Yugoslavia: A History of its Demise - Indymedia

WESTERN YUGOSLAVIA REACTS 115
There were admonitions to the new Prime Minister, Marković, that he finally say
openly who was blocking his policies. 68
In mid-November 1989, the Slovenes learned that the famous Committee for
Meetings set up by Kosovar Serbs had decided to hold a big meeting in
Ljubljana, in order to “explain” Serbian views to the Slovenes and to tell them
that the policy of their leadership was “false”. The Serbs thereby revealed their
intention of denouncing the new party program which the League of
Communists of Slovenia had just issued, in anticipation of its congress in
December.
This program was truly extraordinary in a communist context. It not only
approved political pluralism in the sense of a multiparty system but also concretely
demanded its immediate introduction, including free elections. To the question
whether he had considered that the communists might lose these elections,
Kučan said at the time that at least since their last congress the Slovenian
communists had ceased to view themselves as a special force. Maybe there were
older people who would find it difficult to part with a communist party of the
traditional type, but the party was finally there for all its members. 69 For the new
coat-of-arms the communists of Slovenia had adopted a blue field with three
yellow stars; this was supposed to express both the party’s and Slovenia’s feeling
of belonging to Europe.
The army leadership reacted to the new developments by becoming even more
convinced that the army was the only clasp holding Yugoslavia together. On 18
October, Kadijević told a group of party aktiv of the army that the Yugoslav
People’s army respected only the constitution of Yugoslavia. 70 That was a
questionable contention for, as was immediately emphasized from the Slovenian
side, the constitutions of the republics also belonged to the constitutional order
of Yugoslavia, which the army was obliged to protect; the generals were not
entitled to pick which constitutions they liked and which they did not. 71 The
officers’ understanding of their mission could result in a putsch or something
similar, as Kučan realized; Kučan replied that the Slovenes, for their part, had the
right to express their opinion about the army, insofar as it was also their army. 72
As for the meeting in Ljubljana, people disagree even today as to what
Milošević actually intended with it. A popular conjecture in Slovenia held that the
would-be demonstrators wanted to provoke unrest in Ljubljana, in order to create
a pretext for proclaiming a state of emergency for Slovenia. The conviction with
which the state presidency of Yugoslavia supported the meeting project was
suspect. In its 21/22 November session, the majority of the state presidency had
declared that the bad situation in the country demanded “direct consultations in a
democratic spirit” between “interested Yugoslav citizens” and the organs of
Slovenia. 73 After 1 December the state presidency became angry that the
Slovenian authorities had not followed its advice. 74
That the abandonment of the traditional communist emblems by the
communists of Slovenia contributed to the resolve to hold a rally in Ljubljana is
hardly likely. There were, of course, statements made in Serbia to the effect that