yugoslavias implosion

162
ChApter 2
Although as late as 1991 some parts of the country still believed
that the ypa would save Yugoslavia from falling to pieces, a military
coup could not be successfully staged for several reasons. In the
first place, the ypa had come to be regarded in nearly all parts of the
country as a Serbian army; indeed it was being deserted by the other
nations in Yugoslavia. Second, the ypa had lost legitimacy as the
guarantor of Yugoslavia because its chief objective, aside from maintaining
the integrity of the country, seemed to be to preserve itself.
Šešelj the Warmonger
The preparations for war took a long time and were carried out
at several levels, including in the media, public institutions, academia,
the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Army, informal discussion
groups in coffeehouses and homes, and in the political arena. In
the political forum, the chief warmonger was Vojislav Šešelj. Leader
of the Serbian Radical Party, Šešelj openly promoted Milošević’s war
goals even though Milošević himself never spelled them out publicly.
Although a political rival of Milošević’s, Šešelj was always
in cahoots with the Milošević regime, his specific role being to
announce its every war move. He was the most vehement advocate
of the Greater Serbia project. The philosopher Ljubomir Tadić
attributes the success of the alliance to a skilful use of hyperpatriotic
slogans in electioneering, coupled with expressions of deep concern
for the welfare of the citizens. In that “propaganda battle without
mercy and scruples,” Tadić says, “the sps stood behind a stage it had
voluntarily ceded to the Serbian Radicals of Voivode Šešelj.” 244
The Programmatic Declaration of the Serbian Radical Party
of February 1991 stated that the party would work for the “restoration
of a free, independent, and democratic Serb state in the Balkans
to embrace the whole of Serbdom, which means that its boundaries
will encompass, in addition to the present Serbian federal unit, Serb
244 Ljubomir Tadić, Kriza i’Velikosrpski hegemonizam’, Službeni glasnik, 2008 .