THEY MADE USE OF US - AS TOYS

Agony of the officers of former JNA

AIM, Belgrade, March 17, 1995

A sink in the corner, a stove next to it, a refrigerator and a rickety cupboard, a table by the window and two beds. A few rather small cardboard boxes under the table which serve as a pantry. No bathroom. A shower and a toilet are at the end of a corridor and are shared by numerous tenants. A whole life in eighteen square metres. This is a "temporary lodging" of a recently retired lieutenant-colonel of the Army of Yugoslavia, who three years ago, just before war broke out, brought his four-member family from Croatia to safety - to Serbia.

About 13 thousand officers and non-commissioned officers of the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) are in a similar situation, having withdrawn from the seceded republics to continue to serve their motherland with 40 thousand members of their families due to the call of patriotic bugles, appetizing promises from Serbia and the newly developed hatred of their former fellow-citizens. There are non Serbs among them too, because they had believed all the announcements and declarations made by the authorities here at the time.

Temporary life

Officially, they are living in inadequate conditions just temporarily. Together with five thousand officers who have previously been citizens of Yugoslavia, but their housing problem has not been resolved. Unofficially, their awareness is growing every day that they are hopelessly sinking into a shadow, that the new, high political interests are pushing them right to the bottom. That they must learn to live in poverty and bring up their children in a completely different way. And all that after everything they had over there - in Slovenia, Croatia or Bosnia.

Most of them are in Belgrade, but it is almost impossible to find out how many of them there really are. Those more fortunate ones are accomodated in a few, not very luxurious hotels - "Bristol", "Galeb", "Dorcol", in Deligradska, Vrtlarska street... The others, however, are living their family lives in refitted military rooms and offices, in military barracks, in the premises of the Military Academy or the Military Technical Institute in the suburbs of Belgrade.

It is very difficult for journalists to get through to them. At the entrance they are usually told by the guards that "unauthorized" persons are not allowed to enter, visits to military barracks are forbidden, there is noone to issue official permits. We stop a middle-aged man in front of the "Bristol" hotel, who we believe is an "obvious" tenant of the building. The conversation with him is short, incoherent, full of suspicion. "Who sent you here" - our interlocutor answers with the question our offer to talk about everything over coffee. Similar attempts are answered with the same question.

Finally, with discrete recommendations and promises we reach the families accomodated at the Military Technical Academy. They insist that their names remain a secret, and with an acid, colloquial curse, they add: "We are after all soldiers for life". The "apartment" of the lieutenant-colonel from the beginning of our story is at the mentioned Academy. His wife, an unemployed teacher, not even trying to hide her uneasiness, explains that this room is also the home of their two children - seventeen-year old Ivana and Davor who is twelve: "Imagine how parents feel when their daughter and son at this age sleep together in the same bed. The only comfort for me is that in some of such rooms families of six, even seven members live."

The lieutenant-colonel prefers to speak about his military career: "Transfers, moving, it was all part of the job. When war came, there was no dilemma, I stood at the lead of my unit and followed the orders. I did my very best to be a professional. After all, I cannot but wonder if there was any sense in it. Someone has once properly noticed that we do not belong to anyone any more, if we could, we would gladly just vanish into thin air."

A neighbour living on the same floor, S.Z., a wife of a still active captain, says that she is a Serb, and her husband is a Croat. They lived happily in Split in a three-room apartment with their two sons, and then:

"When it started to darken over Yugoslavia, my husband and I were caught unprepared. We considered the possibility of staying there to preserve what we had been making for ten long years of hard work. Being a Serb, I was ready to bow my head, for the sake of my children. My husband, though, insisted that we come here. He believed that the Army was absolutely Yugoslav, that we would not be left in the lurch. He still does not wish to admit that we had been cheated, that some people have simply made use of us, like toys. They've turned our lives into ashes. I keep on living just to raise my children, to help them stand on their own two feet, and then... I know what I'll do."

When rats gnaw at their insides

Their letters, applications and appeals to state institutions are not answered by anyone any more. Our interlocutors do not care to hide their disappointment, they are exasperated with some of the generals who have also escaped from the former republics of the SFRY, but were received in Serbia with luxurious apartments in the villas in the elite part of Belgrade.

• Imagine the cynism - ensign V.J. says - general Milutin Kukanjac complained in a journal two months ago that in his five-room apartment in the exclusive villa called the Flowershop the Italian tiles were cracking. I respected him while he was my commander in Bosnia, but now I am sick when I see his picture in the papers. All my illusions have dispersed. The battle for life I am fighting now is much more brutal than the one in the battlefield. You know where the enemy is over there, who is shooting at you. And here it is as if rats are gnawing at their insides.

The name of the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, provokes a smile on the faces of our interlocutors, without any comments. Reminded that most of the promises about a better future came from him, after a long hesitation, the wife of the ensign says, restraining herself: "We believe only that true information do not reach him, that he is not given the letters many addressed to him".

On the way out, in the courtyard, we notice the nine-year old Zoran. While his comrades are playing war in the vicinity of an airplane, at the testing ground, he is standing noticeably apart from the others, holding a shabby toy, a teddy-bear in his hands. We are told he is always like that - standing apart from the others. He used to live with his parents in Brezice. Then they moved to a place in Bosnia where he lost his mother. He is living here with his father and his older sister. He started to avoid going to school, does not answer questions. His eight-year older sister puts a hand on his head and says: "And he used to be a really fidgety child. Mummy's death broke him down, daddy is rarely at home. I hope he will recover."

Uncertainty, disappointment, depression, apathy have become deeply rooted here. Occasional serious incidents, or murders are obviously the result of it.

Recently in a similar pavillion of the Centre of Military Schools, a seventeen-year old killed an officer - a refugee and his wife, and seriously wounded their two sons with a kitchen knife.

Two years ago in hotel "Bristol", a shot from a gun has also interrupted a life - the wife of general Ivan Hocevar, former commander of Territorial Defense of Slovenia, fired a shot at her sleeping son Bojan, convinced that there was no future for them, especially not for him. General Hocevar has in the meantime got a small apartment and visits his wife from it, who is at a compulsory psychiatric treatment.

Momcilo Popovic