General's Verbal Crime

"Someone has obviously concluded that the existence of military discipline courts is not enough to evaluate the actions of reserve officers while in service, but that there has to be a mechanism of their penalisation for what they do off duty. For example, the Honor Court could deprive Vuk Obradovic and Momcilo Perisic of their ranks of generals due to political statements, which apparently 'damage the public honour'. This sentence was published in VREME in June last year, and which - in case of general Perisic, the former Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav Army Headquarters - came true several days ago, when the decision of the Honour Court deprived him of his rank of reserve officer.

The discipline penalty of losing the rank of reserve officer was brought thanks to Perisic's alleged 'brutal avoidance of duties and obligations as a reserve officer', as well as thanks to 'the second conduct against the rules, which harms the reputation of military heads'.

We are reminding you that by changes and supplements of the Law on the Yugoslav Army (VJ), which President of FRY Slobodan Milosevic proclaimed valid immediately after the NATO aggression in June 1999, new forms of punishments for reserve officers are predicted. Their actions off duty are now the subject of the Honour Court, the organisation which method of work is also prescribed by the President of the Republic. The courts of honour are responsible to deal with the acts 'which harm the honour or brutally neglect the duty of reserve officer', and they can proclaim a punishment of stopping the advancement in the duration of one or five years and a punishment of being deprived of the rank of reserve officer.'

The honour courts were, however, previously abolished by the Law on VJ in 1994, with the explanation that they have too much authority which are likely to cause severe consequences.

On this occasion, general Perisic said to VREME: 'First of all, the Honour Court in normal countries functions only during a war. Secondly, I am being accused of something I would not have dared say, had I been in the army. However, I am not in the army anymore, because the Decree of the President of FRY ended my military career. I am not a reserve officer in the VJ. Accordingly, they are not entitled to discuss or judge what I am saying.'

In the accusation against Perisic it says: 'Because, as a reserve general-lieutenant, instead of preserving the reputation of a reserve officer as well as that of VJ, on March 8th 2000, in the premises of the Movement for Democratic Serbia in Belgrade, as president of this political party, he appealed to the journalists at the press conference: 'It is clear that there are para-military and para-police forces in both Serbia and Montenegro', although he well knew that it was not true, stressing that by a 'para-military formation I mean the seventh battalion of the military police stationed in Bjelo Polje and formed on the principle of party affiliation', although this unit is a regular formation of VJ, which was also known to him, the information was published by 'Blic' daily (March 9th 2000), then, that we have no real state, but a para-state, para-judiciary, para-university', which was transmitted by BETA agency, ruining thus the reputation of the reserve officer of VJ...'

'It is obvious that the Court received an order, it is well known from whom, to take away my title', says Perisic, adding that 'they' cannot stand to hear that this country has no supreme commander and that the one who presents himself as such should not be proclaimed a national hero. 'Just as he is losing his rating worldwide, they are trying to make up for his lost reputation among our people, and they are doing that by means of repression. They want to strengthen his position by causing fear in the general who fought in war, counting that if they manage to intimidate him, they will intimidate the others too.'

Perisic reminds us that, in an open letter after his replacement in November 1998, he wrote that the actual regime did not need officials of high integrity who thought with their own heads, that he refused the imagined counselling post in the Federal Government and that he was on disposal of the state and the citizens. He also reminds us that in October of that year he predicted that the regime would 'destroy Serbia by solving the problem of Albanians in Kosovo', and estimates that the essence lies in the fact the regime cannot stand those who 'by analysing what had already happened, can predict any further steps'.

The decision was made in a first-degree process, and general Perisic will complain. 'I want to prove that the Court is incompetent', says, adding that the decision does not touch him personally, 'because I do not belong among those who serve not the country and the people, but a single party and its individuals.' In the end, he says: 'The army enjoys a great esteem in the country and abroad, the reason for which I expressed my utmost appreciation to it. I shall continue to do all I can to stop everyone from underrating and misusing the army, even the individual generals who blindly obey the 'supreme commander's' orders.