Did Belgrade regime provoke secession of Croatia, Slovenia?
1991Gerry Foley 1991-08Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 8 →
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Anti-government Serbian protestors: "Bring our sons home!"
The attempts to use military force against the self-determination struggles of the Slovene and Croatian peoples have led to stinging defeats for the main conservative forces in Yugoslavia-the procapitalist federal government and the neo-Stalinist regime of the Serbian demagogue Slobodan Milosevic.
The military crackdown in Slovenia blew up in the faces of those who ordered it. The federal army suffered the bulk of the casualties. Slovenian territorial forces captured about 2000 federal soldiers, who were stripped of their uniforms and sent home. A thousand federal soldiers, including Serbs, deserted to the Slovenians, according to the July 8 issue of German magazine Der Spiegel.
On the political front, the results were still more damaging. Some 3000 parents of Serbian soldiers in Slovenia demonstrated in Belgrade demanding the retur of their sons. The Slovene president, Milan Kucan, was adroit enough to invite them to Ljubl jana. About 800 of them staged an impressive antiwar demonstration at the scene of conflict in Slovenia.
On July 3, a TASS dispatch reported that thousands of students had demonstrated in Belgrade demanding withdrawal of the army from Slovenia, the resignation of the Serbian and federal governments, and the formation of a government of national salvation. It was interesting that Pravda reported this prominently, since it backed Milosevic and the federal goverment.
Earlier, in March, students demonstrated in Belgrade against Milosevic, introducing a new element into the political life of the republic.
Past demonstrations set the scene At that time, their demonstrations coincided with actions by the main opposition party, led by Vuk Draskovic, who is at least as chauvinist as Milosevic.
Nonetheless, the March mobilizations marked the beginning of a crisis for the neo-Stalinist regime, which called for special powers to "restore order."
Der Spiegel On April 18, over 750,000 workers in Serbia declared a general strike, among other reasons because many had not been paid for up to three months. Their demands were quickly met by the apparently frightened regime. But the incident revealed an explosive social climate in Serbia, which, like the rest of Yugoslavia, has been experiencing a galloping economic crisis.
In this context, it is hardly likely that Milosevic can continue to meet the demands of the workers. In Poland, for example, before the explosion in 1980, the government kept shifting scarce resources This sort of juggling cannot go on for long. However, the Serbian workers, who have a first taste of social mobilization and of victory, will continue to press their demands.
The student, worker and antiwar protests seem to offer hope finally for the emergence of a democratic opposition to Milosevic. The Serbian demagogue has managed in the past to mobilize masses of Serbians on chauvinist themes (although he called these actions "the antibureaucratic revolution").
On the basis of his chauvinist appeals, Milosevic succeeded in getting 60 percent of the vote in the first multiparty elections. And his principal opponents up until now have tried to outbid him in Serbian chauvinism.
Thus, the rise of social movements combating the regime represents a very big change. For years, the neo-Stalinist Serbian government has been poisoning the political situation in the country. Now, it is beginning to look shaky.
Threatened for the first time in his own bailiwick, Milosevic clearly started looking to the army under its predominantly Serbian officer corps. In the meantime, however, he conceded most of the immediate demands of the March demonstrations.
But on March 14, during a meeting of the Federal Council, the federal president at the time, Borislav Jovic, a Serbian stooge of Milosevic, proposed declaring a state of emergency throughout the Yugoslav state. When this was rejected, he resigned.
Jovic went on TV March 15 to declare that the country was "in a critical state of breakup, provoked by the actions of separatist forces." The only positive references Imm Cour high to tal Th tutio prov presi amor The : sent‹ not E Moni of VI vic, Cour VIC F coun Hc oppo the a the I peric leade same begal ed c nia-F TI by ti More Milo deno posa defin ter, o
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