FACT: CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES IN COMMUNIST YUGOSLAVIA – IN BRIEF GETTING READY FOR AGRESSION

3. CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES IN COMMUNIST YUGOSLAVIA – IN BRIEF GETTING READY FOR AGRESSION

FACT

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COMMENT General colonel Slobodan Praljak:

In the second half of the sixties, infected by a pathogenic socio-political virus, I timidly began looking into various CONSTITUTIONS (see Enclosure).

As the time passed, I did it more frequently and with more effort in understanding “the issue” – as it was referred to in those days.

By reading these sheets, I found out that there was a NRH /PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CROATIA/ followed by the SRH /SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF CROATIA/, from which I concluded that Republic is a state joined in an association because of interests and the realisation of these interests. I have concluded that this state has the right to “self-determination up to complete secession”. Maybe I was “seeing things”, imagining that these CONSTITUTIONS define a territory on land and sea which belong to Croatia (politically and ideologically determined in one way or another) and that these borders (both on land and sea) cannot be changed without the Parliament consent.

I haven’t found any Parliament decision allowing JNA and other Serbian and Montenegrin military formations shooting, destruction or killings in Croatia.

I naively thought and concluded that if SOMETHING has a PARLIAMENT (ASSEMBLY), if it has CONSTITUTION and BORDERS, that this SOMETHING cannot be anything else but a STATE.

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COMMENT General colonel Slobodan Praljak:

I have prepared CONSTITUTIONS OF THE FEDERATIVE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA (FNRY) AND SOCIALIST FEDERATIVE REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA (SFRY).

Some of these documents also state that certain states have: „joined“, „freely“, „transferred some rights“, „achieve interests“, „self-determination up to complete secession“, etc.

SFRY Constitution, passed by the National Council of the Federal Assembly on 21st February 1974 (Documents D-3a, D-3b, D-3c), upon the approval of the Constitution by the Assembly, Parliament, assemblies of the Republics and the Autonomous Provinces of Kosovo and Metohija and Vojvodina: PART ONE – Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, and Articles 1, 2, 4, define the constitutional position of the autonomous provinces.

To understand my opinion (and my delusions) please read article 398 in PART FIVE – AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION OF SFRY (D-3c).

When in the late eighties of the last century (20th century) Serbs started making noise and ramble throughout Serbia (and beyond), throwing yogurt at rallies and dragging some kind of bones around Serbia, I read in the newspapers that these performances are called „yogurt revolution“ or „anti-bureaucratic revolution”.

This clamour and uproar and spilling of sour milk resulted in the adoption of amendments to the Serbia Constitution in November of 1988.

These AMENDMENTS have substantially restricted, if not completely destroyed, the autonomy of the provinces Kosovo and Metohija and Vojvodina – autonomy guaranteed by the SFRY CONSTITUTION.

Using the procedure for amending the CONSTITUTION (Article 398) stipulated by the SFRY CONSTITUTION from 1974, in 1976 Serbian leadership proposed amendments to SFRY and Serbia CONSTITUTIONS regarding the position of the autonomous provinces. That year, 1976, other states, republics, members (whatever you wish to call them) of SFRY have rejected these amendments, so in 1988 Serbs have implemented them unconstitutionally.

By force.

Well now, with a little bit of logic that dwells in my brain, I have come to conclusion that by this act or deed, SFRY CONSTITUTION fell, it is no longer valid, it doesn’t exist and has no merit, that there was a coup and consequentially Socialistic Federative Republic or Yugoslavia seized to exist.

Its over! Disintegrated!

Communists („cohesive force of SFRY”), JNA („safe keepers of SFRY“), all sorts of secret services and majority of common people (going by the flow) didn’t share my opinion, but to this day, I remain resolute in defending my claims.

Not long after the fall of SFRY Constitution, the “cohesive force” of Yugoslavia also fell, collapsed, and disappeared at their infamous Congress.

I imagined that CONSTITUTION is like a foundation, reinforced concrete structure of the state, with exactly defined rules of conduct and rights granted to member states, and with strictly defined procedures for amending not only CONSTITUTION, not only an article in the CONSTITUTION, not only a word in the CONSTITUTION, but also punctuation in the text of the CONSTITUTION. And if such procedure for amendments is not adhered to, you destroy the entire construction.

By forcibly amending even one word, one punctuation in the Constitution – CONSTITUTION IS DESTROYED, IT NO LONGER EXISTS AND IS NO LONGER VALID.

Since this was my opinion, I argued that SFRY died by the end of 1988, it was dead, torn apart, killed by the Serbian coup leaders, and the remaining member states/republics are now independent.

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COMMENT General colonel Slobodan Praljak:

The centuries-old Serbian dreams and plans (GARAŠANIN, KARADŽIĆ – STEFANOVIĆ VUK, MOLJEVIĆ) of a Greater Serbia are continued by the Serbian Academy of Sciences which in 1986 published a Memorandum on the position of Serbs in Yugoslavia.

The capital sentence of the plan and program is:

“SERBS LOSE IN PEACE EVERYTHING THEY GAIN IN WAR”

Ergo – war is the only solution for Serbian claims.

The ideological foundation is here, and with the reorganization in 1987 and the seizure of weapons from Croatian territorial defense (Slovenia didn’t surrender their weapons) JNA completed all preparations for the creation of Great Serbia.

Serbs from Croatia must still be convinced by means of propaganda (and later from BiH) that they are endangered by the democratic processes in Croatia and that all Croats are Ustasha and a genocide nation.

This was repeated ever since 1945 so many times and in so many forms of lies that it became unbearable.

When in the late eighties of the last century, I compared the maps no. 1, 2, and 3 (see enclosure) it seemed to me (obviously I was delusional), with all other indicators in place, that only those who are completely ignorant cannot see that Serbia and Serbs, along with JNA are preparing to expend Serbian borders along the lines of:

Virovitica – Karlovac – Karlobag. Or in whatever direction possible.

Since such an expansion was possible only with the use of force, armed force, I have concluded that war is upon Croatia and Croats and other nationalities in Croatia, or in other words that aggression against the Socialist Federal Republic of Croatia is imminent.

I presented my arguments to anyone who would listen, I proposed some organizational structures as a form of resistance against the aggression that is sure to follow.

When in the summer of 1990, copying their brothers on the east, and all in line with the idea and plans for expansion of Serbia, Serbs in Croatia began to destroy the constitutional order of the state – the Republic of Croatia, placing barricades on the state roads, shouting “This is Serbia” in Knin and elsewhere, it was perfectly clear everyone that SFRY was possessed by the devil.

Anyway, on 17th August 1990 Croatian police force attempt to use helicopters in order to remove road barricades in Knin, was prevented by JNA air force based in Bihać – BiH.

CONSTITUTION of SFRY (which deemed such actions as unacceptable), what a joke!

This is a distinct, clear and unequivocal act of aggression, an act of state terror, of none-existent state, and thus an aggression of just one nation.

And the international community is silent except for the accusations against Slovenia (less) and Croatia (more) for separatism and breaking up of the beloved Tito’s Communist Yugoslavia.

I don’t know what was going through the minds of western democrats at that time, what clouded their common sense and reason.

But we had a fair share of such pristine minds at home. But long before these events, I came to realise that nobody will accept arguments and truth, if these arguments and that truth goes against interests and profit, no matter what.

Enclosure contains a map 3, that I made just for you.

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COMMENT General colonel Slobodan Praljak:

When on 28th September 1990 „Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia“ number 1, published the text of the new CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA, I walked around radiant saying to all „nonbelievers“: “Don’t you see now?”, “Didn’t I tell you so?”, and similar bullshit.

I was convinced that everybody, absolutely everybody, or at least all literate workers and peasants, all sorts of intellectuals, just and unjust, lawyers and constitution-lawyers, academics and those who aspire to become one, fishermen and hikers, breeders of Lipizzaner horses, artists of all guilds, beekeepers … that everyone once they read SERBIAN CONSTITUTION (see enclosure) will recognize and understand that Serbia has separated from Yugoslavia, has left and stepped out these shackles, and so on and so forth.

The document clearly states who commands the army, who is in charge for recruiting the army, who concludes international agreements, and where did “SOCIALISTIC” disappear?!

And where is the famous communist PARTY?

Great, I thought, bravo! “Communist cohesive force” and the “leading role” no longer exist, Serbia has become independent and democratic with its own borders to defend.

Things could not be better.

The situation with autonomous provinces unfortunately gets from bad to worse, and that fact alone didn’t allow me to fully relax.

For now and just for this discussion, I will dismiss all other plans of the Supreme Leader, the so called Vožd and the others. For now, and it concerns the “constitutional issues”, it is crucial to assert that Serbia left the Socialistic Federative Republic of Yugoslavia on 28th September 1990.

That’s all.

I can repeatedly search for answers to my question: How come all those from the so called West, all those secretaries, undersecretaries, MPs, delegates, ambassadors, civil servants of lower, middle and high rank, prime ministers and presidents, political analysts of all profiles, journalists and other wise men of pen and speech, how come all of them years after the 28th September 1990 and to this day, accuse Croatia for braking up SFRY and for separatism.

For God’s sake, do they read anything?!

I’m not angry, and I don’t complain too much, because in my view time is on my side, and They will sooner or later, in 40-50-60 years realise that they have been wrong, and at least a bit, just on the side and diplomatically wrapped, admit that their judgment and accusations were wrong.

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COMMENT General colonel Slobodan Praljak:

At the session of the Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Croatia on 23rd May 1990, presided by the president Ivo Latin, it was concluded that the JNA stole, swiped, snatched, pinched, robbed, …, however you wish to call it, weapons belonging to the Territorial Defense /TO/ of the Socialist Republic of Croatia and Ivo Latin, President of the Presidency, had no idea.

And what they stole was owned and under the jurisdiction of SRC and its President of the Presidency.

That is how it was stipulated in the 1974 Constitution, the Constitution of Yugoslavia, but as I have already explained, since May of 1990 this piece of paper, in my opinion, could only be used as toilet paper in some lousy pubs.

Rašeta and the company did this, because Blagoje Adžić ordered them to do so, and Croatian communist led by Račan assisted them.

Again I tried to explain in my “sermons” that SFRY Constitution no longer exists, that SFRY no longer exists, that stealing weapons from the Territorial Defense of SRC is an act of aggression, a coup d’etat, and that they are getting ready to do even worse things, and so on and so forth.

In appendix you can find all necessary documents.

Publisher:

„Oktavijan“ d.o.o. Radnička cesta 39 HR-10000 Zagreb Croatia

Editor: Nikola Babić Praljak

Layout: GENS94, Zagreb

ISBN 978-953-7597-14-6 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available in the Online Catalogue of the National and University Library in Zagreb as 000956547

Comment

Translations and transcriptions of original documents contained in this book were compiled from a variety of sources. In order to preserve the authenticity of original documents, only the most necessary linguistic adaptations were made in translations.

HRVATSKI PRIJEVOD

https://hrvatskonebo.org/hercegbosna/2017/05/19/prirucnik-slobodan-praljak-ustavna-problematika-u-komunistickoj-jugoslaviji-pocetak-priprema-za-agresiju/

Daran Bašić/Hrvatsko nebo