Serbia-Montenegro federation to reform army ‘towards peace’

Date:24/07/03

Speaking to European Voice, Marovic said he wished to tackle one of the principal legacies of Slobodan Milosevic's rule - a bloated military, whose most powerful generals have a considerable political role.

Under defence ministry plans, the army is due to be reduced from 78,000 to 50,000. But Marovic said he would be in favour of one with 25,000 troops for the federation, which has a population of 10 million. The reforms would be in tandem with better pay for officers and putting such services as the air force on a professional footing.

"Our perspective is peace, not war," the president said. "We would rather invest in the economic development of the country than invest in the army."

The military reforms are being introduced as part of efforts to bring the federation into NATO's Partnership for Peace this year; they are also considered essential if Serbia and Montenegro are to fulfil their ambitions of EU membership.

But Marovic recognized that powerful elements within the ministry are reluctant to embrace a shake-up. "The generals want slow reforms, whereas we civilians want reforms straight away," he said. "We are doing our best to speed up the entire process."

The army came under renewed criticism in May this year over the appointment of Momir Stojanovic as head of its military intelligence and security units (KOS); he has been accused of ordering the massacre of 129 ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo in April 1999.

Meanwhile, the federation has been dogged by persistent reports that Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general accused of being involved in some of the worst crimes during the violent break-up of the ex-Yugoslavia, is on its territory.

The reports have been officially denied. Marovic said he "wished to solve once and for all these issues", in conjunction with the EU and the US. He said, for example, that he would support cooperation with Europol, the Union's police agency, if it was designed to clarify Mladic's whereabouts, with a view to handing him over to the international tribunal on the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Montenegro has been berated internationally recently over a judicial decision last month to drop an investigation into human trafficking between it and Moldova.

Marovic said experts from the European Union, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have been invited to Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital, to probe the issue.

President of Serbia and Montenegro, Svetzovar Mrovic, has called for the Serbian and Montenegrin army to be reformed in order to bring the federation closer to the 'European family'.