Danger Birds

During his recent visit to the Air Force Command, Milosevic said that a series of scandals involving several high-ranking Military Intelligence officers was "unprecedented" and "bad for the Army's reputation." However, officers who are already arrested can expect no mercy - Milosevic had also said that "traitors and thieves would have to go to jail."

Milosevic has good reasons for ending the purge. Growing discontent among the ranks, especially within the military intelligence, could easily turn into an open confrontation. Criminal charges were raised against several leading officers, and a large number of others were dishonorably discharged.

"Traitors and thieves" include Gen. Aleksandar Vasiljevic, the former head of Military Intelligence, and his deputy Simeon Tumanov (defected to Macedonia). Both are accused of corruption and accepting bribe. Former head of intelligence in the Air Force, Col. Slobodan Rakocevic is the main suspect in the "Opera" scandal (treason and corruption), and his Navy counterpart, Col. Ljubisa Beara, is also in jail for an alleged murder of two Seselj's paramilitary forces in Montenegro.

The purge was organized and conducted by Gen. Nedeljko Boskovic, re-activated from retirement and posted as the head of Intelligence one year ago. At that time he swore to "do away with traitors and thieves", but his rule is more likely to be remembered by arrogance and corruption, like using military helicopters to visit his parents in the country. Large sums of hard currency confiscated during the purge simply "disappeared", and one high-ranking intelligence officer committed suicide under strange circumstances...

Military intelligence sources told VREME that Boskovic's "cleansing operation" caused many of their old informants to refuse to cooperate with the service, afraid that the internal political struggle may lead to their exposure. The sources also said that recent scandals made recruitment of new "contributors" almost impossible. Nobody seems to want to be a spy if the service they work for cannot promise any sort of protection, and running such an intelligence service without a web of informants is hardly possible at all.

The fact that Boskovic's personal security guards are Serbian civilian police officers also fanned fears that the purges were really a part of hostile takeover of the military intelligence by the Serbian Ministry of Interior.

Meanwhile, changes have been made within the structure of the service. The departments of intelligence and counter-intelligence have been fused into a single sector, controlled directly by Boskovic. Boskovic himself is controlled exclusively by Gen. Zivota Panic, the Yugoslav army Chief of Staff. Pavle Bulatovic, a Montenegrin and the newly appointed (civilian) defense minister is hardly expected to have any executive power at all.

As a result of these changes, the position of the Chief of Staff has suddenly become lucrative to some ambitious generals, who hope that Gen. Panic (60) may soon retire. Gen. Bozidar Stevanovic, the commander of the Air Forces, is the man frequently mentioned as Panic's possible successor. This is the man who openly threatened that he will carry out a coup if the opposition wins the December 1992 election, and openly criticized federal government of being too meek in dealing with the West.

It is interesting that Stevanovic's recent hard-line have coincided with the rise of Vojislav Seselj's ultra nationalist Serbian Radical Party. Many pilots were outraged with Stevanovic's "generous" lending of military helicopters to the likes of Seselj and Zeljko Raznatovic-Arkan.

It is also interesting that Gen. Stevanovic and Gen. Boskovic started their careers in the same squadron, and that they may be considered to be old mates. Working side by side, the two generals filled the military intelligence ranks with Air Force officers, causing a considerable concern within the ground troops and the navy. Although the pilots were always considered to be "somehow different" than the rest, a lot of people think that they have now gone too far.