Yugoslavia: A History of its Demise - Indymedia

THE BEGINNING OF THE END 61
permanent commission under the chairmanship of a member of the state
presidency, had published a “document”. In this document, it was alleged that
the attacks on the army emanating from Slovenia displayed a tendency which
was threatening to the constitutional order. “Strong counter-measures” were
demanded; among other things the federal UDBa should “identify” the agents of
this “special war” against Yugoslavia and its constitutional order. 15
Apparently brought into line by this summons, one of the working groups of
the party presidium offered a proposal to resolve the crisis which, after its
acceptance in the federal party presidium and contingently in the Central
Committee, would have given the green light for concerted action in Slovenia,
perhaps even for the proclamation of a state of emergency. 16 The document
referred specifically to “attacks on the sovereignty and integrity of Yugoslavia”
and to an “abuse of democracy”. The document also took aim at those who had
opened up public space “for such attacks”, which is to say, the leadership of
Slovenia. In conclusion, it called for “decisive action” and “differentiation”,
including against those who bore “responsibility” for creating the possibility of
such attacks taking place.
The situation with which Kučan saw himself confronted at the secret 29 March
session of the LCY Presidium was grave. The Presidium presented a more
difficult challenge than the Central Committee in that the former was dominated
by dogmatic thinking and pro-army sympathies, which one could not say of the
Central Committee as a whole. Kučan could cite two points in his defense
against dogmatic figures such as Pančevski, Krunić, Lazar Mojsov, and Raif
Dizdarević, who took the army’s side. First, as he noted at the very beginning of
his report, 17 an expanded session of the Slovenian communist Central
Committee, in which representatives of the trade unions and other organizations
also took part, had agreed to reject the insinuations of the documents emanating
from Belgrade. The Slovenian communists, according to Kučan, rejected the
assessment contained in the document; it was, in their view, unacceptable, not
objective, not real. The Slovenian communists could not accept responsibility
for, or answer for the consequences of, such assessments which were embraced
by the term “counter-revolutionary”; moreover, the document seemed inclined to
some rather facile generalizations about “all Slovenes”. One had to see the
criticism of the army in Slovenia in the total context, above all in connection
with the miserable economic situation.
The second point, which Kučan made the pivot of his report, had to do with
the behavior and standpoint of the Military Council. The party presidium should
expressly concern itself with this, said Kučan. What were the legal provisions
which empowered precisely the Military Council to issue such wide-ranging
political assessments and even to call for specific actions That was a “new
quality” in the political discussion. The assessments in the Military Council were
distinct from those of the leading political organs. What did it mean when, in the
Military Council, Yugoslavia was defined as a “unified federal country”
Krunić, like Mojsov, had assured him that they had not heard anything about the