yugoslavias implosion

in charge of labrador clandestinely filmed Croatian defense minister
Špegelj (who was importing arms from Hungary) in order to
prime the public in Yugoslavia for a coup and the mass arrest of the
Croatian regime’s top officials. The documentary on Špegelj was
broadcast on television. The footage was used to encourage participation
in mass rallies and protests in Croatia targeting both Špegelj
and the Croatian government and expressing support for Yugoslavia
and the ypa. 262 However, although a military coup seemed imminent,
Kadijević never gave the go-ahead despite prodding from Jović and
Milošević.
Within months—on January 23, 1991—the ypa’s new operational
deployment was published, prompting objections from within the
ypa itself, especially among its Slovene and Croat personnel. In the
meantime, Croatian Serb enthusiasm for war increased, fueled by
news of clashes between Serbian paramilitary forces and Croatian
government forces at Pakrac and Plitvice, 263 and by media accounts
of the Ustasha massacres of Serbs in 1941. When Croatian Serbs
and the security services provoked clashes along what they envisaged
would become the future boundaries of Yugoslavia (the Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica
boundary), the ypa was deployed
to separate the sides and secure the boundaries. The ypa, which had
disarmed Territorial Defense in 1990, supplied Croatian Serbs with
weapons. 264 Arming of Croatian Serbs started already in 1988.
262 Milan Babić, president of the “Republic of Serb Krajina”, spoke about the effect the
footage had on Serbs in Croatia when he appeared as witness in the Milošević trial
before the Hague tribunal . The evidence he gave was a major contribution to disclosing
the activities of KOS and the Serbian State Security Service in Croatia . Charged with
war crimes himself, he committed suicide in his cell at The Hague . See “Milošević vs
Jugoslavija”, ed . Sonja Biserko, Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji, Beograd, 2004 .
263 In spring 1991, Serb forces staged an unsuccessful coup, declaring Pakrac the regional
capital of a Serb autonomous enclave . Violence accelerated to a peak in late 1991, as part of
the wider Croatian war, Pakrac was heavily damaged . The YPA played a key role in staging
this incident . The National Park Plitvice was the scene of the Plitvice Lake incident (“Bloody
Easter”), the first armed confrontation between Croatian forces and the forces of the Republic
of Serbian Krajina . Park was retaken by Croatia in August 1995 during Operation Storm
264 Interview with Svetozar Livada, Erazmus, No . 13, 1995, p . 19 .
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