yugoslavias implosion

152
ChApter 2
The ypa disliked the Constitution in large part because it weakened
its control over Yugoslavia’s armed forces. According to Kadijević,
the creation in 1974 of two equal components of the armed
forces—the ypa and Territorial Defense—meant the “splitting of
the unity of the armed forces,” while the powers of command and
direction granted to the republics and provinces turned Territorial
Defense Forces into state armies. 222
Another principal ypa objection to the 1974 Constitution was that
it led to a drop in the military budget in 1980s, which fell from 5.8
percent to 4.5 percent of the gross national product. 223 Under the 1974
Constitution, the financing of the ypa was within the jurisdiction
of the Federation, whereas the financing of the Territorial Defense
Forces was in the hands of the republics, provinces, municipalities,
and work organizations. As a result, Kadijević argued, the republics
and provinces had the right to determine the federal budget by
consensus.
Serbia, which favored a strong centralized state, likewise disliked
the 1974 Constitution, and from 1977 onward had sought to amend
the Constitution (so as to get rid of the autonomous status given to
Kosovo and Vojvodina), but had failed because other republics would
not relinquish the degree of sovereignty that the constitution gave
them.
The attitude of the ypa to the constitution was identical to that
of most of the Serbian political and intellectual elite, who would
222 Veljko Kadijević believes that the break-up of Yugoslavia was actually set in motion in the
1960s . He asserts that Edvard Kardelj’s concept of a federalized Yugoslavia prevailed, as
demonstrated by the sacking of Ranković in 1966 . (Kardelj was a Slovenian Communist
political leader considered the main mind behind the concept of the workers’ selfmanagement
.) From 1962 to 1974, theoretical, legal, and normative preparations were
made in all spheres of the country’s life—political, economic, and military—to adopt a
new constitution that would legalize the break-up of Yugoslavia . Kadijević believes that
blame for the new concept attaches to Kardelj, “whose fundamental thesis [was] that the
socialization of defense ought not to be conducted by any expert body, even less by the
Army, but by society as a whole .” Veljko Kadijević, Moje viđenje raspada Jugoslavije, p . 67 .
223 Branko Mamula, Slučaj Jugoslavija (Case of Yugoslavia) p .68