1. Testimonies of soldiers and deserters

A soldier from Vojvodina testifies about the events taking place in Kosovo in a letter to his mother (she gave it to the media and it was printed in Zrenjaninske novine, Duga, and Nasa borba): “…The war has already unofficially started here, because on the territory we are on and twenty kilometers in diameter dead Albanians and our soldiers can be seen every day and night… Three hours after midnight we were awaken by the explosions of grenades, which fell ten to fifteen meters away from our heads… If I were normal, I would go mad!”.

These are the reasons why more and more draftees desert the Yugoslav Army. Monitor reports on the testimony of a deserter from Montenegro. Together with four other draftees he escaped from the military barracks in Belgrade when a group of soldiers from his unit were sent to Kosovo. His group should have been the next to go. They decided to escape because they knew what had happened in Bosnia. He said: “I can only lie about the activities of the army in Kosovo, because I do not know anything. But it is enough to read that there are many dead and wounded. Why should one go there and fight, fight whom? That is civil war. I think we did not give an oath to fight against each other”. They escaped to Montenegro and according to his testimony many soldiers from his unit who are from Montenegro also wanted to escape but they could not find among them many who were from the same town. That young man is not a conscious pacifist which can be seen from his claim that he would serve in the army but only in Montenegro. (“If there is a need to fight we should know the reasons”.)

2. The testimonies of the soldier’s mothers and fathers

The testimonies of the soldier’s parents are very interesting. A mother from Podgorica has managed to visit her son on the Kosovo front. She spent two hours with him and her son told her, among other things, how an officer from his unit escaped across the border to Albania. Afterwards, she saw a young man from her son’s unit and asked him if everything was burned to the ground there and he answered “Yes”. A mother from Igalo (as reported in Monitor) expressed her bitterness for the kidnaping of children (young soldiers): “I was there, in Kosovo. It is terrible. My son saw how four soldiers were killed. He is only 21 years old… He should have reported for military duty on the 19th of March. But he postponed it… The military police was sent to pick him up, he was put into a car and taken first to Kambvo and then to Podgorica. Handcuffs were put on his hands there and he was put on a plane to Nis and from Nis to Pristina…” A father of Muslim ethnic origin from Podgorica said: “I went to that desert, the Goles mountain, (at Kosovo). He (my son) is a member of a tank crew and it is written on his tank: “This is Serbian!” I shuddered in horror! His tank was well marked so he would be a good target…This not an army mothers could be proud of… Everyone there told me: “You Turk, you must have come from Turkey…All his clothes were stolen! It was the second lieutenant, who else could it have been, he is the only one who had the key. That is what our army is like. The soldiers try to escape but how can they succeed in that desert? A bird can not fly and not be seen”.
A mother from Nis claims as reported in Danas that her son was sent to Kosovo although he had not completed the obligatory military training and that there has been no news from him since last week. “We have been wondering around for days, asking the army and nobody can tell us anything”. According to the same report, a soldier’s father told the authorized lieutenant of the Yugoslav Army the following:” Let the people who want who want war in Serbia and who want to fight civil war, fight. We just want our children back.” Another father added: “ Only the children of those parents who are not well connected are sent to Kosovo. Not one child of an officer or a politician was sent to Kosovo”. The same father manifested how unaware of the situation he is by say to the same lieutenant: “ You (the officers) could do a lot, but you do not want to. You can overthrow the government”. It is obvious that some parents still have illusions about the army. According to the same report there is fear among the parents of possible NATO bombing (one mother said: Why should my child be killed by NATO?)
Becoming consciousness of the situation has a high price. A father of a soldier from Belgrade who was killed in Kosovo in an ambush on a military vehicle, after receiving the Yugoslav flag from the soldiers who were on honorary guard at the dead soldier’s casket, said: “I gave them my son and they give me the flag” and elderly relative said on the same occasion to the soldiers: “Run away from war children, it is better to go to prison then to death” (according to report in Danas).

3. Parent’s protest movement

Fear for the fate of their drafted children has produced quite a wide parent’s protest movement. Protest manifestations of mothers and fathers were held in front of headquarters of local garrisons in many cities (Nis, Kragujevac, Podgorica, etc.) A movement called “ Save the Children Movement” was founded in Kragujevac. According to the report in Nasa borba (15th June 98) about a hundred parents of young soldiers from Kragujevac, who are doing their military service in Kosovo, tried to go to Kosovo, but were stopped by the police. They managed to come as far as Kosovska Mitrovica, were they were met by a general of the Yugoslav army and a minister in the Serbian government (for sport and youth issues). After some of the parents had demonstratively left the meeting (because their request to be allowed to visit the barracks were their sons allegedly was rejected) minister Andjelkovic accused some of the parents for using the situation to hold political speeches and that they lacked patriotism. The Initial Committee of parents in Zrenjanin demanded from the government organs to be given true information about their sons and to be allowed direct contact with their sons so the parents would hear the truth from them.
On the 18th of June a group of parents (a few hundred of them) came to Belgrade and staged a manifestation in front of the military headquarters of the Yugoslav Army. They came from Sabac, Lazarevac, Smederevo, Subotica, Obrenovac, Nis, Valjevo, and Sombor. First of all, they asked for information about their sons and that they demanded that they immediately be returned to their original barracks. When they were not received in the Headquarters they blocked the traffic in one of Belgrade’s central streets. Among the parents was present the major of Subotica Josef Kasa, the president of the Party of Hungarians from Vojvodina. The protests and gatherings in front of the Headquarters were continued the following days. A part of the parents lead by one mother went to the Federal Assembly, were they submitted the demand for the urgent withdrawal of their children from Kosovo, because they were not trained to wage a war in which the goals were not defined. From the Assembly they were told to go to the Federal government building where their demand was promptly stamped and registered as any other official mail. The General Staff issued an empty statement that measures for the protection of the soldier’s lives were being taken, and he accused the parents at the same time that they have attacked the military with bad insults which is proof of “abuse and manipulations of certain parties and their leaders”.
The contradictory nature of that protest can be seen in the words said by one of the fathers who was in front of the general staff building: “If this country should be defended, we will all defend it, from the chief of the country down. We do not want our children to be the only ones to do it. Where are their sons, the children of generals, officers? They are the owners of cafes and bakeries” (from Nasa borba).

4. Support to the movement

Certain expressions of support given to the parent’s movement are voiced in a similar tone. For example the leader of the nationalist Demo-Christian Party Vladan Batic in a letter to the chief of General Staff of the Yugoslav Army poses the question: Are there sons and close relatives of the leading politicians among the soldiers in Kosovo? If there are such there names should be publicly said, so the people would know “that there are honest men among them” So, it seems that the only problem for the Serbian conservatives is the double standard of the people belonging to the ruling coalition - otherwise they agree with the “patriotic aims of the Serbian state in Kosovo”. However, the parents got a completely different kind of support from the anti-war orientated political parties and the civil society in Belgrade and Montenegro. The ruling coalition in Montenegro should be especially mentioned (Democratic Party of Socialists – Social-Democratic party of Montenegro – People’s Party) which passed a resolution in the Montenegro Assembly which demanded that soldiers from Montenegro who were sent to Kosovo be withdrawn and returned back. The problem of Kosovo must be solved urgently by political means, that is, by negotiations between the sides in conflict. The attitude of that coalition is illustrated by the statement of the People’s Party president Novak Kilibarda (as reported in Vjestima) that the deportation of draftees by force and tricks represents one more proof that Slobodan Milisevic’s policy of war is not supported by the people. The fact that a significant number of policemen are resigning from the police force shows that the ruling system in Serbia is in the initial phase of decomposition. No one has the right to engage Montenegrin draftees to fight in the war in Kosovo. However, the Liberal Alliance of Montenegro, an opposition party which supports the independence of Montenegro, considers the resolution of the Montenegrin Assembly shows too much willingness to compromise and that it is not resolute enough.
Among the political parties in Serbia prominent in the anti war activity is the Social-Democrat League of Vojvodina. Its president Nenad Canak called young men from Vojvodina to reject the mobilization and to rejects calls for a military drill, he said: “It is better now to be in prison than to be in the army of Slobodan Milosevic, it is better for those young people and their future as well as the future of this country to go to prison than to die and take part in something they will be ashamed of” (Danas).
Many civil groups have taken part or independently organized anti war activities. The Anti-War Campaign has, for example, given out leaflets and put up posters with antiwar messages in a large number of towns in Serbia (in some town for example Nis and Novi Pazar the activists were taken to the police station for questioning and arrest). The Anti-War campaign made contact with representatives of parents whose sons, the draftees, were sent to Kosovo and who demand that they be relocated to places were they are not in immediate war danger. The peace group (ANIMA) from Kotor has organized the signing of a petition in which it is demanded that the soldiers from Montenegro be withdrawn from Kosovo and that they be allowed to complete their service in Montenegro. The creation of a coordination group is in progress between the cities of Nis, Kragujevac, Valjevo, Cacak, Novi Sad, Subotica, Sombor and so on. Its aim is joint action of support to parents of children who are doing heir military duty at Kosovo.

5. Different forms of militarism are strong

Militarism does not want to surrender. Besides the already mentioned accusations of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army against the parents and their “manipulators”, the influence of those Albanians who respond to Serbian militarism by their own Albanian militarism has been increasing lately. There are even ten political parties at Kosovo who want to politically represent the Liberation Army of Kosovo. The most influential among them is the Parliamentary party of Adam Demaci, which openly supports the Liberation Army of Kosovo. The prime minister of the internationally not recognized Republic of Kosovo in exile supported Demaci in a certain way, by saying that the Liberation Army of Kosovo should be put under political control (according to the statement given to Dnevni telegraf). Press representative of the LAK Jakup Krasnci said in a statement reported on Albanian television that the LAK is ready to begin talks Belgrade under condition that all Serbian forces be withdrawn from Kosovo. At the same time the main Headquarters of the Liberation Army of Kosovo called all young men of age for military duty and of Albanian nationality to join its military formations. The news agency Beta reports that the daily Vecernji list from Zagerb claims “that 40 mercenaries from Croatia are fighting on the side of the armed Albanian groups; they are mostly specialists and instructors who earn from 5000 to 15000 DM a month. It seems as if the supporters of non-violent means for the solution of the problems at Kosovo were retreating.

6. Demoralized policemen and officers

Although the Ministry of Interior of Serbia denies newspaper reports that the police are rejecting to go to Kosovo, policemen who reject to go to Kosovo are being fired every day
in many towns of Serbia. According to the information in Nasa borba there is an increasing unwillingness among the officers of the Yugoslav army for the involvement of the army in conflict in Kosovo which can have very uncertain results and because among other things it is becoming all the more unpopular in Serbian civil society. allegedly even the General Chief of Staff has refused Milosevic’s order for a mass mobilization of draftees, maybe because the most popular slogan at the parents protest was: “Marko (the son of Milosevic) go to Kosovo, Slobo (Milosevic) in the reserve forces”.

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