Playing diplomatic football in the lion's den: Robert Fisk meets a Scottish envoy and a Serbian mayor at a strange encounter in Bosanska Gradiska

SIR JOHN THOMSON, former Permanent Representative at the United Nations for Her Britannic Majesty's Government, former High Commissioner in India, holder of the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George, beamed at the clutch of over-muscled Serbian militiamen, heavily armed police officers and flint-jawed officials. 'How very good to meet you,' he said with all the bonhomie of a lion-tamer entering the cage for the first time.

In the council chambers at Bosanska Gradiska, Sir John and his fellow delegates from the Conference on Security and Co- operation in Europe were outnumbered three to one by the Serbs. Their mission, an inquiry into the status of human rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina, was not a subject likely to commend them to the police chief, nor to Gosco Pucar, the gum-chewing 'head of local security', nor the mayor, Nebojsa Ivastanin.

The mayor glowered at his visitor: 'I am only sorry we could not meet you in a better mood.' It was an ominous, if predictable, start to Sir John's peregrination through Bosnia. 'Last night, for the fourth time this month, our town was attacked from the Croatian side. Let's talk business. Our biggest problems are these attacks from the Croatian Republic.'

Sir John, his face a study in innocence, listened with an attentive frown to Mr Ivastanin's tale of anger and betrayal: Croatian forces had moved through UN lines to attack Bosanska Gradiska four times in the past month, killing 16 Serbs and wounding another 14 on 8 August. 'What we expect from the international community and from you who can influence international opinion,' the mayor announced with a hard look at his guest, 'is to be objective and reveal the truth . . . Our greatest problem is that the real truth has not come out yet and this is the source of all our other problems.'

Poor Sir John. Revealing the truth in Bosnia can be a deadly task, and the kind of truth that Mr Ivastanin and his bulky colleagues were looking for was not quite the reality which Sir John had arrived to investigate. Sir John spoke slowly, like a vicar dispensing temporal advice to a fractious congregation. 'You have the most bitter and difficult situation that exists in politics,' he replied. 'Somehow you have to learn to live with the people who are shooting at you. Nobody from the outside like me can tell you exactly how to do it.'

Bosnia-Herzegovina was one state, Sir John reminded his hosts - a remark scarcely calculated to endear him to Serbs who already believed there were three states in Bosnia, one of which was the unrecognised 'Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina'. Mr Ivastanin lectured Sir John on the wartime history of Yugoslavia and the genocide of Serbs. 'We are in a situation similar to that described by Golda Meir,' he declared, to the delegates' amazement. 'We can forgive those who kill us but we cannot forgive them if they force us to kill them.'

If the mayor of Bosanska Gradiska felt free to quote an Israeli, Sir John's mind was clearly rummaging through the history of his native land. 'I come from Scotland,' he proclaimed. 'We are separate from the English. We speak the same language, more or less, and we have had many battles with them. Now we are one country . . . I believe that our experience may be of profit to you.' The Serbian officials, the militiamen all sat in stunned silence. Perhaps they were contemplating their own Cullodens. 'We in Scotland found ourselves in a bigger unit - that is to say the United Kingdom - and we have maintained a great many distinctions from the English. Our legal system is different, too . . . Now we have in the United Kingdom four separate football teams which means that none of them is as good as they would be if they joined together.'

Here was a theme to which the Serbs could warm. They liked football very much, the mayor declared. And yes, all four British teams were great. But then Mr Ivastanin became subdued. There was this matter of the UN embargo. 'Unfortunately now we do not have time to play with foreign teams,' he complained. 'We would like to reach Western civilisation in Europe - you know there were periods of history here when our civilisation was going ahead of the rest of Europe . . . If you ask us to make peace as if nothing had happened, I think that would be difficult because those who started the conflict will not accept this. Those who shoot at each other cannot be in the same army. This is not just a civil war but a religious war. You know what jihad is?'

A Serbian republic functioned in Bosnia, Mr Ivastanin reminded Sir John, fumbling in his pocket. 'We have our own money - and I give you this as a souvenir. Don't misunderstand me]' At which point he held out a worthless 500-dinar note, printed in Banja Luka for the 'Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina'. 'You see, we already look like a real country,' the mayor said proudly.

Sir John saw his chance. 'I would like to give you a present in exchange,' he said. 'This may surprise you . . . I'm going to give you a piece of money that is issued by a Scottish bank - because four banks in Scotland are entitled to issue money which is valid throughout the United Kingdom.' And Sir John solemnly handed Mr Ivastanin a Bank of Scotland pounds 1 note. 'We shall be happy,' responded the mayor, 'if we can establish monetary relations with Scotland.' At exchange rates like this, one could see why.

Was this arcane diplomacy or subtle negotiation? Perhaps the mayor understood the meaning of this strange meeting. 'George Bernard Shaw,' he said, 'once said the Americans and the British were different because they speak the same language.' The words of Margaret Thatcher rang true. For she once told her envoy in his UN days: 'John, I would not have your job for anything.'