The Final Purge

On Thursday morning panic was spreading and nerves were on the edge: the meeting of the Supreme Defense Council which lasted late into the night has caused a rumour that General Bozidar Stevanovic, the Air Force Commander was appointed new Chief of the General Staff. The psychological and political atmosphere the day before provided fertile ground for rumours: Vojislav Seselj, the leader of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian President, were skillfully carrying out their famed maneouver ``I am in power, and you are, make believe, the opposition'' (or ``the good cop and the bad cop'') in the Federal Parliament, the variation on a theme of tragicomical re-balancing of the Federal budget when the daily inflation has reached the 20 per cent mark. The situation was presented as a blackmail by Seselj, who, allegedly, would not vote for the military budget unless he received a few generals' heads in a feed-bag and installed his man at the head of the army. This simplified picture suited everybody: Seselj may boast about being powerful, while President Milosevic may find excuse in the pressure from Seselj on the political right, and he would, by no means, like to be the Serbian Hindenburg, so you can pick whom you like better (the version to be exported to the West where they believe in it); not daring to face a sad fact of its ruin the Army has resorted to a psychological mechanism known as rationalisation. The price for this sad performance was paid by the end of the active duty of 42 generals, one would say that the excuse was the only thing missing.

Thus, the number of generals who were expelled from the Army on various bases since June 1992 reached 170, while only 9 generals have at this point remained on key formation positions, two of whom are doctors, one is the Rector of the Military University, one is the Head of the Legal Deparment, and the remaining five are troop officers with experience in combat. Speaking in terms of formations, in the night between August 25 and 26 the Yugoslav Army (VJ) was left without: the Deputy Chief of the General Staff (General Dragoljub Simonovic), the Aide to the Chief of the General Staff for Relations with Peacekeeping Forces (Admiral Milisav Simic), the Aide to the Defense Minister for the Agricultural Sector (General Milorad Dragojevic), the Head of the Department for Strategic Studies and the Policy of Defense (General Radovan Radinovic), the Commanders of the First, Second and the Third Armies (General Vladimir Stojanovic, General Pavle Strugar and General Momcilo Perisic, who was promoted), the Commander of Defense of Belgrade (General Zoran Stojkovic), the Commander of the Novi Sad Corps (General Andrija Biorcevic), the Commander of the ``Drina'' operative group (General Tomislav Sipcic), the Air Force Commander (General Bozidar Stevanovic), the Navy Commander (Admiral Nikola Ercegovic) and the Head of the Intelligence and Security Sector (General Branko Cadjo). So far, the Army got only a new Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Momcilo Perisic.

This is practically the end of the road: the number of generals has been reduced to the figure which corresponds with its size and importance. Colonels are the next to go, along with lieutenant colonels and majors, and perhaps, even lower ranks.

Was the entire quigmarole about the purge of generals, most of whom were facing retirement anyway, really necessary? It seems that the reason behind it is a muffled political struggle within and around the Yugoslav Army. It has always been known that the Chiefs-of-Staff, let us start from the head, cannot be replaced so easily. The Army represents a very important and powerful institution in normal circumstances, so that serious changes of its personnel are always a subject to deals and compromises between political forces on one side and the ruling military stream on the other. In this sense, the history of war-time defence ministers and chiefs-of-staff of the army whose country was `not at war' is quite interesting. It can be viewed as the history of liquidating the army and its resistance to it. Generals Veljko Kadijevic and Blagoje Adzic fell victim to their own confused ideological prejudices (stunned by the fall of communism, primarily putting their stakes on the military putsch in Russia) and political blindness: they did not grasp a long term goal of the policy they served--that the army is eliminated as a serious political opponent within what General Blagoje Adzic called ``the borders of the future state.'' Their successor, General Zivota Panic was appointed through compromise as a realist and a person who will overbridge the gap between the past and the future army. As a soldier, General Panic could not resist the instinct of preserving the army as an institution: having realised where all this is leading he became to close with Milan Panic, the former Yugoslav Prime Minister, and Dobrica Cosic, the former Yugoslav President, counting on the latter's rationality, quite wrongly. In political terms, General Panic was clinically dead since the 1992 December election. However, the Serbian President stalled with a formal execution until all favourable circumstances have been created so that he could make his ``favourite opposition politician'' happy with Panic's head and score several political points around at the same time. But there is one more thing to it: well informed sources claim that General Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb Commander, allegedly opposed General Panic's premature replacement. The same sources are now saying that General Perisic, as a comrade at arms who has the same views, suited Mladic's will. The speculations aside, General Perisic qualifies as a skilfull officer, duly discredited in the bombardment of Zadar, the events in Easern Herzegovina and the operation in Dubrovnik, in the first bombardment of Mostar (where he got his nickname ``the Knight of Mostar'') and the events in Foca, when he surrounded the town and allowed the slaughter of the local population in it. His character is, however, unpredictable: he is full of temperament and clever, a man of ideas. During the Mostar operation he was in a helicopter with a witness who remembers broken General Perisic holding his head with his hands and repeating that ``he would be tried for this one day.'' In an interview he gave later, he explained that in Mostar ``he was protecting 25,000 Serbs in the Neretva Valley,'' that ``he retaliated strongly,'' ``even tenfold,'' so that it is ``them who should be blamed for the destruction of Mostar, since he would not have fired, had they not started.'' In the end, the Serbs in the Neretva Valley and in Mostar were left on their own despite the artillery and efforts of General Perisic. One should assume that this operation has made a long lasting melancholic impression on the new Chief--of-Staff of the Yugoslav Army. It is now up to him and his superior, General Panic, to explain what was a strategic goal of Perisic's adventure in Mostar...

Several weeks ago (on July 19) VREME warned: ``General Panic will survive in office, but if it proves necessary for him to go, he will not go alone.'' Along with General Panic, 41 generals of various political convictions left. It seems that some rules of the game were respected. Out of a number of candidates for the post of Chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army the man appointed to the post is without defined political preferences, but has war experience (of a specific kind) and is acceptable as a compromise. When it comes to retired generals, some rules were also respected: the so-called moderates close to Panic have left, including hard-line generals such as: Stevanovic (close to Seselj), Domazetovic (the executioner of ethnic cleansing in the Yugoslav Army), Biorcevic (Arkan's commander who provided him with a cover for various actions), Sipcic (involved in events across the Drina River). Who has remained? General Radomir Damjanovic, the Deputy Commander of the Second Army with combat experience similar to that of Perisic, General Milovan Bojovic, the Commander of the Pristina Corps, General Dragoljub Ojdanic, the Commander of the Uzice Corps, also involved in events across the Drina River), General Mile Mrksic, the competent and popular Commander of the Guard Brigade and Commander of the Yugoslav Army's special units (paratroopers, etc.), the only troops which enjoyed the full confidence of the General Staff (and General Panic) and were under his direct command.

When all this is summed up and compared, there is a political balance in the Yugoslav Army--between extreme nationalists, neutral and resigned professionals and liberal-democratic `intellectuals', who are rather reserved towards Milosevic and Seselj. In other words, the balance does not seem to have been disturbed seriously. Chief of the General Staff, General Momcilo Perisic, remains the only unpredictable factor. However, he will have to devote most of his time in ensuring the physical survival of the army, affected by sanctions which are throwing it back into 19th century, and by hyperinflation which annuls the tax money which guarantees its survival.

The dynamics of the political events is too fast to allow the army's complete elimination. Developments in Bosnia took on a chaotic course, while the situation in Krajina is even more chaotic (with a conflict of interests relating to the new alliance with Croatia). According to some sources, certain units of the Bosnian Serb Army are being sent to Krajina, while brigades of the Croatian Army are being sent to Split. The Yugoslav Army will not be discarded in a situation, where the need may arise for Krajina Serbs, including some Bosnian Serbs, to be persuaded to accept some political solutions which do not strike them as the fulfilment of promises made by Milosevic's propanganda. All the more so if there is a crisis in Kosovo and the need arises to spread over three possible (and probable) fronts, since the latest show of brotherhood and unity with Croatia is not to be counted on absolutely. Namely, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman will find it difficult to resist the temptation of attacking in a situation when all Serbian forces, weakened by sanctions and wars, are stretched out to such an extent...

It follows that the Yugoslav Army still has its uses and that is the reason why it needn't be discarded just like that.