Unified Force

The leadership of the Yugoslav Army and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia has been very active on the public and political scenes recently.  A few days before the opposition meeting in Belgrade, the Minister of Police and President of the SPS Regional Committee  for Pozarevac, Vlajko Stojiljkovic, stated at the meeting of this Committee that "attempts by our enemies to disintegrate our country, to subjugate and occupy it constitute genocide over our people, so that it is necessary for citizens to be warned of the fact that NATO sycophant parties are being used to carry out complete subjugation of the country, which is something that our people will not allow."  The Minister of Police added that "unity in the SPS and JUL and among all patriotic and progressive powers is by far the top priority."

On the same day (April 11) an announcement was issued by the Direction for Morale of  the Supreme Headquarters of the Yugoslav Army from a joint meeting held between representatives of the Yugoslav Army and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia - more precisely, a meeting between the Chief of the Supreme Headquarters of the Yugoslav Army, Lieutenant General Nebojsa Pavkovic, Serbian Minister of Internal Affairs, Vlajko Stojiljkovic and the Chief of the Resource for Public and State Security, Lieutenant General Vlastimir Djordjevic and Radomir Markovic.  It was noted that representatives of the Yugoslav Army and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia had defined common objectives in safekeeping the sovereignty, territorial integrity and the constitution of the country, as well as public peace and security of persons and property.  The announcement indicated that "special notice was made at the meeting of the exceptionally successful and efficient cooperation in the previous period of battle against Albanian separatists and terrorists in Kosovo and Metohija, especially of the unity demonstrated in the defense of the country against the NATO aggression."  It is stated that "special activities" will be carried out by members of the Yugoslav Army (VJ) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) in creating conditions for further renewal and rebuilding of the country.

We asked Dragan Vuksic, retired Yugoslav Army Colonel and Advisor for International Relations and Cooperation with the Movement for a Democratic Serbia, what all this means.

"Something very dangerous is taking place right before our eyes; a party-political-military-police oligarchy is being created with a single objective - to intimidate and, if necessary, to make ineffective all those who are demanding changes and are "threatening' the regime in this way.

To this end, the Minister of Internal Affairs is spending his time on ideology and politics, which was clearly evident in his speech in Pozarevac, instead of solving the countless cases of murder and violence and taking steps to prevent such things from happening.

The Ministers of Defense and the Chief of the Supreme Headquarters are using every opportunity to express their loyalty to their supreme commander and to reiterate their promise that the Army will defend him even from his own people, should that become necessary.  This is most often expressed when they invoke the Constitution and the Army's obligation to uphold it, when in fact they are not the least bit interested in taking a closer look at the Constitution and reading up on the text.  That is why a meeting between the Chief of the Supreme Headquarters of the Yugoslav Army and the Serbian Minister of Internal Affairs cannot be understood in any other way than as a direct threat to the organizers of the April 14 meeting and its participants - i.e. the people."

VREME:  To what extent is the announcement of the cooperation between the Army and the Police significant news?

VUKSIC:  There is nothing new in this.  This was merely a concrete occasion for letting the people know that measures will be taken for preventing any expression of radical intentions and desires which are merely logical - i.e. for a change of power to take place as soon as possible.

Not only is there nothing new in this, for immediately following the NATO aggression, cooperation between the Yugoslav Army and the Police during the NATO conflict was proclaimed a new achievement and principle, which is contrary to international practice.

The real issue is that Slobodan Milosevic used to give all priority to the police because he did not trust the Yugoslav Army, and then after certain changes of staff in the Yugoslav Army, he placed that Army under his complete control and brought into it people who are infinitely loyal to him and who have carried out appropriate cleaning up of the Army.  Now he is giving priority to the Army.  Since it seems that he went too far in this, he is now trying to establish balance and is finding that it is best if the police and the army come together, grow closer, practically becoming a single body, with the possibility of becoming a single institution one day.  This abuse is something new because there is no identity between the tasks carried out by the Yugoslav Army and the Police, neither in peace time conditions, nor at times of war.  During peacetime they have completely separate functions, while during war the police becomes part of the armed forces.  But we should finally stop talking about war and should try thinking about how we will live in peace and how we will emerge peacefully from all of the difficulties we find ourselves in, which is something that this regime obviously does not want.

VREME:  What could be a concrete objective in fusing the Army with the Police?  Is the Police itself no longer adequate in protecting the regime?

VUKSIC:  It is clear that Slobodan Milosevic was banking on the Police, which he preferred, calculating that he can solve all problems with it.  However, in Kosovo he found out that this is not possible, and that he cannot implement his will and his bad policies only with the aid of the Police.  At that time he was confronted with resistance in the Army from certain generals and officers who did not agree with those policies and who demanded that the Army and the Police, and especially the Army, be deployed in accordance with the Constitution and for clear objectives to be defined and to decide whether those objectives are realistic.  The Army favored a peaceful, political solution to the problem of Kosovo and clearly told the regime that nothing can be solved down there using force.  What followed were staff changes in the Yugoslav Army, and now the Army is under his complete control.  And there is nothing more logical, given his policies, than the present tendency to bring together these two instruments of force on which he depends, in order for them to become one organization and in that way to permit him to prolong his stay in power, and to introduce dictatorship if necessary.

VREME:  Are there any other such examples of fusion between the army and the police in more recent history?

VUKSIC:  There might be such examples in Asia, Africa or South America, but there are certainly no such examples in Europe.  At the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first, something like that in Europe is outside the realm of imagination and clashes directly with common sense.

VREME:  When the Army and the Police are put together, what is the extent of the armed force at the regime's disposal?

VUKSIC:  International standards stipulate that an army should number from 0.5 to one percent of a population.  Standards for the police also exist.  Where the army is concerned, we are at the upper range of this standard, because we have around 100,000 or a little over that number of members in the Yugoslav Army, while it is well known that the police is inflated and too militarized, and that the police leadership has reached the ranks of generals.

Instead of politicians taking us down paths with least danger and instead of protecting the country and avoiding those pitfalls which seriously threaten to sink that ship which we call the state, with the army being keeping back and not being put in a position of being assigned tasks which it is known ahead of time cannot be carried out, here everything is upside-down.  Our politicians are leading the country into disaster, the economy is falling apart, interethnic conflicts are increasing to the point of eruption, and after all that it is believed that the army defend and protect such a state.  That is simply cannot be carried out.  The Army is falling apart precisely in those places where the multinational country and a state are falling apart, unable to continue any longer.  This happened with the former Yugoslavia, and I fear that the same thing will happen in this Yugoslavia if Montenegro is separated or some similarly catastrophic development of events occurs.

VREME:  Is the recent news that several ex-generals in the Yugoslav Army are now part of the Montenegrin President's cabinet an indication of something of that sort?

VUKSIC:  Yes, those are the generals which Milosevic replaced and removed from the Army by sending them into retirement.  It is clear that in this way they have distanced themselves even more from the policies which Milosevic propagates.  I don't know whether they will say what they predicted will happen when they held positions in the Yugoslav Army, and whether they will say what they advised and did in order to prevent that from happening.  I would like it very much and would consider it patriotic duty and honor if they were to tell the truth and to contribute in that way to showing who did what in the wake of the tragic events in Kosmet, and who said one thing and did something completely different.

VREME:  What according to your knowledge is the atmosphere in the army, excluding its hand-picked leadership, toward such exploitation?

VUKSIC:  I distinguish between the military leaders and the Army.  The military leadership is made up of a group of generals whose good and bad sides I'm very familiar with.  The latter group is more numerous as far as familiarity with international relations and the tragic position of our country in the world is concerned.  They simply lack sufficient information and generally don't want to create a realistic picture about this and to influence the political leadership in abandoning its destructive policies.

Among them there are individuals who are completely loyal to Milosevic, who grovel at his feet and who use every opportunity to demonstrate this, and he makes sure to offer them such an opportunity on a daily basis.  There is also a group of people who I also have personal contacts with and for which I can say with certainty that they think differently.  But it is unclear to me why they are conforming at this time and why they are taking party in such policies and are giving alibis to them with their authority.

However, when I said that the Yugoslav Army exists, what I meant are the soldiers, the junior officers and officers who are having the same kinds of problems that I had when I was on active duty in the Yugoslav Army.  I know with certainty that the majority of them distinguish between state and national interests and between what is the government and what is the regime, and what are different political parties.  They know that the state and the nation, and state and national interests are permanent categories which stand above all others, and especially above the government and the regime which are transient and which need to be changed in a democratic election.  The only valid measure of every government is whether it conducts policies which support national and state interests and whether it is suited to conducting such policies.  Neither happens to be the case in our country for some time now.

VREME:  Does that mean that the regime could not entirely rely on the Army in the event that the FRY decides to use the Yugoslav Army in the resolution of an eventual internal conflict in its favor?

VUKSIC:  Slobodan Milosevic - I must say I have not called him president for some time - could do that, and that can be expected of him and his regime.  It is quite realistic to expect that the people who are completely loyal to him might carry such orders issued by him.  This means that there is danger of the Army being used against the people and a danger of bloodshed.  That is the worst possible thing that could happen to us, but at the same time this is also the quickest way for the people who issue such orders and who commit such misdeed to meet the fate of losing power and to be eradicated.  The only question is when the weapons will be turned against them, because a stick has two sides.  I think that this will happen very quickly, but the tragedy of the whole situation is that blood could possibly be spilled.