Rumors of An All Powerful Service

The wars in the former Yugoslavia are over but there is no shortage of colonels, generals, politicians and police officers whose memoirs, diaries and studies provide more or less authentic explanations for the causes of the wars and their own roles.

VREME featured articles on the books of Borisav Jovic, General Janko Bobetko, Nikola Cubra, Sefer Halilovic and others as they appeared in print.

Did the public learn anything new from them? Retired General Aleksandar Vasiljevic headed the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) security department (known as KOS) in 1991-92 and was one of the best informed people in the former Yugoslavia. He also took part in, or witnessed, many events which marked those times. This interview starts with the question at the top of this paragraph.

What was new for you in Jovic’s book?

"When I read the book carefully, I reached two conclusions. First, the events he described were detailed and well documented; his interpretations of the meetings I attended are identical to my own. And second, despite the fact that I held high-ranking posts in the army and security department, I found out later about many wider political calculations and manipulation which resulted in different acts which I couldn’t understand at the time. Jovic’s book told me what happened in inner political circles."

Could you be more specific?

"I mean the key decision to abandon a wholesome Yugoslavia and recognize Slovenia’s right to secession: on June 27, 1991, the JNA deployed to protect Slovenia’s state borders and prevent the establishment of internal borders and just three days later decided to withdraw to "some new borders" which I first heard of then. According to my notes from a session of the Council for the Protection of Constitutional Order (SZUP) on June 30, 1991, Jovic’s account is a free interpretation.

At the session (JNA chief and defense minister) General Kadijevic demanded the start of the second stage of the plan; the introduction of a state of emergency in Slovenia. But instead of starting a discussion, Jovic said, and I’m paraphrasing, that no one will be held in Yugoslavia by force, if they want to secede, let them. What was new to me in the book is that it shows that as early as 1989, anyone who wanted to break away could."

The public believes that the JNA didn’t know what it was doing in Slovenia.

"Jovic said that General Kadijevic demanded a state of emergency, an energetic use of the army and establishment of a military administration. The public doesn’t know that seven days before the JNA deployed on the borders, army special forces (military police, parts of the parachute brigade from Nis and a unit of commandos) were deployed at Ljubljana’s Cerklje airport and inside the city to reinforce the units already in place there. The basis of the plan was to use those forces to establish a military rule in Slovenia if the Slovenian leaders refused to acknowledge the JNA deployment and federal customs and police after the introduction of the state of emergency."

Some of the people involved in those events, like Branko Kostic, are saying the JNA was both surprised by the situation in Slovenia and completely incapable.

"In his book, which is full of contradictory assessments and claims, Branko Kostic fiercely criticized the army chiefs for the way they handled the JNA in Slovenia, even though, as a reserve officer, he didn’t know the difference between the military intelligence service and the security department. He described the intervention in Slovenia as a debacle and said the "JNA intelligence service" (he actually meant the security department) didn’t know the situation, that we were surprised and inert and suffered a defeat. That runs along the lines of the much-used manipulation that the JNA was banned from using its weapons, that the troops were armed with rubber bullets, that we sent children of 19 years there, etc.

The truth is different. Much earlier, in stages, we knew that a new republican army was being formed from Slovenian territorial defense units. The military and state leaders were presented with information as those forces grew with a final assessment that the mobilization was either completed or to the extent of 90% of the war time units in the Slovenian territorial defense.

In the first stage of the plan, the JNA was supposed to take over 137 border posts. In the first 24 hours, the JNA took 133 of them with five dead, all of them officers or helicopter crews. You don’t have to be a military expert to see whether that means success or failure. The JNA launched air strikes against four military facilities in Slovenia on June 28: the command post at Kocevska Reka (so that the Slovenian leadership couldn’t hide there), and barracks (which were used to fire at the two helicopters in which JNA personnel died). Two transmitters were also targeted, Boc and Nanos, since the Slovenian state leadership used the radio and TV to call for resistance to the aggressor and all forms of resistance. I have to add that the conflicts escalated on June 28. Territorial units blockaded JNA barracks and launched all out attacks on JNA personnel and their families."

Did Jovic omit anything in his book in regard to Slovenia?

"What he didn’t write about is interesting. I can only speak about what I know.

Jovic didn’t mention the previous SZUP session on June 26 which he chaired. It was held a day before the JNA launched its deployment on the border in Slovenia. The SZUP was extremely important at the time, much more important than it usually was because the Yugoslav state presidency was blocked when Stipe Mesic wasn’t elected presidency president.

At that session, General Kadijevic informed the SZUP of the use of the army in Slovenia. He said what hadn’t been done in March 1991 (i.e. the imposition of a state of emergency when a solution could have been relatively peaceful), would now be accompanied by bloodshed in Slovenia because, according to the information we had, the process of organizing national armies in Slovenia and Croatia would be completed in two to three weeks. Passions were much higher, Kadijevic said, but it would not be productive to analyze what we failed to do and that what had been started should be stopped, along with a fait accompli policy everywhere and violations of the constitution. The JNA intervention was inevitable along with other measures that had to be introduced. Jovic absolutely supported Kadijevic at that session and said it was high time for the state presidency to start functioning and that a state of emergency should be declared in both Slovenia and Croatia or even in the entire country. The JNA would be empowered to implement article 3 of the orders issued by the state presidency on January 9, 1991 (the disarming of all para-military formations).

Jovic didn’t say a word about "whoever wants to resolve the crisis with military means wants a war in Yugoslavia" or "why should we keep anyone by force". That’s the turnabout that I couldn’t understand until I read his conversation with Pancevski."

In general, what else did Jovic fail to mention that you know about?

"It’s interesting that Jovic avoided writing about a meeting with Generals Kadijevic and (JNA chief of staff Blagoje) Adzic and Admiral Stane Brovet on October 22, 1990. He said the meeting was attended by his close associates but didn’t name them. Jovic was called to the defense ministry and shown a secretly taped video of then Croatian defense minister General Martin Spegelj in the village of Stari Gradec near Virovitica on October 19, 1990. Most of that tape was screened on TV on January 25, 1991.

I can’t believe Jovic could have easily forgotten the first report he got on what was happening in Croatia because, as head of the state presidency, he was the first person to be informed of delicate reports.

In that same context, he easily passed over the justification of the decision on disarming the para-military units in Croatia on December 12, 1990 and not a month later at a January 9, 1991 state presidency session. It might seem that a month wasn’t a long time but it had an exception value and vast consequences."

Why?

"At the December 12 presidency session, Jovic decided that the issue of illegal armaments wouldn’t be discussed but handed that very selective piece of information to all the members of the presidency, including Stipe Mesic who went back to Zagreb that evening and passed it on to the Croatian leaders. The shock that was caused by the knowledge that the JNA knew about the illegal arms imports and had complete files on it was so great that they were prepared to surrender without a single shot fired. The month’s delay allowed Franjo Tudjman to find ways to evade the measures that were implemented on January 9, 1991. Specifically: they printed 54,000 special police reserves ID cards and handed them out to members of the ruling HDZ who already had weapons, in an effort to prove that they weren’t arming the ruling party but the police reserves."

None of the books published to date have cleared up the arming of Croatia in the autumn of 1990 or JNA activities on that issue.

"The books by Branko Kostic and unfortunately by General Nikola Cubra, who was part of the army’s top ranks, claimed the JNA just sat by quietly watching the illegal shipments of arms to Croatia from Hungary instead of stopping them on the first night (October 10-11) and arresting the perpetrators. I have to voice the real sequence of events.

The fact is that we did not get information that truckloads of guns would cross in that period. The only information we had was from the Cazmatrans transport company from Bjelovar that two trucks would leave the country on October 8 and return three days later at a border crossing without the customary checks. Border crossings weren’t under army jurisdiction then and still aren’t.

We found out that the trucks were carrying guns on October 14 in a secretly taped conversation between Spegelj and then Croatian internal affairs minister Josip Boljkovac. A second contingent of eight truckloads arrived on October 19-20 at a time that security officers were secretly video taping Spegelj’s meeting in the village of Stari Gradec.

In that context, it’s interesting why people who held top posts - General Cubra and Kostic - overlooked the fact that General Kadijevic sent a warning letter to the Hungarian defense minister on October 29, 1990 which was carried personally by General Vuleta Vuletic, then the head of the intelligence service. Although the Hungarian defense minister denied the facts, the most significant channel for arms smuggling into Croatia was cut. Later other channels were also cut which Croatia used to illegally arm itself. One of those were the tow ships from Constanza carrying 50,000 AK-47 assault rifles and heavy weapons.

After the deadline to hand over the arms expired on January 21, 1991, General Kadijevic ordered the arrest of the main people involved in the arms smuggling into Croatia and the launching of criminal proceedings at the military court in Zagreb. Two officers and three civilians were arrested from January 21 to 25, 1991. Everyone except Spegelj."

Why was he spared?

"Because, considering the immunity he enjoyed, the Croatian parliament had to agree to his arrest and because - as Jovic thought in his book - the question is whether anything would have changed in Croatia if the authorities had been toppled by force. We counted on the fact that once the video about Spegelj was shown to Tudjman at a Yugoslav state presidency session on January 25, the conditions would be created for him to accept cooperation with military-judiciary bodies and give up Spegelj. Tudjman was broken, prepared to cooperate, he distanced himself from the acts of his "arrogant ministers who acted without his knowledge".

The problem was that Tudjman tricked them, that they believed him, because he met, right after the session, with US Ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmerman and secretly went to Austria for consultations on January 27, 1991. After that, instead of giving up Spegelj, they removed him, and the state prosecutor in Bjelovar launched proceedings against me for arresting three Croatian citizens. That resulted in a kind of warrant and calls to kill me."

Many authors believe the JNA was incapable of acting decisively because it was multi-national?

"Many memoir authors manipulate unfounded claims that the JNA, as a multi-national army, broke down national lines and of itself from the top to the bottom. Some authors, like General Cubra, are well-intentioned in their claims, in an effort to justify the JNA for not acting.

I say that the pan-Yugoslav feeling in the JNA was at a much higher level than expected or assessed. Specifically: almost 50% of the Slovenians who were JNA officers did not obey the Slovenian state leadership call to leave the JNA by July 18, 1991 and many of them couldn’t solve the question of their status in Slovenia later on. Or: on March 1, 1992, 52% of the flying crews in the air force were neither Serbs or Montenegrins and the commander of the air force and air defenses was Colonel General Zvonko Jurjevic amid the worst of the crisis. Or: on March 27, 1992 the JNA had 602 Croat soldiers who refused to leave although they were allowed to quit the army.

Let me illustrate that with individual cases. General Ivan Hocevar refused to subordinate the Slovenian territorial defenses to the Slovenian presidency even under great pressure; General Novoselic, commander of the territorial defenses in Croatia, refused to submit to Spegelj’s attempts to win him over. In retaliation, his home in Slavonia was destroyed.

There were some cases of hesitation and collaboration but those are individual cases, not on a massive scale to justify claims of a treasonous military leadership. Measures were taken against everyone who was discovered. For example, Admiral Bocinov, commander of the Lora naval port in Split, was caught and sentenced for his agreement to hand over the port and its ships to Croatian navy commander Admiral Letica. And it wasn’t only Slovenians and Croatians who committed betrayals. A Serb and a Montenegrin, both colonels, were involved with Bocinov. The first officers who surrendered their units in Slovenia weren’t Slovenians but a Serb and Montenegrin, Lt. Colonels Radulovic and Loncar.

It wasn’t a question of the army breaking up along national lines, but a lack of clear and precise decisions which are the condition for the successful use of any army."

So far we discussed books from the FRY. What do you think of books published in Slovenia and Croatia?

"The one thing that springs to mind is that they are expensive editions, on the best quality paper, very well laid out, in many ways they remind me of the monographs about the armed forces we used to hand out for army day on December 22. One of those is by Croatian General Janko Bobetko; All My Battles, as well as similar editions in Slovenia. Obviously, these are attempts to draft a new history and show the latest war as the brightest thing in it. Some events are blown out of proportion, small clashes with the JNA are turned into entire theaters of operation and anyone who isn’t well informed could think these are the memoirs of great generals."

What about the books in Bosnia?

"As far as I know, the memoirs published in Bosnia were written by people who were removed from top posts in the army and police. I mean Sefer Halilovic, form Bosnian army chief of staff and former JNA major in Djakovo, and Mumir Alibabic who was an official in the state security center in Sarajevo and before the war in the Bosnian police state security department. All of them claim the JNA committed aggression on Bosnia from Serbia and Montenegro and overlook facts that I can’t believe they don’t know; that pressure on Alija Izetbegovic came primarily from the other side, from Zagreb, to drag Bosnia into a war with the JNA, i.e. open a southern front when the JNA was drawn into war in Croatia.

Let me remind you that Tudjman had an earlier agreement with Slovenian President Milan Kucan on joint defenses under which the first provocation of the JNA came on June 27, 1991 when army units deployed on the border in Slovenia. A JNA column was attacked on the Mladost bridge in Zagreb and two soldiers were killed along with several wounded. That same day the Croatian police caused an armed incident with Serb guards in the village of Palace. Fire was opened on JNA units in Osijek at the time to prevent them from intervening in the clash.

That same day, Tudjman called Izetbegovic and convinced him to issue a proclamation that all JNA personnel from Bosnia should leave the army and declare the JNA an occupying force. Izetbegovic replied that it was too early but in August 1990 he relented under pressure and closed his eyes to increasing number of large scale incidents in western Herzegovina. On August 22, the Croatian HOS para-military formation attacked a military police patrol near the village of Posusje, killing Sergeant Vojko Ceh. Ludvig Pavlovic was also killed in the attack, he was the last surviving member of a terrorist group who carried a Croatian special police ID card. When the military chiefs informed Izetbegovic of this, he waved them away saying: "Leave me alone with western Herzegovina, it wasn’t part of Bosnia even in Tito’s time."

The many untruths in Alibabic’s book Bosnia in the Claws of the KOS, include the lie that on May 2, 1992, the JNA attempted a coup in Bosnia to topple Izetbegovic and replace him with Fikret Abdic and that this caused the horrific scenes of attacks and killings of JNA soldiers in Sarajevo. That version was even accepted by the BBC in its serial The Death of Yugoslavia.

Interestingly, Izetbegovic was in Lisbon at the time accepting the concept of a divided Bosnia and right after that the attack on a JNA building in Sarajevo was launched. When General Kukanjac sent a small unit of military police in as reinforcements, they were attacked on bridge by a Moslem SDA party para-military unit. Fourteen soldiers were killed and rumors were launched that they were trying to capture the Bosnian presidency building. There was no cause for the attack on the retreating column in Dobrovoljacka street when seven soldiers were killed. All this was done despite the fact that just a few days earlier, on April 26 1992, Izetbegovic went to Skoplje where he reached agreement with Kostic and General Adzic on the peaceful withdrawal of the JNA from Bosnia. There were secret orders issued by the Moslem Patriotic League of Nations (PLN) on April 14, 1992, instructing all para-military units to launch all out attacks on JNA personnel and facilities in Bosnia."

But Alija Izetbegovic was in the column in Dobrovoljacka street?

"The JNA’s escorting of Izetbegovic from the airplane that brought him back from Lisbon to the barracks in the Lukavica suburb isn’t proof the JNA was preparing a coup in Sarajevo. A day earlier, attacks were launched on the army. I am convinced that if Izetbegovic had not been under escort he would not have reached the Bosnian presidency building alive and the JNA would have been blamed. If the JNA really had planned to take the presidency building, it would have done so with a force which demands respect, not a small unit of military police. On that May 2, all out attacks also started on the army command building in Sarajevo and JNA personnel were killed."

Still, the decision to withdraw the JNA from Bosnia was in force and the FRY constitution had been proclaimed.

"I personally believe that had its effect because JNA units in Bosnia practically became an army without a command. I can’t go into the priority reasons for that decision, that is before the JNA could really withdraw from Bosnia, the more so since Jovic and Kostic didn’t write a word about all that. The real question is why the hurry in withdrawing the JNA from Bosnia because the highest ranking people in the military and state leadership promised that the JNA would stay in Bosnia for another five years to keep the peace."

Many authors, especially the ones outside the FRY, claim that the JNA was actually used as an instrument by the Serbian regime.

"You could say that the army became pro-Serb early in 1992 because only recruits and reserves in Serbia and Montenegro responded to call ups. For example, we had the same approach to anyone illegally importing arms even towards the Krajina Serbs, but there’s also the fact that when the Croatian HDZ had distributed 18,000 assault rifles, the Krajina Serbs had just 102 automatic rifles and 600 carbines. They were also the only ones to obey the Yugoslav state presidency orders and return their arms. And they raised barricades.

If you blame the military chiefs for finally accepting the Serb political vision, you have to bear in mind that you can’t draw an equal line between the people who said they don't want Yugoslavia and others who wanted to stay in it. The only place the JNA was not attacked and where there was no offensive against it were Serbia and Montenegro."

As former chief of the JNA security department, how do you see everything that was written about the KOS activities in that period?

"There’s a kind of KOS-phobia which I think stems from the need to justify certain acts and measures in different environments along with various scandals and internal conflicts in the former Yugoslav republics, and to blame the KOS networks. The KOS was blamed as a service which dealt in the worst of methods including planning coups and liquidations.

One of the latest examples is a statement by then Macedonian police minister Ljubomir Frcovski that a "certain service" belonging to a northern neighbor was behind the attempted assassination of Kiro Gligorov. The Macedonian media then openly accused the KOS and several former generals. Or in Bosnia; Halilovic "revealed" that the KOS had deeply infiltrated the Bosnian army and Alibabic claimed it was present in the Bosnian police.

I think the rumors of KOS involvement as an all-powerful service comes from the fact that when Yugoslavia was breaking up, it was the only security service which acted in the entire country. I don’t deny the fact that we were deeply infiltrated in the Slovenian and Croatian police and the PLN headquarters in Sarajevo, but we had to do that when they began organizing illegal para-military units. At the time we got to top level positions relatively easily because many people were Yugoslavia oriented.

When I read memoirs about that period, I find it especially interesting to assess how well the service I headed was informed of certain activities. In general, I believe that we got relevant information on time, even wider information than some of the main people involved know of. However, the memoirs to date, have been a good source of various, covert political games. That’s understandable because, in that, I am an ordinary reader."