"Dear listeners, the president of the Knin Municipality Assembly, Dr. Milan Babić, has declared a state of war in the entire municipality," was the sentence read by Manda Vuković, the announcer of Radio Knin, on August 17, 1990. She was twenty-something years old at the time, and she did it as if she were reading greeting cards from the show "Encounters in Wishes" on Sundays, which lasted for hours with messages such as "Happy marriage..." or "Happy departure to the JNA...".
Only later, when she became the sole and main culprit for the declaration of martial law, which was the beginning of the collapse of the common state of the SFRY, did she realize what was happening behind her back. Everything happened on August 17, 1990 at around 17 pm, and at 21 pm, Babić, in a guest appearance on Radio Knin, denied that he had ever declared a state of war. And Manda turns out to be the only culprit - the girl announcer of the local radio.
"And where is the city, where is Knin?", in the second half of December 1991, Major James Ikinia of the Kenyan Army asked his hosts from the 9th Corps of the JNA in a tavern, after he toured northern Dalmatia as part of a four-member vanguard of UN peacekeeping forces. to see where the dividing lines are and how to deploy "unproforce". When they explained to him that what he saw was in fact Knin, he only ironically stated: "One street, and the whole world is screwing up." And thus gave the best diagnosis.
How did it all begin? In the midst of inciting Serb-Croat or Croat-Serb "fraternal hatred", a special place was found in Knin, a municipality with 42.000 inhabitants in Northern Dalmatia, 85 percent of whom were Serbs. Since it was a large garrison, there were many elders of various nationalities. Benkovac and Obrovac went along with Knin, of course, also with a majority Serbian population. Until then, they were only heard of as Red Star fans.
Croatian propaganda did its job during the constitutional amendments in 1998 and the election campaign in 1990, when calls to the Ustaše and name-calling of Serbs began. The proposal of a certain Slavica Bajan, a delegate in the Croatian Parliament, to remove the Serbs from the Constitution as a constituent nation, came as "salt on a living wound", which was abundantly used by the propaganda machine of Slobodan Milošević from Belgrade. That's how all the dice came together, and the guild of "patriotism" on the one hand and "century-old defense of Serbian hearths" on the other, the people from those areas paid, in the end.
It would take a long time to explain what preceded the Knin Serb rebellion and the setting up of barricades (derisively called the "log revolution"). The main actors are dead or serving prison terms, like Milan Martić in Estonia, according to the judgment of the Hague Tribunal. The signatory of these lines was himself in those days in Knin, and many stories of ordinary people in those events were written.
That the order to read the proclamation to Radio Knin was given by Babić himself, no one in the know disputes, including the editor-in-chief at the time, Snježana Pokrajac Stamatović, who says to Vreme:
"At the moment when the state of war was declared, it seemed to me, as did most of my colleagues, that the situation was nevertheless harmless and naive, because we were a generation that had not experienced war and that was a category from our thinking... But very quickly everything irreversibly escalated into the famous Krajina-Croatian story.
And as for Radio Knin, on that August 1990 it became more famous than the media houses from all the major cities of the ex-Yugoslavia together... When the announcer read Babić's order declaring a state of war, the very next day journalists from all over the world flocked to the small the space of our radio to send reports about the Serbian barricades to their newsrooms, hinting at the beginning of the civil war in Croatia...
All of us journalists were under great tension. In the newsroom, there was a rush, nervousness, a typewriter and more chairs were being sought, announcements and telephone instructions from the Krajina leadership were awaited... Krajina must not meet the enemy unprepared, it was said in one of those announcements. From this distance, I am of the opinion that only people of "Dinaric dignity" could withstand all the dark valors on the imaginary canvas of Krajina's destiny, in the coming five years.
Barricades and guards were, it seems to me, initially set up for 'God forbid' and 'just in case', due to the possibility of unwanted guests passing by, which would be considered a provocation, but very soon the "logs" became a feature of everyday life in Knin. I remember that at that time, as a journalist, I was visiting people at all those barricades and places 'where Krajina was defending' and that a middle-aged man with a rifle on his shoulder (on the road to Šibenik) replied to me: 'Does it have to be like this': 'We are afraid so that 1941 does not return, only with new executors... The barricades are our voice for Yugoslavia and for a peaceful dream.''
Snježana's colleague Petar B. Popović, one of the two Knin radio journalists at the time, answered briefly when asked how he experienced everything:
"Everything happened quickly, almost lightning fast, and considering that the situation was changing hour by hour, I must admit that I felt enormous fear at the time and not knowing what would happen to us all in the future, but at the same time I naively believed that all of this would last a short time. In those days, there were also comical situations: I return home in the evening from the radio station, which is three or four kilometers away, I have to 'jump' the barricades in several places in the car; I know the people who are on duty there, they also know me, so I call them by their names so that they will miss me, and then from the darkness you only hear the repeating of weapons and a stern warning: 'Refuse, civilian!' What to do, you go back and go around, a much longer way."
"I AM REALLY FREE MILOSEVIC"
In order to understand the whole case, it should be said that the first "spontaneous event of the people" in Croatia was held in Knin on February 28, 1989, in response to the support that came from Slovenia to the Albanian miners in the "Stari trg" mine near Kosovska Mitrovica , at a meeting in "Cankarjev dom". The Slovenians were joined by the president of the Croatian trade union, Bernardo Jurlina, who asked in Dnevnik Televizija Zagreb on February 27 that all employees set aside one daily wage for help and solidarity with the miners in "Stari trg".
"As a man and a Serb, it hurt me," Milinko Sandić, then head of the economic sector at the Knin Screw Factory (TVIK), told Vreme. Originally from Montenegro, after studying in Belgrade, he went with his wife to live and work in her homeland. Upon arriving at work on the morning of February 28, he contacted union activists and the avalanche began to roll. At the mention of "Mother Serbia", the myth of Kosovo, it did not take long for the workers to rebel and the crowd marched in front of the Committee building in Knin, 700-800 meters away. Along the way, others joined them, and that's how it all started - fiery speeches were held, but also a letter of support was sent to Slobodan Milošević, signed by Sandić on behalf of the initiative committee of the protest.
"After a few days, the phone rings in my house in the evening and the voice introduces itself as Slobodan Milošević. Since the threats had been coming for days, I didn't 'react' to it, and told them to leave my family alone, not to disturb them. And then the voice says: 'Comrade Sandić, I am really Slobodan Milošević, the president of the Presidency of Serbia, here is my number both at work and in the apartment, call when you can. But don't come from Knin, because they're listening in on you." The next day, Sandić called the number from the office, the secretary answered, he made sure that it was really Milosevic's office.
Then he went to Bosansko Grahovo to a friend's house, turned Milosevic around and apologized to him. "He told me to go to Belgrade, I will get an apartment and a job for myself and my wife, because the Croats want to kill me." "I thanked him for the offer then and ten days later, when I went to see him in Belgrade, because I wanted to stay with the people that I inadvertently led into rebellion," says Sandić.
He stayed in Knin until the "Storm", and he never, especially when it came to intra-party disputes, did not hide his support for the side that Milosevic was leading. He denies his role in erecting the barricades, as do several other interlocutors, simply - they say that everything happened spontaneously and that Milosevic's emissaries only came later.
photo: Sava RadovanovićDOUBLE WITH STEER: Milan Martić and Milan Babić
WRONG DANGER BUTTON
And what happened on August 17, 1990?
Members of the newly formed MUP of Croatia started that morning to confiscate the weapons of the reserve militia in Benkovac and Obrovac. They succeeded in Benkovac, but not in Obrovac. As word quickly spread, the militia in Knin became alarmed. And the Knin SUP, with the militia station in Kistanje, had about 50 militiamen and inspectors, plus supporting services (administrative work, mechanics, cleaners). At the beginning of July, 48 of them also signed a letter to the Federal SUP that they would not accept the new Ministry of Interior (checkerboard) markings. On behalf of everyone, the then Senior Inspector Milan Martić signed the letter of the MUP of Croatia and the SSUP.
One of the signatories, who does not want his name to be mentioned in the newspaper in order not to have problems with the Croatian media, where he often goes, tells "Vreme" that he was together with Martić when they took the letter to a certain house in Kistanje. The then president of the Serbian Democratic Party, Jovan Rašković, was there - he should have reviewed the letter, supplemented or edited it if necessary.
"Rašković said that nothing should be touched, and we went to the company where Martić's wife worked, to send it from their telex to Zagreb and Belgrade," says our interlocutor. "But not only in SUPs, but also in the editorial office of the newspaper 'Politika'." And when 'Politika' published it the next day, they started putting pressure on us, we were threatened with dismissal, we were left without a salary. Even then it was said that the newly formed 'police officers' would attack us, disarm us and arrest us. We lived in uncertainty, anxiety about what would happen, but it didn't sway us."
He adds that he and his Croatian colleagues, of which there were five or six, had normal relations and communication during those events, but that they noticed that one by one they did not come to work and "disappeared". Later it turned out that they were transferring to the police in Šibenik and Zadar.
"On August 17, I was on duty, head of the day shift, from 7:19 a.m. to 17,18:15 p.m.," continues our interlocutor. "We heard, not through official dispatches, but privately, what happened in Benkovac and Obrovac, and we were in a state of anticipation. In the warehouses of the militia station, there were 'long barrels' and for us a reserve composition, and that was not a lot, maybe a hundred rifles. Semi-automatic, a few automatic, even some American 'Thompson' left behind from aid after the Second World War. Around 20:XNUMX p.m., people began to gather in front of the station. Babić arrives with them, he shouts at me: 'What are you waiting for, sound the alarm siren, the Mupov people have invaded Oton (a village XNUMX-XNUMX kilometers northwest of Knin), they are shooting, they have killed people'. While he is shouting, I am trying to get hold of Martić. No one answers the phone in his apartment. Babić shouts, the gathered crowd shouts and I press the siren button, and Knin is alerted, and the news about the declaration of martial law is immediately broadcast on the radio. Later I realize that instead of the button for general danger, I pressed the wrong one - for the end of danger. But in that insane asylum, no one noticed it."
MILAN BABIĆ AND THE VOICE FROM PODINARI
Citizens were in front of the militia station, looking for weapons, and our interlocutor could not wait to finish his shift and leave. That night, weapons were distributed not only to members of the Knin SUP reserve, but also to various other people.
"When I saw a few days later who they had given the weapons to, I rebelled, said that these were people whom I had personally detained and arrested many times. As a 'reward', I received a transfer as a guard at the railway station, which at that time was closed due to closed tracks."
This "militiaman" - he insists on that name - also says how they used to go around those barricades that the peasants had set up, even in some senseless places - three barricades on two kilometers:
"You come there, people are drunk, they see everything and anything. We ask them not to do stupid things, especially not to foreigners who are returning from the sea, they are wondering what is happening. Here is an illustration - I find myself visiting the barricade in the village of Prevjes, the border of the municipalities of Knin and Gračac, Dalmacie and Lika, and there they stopped Tuđman's advisor Slaven Letica, and found an old gun from the Second World War with him. The man has a proper permit, issued not by the new authorities, but by the previous authorities. I order them to return it to him and let him pass. He thanked him, and in the evening on HTV and tomorrow in "Slobodna Dalmacija" his entire tirade about how he was stopped, harassed, harassed, pretended that the Serbs did not kill him. And no one beat him. He did not mention that he freely carried the gun with him.
Our interlocutor also denies that anyone from the MUP of Serbia had a hand in the rebellion; simply, the propaganda of both sides did its job: "Only later did people from the DB of Serbia start coming, and then from the MUP, when the training started at the center in Golubić."
He says what it was like to perform the duties of a policeman then: "You go home, take a nap, eat and go to the station again." Working hours, family, children were not considered."
About the first barricades and the declaration of "martial law," trade unionist Sandić says: "On that day, I, who was the secretary of the municipal union and president of the union, was invited by Babić's emissaries to come to the municipal building. He is sitting there with his 'trade unionists' and trusted people, there are also two or three old partisans. They knew that we had an influence on the people and they started, as I realized later, their 'show'. Every few minutes, one of his associates comes to him with papers from the Information Center - those 'Mupovci' invaded Gračac, crossed the Kravlja Draga, the conflict in Otono... We listen to everything and think about what to do. Then a piece of paper arrives and Babić reads how 'a shepherd from Podinar reports that the Mupov people have come with six transporters from the direction of Kiev and are killing everyone'. Then I realized what a joke it all was and I asked Babić: 'And what did that guy from Podinar report when there is no telephone or radio station there, don't make us fools.' Then Babić chased us all away and stayed with his 'advisors', people who could be said to be anything but honest."
The rest is history.
