Troubles With The Navy

When on November 10 of last year the remaining ships of the Croatian wartime fleet triumphantly entered the Split port, the cheering masses did not notice that it was not fully combat equipped. The forcible carving up of the Yugoslav wartime fleet and Croatia left almost all of its movable property to the former and most of its real estate to the latter. Thus the rest of Yugoslavia got the fleet without the sea, while Croatia has it the other way around.

Bozidar Grubisic, the present admiral at the Croatian maritime navy without the fleet, explained it all two years ago when he was the admiral at the Yugoslav navy: "Just as our late Marshall used to say, our navy is sufficiently equipped to defend our part of the Adriatic."

Devised to defend the eastern part of the Adriatic coast, the navy stationed its bases accordingly: the main ones were in Pula, Sibenik, Split, Ploce, on island Vis and in Boka Kotorska. Split, which used to be the navy centre even before the last war, had the Hydrography Institute, while Zagreb had all the planning potential. The sudden break up of the socialist military system and the cessation of Croatia have left a single solid base to the Navy - Boka Kotorska. The maritime divorce was much less acrimonious than expected, primarily because of the fact that Croatia had no way (arm potential) to prevent the Navy to pull out its vessels and transfer them.

The navy land inventories (coastal artillery, rockets, fuel, spare parts), since the Croatian forces tried to and in some cases succeeded in blocking and/or taking the navy facilities. The Yugoslav Navy in the end managed to move some of its equipment into the safe bases and destroy the rest. It must be indicative of something that the last remaining facility to be moved from Croatia was the Shipping Institute in Zagreb. Although Croatia did all she could to keep that Institute as well as the Aircraft Maintenance Centre "Zmaj" in Zagreb, general Raseta managed to transfer the expensive equipment to a safer place which will stand him in good stead with the military.

The present situation is typically post war. Both sides fared well in the war, but they are also suffering from a hangover. The Navy has literally flooded the Boka Kotorska bay. The situation is pretty much the same in Cipavica, Kumbor, Morinje and the Lustica peninsula. The real trouble has yet to begin. Namely, the Vis and Lastovo peninsulas serve only as a temporary solution. They are instrumental for the strategic defence of the central and north Adriatic and are controlling all the main naval routes. It is precisely this strategic advantage which brought misery to them, since this zone was closed to foreigners in 1976, owing to the accumulating war arsenal.

Vis is currently the stronghold of the Yugoslav Navy, but it is unlikely to remain so for much longer, since it is on Croatian soil and there are no Serbs to protect here. Vis will then probably have to hand the baton over to Boka Kotorska.

The presence of such massive military arsenal will cause havoc. The tourist trade will be severely affected by the fact that the Montenegrin coast is turning into a military base. Boka Kotorska is all that is left to the Navy.

The length of the coastline with the islands is 2300km. Out of this there are only about 100km left to the navy with only one operational base. The port in Bar is not operational since it has not been completed. The entire navy doctrine and strategy has to be redefined.

The construction and repair work as well as the sale of vessels will present enormous problems. The formerly Yugoslav military shipbuilding industry could be preserved with the good will of both parties. Croatia has enormous navy capabilities, the army can use its facilities in Tivat and the shipyard in Bijela, even the river ports, but the question of planning remains. Both sides claim to have kept the "brains" from the Shipbuilding Institute. Apart from this, the Yugoslav Navy will have to withdraw its ships and concentrate on its facilities in Tivat which will put an end to lucrative deals such as the repair of Soviet "310" and "1886" ships as well as the "641" submarines, which have been regularly repaired since 1974.

The Croatian problem is equally serious. The capabilities and the technical documentation exist, but the forwarder is needed to dispatch the inventory, it has to be integrated, build and paid for. The whole process will need at least five years to complete (more like ten), while the new Croatian republic will be left totally without defence. It does not concern only the lack of military defence, but also the more trivial issue of the fishermen' interests. The aggressive Italian fishermen were known to have trespassed before, who knows what they will be getting up to now that they have free reign? The new Croatian government announced on day one that it will establish the coastal guard, which would put them on a par with other maritime powers, but that is now out of the question.

Until present day, nobody took up the issue of Serbian graves in the Adriatic. At least this could be used to establish some form of cooperation between the warring parties. Before the famous property settlement starts it would be reasonable for the better equipped party to give some of its capabilities to the other side.