Off to War by Taxi

Starting up in Former Yugoslavia – Zagreb December 1991

by Yoshi Uramoto

“Yoshi, you need to be in Zagreb in 24 hours to start up an emergency operation and open an office”. It was Tom McDermott phoning me in Bombay from Delhi. He didn’t need to persuade me and he didn’t try. It never occurred to him that I would refuse this ‘offer’, even if it came from ‘out of the blue’.

Even though Bombay was the first foreign posting for my wife, Mikiko, she bravely let me go and took on the care of my two daughters for the following six months. No doubt, many UNICEF readers have had a similar experience or two.

Yoshi in 1991 - then head
of UNICEF Bombay
I arrived the following day in Graz, Austria via Geneva. Then I took a taxi to Zagreb. It was risky to fly to Zagreb and there was no flight available. A taxi driver, Neno, was at the airport to meet me. Neno later joined UNICEF, as a staff member, became our Supply / Logistics Officer, and nowadays I understand has his own shipping company. At that time, however, Neno’s taxi was on contract with UNICEF. From Graz we passed two borders; one with Slovenia and another with Croatia. There were no border controls. The officials at the border just hurried us across the borders without bothering to look at my passports.

Zagreb was dark and grim. Every window was taped and sandbags were piled high against basement windows. Paper money was rolling along the streets, yet no one bothered to pick them up. In the streetcars/trams you could hear children talking about empty refrigerators at home.

There were paramilitary forces on the streets. Children with mixed ethnicity kept their lips tight, for fear that the men in black uniform would harass or harm them.

Thanks to able staff the office was set up in the middle of December 1991. 
Sasha, the deputy chief (second from right in the back row), Neno, our able 
driver (right of Sasha) and the rest of the staff of UNICEF Zagreb and me.
Vukovar, a beautiful Baroque town in Eastern Croatia had been totally wrecked in November 1991. When I arrived in the middle of December 1991 the military confrontation between Serbs and Croats had spread beyond Vukovar. The Serbian enclave of Krajina was a fierce battle ground. Dubrovnik, a beautiful medieval town was bombed. The exchange of fire became a common scene all over the country. On Croatian national TV a female singer thanked Germany for recognizing the independence of Croatia. That recognition only added oil to the battle fire by enraging Serb and Yugoslav nationalists, who rejected independence of Slovenia and Croatia. The issue of Bosnia was still ahead of us at the time.

My job was to find and hire staff, set up a UNICEF office and run emergency operations in Croatia and Slovenia for the protection of children of all ethnicities.

With our counterparts from the Croatian government, children and me during the field mission
I needed to travel - often in regions with serious security risks - to find out who needed help. Fortunately, Vesna Bosnjak, a Croatian international staff member, had been on a mission from UNICEF before my assignment. Vesna introduced me to government counterparts. We first met the government’s emergency coordinator and later Croatia’s foreign minister, Mate Granic. Vesna was very knowledgeable about the situation and gave me an unbiased brief on the current situation. She also helped me locate a flat to stay and showed me where to find good food.

When it became clear that a full-fledged conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) was in the offing, Mrs. Ogata sent two senior staff to start up operations there : Jose-Maria Mendiluce and Fabrizio Hochscild. (Jose-Maria later became an EU parliamentarian. Fabrizio later became ASG for Strategic Coordination). Both did extraordinary work under impossible circumstances, but literally went through hell in various battle zones in the country. I am pleased that Vesna and I were able to give them their very first situation briefing on the situation of the country.

I paid a visit to UNICEF Belgrade to coordinate efforts and met Chief of UNICEF Belgrade (second from left), granddaughter of former Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito in the centre and me at the right end
A month before I arrived in Zagreb Staffan de Mistura and Samir Basta (then RD of UNICEF Europe and my direct supervisor) managed to establish a “zone of truce – humanitarian corridor” in Dubrovnik for the children isolated from the rest of the republic. Staffan sailed to Dubrovnik with 13 tourist boats chartered from Bari in Italy with tons of essential and medical supplies.

Who else but Staffan could have arranged such a feat !

Manuel Fontaine (current director of EMOPs) and I launched a mine awareness campaign for school children in Dubrovnik. This was the first mine awareness project UNICEF had carried out. I believe the publicity given it contributed to adoption of the 1997 Ottawa Convention on Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines.

May 1992 - Bosnian family a refugee camp along the
Dalmatian coast The expression in their eyes is silent
evidence of their plight as refugees far from home.
We also launched a psycho-social project to help children in war zones cope with anxiety give first hand relief to children exposed to the risk of psychological disorders, Some years later a similar project was taken up in Timor-Leste and still later in Ache, Indonesia following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

In May 1992 I left Zagreb with a heavy heart but also with pride that I had taken part in UNICEF’s efforts in former Yugoslavia. Not long after I left UNICEF opened an area office for the entire area of former Yugoslav. I was happy to learn that Tom McDermott was appointed as the head of the office with Shamsul Farooq as his deputy.

Note: I wish to apologise to those whose names and personal information were incorrectly mentioned in this article.

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