Is There Mobilization in Serbia?

To Be Ready, Just In Case

AIM Belgrade, 21 May, 1998

With escalation of the conflict in Kosovo, but especially after the armed engagement of the Army of Yugoslavia (VJ) on the Yugoslav-Albanian border, rumours on mobilisation started in Serbia. Taxi-drivers, smugglers, waiters, hackers and other conscripts, among whom there are even politicians, exchange information about "raising", "collecting", "sending", and in general, jokes in which one of the inevitable personalities is the man in charge of call-up at the military department. When Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic declared that he would "prevent involvement of recruits from Montenegro in internal conflicts in Serbia", the conscipts became certain that mobilisation was a sure thing and that they would in no time end up in uniforms in - Kosovo. However, sudden recall of federal prime minister Radoje Kontic in the manner of a coup d'etat, clearly indicates that involvement of Serbian recruits in "internal affairs" in Montenegro is imminent.

Kontic's sin and the main reason for his recall was that after Djukanovic's victory in presidential elections, unrecognised by Momir Bulatovic and his supporters, he refused to introduce the state of emergency. New prime minister Momir Bulatovic, who is made-to-measure of president of FR Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic, his wife Dr Mirjana Markovic and their hangers-on, certainly will not hesitate, if his party loses the elections and refuses to recognise results, to initiate violent demonstrations again. If that happens, the army will play the main role in re-establishment of the "legal system, public peace and order", which by no means can be done without mobilization.

While it was expected that the main destination of Serbian reserve forces would be Kosovo (this possibility still cannot be ruled out), newspapers added fuel on the flames. Nasa Borba, for instance, referring to unofficial sources, published that in mid May, mobilization of reserve forces could be expected, especially of those who did their military service in Kosovo in the beginning of the eighties. Reactions of the Army of Yugoslavia to this newspaper article was unusually prompt: "Regular and planned activities of military territorial forces are lightly and maliciously reduced to the concept of mobilization", it is said in the statement of the General Staff. Connoisseurs of circumstances agreed with the denial of the Army: what use would the Army have of reserve forces consisting of ex-soldiers who are almost forty years old and who are not physically fit, and whose memories of Kosovo resemble those of a vacation on Adriatic islands? A reader wrote to the Belgrade weekly Vreme and informed it that he knew for at least four forty-year-old men (himself and anothet three) who were unexpectedly called up for military drill...

While guesses and speculations are circling about the foreseeable future of reserve forces of the Army of Yugoslavia, there is almost no member of reserve forces of the ministry of internal affairs of Serbia who could brag that he had not been called up for a "drill". According to some sources, policemen from the reserve forces all have "drills" in the southern province; according to others, they were called up to replace their active colleagues in other parts of Serbia - some will control traffic, some will patrol in market places, some will monitor the "flow of goods and capital" from Montenegro in Prijepolje. According to allegations of newspaper reporters, groups of policemen members of the reserve units were seen to "drill" with Kalashnykov machine-guns, hand grenades and in bullet-proof vests on the roads in Drenica.

It is also claimed that there are members of the military reserve forces who have become policemen overnight. Rumour goes that these men were called up to report to military barracks, responded in good order, and then were simply transferred from military reserve forces to police reserve forces, and then they were given new call-up papers...

Non-governmental humanitarian organisations for protection of human rights in Belgrade report that there is no mass call-up for military drills which could be characterised as a secret mobilization. More precisely: no significant number of men reported to them to confirm such assumptions.

If this is true why has mobilization become the central issue among different groups of military conscripts, especially after the result of the referendum on "foreign interference": out of the 75 per cent of the citizens of Serbia who had come to the polls, ninety per cent gave their approval to the regime to continue with its policy. It is clear that one must not forget even for a moment that the Liberation Army of Kosovo (UCK) has blood on its hands of ordinary foresters, postmen and peasants - members of both ethnic groups, who had tried to remain neutral and mind their own business. But, it is also clear that the extremely rigid and irresponsible practice of the regime in the province has led to the appearance and strengthening of the UCK, and to the situation in which Kalasnykov machine-guns and molibization have become the legitimate means for resolving political problems and the status of Kosovo. The latest actions of Milosevic and his loyal followers are threatening to bring about the same situation in Montenegro.

One could not say that all those who voted in the referendum are not aware of this. However, stirring up of the new national homogenization by the regime greatly resembles the one from the time of the "rallies of truth" (which helped Milosevic come to power), Gazimestan (the greatest gathering of Serb nationalists which marked the beginning of Milosevic's ascent), "log revolution" (the war in Croatia began after Serbs from Krajina blocked the roads with logs), etc. In this context, the citizens can pretend to believe that president of FR Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic "knows what he is doing" as much as they believed in the "loan for Serbia", "Europolis", "Chinatown in Belgrade", "Fast railroads", "Year of reform" and all other regime miracles. Even if all that was easily swallowed, especially because it tickles national vanity, the price of one's own life is still high. So when it comes on the agenda, all self-delusions stop there: because of former wars and memories of them, no official statements are believed any more.

The last time men of military age in Serbia were "raised" or "collected" was in summer and autumn 1995. The police simply arrested refugees from Krajina and Bosnia and sent them to different battlefields. The authorities claimed at the time that nothing of the kind was happening, that it was simply control of identity of persons. That some of these "persons" lost their lives, remained crippled and endured the Golgotha of detention camps, is quite unimportant for the regime.

In summer 1991, when wars on the territory of former Yugoslavia began, there was no mobilization in Serbia either - artillerymen and tankers around Vukovar were not mobilized either, but members of the reserve forces sent to "military drill". Dead men in welded metal coffins, from that point of view, did not die in the mire of Slavonia or in rocky Krajina waging war for all "the Serbs in a single state", but as victims of manoeuvres of armed forces. "Serbia is not at war", Milosevic used to say as cool as a cucumber. How it all ended is well known.

Reciognizing in Milosevic's current policy everything that had brought about dissolution of former Yugoslavia and that blood was needlessly and criminally shed for from Ormoz, through Pakrac and Vukovar, to Prijedor and eastern Bosnia, a large number of citizens of Serbia seem to have started to discern that all the trite phrases and fine-sounding empty talk about the state and its integrity conceal interests of perservation of power of a married couple... Driven crazy by their ten-year old regime and eradication of everything that is normal and responsible, these people will for a long time to come continue to vote in propagandist referendums and take for granted everything that the regime offers them, but it appears that they are not ready to wage war and be killed any more. It appears that this is the key to all the stories about mobilization and that this, perhaps, leaves some space for hope.

Philip Schwarm

(AIM)