Ian Kemish

I have to say that the Bosnian Muslims emerge, and probably rightly, as the clearest victims of the period.

But look, you know, it's not coincidence that

The backstory in my book does feature, well, it features two bad things.

It's not altogether a book that's about bad things.

These things lie in the background.

And my point is one of them, based firmly on a real set of developments, involves an atrocity committed by Serbs against Croatians in the very early years of the conflict.

And the other involves an atrocity committed by Croatians against Bosnians, Bosnian Muslims.

And, you know, I'm not trying to make a huge local agenda point here, but in the end...

If there were villains on any side, it was particularly the politicians, the nationalist politicians who, for their own purposes, manipulated and fanned the flames of century-old resentment that does, for historical reasons, exist in that region between some of these...

These groups that we lazily call ethnicities, I mean, they're not ethnicities, they're cultural groups.

They're as ethnically different from each other as Catholics and Protestants are in Northern Ireland.

In other words, not at all.

A lot.

And I think you're onto something here, I have to say.

Particularly, I think, as a head of mission, you get to that point of

authority and a level of confidence that people have in you in the system.

You're looking to influence particularly your own capital, your own ministers, your own prime minister when it comes to the issues that you're dealing with in your country of location, in your location.

And to do that, you're competing with a whole lot of other people who are trying to do the same thing.

You have to tell your story in an interesting way and sometimes even in an entertaining way.

And I used to find ways of doing that.