The Slovene Police - Policija

The Slovene Police 21
During the independence process
The “meeting of truth” – Operation SEVER /North/
The social and political processes and movements for the respect of human
rights and freedoms that started in the mid-eighties, gradually grew into a
plebiscite that decided for an independent Slovenia. The police played a historic
role in protecting the process of independence; from 1 December 1989 when the
members of the internal affairs authorities prevented the so-called “meeting of
truth” being held in Ljubljana and thus prevented the spread of the “yoghurt
revolution”, until the end of the process, which was represented by the departure
of the last Federal Army soldier from our territory on 26 October 1991.
Ljubljana’s secretariat of internal affairs issued a decree on the 20 th
November, which prohibited the meeting. Since the organisers of the
meeting insisted on coming to Ljubljana, the then leadership of the
Republic ordered, on November 27, the then Republic Secretary of
Internal Affairs, Mr. Tomaž Ertl, to take all measures necessary to
prevent the meeting, in compliance with the Internal affairs law. The
determination of the internal affairs authorities, wich had the support of
Slovene public, to stop the participants of the meeting at the border with
Croatia, diverted them away from Ljubljana. Though the activities and
measures taken by Slovene internal affairs authorities, which were
included in Operation Sever, in preventing a prohibited public assembly
or event were entirely legal, the situations in both Yugoslavia and
Slovenia were no longer such as they were before 1 December 1989, and
especially not the relations between the two.
At the Republic Square in Ljubljana there were mostly journalists and militiamen.
The so-called “meeting of
truth” scheduled for 1
December 1989, when
the Serbs and the
Montenegrins wanted to
come to Ljubljana to
proclaim their own,
“proper” truth about
Kosovo, represented the
first major professional
challenge for the Slovene
internal affairs
authorities. They replied
to this challenge with
Operation Sever, which
was the first case of open