Paid to Predict: Duplicity, Deceit and Dishonesty among 'Allies'

by Ewen Southby-Tailyour

In 1993 Ewen Southby-Tailyour joined the British Foreign Office for duties with the European Community Monitoring Mission. He was also tasked, informally, by MI6 to report on a few characters. Monitoring the cease-fire violations along the Confrontation Line between Croatia and the Republic of Serbian Krajina plus the humanitarian and economic issues for the regeneration of Dalmatia were professionally satisfying; as were a covert beach reconnaissance, interviewing war criminals and pacing the length of a 'secret' airfield that was eventually used by US Predator unmanned surveillance aircraft to support Croatia's ethnic cleansing of all Serbs from Krajina. Closing in on hard evidence that Germany and the US were breaking UN Arms Embargo 713 the author was caught in the diplomatic cross-fire between the Greeks, who supported Serbia and the French who supported Croatia. To prevent the French knowing of any illicit arms embargo he was order by the Greeks to falsify his reports. He resigned from the mission. This is a thought-provoking, disturbing tale of deceit and duplicity between European countries (and, notably, the US) all supposedly supporting a common cause-peace in the Balkans-but, in effect, helping to ethnically cleanse 200,000 Serbs from their 500 year-old homeland.

308 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 22, 2020

Reviews

[Rupert Hague-Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding book. Written by a retired Royal Marines officer, with 32 years of operational experience, it is an eye opening account of his time as a monitor with the European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM)in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
It is a tale of duplicity and double dealing - a shocking advertisement for the geo-political machinations of the EU in setting up a mission allegedly to monitor the economic and political recovery of the areas being former parts of Yugoslavia, namely Croatia, Bosnia-Herzogovenia and Serbia and provide humanitarian assistance. In reality, it did neither.
Ewen Southby-Tailyour writes his story with clarity and precision. Not a man willing to allow his professional or personal integrity to be compromised, he recounts a tale of the farce that was the ECMM, led by incompetent and dishonest diplomats and government officials, with private national agendas supporting one or other sides in the conflict.
Although Southby-Tailyour was never able to “land on” concrete evidence, he was convinced that the US and Germany were breaking the UN embargo on arms supplies to the protagonists to the civil war. His suspicions were well found when about a year after he left the ECMM, the launch of Operation Storm by the Croats in 1995, led to the ethnic cleansing of 200,000 inhabitants of the Republic of Serbia-Krajina.
The book lays bare the inability of the EU to act in a co-ordinated and cohesive way, with each nation involved pursuing its own political and military agenda. That included the UK, Southby Tailyour also being “tasked” by MI6 to report back on certain individuals within the differing factions.
The book is fast paced and exciting - a mixture of recollection and Southby Tailyours contemporaneous diary. The result is a fascinating book. I was astounded by the level of deception and duplicity involved within the EU and the fact that the US and Germans played a leading hand in the alleged breaches of the UN embargo. For someone who knew very little about the Balkans civil war, this book really educated me. Highly recommended