Synthetic report - EURAC

new ally who would secure the strong position it once held. 106 JNA officers had
offered to defend Yugoslavia’s unity but were rejected by the Yugoslav Federal
presidency. 107 JNA became de facto “vojska bez države” – an army without a
state. 108
Milošević, claiming to be the guardian of Yugoslav unity and assertor of
socialist values, won the high representatives in the JNA over to his purposes,
pursuing his goals with behaviour models well known and well fitting to the JNA
from former Yugoslav times. 109
When tensions rose, the military servants were withdrawn to their
respective republics and the JNA-Corps became nationally homogenized with a
composition of almost exclusively Serbs and Montenegrins. 110 This “Serbization” of
the JNA was to some extent also brought about by members of other nationalities
which deserted from the army or simply left it, as they were unwilling to
participate in its attempts to preserve Yugoslavia. 111 Much of the personnel who
left the JNA became the root of new armies in the separatist territories. 112 The
decisive fact is that in a relatively early stage of the conflict the JNA was standing
shoulder-to-shoulder with Milošević’s regime and Serb separatists in Croatia and –
most evidently – in BiH. This mere fact was known to the Croats and Bosniaks and,
as will be argued below, could have contributed to ethno-mobilization. One may
also conclude that the Titoist JNA was not a source of ethno-mobilization but let
itself be used by politician as an instrument of it.
4.3.2. The Republics
Military staff in the territories barricaded by the Serbs comprised regular JNA units,
local Territorial Defence Forces (hereinafter: TDF 113 ), Serbian and Montenegrin
TDFs, local and Serbian Ministry of Interior (hereinafter MUP) police forces and
paramilitary units. 114
The JNA officially withdrew from the Croatian territory in May 1992, leaving
equipment behind, which provided the local Serb rebels with arms. Initially the
JNA did not openly take sides between the Croatian government and the Croatian
Serb population. With these events, the JNA openly took sides with Serbs in
Croatia. 115
A similar scene developed in BiH, even though the incidents in the forefront
of violent conflict were less spontaneous than in Croatia. The JNA’s own newsletter
regularly issued accusations against the Croatian and Muslim parties and individuals
for taking a hostile attitude towards Serb leaders and the Army. 116 The Bosnian
report traces the scaremongering in the Serb population by diverse Serb institutions
precisely. In November 1989 the National Security Service of Serbia had already
evacuated the Serb population in two Bosnian municipalities allegedly under
106
Pešić, 14.
107
Petricusic, 8.
108
Eiff, 180.
109
Petricusic, 8.
110
Pešić, 15.
111
See Eiff, 197
112
The armies of Slovenia, Croatia and BH consisted mainly of military personnel and
equipment of the former JNA. Final report of the United Nations Commission of Experts established
pursuant to security council resolution 780 of 1992 (hereinafter: “Bassiouni Report”),
Annex III, The military structure, strategy and tactics of the warring factions, available
under http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/comexpert/ANX/III.htm, at § II.
113
Which were republican Territorial Defence Forces.
114
Petricusic, 8.
115
Petricusic, 8.
116
Ćurak, Seizović, Šačić, Turčalo, 18, 19, 20.
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