Here are the ones who destroyed your country
1. JUST REMEMBER: Tanjug 25 January 1991
2. Last prime minister of Yugoslavia breaks 12-year silence
(by Paul Mitchell - WSWS 11/11/03)
=== 1 ===
http://www.icdsm-us.org/yugoslavia_25january1991.html
Yugoslavia
How Croatian “Communists” Destroyed Yugoslavia
“FEDERAL DEFENCE SECRETARIAT ACCUSES CROATIAN MINISTERS OF PLOTTING
ATTACK ON JNA”
Tanjug
25 January 1991
Provided in English by The British Broadcasting Corporation, January
28, 1991. Copyright 1991 The British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC
Summary of World Broadcasts.
The key role concerning the acquisition of arms abroad, used to arm HDZ
[Croatian Democratic Community] members, was played by the
Croatian Ministers of Defence and of Internal Affairs - Martin
Spegelj and Josip Boljkovac respectively - as well as by former
Foreign Minister Zdravko Mrsic.
Their names, along with an explanation about their key role, were
emphasised in the half-hour programme on the arming of HDZ members
which Belgrade TV's First Channel broadcast this evening after the
news bulletin. The documentary, filmed by the Information Service
of the Federal Secretariat for National Defence and the Zastava
military film centre, was also offered, on an exchange basis, to
other TV studios in Yugoslavia.
The leading group responsible for the acquisition of arms abroad
included, according to what was shown and said on TV, Marjan
Balaban, head of the Cakovec Public Security Service, Ilija Dodig,
head of the Varazdin centre of the State Security Service, Zeljko
Tomljenovic, Under-Secretary for Defence Affairs, and Josip
Perkovic, Under-Secretary for State Security.
The programme, which had viewers ''glued'' to their TV sets, contained
authentic video material filmed both publicly and secretly, for
which reason some parts of the dialogue were more difficult to
hear and the speaker [as received] had to repeat them.
On several occasions during the programme the camera showed statements
by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman made at press conferences, at
which he had said that HDZ members should not be armed. After
this, however, we could see secretly recorded confidential talks
which refuted this.
The film also shows secret meetings between Minister Spegelj and two
young people. During these meetings held in a [private] house the
former Commander of the Fifth Military District and present
republican Defence Minister, retired Gen Martin Spegelj, announces
that they are ''at war with the army'', that ''80,000 Kalashnikovs
were acquired'' and that ''Slatina was packed with weapons''.
Some of the secretly filmed instructions issued by the Croatian Defence
Minister were, to put it mildly, astounding. Spegelj thus said on
one occasion that, when the time comes for it, bombs should be
thrown into the flats of officers of the JNA, members of their
families should be killed, and officers should not be allowed at
any price to reach their units alive. Those who are most extreme
should be killed on the spot in their barracks, and right in the
stomach, Minister Spegelj advised. The army will be cut to pieces,
the former Commander of the Fifth Military District threatens.
The Defence Minister was also precise when he talked about the
occupation of watchtowers. They should all be taken over.
Prisoners should be incarcerated and if the action lasts they
should be given food and water. Soldiers of the Albanian
nationality in such circumstances should be given five bullets
each.
The broadcast shows Spegelj saying that the Americans, two days after
the victory of Slobodan Milosevic in the elections in Serbia,
offered free help in [the form of] transporters and the complete
arming of 100,000 soldiers.
The authors of the documentary however also used part of an interview
which Spegelj gave to Croatian TV where the Croatian Minister of
Defence says of himself that he is an inveterate optimist. It is
better to negotiate for ten years than to engage in war, Spegelj
told Croatian TV viewers at that time.
Also broadcast was a secretly filmed statement by Minister Spegelj in
which he threatened that the inhabitants of Knin would be
butchered. According to what was broadcast, Josip Boljkovac,
Minister of Internal Affairs of Croatia, has a similar view of the
Knin problem. In a secretly filmed telephone conversation with a
collocutor whose identity is not given to viewers, he said that he
would go into Knin and that he would create an independent state
of Croatia at any price [possible allusion to the Independent
State of Croatia of the Second World War Ustasha].
The broadcast also shows Cazmatrans lorries which brought in the first
consignment of Kalashnikovs purchased in Hungary. It was alleged
that the importer is the Astra enterprise and that the consignment
contained 450 cases with over 4,500 Kalashnikovs. This consignment
of goods, the broadcast said, was safeguarded by members of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs on the territory of Hungary as well.
As this load did not pass unnoticed, the announcer stated, the
Federal Secretariat for National Defence drew the attention of
Hungarian organs to this but they received the reply that this was
a normal business transaction.
The announcer said that Hungary permitted the illegal residence of
Ministers Spegelj and Mrsic in their country, whilst deliveries of
weapons from military stores were continued with unusual rapidity.
Also broadcast were parts of a conversation with Goran Ribicic,
secretary of the Croatian Democratic Movement from Osijek, who
explained plans for the setting up of barriers on roads around
barracks, stressing that their aim is the break-up of the JNA, and
above all the confiscation of military resources and equipment.
The Secretary of the HDZ in Virovitica in an also secretly filmed
conversation in some house spoke about how actions were organised and
that the password would be ''Winter is coming - snow lies ahead''.
[Note Tanjug reported (in Serbo-Croat 2132 gmt 25 Jan 91) that the
programme was also broadcast by the television services of Novi
Sad, Pristina, Montenegro, Sarajevo and Skopje. It was not shown
on Croatian TV or Slovene TV.]
=== 2 ===
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/nov2003/milo-n11_prn.shtml
World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : The Balkans
The Milosevic Trial:
Last prime minister of Yugoslavia breaks 12-year silence
By Paul Mitchell, 11 November 2003
The last prime minister of Yugoslavia has broken his 12-year long
silence to speak in public about events during the breakup of his
country in the 1990s.
Ante Markovic was prime minister of the Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia (SFRY) between March 1989 and December 1991. He recently
appeared as a prosecution witness in the trial of former Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague. For the last two years,
Milosevic has been on trial on charges of war crimes and genocide in
Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia.
Markovic was the latest in a line of former Yugoslav leaders to appear
at the ICTY, all of whom have denied any responsibility for the civil
wars that erupted as the former Yugoslavia disintegrated. They all
blame Milosevic entirely. Of all those who have appeared at The Hague
so far to absolve themselves, Markovic could be truly said to have laid
the seeds for the break up of Yugoslavia.
He told the court he had started his career as an electrical engineer
and entered politics in 1982 after becoming a successful businessman.
For 24 years he was head of one of Yugoslavia’s largest companies, Rade
Koncar. He became a leading figure in the Yugoslavia Bank of Economic
Cooperation and then President of the Republic of Croatia. In 1989 he
was elected Prime Minister of the SFRY, a country saddled with debts of
$21 billion and inflation at thousands of percent. In 1990 he formed
his own political party, the Alliance of Reform Forces of Yugoslavia.
Markovic said the whole federal government was committed to his
“reform” programme—stabilisation, privatisation and democracy. He told
the court how “thunderous applause” and ovations greeted his
announcement at the Federal Assembly that the currency would become
convertible. However Markovic noted that some individuals complained in
private that his policies “would enrich the richer parts of the country
and would further impoverish the poorer parts.”
He was a favourite of the West and features prominently in the memoirs
of US ambassador to Belgrade Warren Zimmerman, who said Markovic was “a
man of large ego, [who] saw himself as a messiah for Yugoslavia. After
he became Yugoslav prime minister, his dynamism and supreme
self-confidence impressed visiting Westerners. The
financier-philanthropist George Soros, a shrewd judge of Eastern
European politicians, told me after a visit to Belgrade that Markovic
was one of the most remarkable leaders he had met.”
Markovic told Zimmerman he needed the clear support of the
administration of George Bush Senior and that “above all he wanted
money. How much? ‘Well’, he said with his infectious smile, ‘I’m
playing a big game, and it requires big money. I think four billion
dollars would be a good start to help a reform that’s going further
than anything in eastern Europe.’ ”
Reform in Yugoslavia did indeed go further than anywhere else in
eastern Europe regarding efforts to dismantle the state-run economy and
reintroduce capitalism. Within months half of the nation’s industry was
closed down, throwing two million workers out of their jobs. Nearly
65,000 companies were privatised. Money due to be paid to the
individual republics was frozen to pay off the national debt to
international creditors.
Markovic expressed surprise at the ICTY that his policies led to the
“struggle of everybody against everybody else”. When Milosevic (who is
conducting his own defence) suggested he played a significant role in
events having as prime minister “de facto and de jure control over the
federal government” for several years, Markovic insisted his office had
“very modest competencies” and that he was unable to do anything about
Yugoslavia’s disintegration. In one telling episode he pointed to the
form the disintegration took. He told the court how Milosevic demanded
the post of Interior Minister and thus control of the federal
intelligence services in Markovic’s new government in 1989. Markovic
said it was of little consequence since all the republics and the army
had their own intelligence services and everyone was bugging each other.
Markovic produced in court a tape he had received from Bosnian
president Alija Izetbegovic in 1991, purporting to show Milosevic
planning to send paramilitary units to Bosnia.
He described to the court how Yugoslavia descended into chaos as the
leadership in each republic and the Yugoslav People’s Army sought to
protect its own privileges. The Serbian National Bank transferred some
$2 billion from federal funds to itself. The authorities in Slovenia
and Croatia refused to pay taxes in to the federal budget, 81 percent
of which financed the army. With the working class out on the
streets—600,000 workers were on strike in Belgrade—the army
contemplated a military coup. The Army General Staff planned to arrest
the Slovenian and Croatian leadership and looked to Milosevic. Chief of
Staff General Veljko Kadijevic told Markovic, “Milosevic is the only
one fighting for Yugoslavia and who would back this up if it wasn’t for
him?” and offered to install Markovic as President.
Now that his reform programme had indeed produced the “struggle of
everybody against everybody else”, Markovic resigned and flew to
Austria in December of 1991. In his resignation speech he complained
that his Federal Executive Council was “completely incapable” of
preventing “the economic catastrophe” from “becoming deeper with the
growth of hyper-inflation, millions of people unemployed, the
production reductions, a great deal of poverty for millions of
people—the citizens of this country who are not to blame for any of
this—and which will necessarily lead to a social explosion of
unprecedented proportions.”
Copyright 1998-2003
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved
1. JUST REMEMBER: Tanjug 25 January 1991
2. Last prime minister of Yugoslavia breaks 12-year silence
(by Paul Mitchell - WSWS 11/11/03)
=== 1 ===
http://www.icdsm-us.org/yugoslavia_25january1991.html
Yugoslavia
How Croatian “Communists” Destroyed Yugoslavia
“FEDERAL DEFENCE SECRETARIAT ACCUSES CROATIAN MINISTERS OF PLOTTING
ATTACK ON JNA”
Tanjug
25 January 1991
Provided in English by The British Broadcasting Corporation, January
28, 1991. Copyright 1991 The British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC
Summary of World Broadcasts.
The key role concerning the acquisition of arms abroad, used to arm HDZ
[Croatian Democratic Community] members, was played by the
Croatian Ministers of Defence and of Internal Affairs - Martin
Spegelj and Josip Boljkovac respectively - as well as by former
Foreign Minister Zdravko Mrsic.
Their names, along with an explanation about their key role, were
emphasised in the half-hour programme on the arming of HDZ members
which Belgrade TV's First Channel broadcast this evening after the
news bulletin. The documentary, filmed by the Information Service
of the Federal Secretariat for National Defence and the Zastava
military film centre, was also offered, on an exchange basis, to
other TV studios in Yugoslavia.
The leading group responsible for the acquisition of arms abroad
included, according to what was shown and said on TV, Marjan
Balaban, head of the Cakovec Public Security Service, Ilija Dodig,
head of the Varazdin centre of the State Security Service, Zeljko
Tomljenovic, Under-Secretary for Defence Affairs, and Josip
Perkovic, Under-Secretary for State Security.
The programme, which had viewers ''glued'' to their TV sets, contained
authentic video material filmed both publicly and secretly, for
which reason some parts of the dialogue were more difficult to
hear and the speaker [as received] had to repeat them.
On several occasions during the programme the camera showed statements
by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman made at press conferences, at
which he had said that HDZ members should not be armed. After
this, however, we could see secretly recorded confidential talks
which refuted this.
The film also shows secret meetings between Minister Spegelj and two
young people. During these meetings held in a [private] house the
former Commander of the Fifth Military District and present
republican Defence Minister, retired Gen Martin Spegelj, announces
that they are ''at war with the army'', that ''80,000 Kalashnikovs
were acquired'' and that ''Slatina was packed with weapons''.
Some of the secretly filmed instructions issued by the Croatian Defence
Minister were, to put it mildly, astounding. Spegelj thus said on
one occasion that, when the time comes for it, bombs should be
thrown into the flats of officers of the JNA, members of their
families should be killed, and officers should not be allowed at
any price to reach their units alive. Those who are most extreme
should be killed on the spot in their barracks, and right in the
stomach, Minister Spegelj advised. The army will be cut to pieces,
the former Commander of the Fifth Military District threatens.
The Defence Minister was also precise when he talked about the
occupation of watchtowers. They should all be taken over.
Prisoners should be incarcerated and if the action lasts they
should be given food and water. Soldiers of the Albanian
nationality in such circumstances should be given five bullets
each.
The broadcast shows Spegelj saying that the Americans, two days after
the victory of Slobodan Milosevic in the elections in Serbia,
offered free help in [the form of] transporters and the complete
arming of 100,000 soldiers.
The authors of the documentary however also used part of an interview
which Spegelj gave to Croatian TV where the Croatian Minister of
Defence says of himself that he is an inveterate optimist. It is
better to negotiate for ten years than to engage in war, Spegelj
told Croatian TV viewers at that time.
Also broadcast was a secretly filmed statement by Minister Spegelj in
which he threatened that the inhabitants of Knin would be
butchered. According to what was broadcast, Josip Boljkovac,
Minister of Internal Affairs of Croatia, has a similar view of the
Knin problem. In a secretly filmed telephone conversation with a
collocutor whose identity is not given to viewers, he said that he
would go into Knin and that he would create an independent state
of Croatia at any price [possible allusion to the Independent
State of Croatia of the Second World War Ustasha].
The broadcast also shows Cazmatrans lorries which brought in the first
consignment of Kalashnikovs purchased in Hungary. It was alleged
that the importer is the Astra enterprise and that the consignment
contained 450 cases with over 4,500 Kalashnikovs. This consignment
of goods, the broadcast said, was safeguarded by members of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs on the territory of Hungary as well.
As this load did not pass unnoticed, the announcer stated, the
Federal Secretariat for National Defence drew the attention of
Hungarian organs to this but they received the reply that this was
a normal business transaction.
The announcer said that Hungary permitted the illegal residence of
Ministers Spegelj and Mrsic in their country, whilst deliveries of
weapons from military stores were continued with unusual rapidity.
Also broadcast were parts of a conversation with Goran Ribicic,
secretary of the Croatian Democratic Movement from Osijek, who
explained plans for the setting up of barriers on roads around
barracks, stressing that their aim is the break-up of the JNA, and
above all the confiscation of military resources and equipment.
The Secretary of the HDZ in Virovitica in an also secretly filmed
conversation in some house spoke about how actions were organised and
that the password would be ''Winter is coming - snow lies ahead''.
[Note Tanjug reported (in Serbo-Croat 2132 gmt 25 Jan 91) that the
programme was also broadcast by the television services of Novi
Sad, Pristina, Montenegro, Sarajevo and Skopje. It was not shown
on Croatian TV or Slovene TV.]
=== 2 ===
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/nov2003/milo-n11_prn.shtml
World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : The Balkans
The Milosevic Trial:
Last prime minister of Yugoslavia breaks 12-year silence
By Paul Mitchell, 11 November 2003
The last prime minister of Yugoslavia has broken his 12-year long
silence to speak in public about events during the breakup of his
country in the 1990s.
Ante Markovic was prime minister of the Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia (SFRY) between March 1989 and December 1991. He recently
appeared as a prosecution witness in the trial of former Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague. For the last two years,
Milosevic has been on trial on charges of war crimes and genocide in
Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia.
Markovic was the latest in a line of former Yugoslav leaders to appear
at the ICTY, all of whom have denied any responsibility for the civil
wars that erupted as the former Yugoslavia disintegrated. They all
blame Milosevic entirely. Of all those who have appeared at The Hague
so far to absolve themselves, Markovic could be truly said to have laid
the seeds for the break up of Yugoslavia.
He told the court he had started his career as an electrical engineer
and entered politics in 1982 after becoming a successful businessman.
For 24 years he was head of one of Yugoslavia’s largest companies, Rade
Koncar. He became a leading figure in the Yugoslavia Bank of Economic
Cooperation and then President of the Republic of Croatia. In 1989 he
was elected Prime Minister of the SFRY, a country saddled with debts of
$21 billion and inflation at thousands of percent. In 1990 he formed
his own political party, the Alliance of Reform Forces of Yugoslavia.
Markovic said the whole federal government was committed to his
“reform” programme—stabilisation, privatisation and democracy. He told
the court how “thunderous applause” and ovations greeted his
announcement at the Federal Assembly that the currency would become
convertible. However Markovic noted that some individuals complained in
private that his policies “would enrich the richer parts of the country
and would further impoverish the poorer parts.”
He was a favourite of the West and features prominently in the memoirs
of US ambassador to Belgrade Warren Zimmerman, who said Markovic was “a
man of large ego, [who] saw himself as a messiah for Yugoslavia. After
he became Yugoslav prime minister, his dynamism and supreme
self-confidence impressed visiting Westerners. The
financier-philanthropist George Soros, a shrewd judge of Eastern
European politicians, told me after a visit to Belgrade that Markovic
was one of the most remarkable leaders he had met.”
Markovic told Zimmerman he needed the clear support of the
administration of George Bush Senior and that “above all he wanted
money. How much? ‘Well’, he said with his infectious smile, ‘I’m
playing a big game, and it requires big money. I think four billion
dollars would be a good start to help a reform that’s going further
than anything in eastern Europe.’ ”
Reform in Yugoslavia did indeed go further than anywhere else in
eastern Europe regarding efforts to dismantle the state-run economy and
reintroduce capitalism. Within months half of the nation’s industry was
closed down, throwing two million workers out of their jobs. Nearly
65,000 companies were privatised. Money due to be paid to the
individual republics was frozen to pay off the national debt to
international creditors.
Markovic expressed surprise at the ICTY that his policies led to the
“struggle of everybody against everybody else”. When Milosevic (who is
conducting his own defence) suggested he played a significant role in
events having as prime minister “de facto and de jure control over the
federal government” for several years, Markovic insisted his office had
“very modest competencies” and that he was unable to do anything about
Yugoslavia’s disintegration. In one telling episode he pointed to the
form the disintegration took. He told the court how Milosevic demanded
the post of Interior Minister and thus control of the federal
intelligence services in Markovic’s new government in 1989. Markovic
said it was of little consequence since all the republics and the army
had their own intelligence services and everyone was bugging each other.
Markovic produced in court a tape he had received from Bosnian
president Alija Izetbegovic in 1991, purporting to show Milosevic
planning to send paramilitary units to Bosnia.
He described to the court how Yugoslavia descended into chaos as the
leadership in each republic and the Yugoslav People’s Army sought to
protect its own privileges. The Serbian National Bank transferred some
$2 billion from federal funds to itself. The authorities in Slovenia
and Croatia refused to pay taxes in to the federal budget, 81 percent
of which financed the army. With the working class out on the
streets—600,000 workers were on strike in Belgrade—the army
contemplated a military coup. The Army General Staff planned to arrest
the Slovenian and Croatian leadership and looked to Milosevic. Chief of
Staff General Veljko Kadijevic told Markovic, “Milosevic is the only
one fighting for Yugoslavia and who would back this up if it wasn’t for
him?” and offered to install Markovic as President.
Now that his reform programme had indeed produced the “struggle of
everybody against everybody else”, Markovic resigned and flew to
Austria in December of 1991. In his resignation speech he complained
that his Federal Executive Council was “completely incapable” of
preventing “the economic catastrophe” from “becoming deeper with the
growth of hyper-inflation, millions of people unemployed, the
production reductions, a great deal of poverty for millions of
people—the citizens of this country who are not to blame for any of
this—and which will necessarily lead to a social explosion of
unprecedented proportions.”
Copyright 1998-2003
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved