Milosevic (24 page)

As a good Bolshevik, Milosevic knew that the chairman of such a gathering, especially in the age of electric microphones and loudspeakers, had a vital position, controlling who spoke and for how long. Momir Bulatovic, the moustachioed president of Montenegro dubbed ‘the waiter', was chosen for the job. The waiter delivered. Every single Slovene proposal on the future of Yugoslavia was voted down. The Slovenes threatened to walkout.

Dusan Mitevic broadcast the three-day event live on television. It was as rancorous as the end of any forty-five-year marriage could be, even thought the betrothal had been an arranged one. Serbs and Slovenes accused each other of being ‘national socialists'. The Yugoslav Communist Party was dead, and with it the idea of a multi-national Yugoslavia. Milan Kucan recalled:

The atmosphere was horrible. There was whistling, chanting, insults and cursing. I would not want to live through that again. We knew that we could never identify ourselves with such a political organisation. We left the congress. By doing that we also knew that the state, which was so closely bonded to the party then, could not be our state.
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Cyril Ribicic, a Slovene delegate, walked up to the microphone and dolefully declared: ‘Under these circumstances, we have to leave the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia.' Many Serbs applauded, believing they had won a victory. Months later, Milosevic would mock his former Slovene comrades, accusing them of being more concerned with their hotel bills than their country. ‘It was a dirty game, but I could see right through it. They'd checked out of their hotels. Those stingy Slovenes saved a night's bill. They'd left their bags at reception.'
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At the time Milosevic had not been quite so cocky. His manipulation of the Serbian bloc vote at the congress had engineered the Slovene walk-out. But until then Milosevic had won all his major triumphs – from the toppling of Ivan Stambolic to the adulation of the masses at Gazimestan – within the Serbian political arena. Now he was actually engineering the break-up of federal Yugoslavia. Television footage shows Milosevic looking uncertain. Huddled with his allies in a corner, his head swivelled back and forth across the congress. He appeared aware that he had to take control or the congress would collapse. Striding up to the microphone, he suggested that the delegates should be counted to establish a new quorum. It was a holding move.

Milosevic then lobbied the Croat delegation, led by Ivica Racan, who told him that a Yugoslav party without the Slovenes was not acceptable. ‘Milosevic went quiet. For the first time, I saw him worried. His charm deserted him.'
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The Croats then followed the Slovenes and walked out. The break-up of the Yugoslav Communist Party heralded that of the country itself. Congress Chairman Bulatovic called a quarter of an hour break. It lasted, he later noted, ‘through history'.
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Now the Slovenes had the excuse they needed to press ahead with plans for full independence. Yet the walk-out from the fourteenth congress was not without personal cost. Some Slovene delegates filed out in tears. ‘As children we had grown up in the second [federal] Yugoslavia, both in good times and harsh times, and there were many good times. The sudden realisation that our country had collapsed was not easy. This did not happen without emotions,' Kucan remembered.

What had been political issues soon became military ones. With new coalition governments taking power in Slovenia and Croatia, it was clear that the northern republics were headed for independence. But they would not be allowed to fight for it. Under Tito each of the republics had its own national territorial defence organisation (TO), as well as garrisons for troops of the Yugoslav army (JNA). In May 1990, General
Kadijevic ordered the JNA to take steps. Troops, under the control of the general staff in Belgrade, would stay in Slovenia and Croatia, while Slovene and Croatian TOs were disarmed to prevent them transforming into the armies of any future independent republic.

In response, Slovenia's interior minister, Igor Bavcar, and the defence minister, Janez Jansa (a former
Mladina
journalist), launched a clandestine arms-buying programme. Within three months the nascent Slovene army had 20,000 soldiers under arms. It is highly unlikely that the JNA, which at this time retained all its barracks, garrisons and intelligence organisations within Slovenia, was unaware of this. In October Slovene television showed film of Slovene troops blowing up a tank. Still no order came from Belgrade to halt Ljubljana's armaments drive. In December the Slovenes voted overwhelmingly for independence in a national plebiscite.

Slovenia's momentum was now unstoppable. Milosevic did not object, as long as he could benefit from events. Kucan recalled, ‘Milosevic had said to me we should reach some agreement on Slovenia's desire to leave Yugoslavia. He said he would not stop us, and that the others didn't understand what the whole thing was about anyway. But he said he cannot let Croatia go, because Croatia was bound to Serbia by blood.' On 23 January 1991, Milosevic and Kucan headed a meeting of two delegations in Belgrade. Flanked by their aides, the two men eyed each other warily across the table. It was decision time.

Asked whether there was a community of interest between Slovenia and Serbia at this time, Kucan replied: ‘One could say that. At a certain period of time Slovenia and Serbia had a common interest for reforming the society, but obviously based on completely different principles. This created the “community of interest” in that Milosevic's Yugoslavia had no room for Slovenia and Slovenia did not want to be in Milosevic's Yugoslavia.' Like Kucan, Milosevic knew exactly what he wanted. After lengthy negotiations, a joint communiqué was issued. Serbia would respect ‘the right of the Slovene nation and the Republic of Slovenia to their own path and their stance regarding the form of future ties with other Yugoslav nations or republics'.
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What was the deal? Milosevic's price was hidden in the small print: ‘Slovenia respects the interest of the Serbian people living in one state and ensures that the future Yugoslav government must give proper consideration to this interest.' Behind the bland diplomatese lay the rationale for the coming wars. Yugoslavia was a balancing act of six
republics
: Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia. But because of Yugoslavia's ethnic jumble – mirrored across the Balkans – the
nations
did not all live within the borders of their republics.

While Yugoslavia remained united this did not matter. Croatia and Bosnia were not independent republics but part of Yugoslavia, so the Serbs did indeed live in one state: Yugoslavia. But Milosevic argued that if Yugoslavia broke up and its constituent republics became independent states, then all Serbs, as part of the Serbian
nation
, should also have the right to live in one republic: Serbia. At first this sounded reasonable enough. If all the Slovenes had the right to live in one state, then why should the Serbs be denied something similar? The answer, of course, was that while over 90 per cent of Slovenes lived in Slovenia, the Serbs were also spread through Croatia and Bosnia. There were 600,000 Serbs in Croatia, and they made up 31 per cent of Bosnia's population.

Milosevic was introducing a new and highly dangerous principle: the primacy of
nation
over
republic
. This was a deliberate act of political destruction. It invalidated the borders of the republics within federal Yugoslavia. It was a recipe for chaos, uncertainty and, ultimately, war. Yugoslavia was an ethnic patchwork. As well as Serbs in Croatia, there were, for example, Albanians in Macedonia, Muslims in Serbia and Montenegro, and Croats in Bosnia. There was no way to satisfy each ethnic group's territorial demands. Milosevic, however, was concerned only with the Serbs. How would he bring them all into one state? By moving the borders, that is, by invading and annexing territory. This was Milosevic's plan for a Greater Serbia.

But Slovenia did not share a border with Serbia, and so could be let go. Slovene officials deny that the January 1991 meeting endorsed Milosevic's plan for Greater Serbia. They point to another sentence in the communiqué, which declares that while the Yugoslav nations do have the right to self-determination, that right must also take into account the equal rights of other nations. Thus Serbia cannot just slice off a chunk of Croatia or Bosnia because Serbs live there. None the less, the fundamental principle that led to the redrawing of the Yugoslav borders had been established.

On 25 June 1991 Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav flag was taken down, and the Slovene one raised. Slovene border and customs guards sent their Yugoslav predecessors packing. It was daring and audacious, and it triggered the first of four wars that would tear Yugoslavia apart. Milan Kucan denied that by leaving
Yugoslavia when it did, Slovenia bore responsibility for later events. Although Milosevic and Kucan had agreed a form of words about Slovenia's future development in their January communiqué, it did not provide for outright independence. There was no agreement to simply surrender Yugoslav strategic assets such as Ljubljana airport, and federal border crossings.

Slovenia invested a lot of effort into reforming the Yugoslav federation. We first proposed an asymmetrical federation. Then, we proposed a confederation as a transitional arrangement until either the dissolution or the reintegration of the country. Finally, we proposed an agreement on the dissolution of the country, knowing that the whole thing could end in tragedy. When it became clear that none of the proposed solutions would be adopted, we had to focus on our responsibility towards our own nation. I have heard this allegation several times. I have asked others what they would do in the same position. Would they primarily consider the interests of others and not those of their own nation? I never got an answer.

For Milosevic, everything was going to plan. By declaring independence for the Slovene nation, and arguing that all Slovenes should live in one country, Ljubljana was setting a useful precedent. But Milosevic played his usual double game: although he had no real objection to Slovenia leaving Yugoslavia, he publicly presented himself as the defender of Yugoslavia. He could not be seen to sit back contentedly and watch Yugoslavia's richest republic stroll off into the European dawn. Milosevic needed the support of the army generals, who believed in federal Yugoslavia, and who were fervently opposed to the break-up of the country. By getting the JNA to fight to keep Slovenia within Yugoslavia he set a second precedent: that the army would go to war to prevent secession, which he could later exploit in Croatia and Bosnia.

There were two war options. Plan A involved 670 police and customs officers, accompanied by 2,000 troops being deployed to retake the border posts and the airport. In Plan B the 63
^rd
Airborne Brigade would spearhead a full-blown invasion of Slovenia, backed up by the JNA's Fifth Military District. Martial law would be declared and the independence movement crushed. There would, the generals warned, be ‘heavy casualties'.

Plan A was implemented. In the early hours of 27 June, Kucan was
informed by his chief of staff that the JNA was moving through the country. At 5.00 a.m. he summoned his war cabinet. Two-day-old Slovenia had two options: to fight back or surrender.

Slovenia went to war. The Slovene militia surrounded the JNA bases and cut off the water and electricity. A JNA helicopter flying over Ljubljana was shot down. Pieces of charred machinery and two men's bodies lay on the streets of the capital, while pedestrians looked on in awe and fear. There was no going back from this. If anything, Slovenia had declared war on the JNA. The 35,000-strong Slovene army, highly motivated and well trained, proved superior to the lightly-armed JNA troops, most of whom had no idea why they were fighting.

In Belgrade Milosevic watched the generals rage at the JNA's humiliation. It was all falling into place. The JNA was involved, but it couldn't win without going to Plan B. The generals demanded authorisation to pour in the troops and put down the uprising. But Milosevic and his allies would never allow this, because he wanted Slovenia to secede. Borisav Jovic recalled: ‘I put it bluntly. We didn't want a war with Slovenia. Serbia had no territorial claims there. It was an ethnically pure republic – no Serbs. We couldn't care less if they left Yugoslavia . . . We would have been overstretched. With Slovenia out of the way, we could dictate terms to the Croats.'
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Forty-four JNA soldiers were killed and 187 were wounded in ten days of fighting. Slovene casualties were in single figures. The Yugoslav casualties were mostly frightened and bewildered teenage conscripts. This was the human cost of the ‘community of interest' between Milosevic and Kucan. Seasoned officers like Colonel Vaso Predojevic were utterly confused by being ordered to fire on their former countrymen. Predojevic, a Bosnian Serb married to a Slovene, was stationed at the Fifth Military District headquarters in Zagreb. ‘We couldn't believe it, because before we were friends, living together, and then we had to fight each other. It was very hard to understand, because I was a Yugoslav, an army officer, then all of a sudden I realised that there was no more Yugoslavia. It used to be one country and it would never be the same anymore. It was very difficult.'
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Predojevic soon retired from the JNA. When the Slovenian war broke out, he had told his superior officer that he would not take part. ‘He told me not to worry, that there would not be an attack on any JNA army officer or soldier, and that not even a stone would be thrown. He said everything had been decided in Ljubljana and Belgrade.'

The outlook in Serbia is particularly unpromising.

Reginald Wyon, 1904.
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