Hard-Liner Heads Yugoslav Military
The leaders of Yugoslavia bowed to ultranationalist pressure Thursday and fired the country’s moderate military chief, replacing him with a general who ran ruthless military campaigns in Croatia and Bosnia.
In a major purge of the army command, 42 other generals were retired along with Gen. Zivota Panic, chief of the general staff, according to a statement by the Supreme Defense Council.
Gen. Momcilo Perisic, who replaced Panic, recently told Belgrade’s Duga biweekly that he had conspired with ethnic Serbian political leaders in Bosnia-Herzegovina to occupy and hand over to them much of the southeastern part of the republic, which broke away from the former Yugoslav federation.
Thursday’s shake-up appeared to mark the final stage in a campaign by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to strengthen his control over Yugoslav security services. Perisic, 49, led an army corps in southern Bosnia that shelled Mostar before the Yugoslav army withdrew from that republic a year ago.
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