POLITICS-YUGOSLAVIA: Major Changes Expected In The Army

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, May 2 2001 (IPS) - The wave of changes in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia includes major re-organisation of the Yugoslav Army (VJ), often described as the last bastion of the Communist rule since 1945.

“The army was based on ideology,” military analyst Stipe Sikavica said during a round-table meeting on the future of VJ.

“Since Communists took power in 1945, it was the servant of communists. When Slobodan Milosevic came to power in the 1990s, it continued to be the hostage of this ideology. It’s high time that the army became adjusted to the modern world,” he added.

The meeting, held in Belgrade last week, was dedicated to the re-organisation of the 114,000-strong Yugoslav army. Some say the size of the Yugoslav army is too high for a country of 7.5 million people.

The meeting, held under the “Partnership for Peace and Yugoslavia”, attracted both civilian and military experts.

It followed an initiative of the new Yugoslav minister of defence Slobodan Krapovic, who proposed that VJ joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s Partnership for Peace Programme (PPP).

Yugoslavia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are the only European countries that have not joined PPP.

Only two years ago NATO and VJ were sworn enemies. NATO’s bombing campaign against Yugoslavia lasted for 11 weeks. The campaign was sparked by former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic’s repressive policies against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Milosevic was ousted from power in October, after he lost the presidential elections to Vojislav Kostunica.

The new reform-minded government of Kostunica immediately adopted a new policy aimed at returning the isolated country into the international community. One of the steps, the government took, was the reform of VJ.

“The most important thing is that the people who were fighting a war against NATO are now ready to communicate and co-operate with it. It’s in our interest to do so,” Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic told the meeting.

Some military experts agreed. They said the army could benefit from joining PPP.

“Our military industry would be able to penetrate the international markets,” colonel Milan Sunjarevic said. “This industry has suffered major setbacks in the past”.

Two rounds of strict international sanctions, in the 1990s, against Yugoslavia ruined the country’s military industry. Belgrade was punished for its participation in wars in Croatia and Bosnia, as well as for repressing ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Before that, Yugoslavia, exported, besides traditional weapons, sophisticated electronic equipment and radar systems. Military experts took part in the construction of dozens of airports, underground bases and other military installations in non-aligned countries of Middle East and Africa.

However, the opponents of PPP argue that Yugoslavia would lose its sovereignty once it joins the NATO programme.

Navy battleship commander Mile Djoric argued, for example, that “many countries that joined PPP got nothing in return”.

“On the contrary, their armies became marginalised, sovereignty of their countries was partially deregulated in favour of NATO and no financial aid came in to re-structure their armies,” he said.

Yugoslav army, like all segments of the society, faced enormous cuts in the military spending.

Budget constraints forced VJ to shorten the regular army service from 12 to 10 months. “The country needs to adjust the size of the army to the European standards, making it smaller and more efficient,” said a VJ statement last week.

Unofficially, VJ sources admit that they faced major shortage of recruits. This is partly because some 400,000 young people left Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Birth rates also have dropped to their lowest level in five decades and the country has become the home of elderly people.

Military experts, however, say that VJ should not be afraid of major changes. Recent public opinion polls show 57 per cent of those surveyed believe that the army should be inexpensive, small and strictly professional.

The survey, conducted by the “Centre for Military-Civilian Relations”, a non-governmental organistion (ngo), found that 74 per cent of the participants thought PPP should be the primary choice of VJ in the future.

The wave of the changes has touched a taboo within VJ. Military courts have opened cases against 183 VJ officers, accused of war crimes in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, at the time when the army fought separatist ethnic Albanian guerrillas.

Their crimes include military actions that led to “death, endangering life, inflicting bodily harm or damaged to the dignity, morale and property of citizens”, the VJ statement said. It was the first statement since the wars in former Yugoslavia broke out.

“The era of new openness is on,” Sikavica told IPS. “It definitely includes VJ and that is a very important thing for this country. That means we are finally cutting ties with the heritage of our past”.