Yugoslavia: A History of its Demise - Indymedia

168 IRRECONCILABLE POSITIONS
program; the Prime Minister probably wanted to make points abroad with this.
The final acts of the Marković government in regard to the privatization of selfmanaging
enterprises provided the Serbs with a mechanism for seizing all
Slovenian property within their territories.
The protocols of the Slovenian republic presidency from March 1991 onward
hardly speak of anything other than practical preparations for independence. The
Slovenian schedule was fixed; precisely half a year after the plebiscite,
independence should become a reality. On 15 May 1991, the appropriate
guidelines were adopted in the republic’s presidium; now, as a resolution of the
presidency put it, Slovenes would “have to work intensely in all areas”. 136 Future
relations to the other republics would even now still be accepted in principle, but
first complete independence would have to be achieved. The Slovenian
parliament explicitly confirmed this in a resolution of 20 May 1991. 137 The
struggle over the state presidency hardly concerned Slovenia any longer; it had
significance in practical terms only for Croatia.
The Slovenian leadership was conscious that its aspirations for independence
faced the resistance and even opposition of the West. In his book, Foreign
Minister Rupel reported at length concerning Slovenia’s efforts to win some
understanding abroad for its point of view. 138 Occasionally, Rupel and Prime
Minister Peterle got in each other’s way; the latter often thought that he could
accomplish as much through his Christian Democratic party contacts. It is
superfluous to point out that the Slovenian efforts were combatted both by the
Foreign Ministry in Belgrade in general, and by Yugoslav diplomats of Serbian
nationality more specifically. Rupel told me how people from Belgrade tried to
make his life difficult when he was in Paris in November 1990 to take part in the
CSCE conference as a member of the Yugoslav delegation. When a similar
formula was chosen for the CSCE conference in Berlin on 20 June 1991, a few
days before independence, the Slovenian foreign minister found himself
confronted with an energetic plea, on the part of Budimir Lončar, for the
preservation of Yugoslavia, which he tried to rebut as far as possible in informal
talks. 139 The Slovenian presidency adopted a resolution denying that Slovenia bore
any responsibility for the breakup of Yugoslavia and declared that stability in the
Yugoslav region could only be achieved if one “radically altered” the relations
between the Yugoslav republics. 140
Slovenia was faced with a large number of practical problems which needed to
be resolved prior to independence. Since one could not count on immediate
recognition, one needed to assure, at a minimum, that Slovenia’s declaration of
independence would not meet with outright hostility. As Slovenian politicians
told me at the time, some countries had promised a “benevolent” reception,
above all Austria, but also Germany and Switzerland. Others, such as Italy and
the United States, held back. The confiscation of Slovenia’s hard-currency assets
had to be prevented; similarly, credit lines had to be kept open. It would have
been highly undesirable had Western creditors decided to make Slovenia liable
for the entire Yugoslav foreign debt. Slovenia let it be known that it fully