Gazimestanfive Years After

Having landed by helicopter into a crowd of about one million people at Gazimestan five years ago, on June 28, 1989, St. Vitus' Day, on 600th anniversary of the mythological national defeat, Slobodan Milosevic felt blasphemously powerful, ``After many a year, many a decade, Serbia has finally regained its state, national and spiritual integrity. We must not forget that we used to be an armybig, courageous and proud... Today, six centuries later, we are again fighting battles and facing new battles. They are not fought with arms, but such battles are not to be ruled out yet.''

Nebojsa Popov concluded in his study ``Serbian Populism,'' published by VREME, that the goal of all theories and acts is to destroy an enemy that is embodied in all kinds of conspiracies against one's own nation and whose infernal plans (``scenarios'') are carried out by other nations and ``traitors'' in one's own ranks; the road of freeing oneself of danger runs through the return to holy traditions to the isolationism from the world and the main protagonist of the fight for freedom is a strong national movement headed by a charismatic leader; such a movement relies on already established as well as new power structures (military, police, propaganda); the most obvious symptoms of populism are: antiindividualism, antirationalism, antipluralism, antihumanism, antiliberalism, antisocialism, antiintellectualism, antielitism, in a word, antimodernism.

At the beginning of 1982 the relations in Serbia became a top priority issue. A whole decade passed in constitutional bickering among republics of the then Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ) followed by constant demands for the socalled differentiation in Kosovo. Several years later the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences (SANU) was collecting texts for the Memorandum, which one police faction stole and passed to the Belgrade daily ``Vecernje novosti'' in 1986, so that ``the nationalist case'' could be opened in Belgrade.

Constitutional disputes became more radical and spread over the years. 1986 saw the beginning of protests of the Kosovo Serbs (petitions, arrivals to Belgrade). In the spring of 1986 Ivan Stambolic, the President of the Serbian Presidency, visited Kosovo but his placating speech had no effects whatsoever! On April 24, 1987, on his own initiative Slobodan Milosevic visited the rally in Kosovo Polje, where the slogan, ``No one has the right to beat the people!'' was launched after one incident. The machine was set in motion while the national ideologists and the old guard nodded with approval, ``He is good!''

The army was restrained up to that moment although it did not try to hide it was flattered when asked to impose ``a final solution'' in Kosovo. In an almost warlike atmosphere created after Milosevic came to power in Serbia at the famous 8th session on September 2326, 1987, the army overdramatized the murder of several soldiers of different nationalities committed by an Albanian in the army barracks in Paracin in September 1987.

The populist wave was organized in the summer of 1988 with the aim of strengthening the cult of Slobodan Milosevic and toppling the province leadership in Novi Sad (overthrown after the rally in Novi Sad on October 5, 1988), the Kosovo leadership (overthrown on November 17) and the Montenegrin leadership (overthrown on January 9, 1989). Mass rallies followed and a half of Serbia's traffic potential was engaged in their realization. ``If only all that had stopped at that stage! At least as far as public manifestations linked with nationalism are concerned!,'' Mirjana Markovic, the wife of Slobodan Milosevic, sighs in her book ``Odgovor'' (``The Answer''), that was published in 1993. The architects of that populist wave may have intended to stage a sort of Yugoslav populist revolution, but such a proposition nowadays strikes one as nothing but deception: it was more than clear even back then that that populist powerstruggle had a form of a national conflict that would be difficult to stop.

Miroslav Solevic, the leader of the Kosovo Serbs, said that winter with satisfaction that ``nationalism stands no chance unless it is backed by something so powerful like the state.'' At about the same time the Serbian Orthodox Church carried the relics of Grand Duke Lazar (the leader of the Kosovo battle) around the Serb lands and religious services were held over the remains of the victims of genocide of a half a century ago that were retrieved from mass graves for that purpose.

In September 1989 the Slovenian Parliament adopted a set of amendments to the republic constitution which marked the beginning of secession from Yugoslavia. The Kosovobased association ``Bozur'' announced a rally of Serbs and Montenegrins to be held in Ljubljana on December 1, 1989. The Slovenian leadership banned the rally, and the Serbian leadership responded in December 1989 by severing all economic ties and declaring the boycott of goods from Slovenia. The Serbian Parliament sanctioned the boycott of Slovenia on October 23, 1990 by issuing a secret decree and imposing a tax on the goods from Slovenia and Croatia.

This speeded up the secession. On February 7, 1990, Janez Drnovsek made a statement that Slovenia will initiate the proceedings of ``disassociation'' from Yugoslavia. On July 2, 1990, the Slovenian Parliament passed the declaration of full sovereignty of Slovenia, while 86 per cent of the citizens of Slovenia voted for the independent Slovenian state in the referendum held on September 23. The Federal Government of Ante Markovic on June 26, 1991, (the date when Slovenia declared its independence) concluded that the acts of separation by Slovenia and Croatia were illegal, ordered the ban on setting up the republic border crossings, and the Federal Secretariat of Interior Affairs (SSUP) and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) were granted authorization to establish control of the state borders. The representatives of Slovenia and Croatia left the Parliament of SFRJ. On June 2728, using the Federal Government authorization as a screen, JNA actually tried to stage a coup in Slovenia. Soldiers' mothers stormed the Serbian Parliament demanding that their sons return home. After the socalled Brioni Declaration on July 7 JNA pulled out of Slovenia and the Serbian regime seemed satisfied. Macedonia is the only former Yugoslav republic that gained independence without an armed conflict (the Declaration of Independence was adopted on January 25, 1991, and JNA withdrew in May 1992).

In Zagreb three weeks after the Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) came to power, on May 13, 1990, the fans of ``Dinamo'' (the Zagreb football team) and ``Crvena Zvezda'' (the Belgrade football team) got into a fight on the football stadium ``Maksimir,'' Zagreb. On July 25, 1990, the Croatian Parliament adopted the declaration on changing republic symbols and Croatia was proclaimed the state of the Croatian people. At the same time the Serbs gathered in the town of Srb, adopted the declaration of sovereignty and independence of the Serbs in Croatia and founded the Serb National Council that was to organize the referendum on the autonomy of the Serbs in Croatia.

Responding to the attack on the police station in Benkovac that was carried out by special units, the Serbs seized the arms of the police reserve corps on August 17, 1990 and set up the barricades. That was the beginning of the socalled ``log revolution'' that had the support of Serbia. On October 1, 1990, the Serbian Presidency issued an announcement prompted by repression over the Serbs in Knin. The same day the Serbs in Croatia declared their autonomy.

On January 9, 1991, the SFRJ Presidency ordered that all illegal formations be disbanded and all illegally imported weapons be handed back. Slovenia and Croatia refused to allow JNA to collect the weapons. The representatives of Slovenia and Croatia met in Mokrice on January 17, 1991, in order to reach an agreement on military cooperation. On January 25 JNA released secret recordings of the statements made by Martin Spegelj, the Croatian Defense Minister, counting on his arrest, but Spegelj received protection from the Croatian authorities. On February 28, the Serb National Council of the Serb Autonomous Region of Krajina made a decision to secede from Croatia and stay within Yugoslavia. On April 1 the Executive Board of the Serb National Council of the Serb Autonomous Region of Krajina adopted a decision to join Serbia, to which Serbia never replied officially.

The headquarters of the supreme command proposed to the SFRJ Presidency that JNA is placed on alert because of the deteriorating political situation. The Presidency convened on March 1015, 1991, but no such decision was made because its members could not reach an agreement. On March 15 Belgrade Television announced the resignation of Borisav Jovic to the post of the President of the SFRJ Presidency, and Milosevic said that he refused to recognize the decisions of ``the rump Presidency of SFRJ.'' Jovic was to reconsider his resignation later. The SFRJ Presidency appointed Stipe Mesic President under pressure of ambassadors of three small European countries and the body disintegrated into two rump parts.

Armed clashes between the Serbs and the members of the Croatian Ministry of the Interior first broke out in Plitvice in March, and then in Borovo Selo on May 2, 1991. JNA's intervention was aimed at separating the warring factions. The Chetnik movement in Serbia issued an announcement saying that its volunteers were situated in Eastern Slavonia and that they had taken part in the armed clashes. Big rallies of the Croat population were staged in Zadar and Sibenik and the Serb property was destroyed on those occasions. On May 6, 1991, one soldier from Macedonia was killed in Split. One June 25 the Croatian Parliament unanimously decided to proclaim the independent Croatia and initiated the proceedings of separation from Yugoslavia. The war in Croatia flared up during the summer and autumn of 1991 and was followed by destruction on a large scale.

Despite war propaganda and vestiges of strong populism, military reservists rebelled in a dozen towns in Serbia. Frustrated by the failure in Slovenia and the nature of the Croatian regime as well as the actions against the JNA army barracks in the Croatian towns and the lack of morale in Serbia, JNA withdrew to the socalled borders of the Serb ethnic areas and fought using artillery. Vukovar was razed to the ground, and several cities, including Dubrovnik, were shelled. After returning from Vukovar one Serbian reservist was not allowed to go home until he handed in his army cap. In January 1992 under the heading which said ``cap, color green, items one'' he wrote in capital letters, ``Lost in the war horror.''

The ceasefire on the 1,600 km long frontline is still fragile, the talks on normalization of the relations between Zagreb and Belgrade are insincere, while several hundred thousand people from both sides are forced to live as refugees.

The first clashes between the Serbs and the Muslims in Foca took place six months before the war was to break out in Sarajevo in April 1992.

Since the autumn of 1991 all crucial parliamentary decisions concerning the state system of BosniaHerzegovina were taken without the participation of Serb MP's and government members: the memorandum on sovereignty and independence of BH (October 1991); the decision to ask international recognition from the European Community (December 1991); the decision to hold the referendum on independence (January 1992). On the other hand, the Serbs acted independently: the plebiscite on staying in Yugoslavia (October 9, 1991); the resolution on forming of the Serb Republic in BH (December 1991); the proclamation of the republic (January 1992) and the adoption of the new constitution (March 1992). At the beginning of 1992 the Serbs in Bosnia armed themselves quickly, and the army of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the socalled ``green berets,'' was also formed. Beginning of March regular troops of the Croatian Army crossed the River Sava near Bosanski Brod. JNA remained neutral for a little while but took the Serb side at the beginning of April 1992 all until it officially withdrew from Bosnia leaving the weapons to the Serbs. On May 31, 1992, the Security Council of the United Nations adopted Resolution 757 on imposing sanctions against Serbia and a series of resolutions followed.

The war in Bosnia has been raging for 26 months, Sarajevo was shelled for two years, all front lines together are 2,500 km long, the estimates point to over 200,000 dead. God's temples were ruined, more than one million people were driven away from their homes, concentration camps were set up, war crimes were committed, and the victims were used for propaganda purposes.

14 unsuccessful ceasefire agreements were signed from the beginning of the war in Croatia to November 24, 1991, when Slobodan Milosevic, Franjo Tudjman, and General Veljko Kadijevic, signed a ceasefire agreement at the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva. The Security Council sent U.N. troops to Yugoslavia on February 22, 1992. It is difficult to count all rounds of negotiations and peace conferences that were moved from Europe to America and back: Lisbon, Brussels (March 7, 1992), London (July 17, 1992), then the London Conference on Yugoslavia (August 26 28, 1992), Athens (May 3, 1993), Geneva (July 2730, 1993), Brussels (December 1993),...

In two years of the war the Serbs held twelve referendums, 77 cease fire agreements were signed, and only two held.

DEMOS and Milan Kucan won in the first multiparty elections in Slovenia on April 8, 1990, and HDZ and Franjo Tudjman came to power in Croatia on April 22 and May 6, 1990. Like the army, ``the last echelons'' of the old regime, could not accept political pluralism, especially not the right wing victory in Croatia and Slovenia. The referendum on the priority steps``first the constitution, then the elections''was held in Serbia on June 2, 1990, and the ideologists (like Mirjana Markovic) still talk about nonparty pluralism. The first parliamentary elections in Serbia were held in December 1990. General Kadijevic made a statement in October 1990 that JNA is the guardian of the system, and thus with a single sentence directly interfered in the election campaign in favour of Slobodan Milosevic, who he believed was the last remaining support of the army that had lost its state.

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed on April 27, 1992, when the Constitution was adopted, and the old flag of SFRJ, the one with a fivepointed star, was removed from the mast. Dobrica Cosic, the first president of the new state, together with its first prime minister Milan Panic, was ousted after eight months in office through the joint effort of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and the Serbian Radical Party (SRS). The start of this state was marked by mass opposition proteststhe St. Vitus' Day Rally and the Students' Protest were held in Belgrade in June and July 1992 and the participants demanded the resignation of Slobodan Milosevic, the early elections, the end to the warwhich was the last offensive of the Serbian opposition. ``All Serbs will live in one blockade,'' a graffiti at the Students' Protest said. Ironically, after the hyperinflationary chaos, war profiteers, and the ownership transformation of the economy that went to the state hands, the regime's new stronghold is an economic category that contradicts its populist beingthe stable dinar of Dragoslav Avramovic.

The last vain hope that the reform may be carried out appeared in March 1989 with the appointment of the federal government headed by Ante Markovic. That year the Serbian powerholders wanted to take over the post of federal prime minister through Borisav Jovic and as the economic lobby closely linked with the Russian market believed it was losing support of the state, that state was systematically undermined by the Serbian side while lacking the support of Croatia and Slovenia.