The Crippled Phoenix

The purge came too late. Everyone agrees on this for their own reasons. The pro-regime press is exploiting sensational details offered by various agencies and the message is clear: all who are not Serbs are guilty. The triumphant enthusiasm goes so far that the "true-Serb" papers are making the once unthinkable allegation that Ante Markovic was not the one who sent the Army to its Slovenian debacle, but instead Generals Kadijevic and Adzic. Military commentators don't mention Slobodan Milosevic at all, while the pro-regime columnists feel a slight urge to defend the Serbian President from allegations that he was behind the latest purge in the army.

Not a single consistent criterion was applied in the sacking of the 40 generals last week, and the war crime problem remained untouched. Some undoubtedly incompetent people were sacked, but many more stayed. It appears that those coming from the front were favored, no matter if they were drunks, inclined to stealing, or war criminals by all recognized standards.

On the other hand, it is obvious that the hardened army bureaucrats are the ones who are pulling the strings. One of them has cold-bloodedly stated that they are not "Major-General Obradovic's mouth-pieces, rather he is our mouth-piece: he has a good media approach".

A comparison of lists of generals sacked last week, and those promoted and decorated on December 22, 1991 and March 1, 1992, is very interesting. Most of the recently sacked and currently press-bashed generals were either promoted or decorated on the aforementioned dates (amongst others, General Blagoje Adzic, Admiral Stane Brovet, General Kukanjac). The matching of lists does not necessarily mean that all has been done according to some elaborate scheme. It is rather a sign of confusion, and that a quiet internal struggle (for control over the new army and for bare survival in the flood of surplus professional military) is under way.

Even in this latest rumpus, the Air Force has maintained its special position. The only Air Force officer to be discharged was General Mircetic, whose involvement in the "Opera" scandal (see NDA Bulletin No. 28) is incontestable. Amongst the positive protagonists in the whole story, the press also mentions Air Force Colonel Nedeljko Boskovic. Colonel Boskovic was subsequently extraordinarily promoted to the rank of Major-General and nominated as the new head of the JNA's (Federal Army) Security Directorate. This was also the first real nomination after the big sacking of generals. Therefore, the Air Force's rating is still excellent. Earlier complaints by the land forces (weak support, aircraft sparing, bombing of its own troops) have been neutralized by evident credit for the pulling out of troops from B&H, and the increasing (perhaps even critical) importance of this branch of armed forces in the new state. Namely, the Air Force's effectives are the best preserved after the three lost wars. The navy is jammed into 10% of its former coast line. The land forces have been left without reservists and B&H, around which all Yugoslav army strategies have been built ever since 1918.

At this moment, as experts say, the Serbian Interior Ministry's forces (regular and reserve troops and "volunteers" under its control) could defeat the remaining army. A single word from Slobodan Milosevic to the JNA reservists would suffice. This fact explains the easiness of the latest sacking of JNA generals: they had nothing left after B&H. In this - theoretical and speculative - context, the Air Force remains the JNA's only remaining critical resource, although time is working against it as well (more difficult importation of spare parts, components and modern armament). Perhaps this situation is connected to the surprising and sudden promotion and nomination of Nedeljko Boskovic.

Neither the withdrawal from B&H is going as it should, nor is the remaining (written-off) part of the JNA in B&H developing as imagined. Several units are blocked for different reasons. Certain unprecedented things are happening as well. In Kiseljak, the local garrison handed over the B&H TD's (Bosnian-Herzegovinian Territorial Defense) armaments, which it had been guarding, to the Croatian Defense Council (HVO). The two sides parted as friends, and the garrison "happily went home". Croatian forces then refused to share the weaponry with the B&H TD and even attacked the forces loyal to President Izetbegovic, thus preventing them to head for Ilidza (a part of Sarajevo held by Serbs), and alleviate the pressure on Sarajevo. At the moment when a new "brotherhood and unity" between Serbs and Croats in B&H (directed against the Moslems), the JNA, i.e. its remnants in the republic, is caught in the course of events, and this has given rise to such absurdities as Kiseljak and Mostar, where Croats - according to some reports - are attacking the town's defense loyal to the B&H government. In the splitting of B&H into Serbian and Croatian parts (at Moslems' expense), the JNA is in no way innocent.

On the other hand, the B&H TD has begun to present documents from the Second Army District archives, seized from an army truck during the (in)famous Sarajevo ambush. The short period of time excludes the possibility of forgery. The documents only prove what is already widely known: that the JNA had been extensively and generously arming Mr. Karadzic's (leader of the Serbian Democratic Party in B&H) troops. For example, on April 24, General Kukanjac sent a dispatch to the Federal Defense Ministry's Technical Directorate, demanding that a Banja Luka police special task force unit be supplied with complete armament and equipment, according to its very luxurious demand: they wanted full equipment for 157 men and six helicopters (four "Gazelles" and two MI-8s). The appetites of Serbs from B&H are nervously growing, and the question is to what extent the JNA can satiate them.

The birth of a new army from the ashes of the old one (whose guts are still splattered over the lost and deserted territories of the ex-homeland) is not an easy enterprise. This is just a beginning were the sacking of 126 generals does not mean much.