Talk:Yugoslav People's Army

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[edit] War crimes

Why there is almost nothing about the cruel war crimes of the JNA??? Unbelieveable! And there was no confusion, it was clear that they kill everybody who is not serbian. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.75.195.55 (talk) 16:31, 3 March 2007 (UTC).

Right on. Move this page to "Serbian National Army", I believe they even killed dogs, cats and house pets, they knocked down trees and destroyed all organic life form for not being "of Serbian origin". This page is about the JNA, its creation up to its dissolution in 1992. The high profile atrocities happened mostly after this time, and were carried out by different people, in different places and against different people. Meanwhile, if you have any sources linking war crimes to the JNA, you don't have to ask me why I didn't display them, you are free to edit the article yourself. Balkantropolis 07:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On ethnic composition

Please stop stipulating that upon Yugoslavia's demise, the officer corps was hemogenously Serbian and Montengegrin. The army's Chief of Staff, Veljko Kadijevic, was half Croatian, half Serb; air force chief Zvonko Jurijevic was Croatian, the Commander of the Navy, Stane Brovet, was Slovenian and Aleksandar Spirovski, a Macedonian, was commander of the First Army. Only later on as the war progressed did the JNA become primarily Serbian and Montenegrin, since loyalties shifted. I implore you, do not make any more edits to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.173.85.251 (talk • contribs) 01:45, 22 April 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Tes, I agree. As long as you speak of JNA this is multinational army of no more existing SFRJ (socialist federate Yugoslavia).
Successor of this army is Army Of Serbia and Montenegro with official web site http://www.vj.yu/ which should be linked.
And yes, I hope there will be no more VJ (professional one) since civic service is now more popular in Serbia than military service.
Vojin /Belgrade —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.106.188.16 (talk • contribs) 18:32, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
ETHNIC COMPOSITION
Some-one took off the stuff about ethnic composition, and re-wrote it making claims of Serb domination. The whole thing was just propaganda - what, for example, does connections with Iraq, or the representation of Serbs in the LCY, have to do with the ethnic composition of the JNA? In my version it says the facts - Serbs were over-represented in the lower and middle ranks, but underrepresented at the top, and the claim of discrimination is nonsense. If you wish to add the statistics of their over-representation in the lower and middle officer corps then that is fine. Deleting the statistics on the composition of the High Command is censorship. All the statistics are available here:
http://yugoslavtruth.blogspot.com/2005/09/myth-yugoslav-peoples-army-jna-was.html
If it is useful, there is also a list of the ethnicity of those in top JNA positions in 1989-91, available here:
http://yugoslavtruth.blogspot.com/2005/09/who-led-serb-dominated-jna.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.222.10.57 (talk • contribs) 01:03, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Saw the change, added a NPOV flag for cleanup. Given that both before and after your change the article seems to be somewhat biased. Let the NPOV flag sit for a while and the article should get some attention. Palnu 01:05, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

REPLY TO ETHNIC COMPOSITION

You were criticising "some" Western sources for mentioning of over-representation of Serbs in the JNA. The truth is that they are "all standard sources" about the reality of the JNA and its ethnic composition. Over-representation of Serbs in the JNA is nothing bad for this Encyclopedia or from scientific point of view.

One or two members in the high command does not give you absolute power over the army or the state. The Prime Minister of the rump Yugoslavia (in 1998) was a Montenegrin (Momir Bulatovic). Are you trying to say that the high command was equally shared between Serbs and Montegrins, even though the number of Serb population was many times higher than the Montenegrins (at least 10 times, i.e. 6.5 million Serbs vs. some few houndred thousands Montenegrins in Serbia and Montenegro). Yet Bulatovic was only a formal man and he is not accused of war crimes. Many in lower ranks from rump Yugoslavia were, including among others, Slobodan Milosevic who was indicted even for the crimes while he was President of Serbia.The current President of Serbia and Montenegro is a Montenegrin (Svetozar Marovic). What does this high command means? If the Serbs want to do something, can Mr. Marovic stop them because he is President?

You seem not to look at other sources on purpose because they tell you the truth. You mentioned only ONE reference, probably a non-standard work written by your friend. Veljko Kadijevic was a declared 'Yugoslav'. Again, he was one man as was the Croat Zvonko Jurijevic, the commander of the Air Force. But who controlled air bases and used the aircrafts? You sidestep other sources such as my reference to the official statistics of SKJ (i.e. LCY). I hope you understand the title of the Kongres ‘Šta pokazuju istraživanja SKJ’. It means: What Does the Research of LCY Show? That Kongress was held in Belgrade and included members of LCY from all nationalities of Yugoslavia. The document is the official one and it was the product of all LCY members, including the Serbs which showed that they are over-repsented.

You give evidence from websites which you may create days and nights, such as blogspots or any geocities, chats etc. Wikipedia cannot rely on these junk mails.

It is true that the JNA was dissolved into fighting fractions as you said, but the Serbs controlled the war arsenal. Croatia might have never needed Leopard tanks from Germany had it acquired a significant proportion of them from the JNA. When the JNA withdrew peacefully from Macedonia, it left almost no heavy weapons behind. Macedonia has imported all the tanks for its army from Bulgaria.

You have a tendecy of manipulating this Excellent and Neutral Encyclopedia for nationalist propaganda. We find plenty of examples when peoples of former Yugoslavia disagree between themselves and their compatriots engage in a propaganda war and revisionism. For example, Serb nationalists refer to the genocide of Ustasi against the Serbs during WWII, but do not want to recognise what many Serbs did during the 1990s.

Here is my NPOV:

Ustasi committed genocide against the Serbs and the Jews in WWII.

Serbs committed ethnic cleansing and genocide in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo.

Croats committed some ethnic cleansing in revenge against the Serbs in Krajina in 1995. The world knows that and Croatia is held accountable. Few Croats face trial in the Hague for that.

The JNA was in the hands of Serbs in the early 1990s. Me and you could have been in the high command. Who committed the genocide? Where did the Serbs get such a huge war arsenal?

There is nothing I have to disagree with you here. But your attempt to deteriorate reality and make Serbs under-represented in this or that level of JNA, I am afraid is wrong. Are you putting the truth on trial, MY FRIEND?! Let us cooperate together and put the things with verifiable sources through NPOV. We do not need to blame or defend someone in Wikipedia.

With my best regards, Isaac - West Midlands —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.1.99.193 (talk • contribs) 01:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

  • I read the Copyright and Verifiable criteria of Wikipedia. My editing to the JNA uses various sources as opposed to ONLY ONE controversial reference used by someone else. The figures for ethnic composition of the LCY come from e genuine and official source (from LCY) published in Belgrade at the time when the nations of former Yugoslavia were still in a sort of loose "brotherhood and unity". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.1.99.193 (talk • contribs) 01:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I think there are plenty other nice things about the JNA to put them in Wikipedia such as, ground forces (some 250,000 active soldiers), air force and anti-aircraft defence (that was the original definition in the JNA), marines, type of weapons (2,500 tanks, 2,400 cannons), etc. But since someone has dedicated much of the story only to Ethnic Composition to show that Serbs were under-represented here or there, it was necessary to challenge that approach. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.1.99.193 (talk • contribs) 03:37, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

ETHNIC COMPOSITION REPLY
I quoted one source, an academic book, because that source stated the facts that I was quoting. Do you want me to go and quote the same facts from other sources also?? Below is a table showing the facts about the JNA. The source of 1990 lower and middle raning officers is Broken Bonds, Cohen, p.182. The source for officers as a whole and the High Command is Fragmentation of Yugoslavia, Pavkovic, p.131-2. Both of these are good academic books, in no way biased in favour of the Serbs. Here are the stats:
Nationality, proportion of total Yugoslav population according to 1991 census, lower and middle ranking army officers, all army officers, army High Command
Serbs, 36.5%, 54.3%, 42.63%, -
Montenegrins, 2.3%, 5.2%, 9.45%, -
Yugoslavs, 3%, 9.6%, 10%, -
Serbs, Montenegrins and Yugoslavs put together, 41.8%, 66.2%, 58.83%, 33%
Croats, 19.7%, 12.5%, 14.21%, 38%
Slovenes, 7.5%, 2.3%, 6.4%, 8.3%
Macedonians, 5.8%, 7.3%, 6.3%, 8.3%
Muslims, 10%, 5.3%, 5.6%, 4.1%
Albanians, 9.3%, 1.5%, 3.15%, -
So here are the facts:
- the national composition of recruits was almost exactly proportionate to the national composition of the population, due to conscription
- but some groups - Serbs, Montenegrins, those who declared themselves Yugoslavs, and Macedonians - had a higher preference than others for actually embarking on a career in the JNA, for a number of cultural, economic, historic, etc reasons (e.g. Croats and Slovenes were richer, Serbs had a proud military tradition and identified most with the JNA, etc)
- the Partisan legacy was very important. This is why it was primarily Bosnian and Croatian Serbs, not Serbs from Serbia, who were over-represented, as they had formed the backbone of the Partisan resistance movement. This fact also partially explains why there were more Croats, Slovenes, and Montenegrins as one went higher up, as these groups particapated more in the liberation war than Croats and Slovenes were these days interested in joining the army, while Montenegrins participated in a far greater proportion than their numbers could now provide
- the Titoist policy of equal representation was employed most in the higher ranks. Serbs were much less likely to be promoted than others, as this proportion had to be kept to, so they were actually represented in the top ranks. So for this reason, "there was one general of the same ethnic group for every 20 Serb, 18 Yugoslav, 14 Montenegrin, 10 Croat, 9 Macedonian and Muslim, 6 Sovene and 3 Albanian colonels". (Bosnia-Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy, Neven Andjelic, p.201)
- although I do not have the statistics for the generals in 1990, in the 1970s and 1980s, the statistics show that Croats were over-represented, and Serbs represented about proportionate to their population.
- I do not have the statistics available, but it is a well known fact, available in all academic books, that the air force and navy were "dominated" by Croats and Slovenes. Even in December 1991, 41% of the air force staff, and 48% of the actual pilots, were neither Serbs nor Montenegrins, and this was after almost all the Slovenes and Croats had defected, Macedonians and Albanians were leaving, and Muslims were no longer responding to the call up
- non-Serbs, though in 1991 they were called on by their governments to leave the JNA, and most did (including 17,000 Croat officers, who defected during the war), continued to remain in high posts. Stane Brovet, a Slovene, remained Deputy Defence Minister until January 1992 when he left of his own accord. The Deputy Commander of the Second Military District, which covered Bosnia, when war broke out there, was also a Slovene.
You state that the composition of the High Command makes no difference, given the composition of the lower ranking officers. This is nonsense. It was the High Command that gave the orders, not the lower ranking officers!! And Serbian over-represention in the LCY membership is completely irrelevant to the question of ethnic composition of the JNA. (The head of the army LCY, btw, in case you're interested, was a Croat)
And by the way, I am not a Serb, I am British.
The Wikipedia article should include all the above facts. I am too busy to write it properly now, but will do so at some point in the near future.
ADDITION: You refer to Kadijevic as "just one man". He was the Secretary for National Defence, and, if you read any book on the former Yugoslavia, you will see that he was the most important man in the army! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.222.10.57 (talk • contribs) 18:31, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
ETHNIC COMPOSITION REPLY
As I see, someone has posted a new recount of ethnic composition of the JNA, I would like it if someone can change it on the main page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.216.137.171 (talk • contribs) 22:52, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV Tag

I see nothing but facts in the article. Isn't it time to remove the NPOV tag? btw, the statistics above should be included, but if we cannot reach consensus, I don't insist.--Bora Nesic 00:06, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

      I'm interested in knowing which sources were used to find the the ethnic distribution the leadership in the JNA; does this include all lower officers as well or just the ones at the top?

[edit] Swiss Army

Isn't the concept of total national defence similar to the Swiss Army? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.203.200.2 (talk • contribs) 16:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Response: It's exactly that, as a concept.

[edit] Aircraft number seems dubious - 700?

All sources I've seen so far mention only 300 aircraft. The figure of 700 seems much too high. The proportion I've read about is basically: about 130 MiG-21s, 20 MiG-29s (which goes along with the article) and the rest local craft.

The figure of 300 probbably includes only combat aircraft, but 700 is still way off the mark. It is possible it includes all training, transport and recon craft. There were almost certainly no "700 combat aircraft". Right? The Spanish Inquisitor 12:02, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Just went to air force link above and it shows total rundown: ~500 fighter & ground/attack (i.e. combat) and 300 training. Still think it's too high, but it's definetly less then 700.The Spanish Inquisitor 12:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

My figures haven't been updated in a while Equipment of YAF but nothing was thrown out in Yugoslav Armed Forces so number of combat aircraft (tanks, guns etc.) were massively inflated since totally obsolete aircraft were listed as combat/light attack when they were no longer even fit for training service. Size of YAF post WW2 is also huge but most of the aircraft were piston engine when most of the World moved to jet aircraft. --Ivan Bajlo 12:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, so it's more then 300 but not by that much. I will just remove the word "combat" where 700 are mentioned, since it's probbably about half of that, until we can find a better source. Thanx.The Spanish Inquisitor 13:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)