Is the Army Going Back to Kosovo?—The
General says, "We Shall Seè
By Srdjan Staletovic in Leskovac
Some 10,000 new military draft notices have
been printed and are ready for use at the headquarters of the
Yugoslav Army (VJ), report several sources close to its commanders.
Impossible to verify officially, the report continues to fuel
speculation that the army is ready for a fighting return to Kosovo.
Whilst many in Belgrade, northern Serbia and
Vojvodina are readying to back the opposition and force out the
regime, their fellows in central and southern Serbia—in
towns like Kraljevo, Krusevac, Aleksandrovac, Nis and Leskovac—are
readying instead to join the VJ in a new Kosovo war.
A volunteer unit from Nis that served alongside
regular VJ troops in Kosovo wrote to their local army command
earlier this month pledging readiness to return to Kosovo. The
letter was signed by 40 soldiers, including veterans of wars in
Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. "Only tell us where and how,"
they said.
"My 40 men already have arms, although
we left quite a lot of arms there (in Kosovo)," unit commander
"BJ" told Balkans Crisis Report. "With our (men)
who are already in the field, we do not need much, we are only
waiting for the order." BJ, from Nis, said they are going
back to Kosovo: "It has been delayed somewhat. Now we are
told `October 10 or 25'. Doesn't matter, we are ready."
Another junior officer, serving with the VJ
in Leskovac, showed Balkans Crisis Report his diary entry for
June 16, the day the VJ agreed to quit Kosovo. His note described
the deal as "a capitulation". He has no apartment for
his family and no regular income to support them, but is ready
to return to the province. "Well," he said, "I
am sorry that I am not there already."
Many VJ officers, and much of the VJ's military
equipment withdrawn from Kosovo in June were restationed in southern
Serbia. According to some, many troops remained behind in Kosovo
as civilians. An officer based in Leskovac at a command outpost
of a large VJ unit moved out of Kosovo said these ex-soldiers
"have been waiting for some timè for the force to
return.
"They have managed to survive and stick
it out there," he said, "but now it really angers me
that on one in the Army has the courage to go to Prizren (a Kosovo
town 50 kilometres south west of Pristina) and take them their
salaries. If for nothing else, we should return because of them."
He boasts that Serb forces are already operating
in areas of Kosovo where Serbs still live in numbers, and indeed,
NATO forces in Kosovo have complained that small Serbian paramilitary
units are crossing over into the province.
The officer in Leskovac said the Serb forces
were already well established. "The security infrastructure
in northern Kosovska Mitrovica (a Serb populated area) is under
control," he claims.
He claims that the Serbs' resistance in Kosovska
Mitrovica is organised by several hundred Serbian policemen in
civilian clothes who are "excellent at co-ordinating their
work with the (Serbian) military in that town".
Recent reports partially substantiate the claim.
One of three Serbs killed in a gun battle with Russian KFOR peacekeepers
in the village of Korminjane on 6 September, was found to be carrying
a police ID.
The UN resolution and the follow up military-technical
agreement between NATO and the VJ allows for the future return
of "an agreed number of Yugoslav and Serbian personnel"
to Kosovo, to guard Serb sites and monuments, without a specified
date when that should be. NATO says the time is not yet.
But many Kosovo Serbs who remained after the
VJ withdrew are already welcoming the return of Serbian "reinforcements"
to the province, in apparent defiance of NATO wishes.
Many fear attacks by vengeful Kosovo Albanians.
One, "AS", a former journalist with Radio Pristina,
did not want to discuss the situation over the phone from his
new home with his family in the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica.
"You know that I cannot talk this way, but ever since the
reinforcement arrived from Belgrade, I sleep better."
General Negojsa Pavkovic, commander of the VJ
Third Army Corps, based in Kosovo before withdrawing in June,
has been visiting VJ units back in Leskovac and Nis. He will not
talk about the return of the VJ to Kosovo.
"The thing is underway," he replied
briefly. "We shall see."
Some veterans of the conflict believe they were
not defeated but were ordered out by politicians. They argue that
they left a job undone and that they could give NATO a solid fight.
"Now I know the field and know how to fight," said reservist
"RS", a clerk from Aleksandrovac. "I expect we
will win this time."
Others in Aleksandrovac think differently. A
group of reservists who deserted their units in Kosovo when NATO
began airstrikes said they will not respond to the draft again.
"That was not war last time, and it would not be one next
time," said one. "We would be like a crushed gang."
In Krusevac, where the biggest revolt by VJ
troops took place during the 78-day NATO campaign, most of those
interviewed said they would not go back to Kosovo.
But senior reservist sergeant "MK",
from a village near Krusevac said that "at least 10 comrades
are willing to go to Kosovo as patriots". He called it a
matter of honour. "I did not go there in order to flee. We
will go again, but this time we shall stay, as the Serbs have
always done."
On Thursday Pavkovic's men began tactical exercises
around the Serbian town of Prokuplje, 20 kilometres southwest
of Nis. Last week a tank brigade that played a major part in the
Kosovo operations before June, moved from Kraljevo to the Krusevac
area. This is fuelling talk locally that the VJ indeed plans to
"go down again"—ie south to Kosovo.
A reservist captain, "DR" from Kraljevo,
finds other reasons to go. "If I don't have a job and salary
here," he asked, "why wouldn't I go to Kosovo for a
military daily fee?"
He claims that elite VJ units, including the
63rd parachute brigade and 72nd brigade have redeployed in the
region and divided up into operational units. "I hope we
shall now go to Kosovo with a clear plan of what and how,"
he added.
Analysts in Belgrade tend to dismiss talk of
invading Kosovo as sabre-rattling in the service of the regime.
The opposition has just got a programme of nationwide street protests
underway, aiming to remove the present government in favour of
a transitional authority. They also have their eye on Montenegro,
Serbia's junior partner in the rump Yugoslav federation.
"The regime will wait a week or two to
see whether the demonstrations will become massive. If the opposition
succeeds in it, the regime will need to divert attention to Kosovo,
but also to Montenegro," one analyst theorised.
Others argue that the army is not up to an all-out
war with the NATO pact. "It seems that there are still people
left in the Yugoslav Army whose palms are itching and who would
like to pin up another rank," said former army colonel Dragan
Vuksic to Balkans Crisis Report earlier this month.
Yet according to an opinion poll last week,
the army is still the most trusted institution in the country.
Aware of this and anxious to divert attention elsewhere, the government
may only now be deciding where to start the next crisis—Kosovo,
Montenegro or some other hotspot, such as the Muslim populated
Serbiann Sandzak region.
The regime now has limited options open to it.
If it decides to use the army to prolong its hold on power, it
will not be making a mistake to start their work in southern Serbia.
There, for the time being at least, the citizens would rather
go off to a new war behind the authorities, rather than join a
protest march behind the opposition.
Srdjan Staletovic is a regular IWPR contributor
from Belgrade.
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