These days (SEPTEMBER 1995, ed.) a seven-year-awaited book is coming out of the press, published by Radio B-92. Its title is "The Road to the Void" and in it Ivan Stambolić, the former president of the Presidency of Serbia, today the director of Jubmes Bank, a politician who widened the way for Slobodan Milošević to become his victim very quickly, talks about the SAN Memorandum and the Eighth Session, the atmosphere of intrigue, of hypocrisy and incredible conspiracies in which power was stolen step by step, the behind-the-scenes games of Nikola Ljubičić, the silence of Draža Marković, the miscalculations of the Yugoslav political leadership, the tragedy in the Paracin barracks, but also analyzes the political context that enabled the events that pushed Serbia and Serbs into ruin. Special chapters are dedicated to the negotiated economy, republics and federation, "Serbia in the scissors of the provinces". Answering the questions of publicist Slobodan Inić, the entire book was written in the form of an interview, Stambolić explains that there was no need for war. The final chapter says that "there must be peace", although even there the picture is not overly optimistic. "Wearing from war somewhat cooled the warlike passions and made all the senselessness of this fratricide more obvious."
Unfortunately, the awareness has not yet prevailed that the war goals, even if they could be achieved, would not bring any good to us or others. And as far as we are from the truth about the monstrous nature of this war, we are as far from the awareness of the necessity of peace," Stambolić assesses. In another place, he says: "If it is really true that we are a people against whom everyone is against, then that is a serious reason to think about why this is so, and not to take it as an argument for behavior contrary to the whole world, or to even we praise! The Serbian people came up with a proverb: "When they tell you that you are drunk, and you lie down and roll around!"
Why should everyone be against us, tell yourself? Well, we are not a nation that would cause the jealousy of others with some of its merits for world civilization. We are neither Japanese, nor German, nor Swedish, nor American. On the other hand, we were neither a terrorist nation, nor lepers, nor humanoid creatures of humanity. Although in recent years we have caused great harm and shame to others, and most of all to ourselves, that is no reason for everyone to be against us." Be that as it may, the bridges that the Serbian people built throughout history towards the world have been destroyed, we are spoken to "as with the sick man playing with matches at the gas station" and now "we must learn to critically judge this terrible outburst from history, this comprehensive defeat. Finally, we must once again seek and find ways of agreement and cooperation with all peoples, above all, with those with whom we share our living space.
Peace is an indispensable prerequisite for such a turnaround. But peace cannot be won by war. In that case, we will have afterlife peace, the one that, I guess, the titular immortals counted on, elevating the Serbs to the 'heavenly people'". And more: "Those who caused and heated up the war, the nationalists, cannot now sober up the people, formulate their real interests, search for and find a way out of the impasse." Likewise, the masters of war cannot master peace. After all, in peace no one needs masters...
"This is not a book about 'Ivan and Sloba', this is primarily a book about Serbian nationalism, its destructive power, its blind forces and archaic ideas that turned the Serbian people into a bunch of mass terrorists without religion and law at the end of this century," he writes. in the introduction, Slobodan Inić concludes: "Milošević was completely explained by his politics." His only political victories are in the defeat of the Serbian people! The politics of Ivan Stambolic was stopped and broken. That's exactly why, after all, the Eighth Session is not over...
TANKS' POLICY: Those who have forgotten and those young people who don't even remember because the Eighth Session was held eight years ago will find a picture of the atmosphere in Stambolic:
"Immediately after the Eighth Session of the Central Committee, its Presidency will adopt the information about the session in question, which must be 'worked out' by all the basic organizations of the League of Communists, that is, all members and leaders must declare about it, and carry out the famous 'differentiation' , like the one from 1948. Then Stalin threatened to liquidate Yugoslavia from the outside, and now it had to be shot at from the inside. To that extent, the secrecy of the minutes was greater, more mysterious. The mobilization took place under a veil of terrifying secrecy, under cryptic threats of public branding, calls for treason...
And there was a big cut-off of leading people in committees, municipalities, companies, institutions. The membership was especially served by demagogic propaganda that Yugoslavia was threatened by other Yugoslav nations, but not by the Serbs, and that, as Ljubičić predicted, only the Serbs and the Yugoslav People's Army could defend it! And such a defense itself is a public verdict on Yugoslavia. What else could it be when it implies that the Serbs and the JNA will shoot at the other Yugoslav peoples who also make up that Yugoslavia, and all, as it were, to preserve Yugoslavia! Yugoslavia, therefore, was not killed by a stray bullet.
This will happen completely as a result of the putschist way in which the state power was de facto overthrown at one party session, at the Eighth Session, by force, chase, speed...
When power is still absolutized with the help of the street, then it must be run street-wise, with the sole aim of expanding autocracy through aggressive means...
Only when I think of those mammoth rallies in Belgrade, in all cities in Serbia and Montenegro...
"I see, you are particularly interested in politicians who feel elated when they are applauded even out of simple courtesy, and without applause, they are simply scaly." That is why I am referring to Nikola Ljubičica. Nikola really loved those applauses. So when he comes to a meeting somewhere, if there is no applause, he stands in front of the first row, turns to the audience and begins to clap his hands, showing the audience what to do. That's why he aggressively imitated Tito's movements, gait and vocabulary.
The rallying mass was brought in front of every state institution where the finger was pointed for 'demolition'. Legally elected leaders in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Titograd, Pristina, wherever they are... had to run away to save their heads from the crazed guards of Yugoslavia. And that "Selected Army" with Chetnik cockades above the heads of Njegoš, Vuk, Slobodan Milošević... with bloodthirsty mascots, slogans, banners, Komite shubaras, fiddles, knives in their teeth... with an entire iconography of the darkest populist kitsch, judged on the spot by roaring, by name-calling, chanting, applause for every swear word, every threat and judgment. Everything that was not in that mob was declared traitorous, hostile, anti-Serbian, unpopular...
After all, did the remains of Prince Lazar have to be paraded demonstratively through the entire 'Serbian area', the future battlefield, precisely in the days of nationalist sparks in that entire area? What was wanted by the instrumentalization of a prince and a saint, if not to raise the nationalistic temperature? In that overheated atmosphere, what was being said to other nations by that act?...
The killing of Yugoslavia, therefore, has begun in earnest, and that "in the name of the Serbian people". Everything, Stambolić reminds, takes place officially under the democratic name "people's event". And then it's Slovenia's turn.
"I have never interfered in the awarding of various awards, but I did around Sedmojulska in connection with Danilo Kish." I told Vukoj Bulatović, who was in charge of it in the Presidency, because it is an award for literature, but it is a state award, that it would be good if Danilo Kiš received it. Nikola Ljubičić was angry with me because of Kiš. From the conversation, I got the impression that he had some information about Kish, considered him an emigrant, an enemy...
'There are some writers in Paris.' Kish received the award, and Nikola remained angry.»
Why, asks Inić, did they skip Croatia?
For two reasons, answers Stambolić: "Croatia behaved passively and will behave like that until Milošević's nationalist counterpart, the irreplaceable partner Tuđman, is finally legitimized in it." From that moment, they will maintain each other's power by keeping their subjects at war and, even, being in agreement and collusion so that the tactical movements on the front would serve as profitably as possible against the internal opposition. And at the same time, keep in mind that Serbs and Croats live in the most uninhabited European area and that they have been in a crisis of population growth for a long time, and that, despite this, they are waging a war for the expansion of ethnic territories at the cost of exterminating other peoples and themselves. Milošević and Tuđman will make a deal to remove Anto Marković, the president of the Federal Executive Council, and begin negotiations on the dismemberment of Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is, on the breakup of Yugoslavia. It is not without reason that it was said a long time ago, 'When a Serb and a Croat agree, even lead can swim'".
Since, therefore, Slovenia is the first and most determined to alarm that Yugoslavia cannot be defeated
and will not maintain the politics of the Eighth Session, followed by the seduction of an economic blockade by the Serbian leadership against Slovenian goods, the intrusion of the Serbian coup plotters into the monetary system of Yugoslavia, "the passing of the Constitution of Serbia on tank tracks and in blood on the streets of Pristina." According to that Constitution, it is to be applied wherever the Federal Constitution is not in agreement with it, which was the first legalization of Serbia's secession from Yugoslavia". This is followed by the incitement and organization of the rebellion of the Serbs in Croatia, the sending of the JNA to Vukovar, Dubrovnik, and then to Sarajevo, Mostar...
"All of this is basically implementing the conclusions and reviving the spirit of the Eighth Session," says Stambolić. Nevertheless, he explains why the war was not inevitable: "Such a fratricidal plague by no means resulted from irreconcilably conflicting interests." On the contrary, not only was he of no interest to anyone, but absolutely no one, nor did he bring him any benefit, but he only caused immense damage and shame to everyone...
Even if Yugoslavia did not survive for some 'objective' reasons, and I am convinced that it could have survived, nothing stood in the way of a peaceful breakup or greater independence of its constituent parts...
"Such a bloody drama, despite the preparations for its execution, did not have to happen." For example, when Milosevic knelt in front of the students on March 9, the Army responded to his call, but did not have to, and, for the first time in half a century, drove tanks into the streets of Belgrade and attacked the people. After that, as 'Politika' gently called them: 'military vehicles'! according to the logic of things and the psychology of the forces, they could no longer return to the barracks hangars. After all, the Army had already occupied Serbia with the arrival of Ljubičić to the leading position in Serbia. They needed a sufficiently "justifying" angry enemy, let's say in the form of Croats. From the streets of Belgrade, the tanks had to continue on to Vukovar."
WHO IS BEHIND THE MEMORANDUM: Before Vukovar, March 9, Špegelje and the Eighth Session itself, the SANU Memorandum was, according to Stambolic, "the obituary of Yugoslavia". What did its authors want?
Do you remember that famous remark by Čkrebić that he addressed to you at the Eighth Session about leadership and Serbia's tiredness of leaders?
"I have already said that I was not the leader of Serbia and in Serbia in the sense that it is understood in this country today, despite all the anti-leadership phrases fired against my person at the Eighth Session. And after. And the fact that Dušan Čkrebić found himself publicly reprimanding me for, supposedly, leadership pretensions is not surprising. Čkrebić was a man of leeward and edge, blocking caution, waiting, and more a hunter of other people's mistakes than an initiator. By the way, he understood everything but, as it turned out in action, the most in the 'applied science' of conspiracy! Can you imagine that sickly, proverbially tactful, timid 'diplomat', how overnight he turns into a fearless warrior and advises Kosovo Serbs to go out into the streets instead of into the woods! Sometimes I wonder: when such people wake up in the morning, how long does it take them to establish who they are, who they really are after all the political manipulations.»
"Essentially, what Serbian nationalists have always wanted is the so-called Greater Serbia." Velmar Janković most skilfully formulated this disastrous idea for the Serbian people even before that war: 'Serbia and its Yugoslavia'". Elsewhere, he says that the Memorandum sought to "homogenize the country through hegemonization .
Stambolić. to this day it is not clear how this document appeared. "Even the state security, at least as they told me, did not know how that document appeared." The creators of the Memorandum said that it was only a working paper, that is, it was non-existent. This caused confusion because "how can one critically determine a paper for which one does not know whether it is official or not." And especially if that paper is still 'stolen'...
Today it is obvious that the Memorandum was and remains very much in existence, but that is why the Serbian people are on the verge of their existence". Stambolić hopes that "we won't, I guess, fiddle about mejdans for another six centuries, and leave the chips to the Japanese" and quotes Laza Kostić: "I'm not saying that you should break the fiddle, just let it hang a little on the peg!"
What do you think today, after all, who was behind the Memorandum?
"There is no conspiracy in our 'patriotic' understanding that everyone else is to blame and that they are setting us up for something that we have nothing to do with." All of these are "our" people, ours "from the bottom of the bucket" and in the fact that one day among the creators of the Memorandum there will be those who will accuse others of creating that handbook of Serbian nationalism. Well, the "patriarch" of Serbian nationalism has already denied that he participated in all of this. Now they also see that their "heavenly" people have ascended to the heavens, but in pieces, in coffins, on crutches, that there is no one left to whom, even if it is empty consolation, they can promise that "the people will gild it all"...
The memorandum, Stambolić explains, was created at the moment when the rigorous criticism of the situation in society, especially the relations in Serbia, was completed, when progress was already being made in finding permanent solutions, when the Presidency of the SFRY adopted the decision on the proposal to change the Constitution in the part that concerns Serbia, which is all took away food and silenced the nationalists. They didn't have to wait any longer and then the Memorandum came out faster and better. "What is of primary importance for the nationalist headquarters in Kneza Mihaila Street, which is the speed of action, is submissively carried out by its 'infantry' under the operational command of the first fighters of the so-called 'anti-bureaucratic revolution'...
Hence the open calls to 'bypass legal institutions', and even the call to the Serbian people to 'stand on their feet'. Everything in accordance with the public currency of the predecessors of the 'bureaucratic anti-revolution', both constitutional and non-constitutional, both statutory and non-statutory and through institutions and beyond them, everything is legal. And that, in fact, is an open invitation to anarchy; to chaos, and even to war." Finally, "the reading of the Memorandum represented a war ticket to the leader of the Union of Communists of Serbia. And here is the shortest way to destroy everything that twenty million Yugoslavs built for half a century. Thanks to that very warm reception at the top SK, the Memorandum did not remain an academic roulette of supposed immortals. It became a deadly chauvinist proclamation, a war manifesto for the already recruited commissars of Serbia."
Speaking about the origin of the Memorandum to SANU, which he immediately warned that it would raise a "flooding wave of violence and blood", Stambolić also said this: "When one Vasa Čubrilović, a congratulatory old man, otherwise the oldest academic, was horrified to see how far this bigotry was going, then let that be enough for you. He told how a whole group of 'immortals' had been poring over Bosnia's maps for years, trying to discover even a goat path that could be used to walk from Belgrade to Karlovac, while passing exclusively through Serbian villages and towns!»
Milošević does not declare himself on the Memorandum?
"Except at one closed meeting in the State Security." In public, not a word"...
"I guess what you mean about Slobodan Milošević," was the answer to the question of what was Stambolic's biggest mistake. However, although he defines the arrival of Milošević as "a turning point, a fateful personnel solution after which the social cart hit the bottom side", Stambolić believes that the most fatal personnel solution was the arrival of Nikola Ljubičić from the JNA on the political scene of Serbia and Yugoslavia. "The fact that Serbia chose a retired general with no retirement-oriented pretensions among so many still vital and prudent first-time fighters will prove to be a decisive mistake." Careerists like Ljubicica never allow themselves such mistakes. This is objectively their advantage in the struggle for power...
You seem to be faking a direct answer a bit. For years, you prepared Milosevic to replace you, you gave him places like "on a plate" and wherever you go, he follows you...
Answering questions about the labeling and arrests of Serbian nationalists, Stambolić said, among other things, that the majority of Serbian nationalists, especially among the so-called humanist intelligentsia, accepted that label as a title." "For many, it served as a qualification and pass for entering SANA, universities and other national institutions."
You're not going to say that Serbian nationalists were privileged, are you?
"Outside the party, in many respects they are." They were verbally under the watchful eye, and in reality under the careful patronage of everyone and everything that was anti-communist or, simply, reactionary, abroad and at home. And then those multi-profitable games with so-called 'cases' which, as someone rightly noted, 'the Party propagates, the state finances, and the Udba forces'! And those 'cases' mostly arose on a nationalist basis."
There was also a joke at the time: 'Sloba is going to a new position again. Don't! Ivan must be moving up!'
"Let the jokes go... And I thought it would be easier for me to restrain him than to constantly push someone else." When he is too hasty, too much, we will measure. He is well received in Yugoslavia because of the vigorous actions he carried out in Belgrade: They consider him a true communist, more undoubtedly than me.
So, a man without fear and flaws?
"I also knew his flaws, but I was convinced of the primacy of virtues." If you've been following along, you'll remember that I expressed some reservations about him when proposing it. He took that hard. And that's the first time he wasn't able to hide his hurt...
I saw, for example, that he knows how to be too hasty, to choose shortcuts, to step hastily, to conclude superficially, to judge too harshly, and a number of similar faults characteristic of a "hot-headed" man. However, I also counted on the fact that in team work, in the spirit of collective leadership, in the conditions of the already achieved degree of democratization of both society and the party, that its flaws will be less manifested, that they will be mitigated and lost with time and work.
Why did Milošević seem to you to be the most suitable for that striking position?
"Let me repeat... Since we were facing uncertain political struggles for reform changes, primarily in the economic and political system, there was a need for a determined and dynamic man to head the largest party organization in Yugoslavia, Milošević or someone else, it doesn't matter. At that time, Milošević seemed to me to be mostly like that. Today, no matter how critical I am of him, I could not say that he did not possess the mentioned qualities.
However, the trouble is that I did not assume that all these qualities can turn into monstrous flaws if they are manifested in extremes. I had neither reason nor occasion to sense in determination a propensity for violence as its extreme, to sense warlikeness in combativeness, to foresee recklessness in energy, unscrupulous tyranny in ambition, rashness in dynamism...
"OLDERS" WITH MILOSEVIC: - If you admit that you were not perceptive enough, there were people who thought differently about Milosevic?
"There were verbal and written warnings. I will quote only a few fragments from a letter that was put on my desk by the president of the Commission for Culture, Vladimir Jovičić, a year before Milošević's election. Jovicic warns that he addresses me in writing, even though we see each other almost every day, because he wants it to remain on record that he considers Milošević 'dishonorable', 'arrogant', 'power-loving' and the like. I will quote part of the letter here. "In this age of heated careerist passions, while others are clattering in the fever of hierarchical deployment, I am asking you to delete me from all party and state payrolls. I address you with this humble request not out of affectation and not out of cowardice in the face of fierce clashes that are yet to come.
I was afraid of something else, I was morally afraid to stay in the company of younger 'winners', some of whom, even before they were enthroned, very lightly distribute jokes and promotions, insults and ranks, curses and easy promises. Are we allowed, Ivan, to win over and push people away in such a dirty way? After so many confrontations with people, I guess we should at least save comrades and companions, not to mention gaining new ones...
If the past period was marked by a struggle for power, then in the next you have to show why you needed it. And who are you going to show it to if the able-bodied start shying away from us because of those who spit around holding on to your curds, who are intoxicated with power and in that depravity are seriously injuring the people around them...
Everyone knows that you are the backbone of the whole turnaround, and whoever of us commits something stupid, it will inevitably damage your reputation. When the voters circle Sloba's name tomorrow, they will, in fact, be declaring for you. I cringe when I think that I am in your shoes, because some of those you have brought out on your neck are not able, vanity prevents them, to understand that, so they are ready to play lightly with big things...
I am not guided by any narrowly personal reason in submitting this resignation. I'm just backing away from moral temptations, from the itch of tyranny and vanity, which, here, befalls some future 'winners'. They are ready to lash out at comrades if they don't have the balls or turn their back too carelessly...
Why did you ignore this?
"Exclusively because I knew Milosevic much longer and more comprehensively than Jovicic, who, to put it briefly, was not on the same wavelength with him, they came into conflict."
Stambolić mentions that he received other warnings from Svetomir Lalović, the Secretary of Internal Affairs, who warned him that "the whole of Serbia is talking about how something is happening in the Serbian top", via "some Serbian academics" who are asking to overcome disputes with the Academy. because otherwise there may be an upheaval, to Cvijetin Mijatović, who warns that various forces in Serbia are uniting against Stambolic...
During that time, for Stambolic's fiftieth birthday, Milošević "was determined to award me the Hero of Socialist Labor Order... Now I understand that he actually planted that order on me."
When did you lose your vigilance?
"At the time of the attempt for a single political force in the country of SK, to simulate something like competition in political life by presenting itself to the public with several candidates, its own, of course, in the elections. Thus, it was expected, and even suggested during the candidacy for party president, to go with more candidates. I remember that Milosevic, as soon as he heard about it, jumped as if scalded: 'Not at all. I don't agree. I want to be the only candidate'…
But that same Milošević will show his sense of 'democracy' with more candidates right after that, during the election of the new president of the Belgrade City Committee. He requested that, in addition to Pavlović, more candidates apply for that position"...
Milošević knew how to expose himself even before the Eighth Session, especially when it comes to private ambitions. At a private dinner, probably before the election of the president of the Central Committee, or during his candidacy, a conversation started "among comrades" about whether he, or someone else, should be president. Some present say that there was something to be heard: 'This is my last chance. I won't have them anymore. Let me pass now or burn'. Didn't you find that a little strange?
“You say at dinner…
Don't take it too seriously. Well, we were already used to such a 'hot' Slobo...
Do you feel guilty or personally responsible?
"It tormented me until those first, so-called 'most democratic elections,' when it was announced that Milosevic was elected president of the Republic with 104 percent of the vote. At that moment I felt a great relief. My mistake was enthusiastically accepted by the whole nation. After that, the people take all responsibility for him. And why did the Serbian people want that great deception called Slobodan Milošević? In any case, I underline: the Serbian people wanted deception. And he lives in deception, look how long, despite everything that has happened and what is happening to him"...
As the Eighth Session approached, Milošević was rallying his supporters behind him. Slobodan Inić notes that the "old men", i.e. the old revolutionaries, were mostly for Milosevic.
"Undoubtedly. They liked Milosevic in many ways. He often met with some of them. Much more than me. They liked him for several reasons. He reminded them of the time when they were young, strong, determined. They loved his energy, sharpness, that recognizable style of a revolutionary. Then, he consulted them. They liked that. No doubt, he knew how to win over people when he needed them. Back then, he was accommodating and earnest, kind and 'well-mannered', gentle and even obedient. He remembered, for example, birthdays, and he was indispensable with congratulations, and with presents. Everyone loves them, even when they are working, at your service and full of good will"...
Only Draža Marković was not fooled?
- It seems that Draža knew about Milosevic what none of us did. But, neither then nor later, Draža did not tell anyone about it. However, if Draža had come forward with this openly, and not in the form of a mysterious silence about 'something' that undermines Milošević's election, the election of the President of the Central Committee might have taken place differently...
Surely you also met Draž later?
-Immediately after the election of the new president, Draža told me that history will never forgive me for that election, that the Serbian people will never forgive me for pushing Milosevic through, that Milosevic will destroy everything.
Inić notes that the majority of fighters and members of the SK support the man who will destroy their party, robbing it of its property. Milosevic gets special help, Stambolić replies, in the Yugoslav top, because the communists see the "strongest" Serb as an "acceptable" Serb, and "they help Milosevic more with that trick than with any truth about him."
Do you think he never had any politics of his own?
"I would say it like this today: he came to power with my politics, with his spouse's politics he broke up with me and took over the politics of the Serbian nationalists and broke up Yugoslavia and entered the war." By accepting the policy of the international community, now they want peace! As you can see, he never actually had his own politics! Other people's policies had him. And if it has its own policy, it is the policy of staying in power.
Aggression was his only possibility to come to power, but now he thinks that peacemaking will keep him in power. Greed is the source and outlet of everything, with the fact that aggressiveness was and remains quite real and a matter of his choice, while peacemaking is forced and fake.
The following is a chronology and analysis of the definitive split between Stambolic and Milošević. Stambolić defines the phases: "differences", "disagreements and even friction", "divisions" and, finally, "the events in Kosovo Polje are already causing cracks among us of such a nature that it is rather time to think about who will push whom into them, rather than how to rehabilitate them".
It is a time of obsession with "unsurpassed heroism and New Testament martyrdom." In Belgrade theaters, the plays "The Decline of the Serbian Empire", "The Thessalonians Speak", "They Killed the Prince", "The Battle of Kolubar", "Protini's Memoirs", "The Secret of the Black Hand", "Oh Serbia, There's No Snow", "Emigration Srbalja", "Saint Andrew's Rhapsody"...
Milošević "is still trying to form a team or create a hard core in the city and republican party leadership from people mainly from the University and from the media, namely those who were known as dogmatists, sectarians, hard-headed, torn between politics and science, and neither in one valued".
JOURNEY TO KOSOVO: Ivan Stambolić sees "from the press release of the Presidency of the Central Committee that its president Milošević, without the usual consultations, is taking certain political steps. It performs completely independently. In addition to the fact that we have been arguing about personnel solutions from the beginning, he is 'promoting' candidates behind my back...
At the so-called Coordination Body, whose work includes, in addition to leading people from the Republic, the most prominent officials of the federation, he replaces the long-standing practice of consultation and agreement with arbitrary decision-making. It was too big a decision for him to make solely on his own. I conclude that he does not decide on his own, as it seemed, but that he does so with prior agreements with others. I am beginning to understand that there is an illegal nucleus from which we are excluded: me, the President of the Assembly and the Prime Minister. As far as I remember, that was the first clear sign that something secret was going on, and that it was organized. It finally snapped out of me."
Milošević "did not emerge from Ljubičić's cabinet", and "Ljubičić was skilled and very experienced in behind-the-scenes games". The shadowy role is played by Boško Krunić, then president of the SKJ Central Committee, and Lazar Mojsov, president of the Presidency of the SFRY.
"The conflict in the leadership of Serbia will suit them at that moment." Vidoje Žarković and Marko Orlandić, who supported the Eighth Session, and Stipe Šuvar are also behaving in the same way. "The most grotesque was the visit of almost the entire Yugoslav state and party leadership to Belgrade, which ended with a dinner hosted by Milosevic in Skadarlija." They came to his feet."
"It started in Kosovo" is the title of the ninth chapter of the book, although it is said that Milošević did not care much about Kosovo at the beginning. "Kosovo was not of political interest to him, and secondly, he was a man, so to speak, of 'global' and 'conciliatory formulas' from a small pocket, he was not attracted by the Kosovo knot". (Elsewhere, Stambolic tells how Milošević was surprised by Stambolic's raising the issue of the position of Serbs in Croatia. "Well, he didn't even care about the Serbs across the Drina".)
"With the election as president of the Central Committee Presidency, Milošević was not elected as any kind of leader; the leader will be created later. In creating a leader and building his cult, a big role will be played, in addition to media propaganda, by the intellectual elite. Songs will be composed and written about him, painters will paint his portraits and pay homage to him, his photographs will be reproduced. Academics will begin to compete: Dobrica Ćosić will compare Milosevic with Nikola Pašić, Mihailo Marković with Roosevelt, Milorad Ekmečić with De Gaulle, Milovan Danojlić with Karađorđe. "Modernizing" Njegoš, he will write that he is
Milošević 'breathed life into the Serbian soul'.
So, how did it happen that in April 1987, Slobodan Milošević shaved himself in Kosovo Polje?
Stambolić recalls that a year before that, he himself attended a similar meeting. The occasion was the arrest of Kosta Bulatović, one of the main organizers of protest rallies in Kosovo. Stambolić at the Presidency of SFRY asks who is behind the decision on Bulatović's arrest. He gets no answer. "And that was enough for me as an answer." Upon his return, Stambolić said at the Presidency of the Central Committee of the SKJ: "The situation in Kosovo is such that it is enough for a well-known Serbian nationalist to shout a murderous slogan at a meeting of citizens and the Serbs will rise up in an uprising."
That is what Slobodan Milosevic will do.
Did you advise Milosevic on what and how to speak?
"Of course. He asked me for it. Don't give in to emotions, I told him. It's a hot topic in a hot place. It's a fire. Pour cold water, but so that they don't scream at you because of it, but so that they can hear and receive you better! I envisioned an atmosphere of tension and seething passions, emotions, eruptive, always suitable even for violence. I recommend to him: 'Watch out, cool heads!'
However, he succumbed to that atmosphere. He even added fuel to the fire! And his famous sentence: 'No one must beat the people!' it is not his, it was not created on the spot. It is of a different origin. We had almost vowed long before that we would resign before circumstances forced us to order anyone to raise a hand against the people. I repeated that a hundred times to him and others. Did he understand me when he meant only the Serbian people by the term nation?"
PRELUDE FOR THE EIGHTH SESSION: Stambolić says that then he "thinks the worst", i.e. that Milosevic is in favor of backward changes, of returning to the good old centralism in the state and the party, first of all because he knew that everything that is bureaucratic and dogmatic is always wary of changes that they bring uncertainty for personal and group interests, and in addition there are Serbian nationalists for whom all changes for the better in society are objectively changes for the worse in their positions. And, "there are grounds for these two large groups to unite soon in order to
prevented the further course of the exit from the crisis".
Are you saying that, finally, joint forces were launched against Albanian separatism from the whole of Yugoslavia and that they cooperated?
"Yes!" This momentum was carried over to the next year without anything campaign-related or short-term. Changes to the Republic's Constitution were accelerated in order to clearly define the legal integrity of Serbia and its unity. It was only necessary to persevere, persevere, not rush, not provoke, let the fruits of this endeavor ripen naturally.
However, as we mentioned a little while ago, at the behest of nationalists from Belgrade, and Dobrica Ćosić was assessing when the time was right, there was a commotion and a protest gathering of Serbs from Kosovo, in Kosovo Polje, from where Milošević would return patriotically excited. He immediately demanded that the Central Committee of the SKJ be convened and that the situation in Kosovo be put on the agenda...
I had reservations about this proposal, as well as many others."
Why?
"In the middle of the realization of the conclusions of both the Yugoslav and republican authorities, another public discussion at the Central Committee of the SKJ can do more harm than good." I communicate my reservations to the republican leadership, not the federal one. Milosevic manages to convene the session. As we shall see, it will open the door to the Eighth Session.
But it was preceded by a session of the Presidency of the SFRY, suddenly called for the evening hours, on the eve of the session of the Central Committee of the SKJ."
And it was convened on the same topic?
"The immediate reason for convening the session is the announcement of Serbs from Kosovo that they will march en masse to Belgrade in order to demonstrate in the park in front of the SFRY Assembly building during the session of the Central Committee of the SKJ on Kosovo and thus put pressure on the Central Committee. For this reason, it was even considered postponing the meeting or changing the place of its holding. More information came in that dramatized the situation. At that session of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, everyone unanimously and unusually energetically demanded from me to prevent this new march of Serbs from Kosovo. I am trying to explain that if we respect the Constitution and the laws, it is not simple, it is even impossible. That dialogue, in which I am completely alone, lasts a very long time, well into the night, and the longer it lasts, the more it turns into a conversation of the deaf. For a long time I explain, argue, convince, appeal to realism. No one to support me, no one to accept a constructive conversation.
It was never like that before. Everyone repeats that the march of the Serbs MUST be prevented. And I demand that, in case we fail to prevent the arrival of the Kosovars, which is more likely, we still agree on what we should do then. However, no one accepts even talking about such an outcome.»
Nor Nikola Ljubičić, who sits in the Presidency of Yugoslavia as a representative of Serbia!
"Neither does he." Only, you will see that it is not surprising...
The discussion is increasingly painful, practical without an agreement. Concluding the session, chairman Lazar Mojsov, next to whom I am sitting, whispers to me that everyone present is convinced that I am the one who organizes all the expeditions of Serbs from Kosovo, and that I am the only one who can prevent them. Stunned, I invite the stenographers to stay, and to the participants of the session, with Moysov's approval, I repeat what he just told me. Then, in a raised voice, I make a nervous speech about the impossibility of cooperation, mistrust, such insinuations. At the same time, I am silent about what they know as much as I do who, in fact, incites all those people to protests. I still can't believe that in this respect they replaced me with Dobrica Ćosić."
What does Ljubičić say to all that?
"After the session, we leave the Federation Palace together." Nikola suggested that, before going home, we should go for a walk. I gladly accept,
Looking forward to talking about what happened at the meeting. To my surprise, he begins like this: 'I have information that you are working against me, to compromise me, and all for the sake of me leaving this position so that you can take it. At first I didn't understand what he was talking about. That's what I tell him. To that he replies that I am in possession of a letter from Ambassador Veljko Mićunović from Moscow, in which the latter accuses him severely. And I apparently arranged with Mirko Đekić, the editor-in-chief of Nino at the time, to publish it. He goes on to tell me that I am pushing the so-called 'Uzice case' and the Jelova Gora affair to the public, as well as the 'Red Signal' affair and some of Nikola's car purchases. He mentions his children's weddings and some gifts. There was some more 'dirt', but I didn't listen to it anymore. I reply to him that it is humiliating for both of us to deal with such things, that I am hearing about all this for the first time, and that he is really unacceptably susceptible to intrigues, scheming and gossip, anonymous letters. If foreign services knew how much anonymous letters affect relations in our leadership, they would only write them and play with us. After my reaction, he withdrew and said that these things are being spread by people from Madera and that Draža Marković is working to divide us."
And all that after one such session! Gossip to gossip…
Nothing is more important or urgent!
"Instead of seeing what we will do and how we will do it tomorrow at the session of the Central Committee of the SKJ, and what about the Serbs from Kosovo, he is talking about private affairs!"
How did you do at that session of the SKJ Central Committee, which you say is a kind of prelude to the Eighth Session of the SKS Central Committee?
"Early in the morning, a group of about five hundred Serbs and Montenegrins from Kosovo, as announced, came to Belgrade, gathering in the park opposite the Assembly of the SFRY, where the work of the Central Committee of the SKJ begins.
Last night I did nothing to prevent their arrival. There was neither time nor regular opportunities to do so. Only Dobrica Ćosić could do that, who, as will be shown later, was their inspirer and organizer. Before the session of the Central Committee will start, the Presidency of the Central Committee decides to talk to the people in the park. Bearing in mind the discussion at the session of the Presidency of Yugoslavia the previous night, I refuse to have those discussions led by someone from the leadership of Serbia. Let's agree that Ivica Racan will do it.
The session of the Central Committee began in the atmosphere of a state of emergency, and the introductory report was thus intoned. During the break, after reading the report, the heads of the State Security of the Federation, the Republic and the City inform that they have information that new trains of demonstrators are leaving Kosovo, that Kraljevo, Smederevo, Kragujevac, Rakovica... are stirring, that the citizens of Serbia are preparing to move towards Belgrade. Someone arrives with the latest information that a train has arrived in Topchider and they ask for instructions on what to do. Anxiety is growing.
I invite Lalović, the republican secretary for internal affairs. I ask to spend this news. He soon informs me that the alarms are not accurate, that everything is calm, regular. I ask that he continuously monitor the situation and keep me informed regularly. He calls again: there are no indications that the protests are spreading.
I invite those heads of the State Security who are in the Assembly all the time, and I agree with Ćulafić, the federal secretary for internal affairs, that prominent Serbian nationalists will not be allowed to join or be placed at the head of the demonstrators."
What did they want with false alarms?
"They will let me know that I am not the one holding the strings in my hands." I no longer attend the session of the Central Committee. I participate in the work of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, which takes place at the same time, in the same building, and considers how to prevent the spread of unrest and what to do with these people in the park. Everyone advises, recommends, warns and concludes that the Presidency of the Republic of Serbia has a duty and obligation to find ways to prevent riots."
So, you do not accept that the struggle for power begins in the post-Tito period?
I continue to solve the really pressing problems of Serbia within its bodies and institutions and the Federation. I believe that the ticket to power is the politics I lead. It doesn't occur to me that, actually, much less is looked at than who is with whom and with whom in the worst clan sense. I underestimate seductiveness, competitiveness. And for some, it will soon become clear, it is more fateful than whether there will be Yugoslavia at all! Undoubtedly, these are my oversights, my recklessness...
Were such games played among you?
"There was, by God, both small and large meanness. There were some things that were absolutely inappropriate for relations between comrades and political people. Let's say: a Slovenian youth newspaper publishes an article about the fate of parents Mirjana and Slobodan Milošević. Mladina', or that other youth newspaper from Maribor, I don't remember, published the entire history of Milosevic's family: the tragic fate of his father, mother, uncle...
It was a dirty text that could only be written by someone who is sick of provocations and discrimination. Terribly low. Milošević is already the president of the Central Committee. I immediately call Kučan and Dolanc. After that, Milošević made it quite clear to me that he suspected that maybe I was the one behind that text!»
And that famous "Moscow" letter about Ljubičica?
"I didn't even know it existed." I read it in 'The Struggle' five years later. At the time when
Nikola told me about him, indeed some journalists were in possession of that letter, but I also found out about that when it was published in 'Borba'. As you know, its content has a truly first-rate political significance. If I had then known everything that the letter says, many things would have been clearer to me, and I would have avoided many serious oversights, misconceptions and mistakes.
I can imagine what Nikola, while secretly preparing the Eighth Session, concluded about me when I drew his attention to the nastiness that is creeping into our political life, while I assured him that it leads to Stalinism, to the Soviet embrace, to the politics of "firm hands", dogmatism? I'm calling on everyone else to resist it!»
Maybe he was really afraid for a reason?
"There is another interesting detail in this connection. It was back in 1986, right after the elections. Milošević and Bogdan Trifunović come to me and propose that, in a year's time, when my re-election arrives, I will take Nikola's place in the Presidency of Yugoslavia, and he will retire. I say to them in a raised tone: 'What comes to mind. Mandates last. It must not be discussed now and like this. One must not introduce nervousness and suspicion into people'. Bogdan asks the question: 'When your mandate ends, Nikola will have one more year left in the Presidency. What are you going to do?' I end that conversation. After a month, here they are again with the same combination. Me again. They just claim more. 'What
you? What do you do for a living? Don't you have other things to do?' And while they are coming to me with such proposals, Nikola accuses me of being in over my head!»
Is that continuing?
"In May 1987, on the occasion of my re-election to the post of President of the Presidency of Serbia, I gave a speech in which I roughly said that the previous generation had the mandate of Lepoglava, the mandate of 1941, the mandate of 1948, and that the only mandate of the new generation must be obtained on the immediate elections. I approached that proposal by referring to critical experiences. In the official explanation, I literally emphasized that 'people's trust in politics has been shaken a lot'.
Simplification of the election procedure, readiness for direct and secret voting are the best and most realistic way to gain the trust of the people. Shortly after that, at a reception in the City Assembly on the occasion of 150 years of Serbian-British diplomatic relations, Desa Trevizan approached me and said: 'I considered you a cautious, measured politician. Where does this imprudence to propose immediate elections come from? So do you know that they will liquidate you? You propose immediate elections because you expect to win them? What should the others expect from those elections?'
Universiade opens in Zagreb. Jure Bilić approaches me in the stands and says: 'You decided to be the president of Yugoslavia, huh? Do you think the matter is over? You want immediate elections?' The two of us always talked openly. I appreciated that about him.»
And state security? Is he calming down?
"State security is reporting for the umpteenth time with new information: Serbia is moving, wavering, moving.;. And Lalović, everything is fine! I believe Lalovic. I'm always by the phone. I look out the window: a beautiful, spring evening. In front of the Assembly, there are many curious people on the sidewalks, and there are also walkers around the park. No one joins those in the park. In the Assembly building, however, tension continues to grow. There are always two unknown people next to me. They follow me all day. Someone from the State Security brings word that a group of nationalists from France 7 is now in the park, and that they are giving speeches to the Kosovars! I ask: if that's already the case, what on earth are they doing except misinforming and following me all day. They say that the order from before noon was not carried out due to some kind of misunderstanding between them."
Whose order?
"Well, Ćulafić's and mine. I don't know who is actually in command, who is carrying out this cover-up through the federal, republican or military police."
Uprising: "Immediately after that, on the same day, a new session of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, to review the current situation again." We hold the session in one of the working offices in the Assembly. I'm entering. Everyone is already together. I ask Ćulafić what these guys are doing besides following me? Why aren't they where those vile demonstrations are being organized?!"
It is clear that Dobrica, Šolević, Budimirović and Kecman started that uprising, but the situation there was also difficult.
"That's why we're changing the Constitution." Even without instigators and noisemakers from Belgrade, we knew that the situation in Kosovo was unsustainable. However, no matter how true it is that it was dramatic there, it cannot be denied that a lot of things were dramatized, that there was a lot of exaggeration, even fabrications, and that with great bells and whistles. Take only the terrible data and stories in the newspapers about the rape of Serbian women. And what happened in the end? The official statistical report that at that time there were percentage less rapes in Kosovo than in Vojvodina!…
But the nationalists achieved the desired effect with rumours.
Let's go back to the session of the SFRY Presidency.
"So, I go in, and the first thing I see: Joža Vrhovec is sitting at the desk, kicking his feet and throwing insults, rubbing his palms: 'And now, and now Ivan, what are we going to do now?' My film bursts, and I scream at it. I sit next to Mamula. He immediately tells me that it is very good, even remarkable that I reacted so furiously. And he adds: 'If you don't clear this up in the park by midnight, everything will come crashing down on you. Don't waste time, do it as you know how!'
That evening, the Presidency of the SFRY, as during the day, concludes that the Presidency of Serbia, whose president I am, has the obligation and responsibility to sort out and clear up the situation. I go to the other side of the park, to my office. I am calling the leadership of the Republic: I am informing about the session of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, and Lalović about current events. I emphasize again that the street is a domestic terrain and an opportunity only for the nationalists, that they can only snatch the people from us on the street, that they will attack us from the street, that we must not allow the government to defend itself by force, etc.
Milošević surprised me with an intrusion: 'Why are you so afraid of the street and the people?
"I am not afraid of the people, but those who can manipulate the people," I say.
Racan is coming. He informs that he reached an agreement with the representatives of Serbs from Kosovo to return home. By midnight, the police placed the Serbs and Montenegrins from Kosovo in the already prepared buses without incident and escorted them away. I agreed with Lalović to go to SUP and thank the people for everything they did during the day and night and how they did it. The leadership of SUP and State Security was already waiting for us there. Let's have a relaxed conversation at the end of a busy and tense day and night. That's where the head of State Security, Mitrović, begins or, more precisely, continues the conversation regarding that remark by Milošević about my fear of the streets. I explain to him, I present the situation in society, I talk about the dissatisfaction of the people, the nationalists, the Kosovo wound. Mitrović does not give up. When the conversation started to turn into an argument, I cut it off. Those twenty-four hours imposed many questions, bad forebodings and doubts on me."
Stambolić continues that, in addition to these panicked sessions, he also talks about the association of the already mentioned interests in order to better prevent the changes. Ljubičić and Čkrebić, the first member of the Presidency of the SFRY, the second president of the Presidency of Serbia, did not lift a finger to include "building the unity and unity of Serbia" in the list of amendments to the federal Constitution, although Stambolić himself barely won that position at the Central Committee of the SKJ, in which he was "helped wholeheartedly by Kučan and Pozderac". Second, as soon as that position was pushed into the Proposal for the new federal constitution, in October 1986, the Memorandum immediately appeared. Third, only ten days after the final adoption of the initiative to change the Constitution of Serbia, the Eighth Session will be held. "The mentioned facts are irrefutable, striking and instructive to such an extent that even with no commentary or historiographical acrobatics, they cannot be interpreted as anything other than systematic attempts to lead Serbia and Yugoslavia to a losing ground," concludes Stambolić, adding that at that moment it was not clear to him who all instrumentalizes Serbian dissatisfaction with Kosovo's troubles: "Political police? Serbian nationalists? Russian line? CIA? KOS?…
Or all together!
When asked why he avoided an open conflict over Kosovo instead of waiting for the Eighth Session, Stambolić says that at that time the state's repressive measures against the party would have been unheard of and perhaps an unfeasible precedent in post-war Yugoslavia, as well as an act that could to create confusion and uproar, because how to approve such a coup only based on brief announcements from the sessions? Such a step, he believes, should have been taken later, when the survival of Yugoslavia was blackmailed by Kosovo and when it became clear to everyone here and abroad that Yugoslavia would suffocate in blood.
And then you wouldn't get over the isolation of warlords?
"Then I would just implement what the constitution and the oath of office tell me to do." And even if, afterwards, at the green table, it was definitively shown that no Yugoslavia has any life left, which I absolutely do not believe, even in that variant, the divorce, at least as far as Serbia is concerned, would have to be done at that same table with full assurance of equal conditions split".
Slobodan Milošević, it is explained in the rest of the book, also used the tragedy in the Paračin barracks in his quest for power. "The fear and restlessness of the mass of parents, after all, of all citizens who until then had almost boundless trust in the JNA, were now subjected to nationalist fire by the means of information," says Stambolić, who calls the bloodshed a "time mine."
ACCIDENT IN PARACIN: Will all the facts about the tragedy in the Paracin barracks ever be known, asks Inić Stambolić.
"I am afraid that most of them will not be traced, because we left peace to the generals, robberies to us bankers, freedom to priests and gendarmes, power in the state to married couples, and truth to politicians and journalists...
And not only that. "I think that the role of the Army in the liquidation of Yugoslavia is even greater than it was seen, and it was seen a lot." That role is less spectacular, but that's not why it's less significant, as it was limited to general rallies, that is, before the cannons will speak." The main figure of those rallies is, once again, Nikola Ljubičić, who for 12 years, excluding Marshal, was at the head of the Army. He did not start his career as an officer of the Counterintelligence Service (KOS), "but he ended his career in the spirit of that service, the spirit of conspiratorial, behind-the-scenes staging." The relations between him and Branko Mamula are bad, and "such frictions and conflicts between the two 'first' men in the Army, one who is official, and the other who is real and semi-official, are very dangerous not only for the security of the country from the outside, but also from the inside". Mamula legally proposes the reorganization of the Army, Ljubičić is against it. Until the Eighth Session, those differences deepened. "Mamula believed that he had Nikola in his fist, but Nikola, in fact, had him in a pincer, and all other opponents in a net." Until the outcome of the Eighth Session of Mamula, neither I realized that Ljubičić was still the strongest in the Army. Not only does he still hold the reins of the KOS there, in the meantime he also put his paw on the State Security in Serbia...
On the eve of the Eighth Session, a meeting of the Party Committee in the JNA was suddenly held, Mamula also spoke, which was intoned in such a way that she implicitly supported what happened later: At the Eighth Session, that military session will be used to the maximum. "I must say that it significantly influenced the people in the hall and the course and outcome of the Eighth Session." Important. I can't believe the Army didn't do that knowingly. Perhaps such an outcome of their meeting would not have happened if what happened did not happen, right in the barracks?...
I am aware that we are entering days of great uncertainty, heated passions, on the very border of nationalist delirium...
In 1986, almost all leading positions in Serbia were filled by new people. How does this new leadership continue and develop cooperation with other republics?
"During September and October of that year, we had talks with the leaders of all the republics." As far as I remember, we first went to Slovenia. Before Ljubljana, we were in Maribor. Milošević and I, as directors of the company, have long and well cooperated with Maribor businessmen, and we met a lot of people during that cooperation. They insisted that we visit Maribor. Milan Kučan was with us. People were most interested in the situation in Serbia and relations with the provinces. They received our presentations with great understanding. Jokingly, I said that the leadership of Slovenia would understand us even better if Styria was a province in Slovenia, but also in the Federation. In the car on the way to Ljubljana, Milan and Slobodan argue about whose wines are better. Franz Popit, president of the Presidency of Slovenia, was waiting for us in Ljubljana.
When asked how we traveled, I say that the best way to see how beautiful Slovenia is is when traveling from Maribor to Ljubljana on such a colorful evening. 'Franz, Slovenia is so beautiful that if you think of separating, there will be blood up to your knees.' 'We will never even try if you don't drive us out,' he says back to me. Then it was possible to joke like that, because we all considered such a thing unimaginable.»
(Stambolić, in the answer to the second question, says: "Even then it was obvious that the support from the army for the Eighth Session was not unique, not even among the army leaders. However, the fiery cooperation of the JNA with the strategists of the fratricidal war will prevail. Without the JNA and its weapons there would never have been such bloodshed and destruction with cataclysmic consequences, and for such a long time, the end of which is not yet in sight.")
The show could have started?
"Very soon after that, and it will be, after about fifteen days, scheduled in the form of the Eighth Session." Its organizers were in a hurry to take advantage of the Paračin shock. Everything else was already prepared for the Eighth Week. "
Stambolić, however, still does not believe that the party will "surrender to wild nationalists", which would be the only option in which Milosevic could threaten the state power.
t
He did not even expect a "conspiratorial coup". Nevertheless, it is clear to him why Kosovo was chosen as the main topic of the Eighth Session. "Those who directed that session as a public performance cunningly fueled the great illusion that the problems of Kosovo can be solved overnight only if we remove ourselves, because we believed that it would not be possible to achieve it so quickly and easily," explains Stambolić, agreeing with the assessment that not much had been done in Kosovo until then, but that was not a reason not to choose means and methods in inter-ethnic relations. "Speed," he says, "was a bait for the masses, and the inspirers of 'patriotic zeal' were hoarding that new energy for Vukovar and Sarajevo." On the other hand, "the strong national desire to resolve the Kosovo issue as soon as possible gave an advantage to the producers of illusions and false optimism."
By the way, the epilogue of the Eighth Session was written before it was held. The coup was carried out in the Serbian party presidency. They used the fact that the holders of the highest state positions, who supported Stambolić, were not formally members of the party's Presidency, so they could not even vote. The result of the vote was 10:9, and behind that result stood the Yugoslav leadership, which was in over its head with Kosovo, and had long wished for Serbia to take responsibility for its provinces. In short, "with the power of democratic centralism, or rather, a barely disguised decree, the majority of the membership was obediently transferred almost overnight to the positions of nationalism, that is, to the side of the enemy from the NOB era and the anti-fascist war of 1941-1945." year. That is why the 'anti-bureaucratic revolution' will not prevail at the Eighth Session, but the bureaucratic anti-revolution."
Didn't you at least try to reason with Milosevic then?
"The last time was when he was scheduling a session of the Central Committee Presidency with Pavlović on the agenda. I called him to clarify. He then postpones, hesitates, fumbles...
I ask Ljubičica, Baja Vidić and others what everything is
that means. They pretend not to know. This, that…
Like: it's nothing serious. And everything like that. They agreed and are going in an organized manner, but somehow cowardly, almost ashamed...
It's sickening. No one even like those enraged wolves and vultures that they will turn into as soon as they outvote me...
Are you organizing for defense?
Stambolić says that he is going to the Presidency of the Central Committee encouraged, because Dragiša Pavlović did not do badly at the session of the Presidency of the City Committee of Belgrade. He won a substantial majority. "I believe in the regional party officials who were invited to the session, because it was among those people that there was a lot of resistance to Milosevic during his election as president. And I don't think that they have already been 'processed'.
The session went well. Stambolić: "I was not dissatisfied".
And Milosevic?
"He's already in a panic, I know his reactions, his jaw sticking out, his eyes glazed over: he was afraid of losing, and he wasn't used to that." (Later, there is also this description of Milosevic: "He is constantly deafened by something, excited, as if in some kind of ecstasy, drunkenness...
However, the result of the vote was not encouraging for him, 10:9. Only one vote in Milosevic's favor. Still, enough for Stambolic's ostracism (General Petar Gračanin rushed to the SUP straight from the session of the Central Committee Presidency).
GATE GUARDS: Returning from the session, Stambolić asks his longtime driver Moša Veruović if, as usual, someone from SUP contacted him regarding tomorrow's trip to Tršić, where Stambolić was supposed to be the host and keynote speaker. No one answered, not even his secretary. "Getting out of the car, I make an agreement with Mosha to pick me up in the morning at 8 a.m., even though Vukov's assembly did not start until XNUMX p.m. I'm approaching the door of my apartment, when... when, there are two unknown faces in front of the door! They greet me.
I ask: who are you? 'From the State Security' they answer in unison.
'What are you doing here?'
'We provide an apartment. Such is the order. We have information that you are at risk'.
Since that order was issued to them, and all in order to save me, now they oblige me to obey. Despite the fact that I am still the legitimate top-ranking commander of all government services, including the police, I accept a kind of house arrest.
The next morning, Stambolić leaves for Tršić, although the protocol does not appear and no traffic escort is announced. In the car, over the radio, the protocol informs that the column of the highest dignitaries will stop in Šabac, where they will be served breakfast. And the host? Did he bring at least a sandwich?
"You mentioned the right word sandwich." Lost on the Brotherhood-unity highway, I finally and irrevocably realize that I have found myself in a sandwich between the federal leadership and the putschist from the Serbian party leadership. They don't hide that anymore. If no one, at least Mojsov should have known from his many years of diplomatic experience that, by accepting Milosevic as a host, and not me as the still legitimate president of the Presidency of Serbia, he demonstrates the alliance of the Federation with the putschists in Serbia."
Stambolić arrives at Saborište too early, "perhaps because it's too late for everything else." Finally, the column with "his" guests arrives. They avoid him, or contact him briefly, only out of duty.
Was there any hint of that in your speech?
"I didn't want to drag a Wolf into our lair."
At the Eighth Session itself, already after a dozen announced discussants lined up according to a strict timetable to increasingly fierce and relentless condemnations of 'cold heads', Stambolić concludes that it is no longer worth trying to invoke reason."
"The session occasionally resembled a Cossack assembly." TV was given a special role in the hunt for the 'victim', raising the tension among viewers. Already in the report of the secretary of the Central Committee Sokolović, in that branding of Dragiša Pavlović, it is easy to recognize Višinski's style. That's what I said to Sokolović during the break, in the hall: 'What would you do, Zoran, who forces you to read an indictment that even Višinski did not bring, and that against a man you praised until yesterday?'
"Leave me, Ivan, I feel like committing suicide," he says.
The atmosphere at the session is presented in the book. Stambolić says: "Dragiša Đurić, an old friend of mine, manages somehow to slip into my hall a letter with the following content: 'Two people from the State Security have conducted an informational interview with me.' The reason: my alleged statement in a bar that Slobodan Milošević should be liquidated!
Someone who is clear about what is happening gives Stambolic an excerpt from Hitler's "Mein Kampf": "The mood of the people is always only an expression of what is imposed on public opinion from above...
The psyche of the masses is accessible only to what is strong and uncompromising...
Only by constant repetition will one succeed in imprinting a thought on the memory of the crowd...
In the primitive simplicity of their minds, the masses will more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one...
It is interesting that Stambolić says that Branko Mamula gave him discreet signs after the Eighth Session that the Army would support him, but "I could never accept such support, for example, for some kind of counterattack".
And yet, in that address of his, there must have been at least some intention?
"I don't know that even today." I can only guess mostly based on one puzzling event.
One November evening, I was supposed to meet Mamula. He suggested that he send the car to pick me up. Surely he wants to warn me about something, and for us to meet at his house, because I did not feel safe, and his men, in various ways, made it known to me that I was being followed, eavesdropped, under the control of the 'eighth', but that The Army protects me, 'covers' me, to 'match' all the other services that, as I myself noticed, only seem to keep me free. By the way, all such and similar messages were conveyed to me by a KOS colonel from Mamula's office. So there was a reason, especially for the safety of my family, to meet with Mamula on that, I remember well, very dark, rainy night, two months after the Eighth Session.
The aforementioned colonel, in civilian clothes, came to pick me up at the appointed time. He warned me immediately that we would go with two cars and that we would certainly be followed by 'them'. He said all this in a whisper, mysteriously, as if it was already about my head...
Then he asks me to sit in his car, in the back seat, so that 'they' can't see me. He intoned that 'see' so that I had to translate it to 'guess'.
And so, after a breakneck drive down the curves of Košutnjak in two unsightly and dirty cars, with constant shouts: 'There they are!', 'Now they are behind, now to the left!', 'Faster!..', and with constant warnings to bend down , to lie down, we are howling wildly down the Košutnjak forest. We brake suddenly, then start again...
All kinds of thoughts come to me, I even think of a military coup. The night was ideal for something like that...
I hear again: 'Quick!', 'Hurry up!', 'They are following us, they are on our heels...
', They are there, they are there, who is behind us, did they intervene...
?1 Other cars got lost in that chase...
And so to the General Staff, where cars are changed, then back to Dedinje with all those shouts, sudden turns...
- And what did Mamula actually want "in a stormy black night"?
"Nothing in particular." He was interested in the political situation in Serbia. He also wanted to hear my opinion, assessments. Then he told me that I was completely 'covered', that his men were following me, and that I should not worry about myself or my family."
And does he offer you anything? Alliance? How do you explain such and such concern?
"Well, I don't know." I only understand that some fights are going on. Someone is chasing me! And the army is protecting me! What should I tell him? Nothing!”
Don't you think it's illogical that the Minister of Defense calls you just to tell you that the military is taking care of you?
Mamula also advised me not to resign. Too thin and not very clear indication. At such signals, only adventurers undertake risky ventures...
You are still the president of the Presidency of Serbia. Do they still treat you like the president? "The jobs in the Presidency were dying slowly, but it was working so-so until the hunt for me started." After that, both the Presidency and I are more and more isolated, more and more ostracized. We are excluded from the public. I am waiting, and I am also waiting for the opportunity to go... I am mentioning Ljubičica and Milošević. They begged me to stay before! You: you will cause a political crisis in Serbia, and: let's work together...
When those attacks on me started, they blamed me for not supporting the Eighth Session on those occasions. For a long time, the eighth-graders insisted that I should do that with at least one half-sentence somewhere. I would never, in anything, agree to be used by anyone and to throw me away like a rag. Those rags of Slobodan are lying today all over Serbia, all over the Serbian territories, Bosnia...
They want to force me to resign. Well, you won't, I think. Dismissal has one political meaning, and resignation has a completely different meaning. You can do whatever you want with me by force, but you will not command my will…
MEETING WITH LJUBIČIČ: Finally, after Republic Day, Ljubičić invites Stambolić to an urgent meeting of the "group of friends". The meeting was held in Ljubičić's office, in the Federation Palace. Stambolić recounts it according to his notes, because there were no official ones.
"Ljubičić, Čkrebić, Milošević, Trifunović and Bakočević were present. Neither the Vice President of the Presidency Bulatović, nor the President of the Assembly Ikonić, nor the Prime Minister Jevtić were invited. We greeted each other, and then there was a certain discomfort, some forced questions. Nikola is sitting at the head of the table, next to him is Milošević, and on the right is an empty chair. Offer me a seat. We never manage to start a conversation about anything…
Ljubičić asks me about my health...
Ljubičić finally opens the meeting and says that new circumstances have arisen in the past days and weeks. The eighth session had a great response, people accepted it positively. There is euphoria and emotion in that, but it is justified and must be respected. He says that there is great dissatisfaction with the state leadership and Stambolic. The media, Ljubičić continues, follow the activities of the base well. The press and television have a good influence on that...
He notices that the attacks on Stambolić are exaggerated in the media, but Stambolić will not make a public statement and support the Eighth Session with at least one sentence "and that's why Ivan is guilty", judges Ljubičić. "It's not easy for Ivan. We have to understand him, but he also has to accept this." It is necessary to agree that Ivan resigns "as soon as possible", but he should remain a member of the State Presidency. "He deserved it, and the shock would be less for the public." It would be easiest, due to his speed, to replace him with Vukoje Bulatović. But they also attack Vukoj, and he, Ljubičić, does not see the third person. "Immediately then he asks how Pere Gračanin's candidacy is going...
Bogdan Trifunović will answer as if out of the box that General Gračanin is supported by nine committees!.."
What did the others say?
"Bakočević immediately reported that, allegedly, requests for my impeachment are coming daily from basic and municipal organizations and committees." Ivan has lost trust in Belgrade, Bakočević assesses. The position of the City Committee also came from this. No one can be exempted from responsibility when he deviates from the policy of the League of Communists. That would be hypocrisy and the intended result would not be achieved
Bakonja? Once saved, and then a thousand times ready for the role of prosecutor. No way to get it out, never to prove it enough.
"That's right." I interrupted him rudely: 'How do you know who in Belgrade enjoys the trust of the people and what Belgrade thinks and which Belgrade?'"
Ljubičić says again that it would be best if Gračanin could be done quickly. Trifunović, at that moment the president of the Constitutional Court says, he can do it quickly. Some required sessions are already scheduled, and the process and procedure can be shortened.
Stambolić said that they can easily agree on his departure. "We have the same interest and goal for me to leave." I won't go with you anymore, and you can't go with me. I will resign, but lift the ban on Tanjug publishing the letter (Stambolic's letter to the City Committee)...
The letter was finally published. However, immediately afterwards on the front page of "Politika" with a big headline, and on TV, in prime time, a statement was given by Slobodanka Gruden, the president of GK, that the published letter was a forgery. Stambolić gives up the bargain with the "group of comrades": "To tell the truth, I had many personal and private reasons not to resign, to force my removal and dismissal. It was very important to me that I finally succeeded...
As I recall, it was on the 14th of December 1987. I admit, it was not easy for them, nor for me, to win over the majority of the members of the Presidency of the Republic for my dismissal".
How did "friend persuasion" go?
"I am convincing Vukoj Bulatović to vote for my dismissal." It's not worth it! He says: We have been working together for more than a year, we have worked successfully, well, responsibly, I cannot vote for dismissal. I've been breaking Vukoj for a long time in my apartment...
Finally, you manage to convince Vukoi to vote for dismissal. We agreed on how the session would proceed: I would preside until the vote, and then Vukoje would take over the presidency and count the votes...
Among others, I also asked Ljubinka Trgovčević to vote for my dismissal, but she referred to the fact that she is a historian and will vote according to her conscience.
How did anyone vote at the Presidency session?
"Despite the long persuasion of the members of the Presidency to vote for dismissal, the outcome of the vote was: six to six! Nikola Ljubicica's hands were shaking. He asks what to do. The legal advisor says: The majority must! I cut the torture. I conclude that the Presidency considered the initiative and the proposal for the dismissal of the President of the Presidency and that the proposal was adopted! Both Ljubičić and Milošević kept quiet about it. They were already deeply entrenched in ignoring and violating much more important acts than statutes, regulations and rules of procedure. And so, in fact, I was unconstitutionally removed at my own insistence. Everyone was relieved, me the most. We went over to my office for a drink.
Was Milosevic there too?
"Yes, I honored him too." "
Give, for now, at least one example of unexpected and mysterious behavior in the period of preparation for war!
"Well, okay…"
Just take the behavior of the top of the Yugoslav People's Army...
I will talk about it separately, and for now here are the details that leave no doubt that war was wanted. It is a detail, but very indicative and with a huge radius of influence. You remember that televised film about General Špegelje, shot secretly, in which he conspiratorially organizes an armed rebellion with the obligatory slaughter of Serbs. While I was watching that horror movie with my friends, my bet fell through that there was a military coup going on. I've never bet so sure before. Everything I learned during my many years in politics guaranteed me that at that exact moment, while the film was playing on television, and the Presidency of the SFRY was sitting in the Federation Palace with the Croatian leadership, the army was taking matters into its own hands. The film offered to an audience of millions before bedtime could have only one purpose to show the people that the Army has no other choice if it remains faithful to its own oath to ensure a peaceful sleep for the citizens in the face of drawn Spegelian daggers. Common sense has no other logic. Who would be sane to think that the Army is releasing that film about the beginning of fratricide, in front of all Yugoslavs, without at the same time carrying out a coup d'état, and even that it has not previously arrested a man who is undermining Yugoslavia with words, actions and weapons! Who and how can explain it differently, from the army's, conscious or involuntary cooperation with Špegelja and all Špegeljevics, to intentional or reckless incitement of all the enemies of Yugoslavia to undermine its system and integrity with impunity? At the same time, that film is the fuse of the future war, because it sows mass fear, hatred, and even panic. I dare to say that the protagonists of such a television show would have to submit to a military court at least as much as Špegelj, simply because the release of such a film irrevocably required the arrest of Špegelj, as well as the isolation of the political elite. Only in that variant would the Army's hands remain clean.»
To this day, you still don't understand why you lost the bet?
"I lost her because the military leadership lost its head." It was not clear to him that both Milošević and Tuđman, despite their ideological differences, were the objective ringleaders of the fratricidal war. In the military mind, Yugoslavia was cemented as primarily an ideological creation, and ideologically, Milošević, as an orthodox communist in relation to the anti-communist Tuđman, was not allowed to share his fate. Moreover, for the defense of Yugoslavia as an ideological creation, Milošević recommended himself for water. And how again, with a military coup, only Tuđman, who was elected by the majority of Croats, can be overthrown?...
