupert Smith
  5. "No. 53653". The London Gazette (Supplement). 25 April 1994. p. 6167.
  6. Correspondence General Sir Michael Rose to Major Mike Stanley 29 January 1995
  7. Letter, General Sir Rupert Smith, 8 January 2015, referencing his report of 23 April 1995.
  8. Ministries of Deception by Tim Slessor, p228, Aurum Press Ltd. 2002
  9. , publications.parliament.uk, House of Commons Hansard Debates for 10 December 1997 (pt 13)
  10. , publications.parliament.uk, House of Commons Hansard Debates for 14 July 1999 (pt 15)
  11. Formal letter from the Military Secretary on behalf of the Army Board, 27 July 2000, Ministries of Deception by Tim Slessor, p266, Aurum Press Ltd. 2002
  12. Approved Judgment by The Honourable Mr. Justice Saunders, Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, 9 November 2007, Case No: HQ 0006034
  13. "Ex-major loses case against MoD". BBC News. 9 November 2007. Archived from the original on 14 November 2012.
  14. Trusted Mole - A Soldier's Journey into Bosnia's Heart of Darkness by Milos Stankovic MBE, HarperCollins 2000, ISBN   978-0-00-653090-9.
  15. O'Neill, Sean (27 October 2014). "Ruined hero backs change in bail law" . The Times. Retrieved 4 July 2018.