The Generals Write...

"On June 30th 1991 at 10:45 am, I handed Kadijevic a draft letter which, as I suggested, was to be immediately dispatched to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) presidency, the president of the Federal Executive Council, the president of the presidency of the republic of Slovenia and the prime minister of the republic of Slovenia. Along with the draft letter, in which I laid out my plan for engaging the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) in the given situation, I also suggested a short explanation...

Item 4 of the report suggested joint operations of the air force and combined land forces from Ptuj and possibly Varazdin which would secure the Maribor airport for the transportation of a large number of troops were to be transported by plane from the guard tranporter troops and other units in order to strengthen the imperiled JNA forces..."

This is a sequence from what general Dr. Vuk Obradovic, following a five year long silence, is now saying in the Danas daily. His memoirs speak of the dramatic events in 1991, and about Veljko Kadijevic's secret mission in Moscow. The Russian general Jazov is quoted, upon pointing to Gorbachov's picture, as saying: "If only he would let us, we would show those Americans, they wouldn't even utter a peep".

After he returned to Belgrade, as Obradovic testifies, Kadijevic repeated on a number of occasions that "the Russians are up to their necks in mud, and aren't even capable of helping themselves, let alone us..."

Vuk Obradovic, the once youngest general in the JNA who resigned in the summer of 1992, in a series of articles for Danas daily, beside the above mentioned, also speaks of the conflict of the pro-Yugoslav and pro-Serbian currents in the Supreme Defence Command and of the army's top officials indecisiveness to enter the war. Which eventually occured. Did JNA truly wage a real war...?

The generals have begun writing. "Croatia didn't win a single battle against the JNA", said the retired colonel-general Nikola Cubra for VREME, whose book The Army and the Collapse of Yugoslavia, is shortly to appear in the book shops. That book also speaks of the controversies of the army brass as the country was collapsing.

On the other side of the front-line, the time has come for a new revelation of events and of the historic role played out by certain individuals. "Croatia has destroyed the dream of creating a 'Greater Serbia' for all times" states the memoirs of the now retired Croatian general Janko Bobetko in All My Battles. The commanding general Bobetko also writes in his book: "If the enemy has mortar shells and I don't, the enemy has an advantage. That's true. However, I have a hunting rifle. Manners of conducting a battle with hunting rifles can also be devised. Hunting rifles won't aim at far away targets; however, I can disguise myself, lay low in the trenches and wait for the target to appear 15 m away, and in order to do that, I have to be brave and decisive..."

"Mr. President, Mr. minister", a quote of general Bobetko's official report given to Dr. Tudjman and the minister of defense Gojko Susko on August 28, 1992, "I report that the troops of the southern front-line have cleaned out all enemy elements from the southern part of the Croatian territories, thereby securing the borders of the sovereign republic of Croatia. In the thus far insufficiently analyzed data, until the end of June we have destroyed 17 airplanes, two helicopters, 24 tanks, 8 transporters while some 1700 enemy soldiers have been deleted from all future activities".

Six years after the commencement and one and a half years after the official end of all Yugoslav wars, as in a psycho-seance, war strategies and tactics are back again.

The two top commanding generals of the two republic's armies whose conflict presented the key elements of the war in former Yugoslavia, have both published their memoirs. The first one is by the SFRY federal secretary of defence and JNA's army general Veljko Kadijevic, and the other the chief commanding general of the Croatian army (HV) Janko Bobetko. Kadijevic's book My Vision of the Collapse was published in 1993 by Politika. It was published on low quality paper with 166 pages, in a pocket edition and containing a few fax letters which Kadijevic received from lord Carrington and Cyrus Vance beginning with "dear general". There isn't a single map or photograph. General estimation has it that this book didn't answer a single vital question, and that it presents an attempt to justify all the wrong steps made in Slovenia and Croatia and to lay all the blame on "global powers", in the spirit of Serbian policies of the time. Bobetko's memoirs All My Battles is its total opposite. It was published in 1996 by the author himself in a luxurious edition. It contains 790 pages, a large number of fax documents, colored maps of military operations, photographs, Croatian top officials' opinions on the author, a list of names, an abstract in English and German...

MONOGRAPH ON HIMSELF: Actually, the book is Bobetko's monograph on himself, with no perceived limits, and the average reader encounters great difficulties while reading it. Among the photographs - beside the ones which portray the general on the front-line and in his family circle, with cardinal Kuharic, Dr. Franjo Tudjman - one can also find photographs of his mother as she visits a kindergarten in 1963. When talking about the fax documents, one can encounter all sorts of things: from instructions for the operation Flash in 1995 to a 1995 New Year's card from the head of the joint general staff of the American army, John Shalikashwily, followed by the general's merit notes addressed to ordinary soldiers on the front lines, a letter from a ten-year-old from Vinkovci who begs him to raise his father's salary...

General Bobetko didn't omit to mention a single commendation, decoration, appointment or promotion which he received from Dr. Tudjman. Also, we come upon a collage of Croatian newspaper captions: "Bobetko shakes up Geneva", "If we have to - we'll attack Belgrade as well" etc. He also published his poem - Bobetko's Guard. Need we mention that all the "guests" in the book - from academic Rudi Supek, Dr. Zdravko Tomac, general Djuro Decak to Jevrem Brkovic - portray general Bobetko as a truly sinless general who does not know of fear nor flaws, an opinion which he himself shares.

In 1991, Bobetko was not actively commanding and, as he himself admits, his role - although in no way debatable - was mainly of the counseling nature. Unlike many of the others "who had deluded themselves in their euphoric state that no one could harm them", writes Bobetko, "I was well acquainted with the power of the JNA and was aware that it would not easily allow Croatia its independence". His first warnings in that sense were uttered "at the time of the scandal over the film with Spegelj". He spent a long time contemplating matters and concluded that it was a historic moment in which "luckily, a coup wasn't conducted".

"THE GENERAL KRAJINA DREADS": General Bobetko became the chief commander of the Croatian army on November 20, 1992. What followed were "plans for the decisive battles of the Patriotic war: the south front-line, Maslenica, Medacki Dzep, Flash, Storm and the Herzegovina front-line". Like the previous description of the battle on the "south front-line" these too are described with minute tactical details which makes them impossible to retell. The operation Maslenica from January 22, 1993 was conducted so that "the enemy would be disabled to communicate and we would secure a certain depth and open up Zdrilo". It was conducted with the utmost caution, using the surprise element, since "all those Serbian peasants were armed, and certain chetnik troops could have reconnected with the utmost speed", meaning that balances of power could have easily changed. Vance's cease-fire was in effect at the time. This was followed by the Medacki Dzep operation - which was, according to Bobetko, "the starting line for the final cleansing of Like and Lika's plateau" which was executed in four hours. Even though he could have been promoted even further - he wasn't; Dr. Tudjman found himself under international pressure. He also goes on to write that a certain number of civil prisoners were arrested, yet were shortly released; about the blowing up of houses in Divosel and on the war crimes against the civilians, due to which the Croatian Army had to indict two of its officers, no mention is made. The next operation was Flash in western Slavonia. It was planned on November 5, 1994 and conducted from May 1 - 4, 1995. An element of surprise yet again, another great victory for general Bobetko and, after he had been ordained with the highest military and government credits, he was forced to retire on July 15, 1995. However, he says that in spite of that, he devised the operation Storm on August 5, 1995; the commanders on the terrain only had to follow his instructions. A consulting team consisting of American retired generals was not only extremely expensive but also astonished by the level of combat readiness which Bobetko had elevated the HV to.

The general's notes are inciting passionate responses. Due to it, many of those who have a lot to say shall forever remain silent. Bobetko's case is clearly the opposite.