COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF FOR PARADE ONLY

Zoran Lilic: Report at the end of the Mandate

If anything will be remembered about the past four years in office of supreme commander Zoran Lilic it could be brought down to touring of army barracks as demanded by protocol, adoption of laws in the assembly, and the fact that during his mandate, the army of Yugoslavia was almost completely pushed to the margins of life. The datum that officers do not even regularly receive their salaries speaks about its literal pauperization

AIM Belgrade, 28 June, 1997

When the leftovers of the once powerful army of former Yugoslavia, after it had been pushed down from the Karavanke mountain range and after it had ingloriously withdrawn from Croatia, swamped across Serbia and Montenegro and when on 20 May 1992, these leftovers were renamed into the Army of Yugoslavia, its officers and generals were bursting with happiness: they had finally come by "their own state" - FR of Yugoslavia and got "their own" supreme commander, at the same time the president of "truncated" Yugoslavia personified in Dobrica Cosic who the colonels and generals started euphorically pledging allegiance to.

But, this allegiance lasted less than a year. After a short time, Cosic was literally sacked from both offices. The political public of Serbia remained convinced that the reason for discharge was information given to president Milosevic by a general about insufficient loyalty of president Dobrica Cosic and excessive scheming with the then federal prime minister Milan Panic. That was the end of Cosic's supreme command.

That is how a very widespread dilemma in the public who the generals had been inclined to: the "federal pair" Cosic-Panic or Milosevic's "single" which was shooting down wild political rapids, was efficiently cut short. Despite everything, and just in case, it was necessary to urgently "cleanse" the army of "inept generals and officers". The new president of the federal state, at that moment 40-year old Zoran Lilic, was inaugurated on 25 June, 1993, and almost immediately successfully passed the test for supreme commander: at the session of the Supreme Defence Council which he chaired as the constitutional chairman of this office, decision was reached about retirement of 42 generals, and retired colonels were counted by the hundreds! This was in fact the third and the greatest wave of mass retirement of commanding officers in the "new state", which was "justified" by the military and other state propaganda as the need for "rejuvenation" and "professionalization".

Instead of the former head of the General Staff of the Army of Yugoslavia, Zivota Panic, Momcilo Perisic became the leading operating figure of the army. By new promotions into the rank of the general (and new nominations to important posts in army hierarchy), at the sessions of the Supreme Defence Council of 25 August and 7 September, 1993, "orchestrated" by Zoran Lilic, the entire cadre of generals was reconstructed and there could be no more doubt about who the high ranking officers supported on the political scene. Milosevic had always comparatively easily manipulated the army, but from that moment this definitely became a matter of pure routine.

According to the Constitution of FR Yugoslavia, the president of the republic has not very high authorizations. In Lilic's case, however, the office was reduced literally to the fictitious role of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Some future investigator of Serbian political circumstances in the last decade of this century could easily decode not only strategic directions but also partly tactical (camouflaged) moves of Milosevic's policy from public appearances of the commander-in.-chief, Zoran Lilic. For instance, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the battle of Kolubara, on 11 December 1993, he put stress on the following thought: "... From the first secessionist step in the former joint state (the phrase "previous Yugoslavia" had not yet been introduced into official terminology), we were in favour of agreement and peaceful resolution of disputes. Persisting on the policy of peace, we created FR Yugoslavia, preserved peace on its territory, spared the young generation and the people of war suffering, and the country of devastation. At the same time, we have offered aid to the Serb people in Republica Srpska and Republic of Serb Krajina to exercise their legitimate rights". This became a refrain of all major appearances of the leaders of the Socialist Party of Serbia on all occasions.

The events, as seen, moved faster than the Serbian President. And when eventually and not just once the question was asked why Milosevic and the Army of Yugoslavia had not prevented the exodus of the Serbs after operations "Flash" and "Storm" of the Croatian Army, the answer which arrived from the camp of the ruling party was really worthy of the SPS morality and wisdom: "Had they listened to Slobodan Milosevic,they would not have gotten themselves in such a situation"!

If any trace will be left behind commander-in-chief Lilic, it could consist of the following: during his mandate the federal Assembly adopted the Law on Defence and the Law on the Army of Yugoslavia (22 September, 1993); the Supreme Defence Council discussed the Foundations of Military Doctrine of FRY and "implementation of the military part of the Dayton accords" (21 March, 1996), and "Basic Model of Organization of the Army of Yugoslavia by the Year 2005" (17 August, 1996), and Zoran Lilic also ratified with his signature the document titled "Army of Yugoslavia Regulations" (5 September, 1996). Among Lilic's summary achievements is also the "pardon" of the known traitor, retired general Vlada Trifunovic, as well as the recommendation to the federal government to adopt the "amnesty law" for 12,455 persons who had "evaded" military service (18 January 1996). Nevertheless, if Zoran Lilic will be remembered at all as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (from 25 June 1993 until 25 June 1997), it can be only for marginalization of the army of Yugoslavia during his mandate to a great extent and in all respects.

While, for instance, the army of former Yugoslavia was a separate closed system, which means that it was greatly separated from the society, the army of present Yugoslavia got itself under the tutelage of the ruling parties (which are also coalition partners) of Serbia and Montenegro. Pursuant the Constitution of FRY, in war and in peace, the command of the army is in the hands of the Supreme Defence Council of three members (president of FRY who at the same time chairs the Council, and presidents of the two federal units), which in Lilic's time always sat broadened by the federal prime minister and federal defence minister (occasionally other members of the government as well) and the head of the General Staff, who are all (except general Perisic) members of the ruling parties. That is what made the army the hostage of only two ruling parties (the society has no other control of the army), although on the official level it is incessantly repeated that the army of Yugoslavia is completely depoliticized.

Finally, whenever Milosevic needed to launch a message, especially a message of warning (not to use a stronger term) either to an "external" or "internal enemy" by armed forces, Zoran Lilic was the most suitable medium: in the former case the army is the "most powerful force in the region", and in the latter "the most significant stabilization factor in FR Yugoslavia", which is implemented at the moment.

In regular and emergency sessions, the Supreme Defence Council sat about sixty times during Lilic's mandate. Hardly any session has passed without searching for "stable sources of financing of the Army of Yugoslavia". As mentioned, Zoran Lilic has not managed to find such a source. Will the new commander-in-chief Slobodan Milosevic be more successful?

Pauperization of the Army of Yugoslavia, however, is its gravest, and perhaps in the circumstances, even an incurable wound, although FRY is allocating almost seven per cent of its social product for defence, that is more than most of the countries in Europe. But, the picture is quite different when one looks at the actual amounts of money instead of percentages: the social product of FRY was reduced by half in reference to 1990 and it amounts to about 14.5 billion dollars, so that when the seven per cent of the national income are split among the soldiers, it brings us to the amount of 5,000 dollars annually per soldier (this is the official datum of the respectable Military Balance magazine), according to which, if it had not been for Albania, FRY would be the last in Europe. For the sake of comparison, 13 thousand dollars used to be allocated per soldier a year in the army of former Yugoslavia.

From the planned budget of 6.5 billion dinars for defence, 5.141 million dinars (or about 943 million dollars) should be allocated for the Army of Yugoslavia, which would hardly be enough for the salaries of the professionals and the semi-professionals, for food, clothing and medical treatment of the army population, even if the planned resources were regularly allocated.

Pursuant the Dayton accords, the Army of Yugoslavia was reduced to 103 thousand troops, out of which about one third are professionals (officers and non-commissioned officers), one third are semi-professionals (soldiers on contract) and one third are recruited soldiers. Low salaries (a colonel, for instance, earns about 600 German marks, under condition he receives all 12 salaries a year), irregular payments, numerous unresolved housing problems (a heap of about 17 thousand requests for housing units is stacked for years in the competent office, without any chance that it would be reduced in the foreseeable future) and some other reasons forced about four thousand experts of different qualifications to abandon military service in the past several years.

Observed in the light of increasing poverty, the project "Model of the Army of Yugoslavia until the Year 2005" ratified by the Supreme Defence Council on 17 August last year, according to which the Army of Yugoslavia should become "a well equipped, modern and efficient armed force", looks grotesque. But, Zoran Lilic, along with the military propaganda, brings it down to the hot slogan: "The Army of Yugoslavia shares the destiny with its people"!

Stipe Sikavica

(AIM)