yugoslavias implosion

The ypa’s political engagement became particularly prominent
after Albanian demonstrations in Kosovo in 1981. 184 Kosovo
was placed under state emergency and endured de facto occupation
by the ypa and the Federal Interior Ministry Special Worker’s State
Militia (the state paramilitary within the Interior Ministry, at that
time under the control of the ypa). The suppression was brutal and
cost many lives, and it denied meaningful civil and political rights to
the predominantly ethnic Albanian population, creating bitterness,
frustration, and a desire for revenge. 185
The heavy ypa presence in Kosovo after the 1981 demonstrations
increased the Albanians’ antipathy toward the Army. At the time,
Albanian conscripts were the most numerous after Serbs and Croats.
The forces in Kosovo were reinforced in 1982 to include three motorized
brigades and one artillery regiment, one anti-armor regiment,
one air defense regiment, and an engineering regiment. According
to an operational plan, Kosovo was encircled on the periphery by the
Skopje, Niš, and Belgrade armies in anticipation of further trouble. 186
As Branko Mamula (who was federal secretary for national
defense from 1982–1988) stressed, from that time on the political role
of the ypa was “no longer in dispute and all that mattered was the
extent to which the Army would exist as an autonomous factor.” The
ypa remained pro-Yugoslav and committed to constructing Socialism
in 1953–93, U .S . $4 .7 billion in 1986–90 . These exports reached a peak in 1983,
accounting for some 20 percent of the country’s total exports that year . The share
of the republics in these exports in the period 1976–91 was as follows: Serbia, 36 .17
percent; Bosnia-Herzegovina, 23 .83 percent; Slovenia, 13 .11 percent; Croatia, 11 .55
percent; Macedonia, 5 .69 percent; Montenegro, 3 .45 percent; and the Federal Secretariat
for National Defense, 6 .19 percent . Figures are from Razbijanje Jugoslavije 1990–
1992 by Duško Vilić, Boško Todorović, Biblioteka opsta izdanja, Belgrade, 1995 .
184 A decision was taken and carried out to dismantle the Territorial Defense
organization in Kosovo (numbering some sixty thousand, of whom 70 percent
were ethnic Albanians), because, as Mamula pointed out (Slučaj Jugoslavija, p .41 .
and 42 .) it was made up mostly of separatist forces . A much smaller organization
was created, numbering seven thousand pro-Yugoslavia members .
185 Marko Milivojević in Security Dilemmas
186 Branko Mamula, Slučaj Jugoslavija, CID Podgorica, 2000, p . 41 .
137
ChApter 2