Colonel Nigel Fenn, Defence Attaché

 

Colonel Nigel has served in the British Army for 33 years.  He was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1975 and has served in the UK, Germany, Northern Ireland, Canada, Hong Kong and Afghanistan.  He has been employed as an instructor at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, with the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers and as the Chief Instructor Command Wing at the Royal School Military Engineering.  More recently, Colonel Nigel served as the Commander of 29 (Land Support) Engineer Group which is responsible for all the British Army’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal units and the Joint Civil Military Co-operation Group.  Colonel Nigel deployed with the headquarters as the Joint Force Engineer in support of Op HERRICK in Afghanistan in early 2006.

 

Colonel Fenn is married to Carolyn, who retired from the British Army in 1994 and who speaks German; they have two young children, Charlotte and Harry.  Colonel Fenn has represented the Combined Services and Army at Hockey, has played squash at Army Veterans level and as a young officer represented the Royal Engineers at tennis.  His other interests include golf, running and photography.  Colonel Fenn notably completed the Marathon des Sables, a 240km marathon in the Sahara desert in 2003 raising £10K for charity.  

 

Miss Sangeeta Raval

 

Sangeeta Raval has worked as civilian for the UK MoD for 19 years and been employed in various departments in the UK, Brussels and Cyprus.  She works as the Personal Assistant in the DA's office and is responsible for liaison with the Serb MOD, special projects and aspects of the Bilaterial Programme

 

Mr Mirko Pohulek 

 

Mirko is the desk officer responsible for liaison with the Serb MOD, special projects and aspects of the bilateral programme.

 

Ms Milica Naumović

 

Translator and assistant to the DA. She is also responsible for liaison with, and the bilateral assistance programme, with the Montenegro MOD.

 

Mr Jovan Stefanović

 

The Defence Section driver.

 

 

Our Mission

 

The UK works to promote peace and security in Serbia and the Balkans as part of its unifying purpose to assist in the development of stable, sovereign and democratic states and to combat international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons. To contribute to this effort, the Defence Section channels UK support to the Serbian Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces and other bodies which enhance national security; all of which are involved in a process of reform and modernisation.


How our Mission is achieved

The Defence Section achieves this mission by planning and executing a wide-ranging bilateral co-operation programme with the Ministry of Defence of Serbia.

The main elements of the bilateral programme are

 

Development of the Serbian military's English Language capacity

Advanced training of Serbian Officers, particularly in command, management and staff skills

Consultancy support to Serbian defence reform projects

 

British Military Advisory and Training Team (Central and Eastern Europe) assistance to train junior officers in command, leadership and management, and as instructors for peace support operations.

The selection of Serbian officers for UK sponsored places at RCDS and ACSC.

The attendance by Serbian officers on shorter courses in the UK, such as English language training.

Assistance with the Serbian project for the professionalism of their Armed Forces.

 

 

PEP     

The PEP is funded by the FCO, MoD and DfID.  The aim is to use English language training reform as a means of assisting the military, police and other security forces with their provision to peacekeeping operations, global and state security and post-conflict support.  The PEP has been running for 4 years.

 

 

PRISMA

The PRISMA Resettlement projects has been running for 4 years.  The aim was to retrain former officers and MOD civilians for civilian life. The PRISM Project has retrained around 1000 Officers and MOD Civilians

 

 

British Military Advisory and Training Team (BMATT) is a pool of British Military Instructors based in the Czech Republic.  Their mission is to provide military training courses, training assistance and advice to Partner Countries, in order to further develop their professional armed forces and their capabilities to participate in multinational peace support operations.

 

Defence Section send around 25 Serb AF students per year to BMATT and we also run specific courses within Serbia.

 

 

Air Squadron visit, 16 – 20 Sep 2008

 

The UK Air Squadron was founded in 1966 by a group of friends who shared a passionate interest in flying light aircraft.  In the past two decades they have flown their aircraft to Russia, Jordan, Tanzania, Pakistan and Morocco.  This year, they will be visiting Serbia and Montenegro culminating with an Open Day and flight display at Batajnica Airbase.