Filipovic: 14th March - Draft resistance

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Below is another significant article by Filipovic on account of which a
prolific member of this list believes  "of course he belongs in prison".

As a locally based journalist Filipovic was reporting substantial
resistance to being drafted into the army 6 months ago.

It would have been in the interests of Milosevic if this article had been
published internally in Yugoslavia, rather than to find six months later,
the head of the army declining to put the army on the streets to protect
the regime.

A credible account of that conversations has Pavlovic (sp?) advising
Milosevic that if he put tanks on the streets of Belgrade, the next thing
would be pictures of demonstrators climbing on top of the tanks and
soldiers embracing them in tears.

Tanks were not placed on the streets of Belgrade on the Thursday of the
(counter) revolution.

The report gathered by Filipovic below says little about NATO bombing, and
much about the unease among Yugoslav conscripts about fighting other
citizens or former citizens of Yugoslavia. It seems likely that it has some
of the features of the White Rose resistance to Nazism that emerged in
catholic Munich with very litte planning as news came back from the eastern
front.

It seems likely that the protests Filipovic reports, were spurred by
apprehension of a war with Montenegro. Without necessarily consulting the
marxist textbooks, the protestors preferred a line of revolutionary defeatism.

The attitudes described in this article written in March are consistent
with the behaviour of the army and the police during the recent revolution
(Proyect: "counter-revolution") in Yugoslavia.

Concerning the argument that this article should not have been published on
a web-site sponsored among others by Ford, I think we have to consider the
possibility that faced with the difficulty of getting it published
internally, Filipovic thought it in the interests of unity between working
peoples to have it published on the net, even though it was on a site
supported by the big international bourgeoisie.

No doubt Filipovic did not study Lenin before he took this action, and no
doubt it would have shown better taste to publish it say, on the pages of
Amnesty International. Nevertheless perhaps he thought the IWPR was likely
to be the most effective way of getting the information out, and, of
course, accessible to other Serbs with internet access. His action could be
justified as in line with Lenin's remark in July 1917

"*for the good of the cause*, the proletariat will always support not only
the vacillating petty bourgeoisie, but even the big bourgeoisie."

The article, it may be point out, gives evidence of some anti-communism in
the reference to the "Red Gang", and to subsidies by the European Community
designed to interfere politically.

But furthermore  this article is an  example of those which, in the opinion
of one of the prolific users of this list, and of the internet generally,
should not have been published and for which the author "of course"
"belongs" in jail. [i.e. now].

Chris Burford

London



Serbs Defy Draft

Hundreds of army reservists have taken to the streets of Kraljevo to
protest against the Yugoslav government's latest draft.

By Miroslav Filipovic in Kraljevo (BCR No. 124, 14-Mar-00)

Government officials sent to round-up army reservists in the Kraljevo area
of central Serbia got more than they bargained for when they arrived in the
village of Stubal.

About 200 protestors, upset by the death of three local men in the recent
Kosovo conflict, met the officials with a barrage of insults and invective.
"Red Gang! Go and Get Marko!" they shouted, referring to the son of
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. "Fuck You Milosevic!" they chanted
before driving the officials from the village with wooden staves.

The confrontation between the protesters, armed with sticks and
agricultural tools, and the draft officials, accompanied by Yugolsav Army,
VJ, officers, could easily have ended in tragedy.

One of the officials, Ljubinko Milojevic, said, "They wanted to hurt us. At
one point I thought about pulling out a gun and shooting in the air. But we
reached the car and left the village."

This latest call-up of reserve soldiers began seven days ago in central and
southern Serbia, in the towns of Nis, Leskovac, Vranje, Kraljevo, Raska,
Krusevac and Kursumlija.

Some observers have noted that the draft is affecting areas controlled by
opposition political parties, particulalry those areas, which received
heating fuel from the European Union under last winter's "Energy for
Democracy" programme.

General Nebojsa Pavkovic, chief of the VJ general staff, has denied
reservists are being drafted, insisting they are being called-up for
"regular training." The draftees, the majority of whom have already fought
in Milosevic's wars, dismiss his claim, convinced they being mobilized for
a new war.

Some believe they will be sent to southern Serbia to fight Albanian
militants. Some think they'll be dispatched to Kosovo again to take on NATO
forces and Kosovo Albanians. And some suspect they will be used to confront
the Montenegrins.

But the willingness of reservists to take part in new military adventures
has gone. In Kraljevo, a town where the opposition Serbian Renewal Movement
and Democratic Party hold power, only 15 per cent of reservists have
responded to the call-up.

"If they mobilize me now, it will be my fifth war," said Igor from Novi
Selo. "I was in Croatia, Bosnia, and twice in in Kosovo. I was wounded
twice, and I lost three friends. I don't know I can survive all this."

A Kraljevo mother, Dragica Pesic, watched her three sons go off to the war
in Kosovo. After two days of intense worry, her husband Stojan joined up as
a volunteer to be with his sons.

"I went insane with worry then," Dragica said. "Now they are drafting them
again. The police came to our door and said my sons are deserters. I will
not let them go. Where are they going? To fight their brothers in
Montenegro? I've told them, if they decide to go again, they should bury me
first."

Opposition to military service is much more open than last year. During the
NATO bombing campaign parents hid their sons. Now protesters are prepared
to confront the authorities.

On March 13, around 200 furious reservists descended on Kraljevo town
centre to demand an explanation from the military. Kraljevo mayor, Mladomir
Novakovic, said he tried to get someone from the VJ to talk to the
protestors, to calm the situation. "No one in the army would admit they
were in charge," he said.

The protestors sent a list of demands to the VJ general staff, calling for
an immediate halt to the call-up of veterans from all the former Yugoslav
wars and the demobilisation of those already drafted. All 200 reservists
signed the attached petition.

The town's mayor has called an emergency session of the local assembly. "We
will tell the regime not to drag our young men into their private wars ever
again," Novakovic said. "If Milosevic really wants to go to war, he should
do it alone with his police."

Pupils from the local high school, excused classes because of a strike by
teachers, also lent their support to the protest.

Zoran, a final year pupil, said, "Tomorrow it will be our turn, these
officials will draft us and fill coffins with our bodies. For that reason
we want, while there is still time for us, to try and put a stop to this
and any other draft."

Dusan Vukovic, whose only son died in Kosovo, called on the people of
Kraljevo to continue defying the draft. He held Milosevic responsible for
the death of his son and 75 other young Kraljevo recruits killed in Kosovo.
"I wish him [Milosevic] the same fate as me - mourning clothes and no heirs."

Such is the scale of resistance to the call-up, the military authorities
have called in the civilian police to help roundup draft-dodgers. And
accusations of police brutality are adding to the sense of bitterness.

Dragan Nikolic, from a village west of Kraljevo, said four police officers
arrived at his farm to collect his brother. "They fell on my brother,
pushing him to the ground, " he said. " Two other officers appeared from
the backyard, tied him up and threw him into the back of the van like an
animal."

Another reservist said he had responded to the call-up because he knew the
police were arresting those who refused to come forward. He said that
police had brought two men to his army barracks the day before, "Both were
tied up and looked like they had been beaten."

Miroslav Filipovic is a correspondent for Danas in Kraljevo.