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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 07/04
Fighting to Control Yugoslavia's Military
July 15, 2002
Abstract
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica's 24 June 2002 sacking of Yugoslav Army (VJ) Chief of the General Staff Nebojsa Pavkovic was necessary, welcome, and long overdue. The EU, U.S., and NATO acclaimed the move as an effort to assert civilian control over the military, and Kostunica indeed deserves credit for removing a significant obstacle to the countryÕs reintegration with Europe. Nonetheless, the action was probably more the result of the ongoing power struggle between Kostunica and Serbian Premier Zoran Djindjic than a genuine effort to bring the military under civilian control or dismantle the extra-constitutional parallel command structures that the post-Milosevic leadership of the country has created within the VJ.
The dramatic action will deserve to be interpreted as a genuine step in the right direction only if Kostunica follows up with concerted efforts to remove other compromised individuals and introduce democratic civilian control over the military. Until then, Pavkovic's charges - since supported by two other generals - that the president ordered VJ troops to attack the Serbian Republic government as part of his power struggle with Djindjic will continue to raise questions about the nature of politics and governance inside a state that has not yet shaken off the dark legacy of the 1990s.
