Veljko Kadijevic, a Loser

The Yugoslav Army defeated Yugoslavia more heavily than all the national leaders, their militia, their volunteers and their national guards put together. It could not, however, have brought victory to anyone, least of all to itself. That is why General Veljko Kadijevic (Federal Defence Minister) is so hard to understand, since he is the only one without any hopes left - although he has proved to be the strongest. All the others, including Tudjman and

Milosevic, Seselj and Paraga, the militia commanders and the krajinas statesmen, can much more easily figure out the outcome which would most serve their interests, while at the same time they are the ones who have started this war and who wanted to gain far more out of it than Kadijevic.

The General and his Army are to be held more and, at the same time, less responsible than the others. Less, because these state favourites certainly wanted nothing to be changed, and more - for the same reason. A few years ago, the Army first came into conflict with Slovenia, for ideological and somewhat egotistic reasons. The socialist framework had to be defended from the "counter-revolution". Since then the Army has defended the communism, then Yugoslavia, then the Serbs in Croatia, then the incomplete Yugoslavia - never forgetting its own interests.

Slobodan Milosevic appeared on the political scene in a hard line Titoist fashion. He got all the Army's support, since the officers rightly understood that he promised most of the same. When later he raised Serbia on its feet (after abolishing the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina), they went on backing him, although it was obvious even then that Yugoslavia must fall apart. The officers believed in the "anti-bureaucratic revolution", hoping that all might remain as it was. Besides, Milosevic counted on them while everybody else feared them. They thus sided with their own grave- digger.

If the Army wanted to modernize itself, if it preserved its ideological and national neutrality, it could have prevented the catastrophe, but it would lose a great deal of its privileges. Since it greedily embraced Milosevic's promises that it would keep it all - it will be left with nothing.

The Army's attitude toward Tudjman's Croatia was shaped in advance by its

loyalty to Milosevic and it was strengthened by Tudjman's self-confident separatism. The general-outcast (Tudjman) was given a status of a conspirator, which he actually enjoyed and which made all that followed come more easily and more quickly: the armament of the Serbs from Kninska krajina, the arms imports from Hungary... The future developments were determined by the war in Slovenia, the war which was entirely unnecessary , the end of which brought relief to us all.

General Kadijevic suddenly fell ill just before the war started and when he appeared again he did not look himself. The traces of the illness were still visible: the general is wearing his black glasses almost all the time. The light gets to him, and there is hardly anything nice to see. Before that he could acquit himself with aplomb, which some attributed to his American schooling days. This fact should not be adhered to too stringently, since many a Communist came back from America unswayed. Namely, one never knows what he is going to see or want to see over there.

Kadijevic was, in any case considered to be a Yugoslav hard-liner and has declared himself as such. He was thought not have liked Milosevic from the outset, sensing that he will be in the end involving the Army into the troubles of internal arbitration. It seems that he was not on duty during the war in Slovenia: he was in hospital, which gave rise to numerous rumours. But he got over Yugoslavia and came back to head the Army which was already in war.

From the beginning of war until today that Army has in various periods and in various battlefields behaved so differently that it is hard to believe it is headed by a single man. It is not easy to believe in the unity of the Supreme Command, and the initiative of the local commands has in many cases assumed the character of arbitrariness and anarchy, especially with the cooperation with various volunteer units and their heads. But Kadijevic is still assuming all the responsibility and speaking in the name of them all. It could be that he is taking it hard; it could be that he is, after all, aware of the tragic position of his army in this war; maybe he feels that history will have no mercy for him. But, we should not overlook the fact that only a man suffering from lack of scruples can get to where he is.

At the beginning, the Army claimed that its sole aim was to create a buffer-zone, that it was there only to prevent the war. But the buffer sided with one of the warring parties and directed its rifles towards the other. The explanation has changed: the Serbs must be protected from experiencing another genocide. The Croatians have blocked the barracks and have thus given another motive for war. It is understandable that the Army wants to free its own men, but an outside observer could also find understanding for those who try to block the arms and the machinery which will be used against them.

Since it turned out that the Army is involved in a conquest, after it started destroying cities with heavy mortar shelling and after it stopped paying attention to civilian casualties, a new explanation was found: a war against fascism. If that is true, then this is a fascist against fascist war. The Army has been overlooking black flags with a sign of scull (the insignia of the chetniks) and groups of looters and crooks under its protection. That same army is waging a war with vindictive passion which characterizes the desperate ones. It is left without a state, without civilian command, without most of its former multinational staff, without clear aims and with the feasible possibility to be the only one to blame for this horrible tragedy. Milosevic, who is insistently repeating that Serbia is not in war, is surely preparing an alibi for himself, and, if it is possible, he will leave Kadijevic to fend for himself.

Great many officers have adopted Seselj's war strategy, and Mr. Seselj (the leader of the chetnik movement) himself is inspecting the Army units in Herzegovina. In any case, after the attack on Dubrovnik it is impossible to deny the Army conqueror profile. There were neither blocked army barracks there, nor endangered Serbs, nor has Dubrovnik ever been known as the cradle of fascism. The Army was simply framing the territory "where live those who want to remain in Yugoslavia". The starved Dubrovnik population might even consent to that, but in Bosnia the war cannot be avoided. The occupation of Dubrovnik compromises all the stories about the defence of endangered Serbs.

In spite of all this, Kadijevic says that the Army "has victoriously completed the present course of the war". The report of the EC observers, however, gives a completely different picture. The army jargon ("clearing the territories", "completing assignments", "striking back"...) has been translated into normal terms and we have thus got the picture of a many times stronger army which is using its navy, aviation and heavy artillery to first bomb a town and then let the undisciplined volunteers in under its protection. The European mission is on the point of recommending a selective military intervention against the Yugoslav Army.

All this can never again be explained by the German partiality towards the Croatian side and by all kinds of anti-Serbian conspiracies, since the world opinion is biased against Serbia and the Army. It is nothing short of a miracle that the Army High Command is still convinced in the rightness of its attitude. Or is it that the Army is waging this war with so much determination because it realizes that everything is lost, that the mistake was committed at the very beginning and that it can not be corrected any more? Maybe all that began long before the war, when the officers thought they were too strong, when they possessed so many arms and when they did not have to accept any sacrifice and self-discipline. Such an army is outdated, but how to accept the defeat while you are still the strongest?

The desperate Army is not going to stop, since it could not, even for a single moment, bare the thought of ending this war, just like a drunkard dares not think of giving up his vice. They say general Kadijevic loved life at a young age and knew how to enjoy the moments of pleasure. He was an attractive, charming young man, full of humour.