Thirtieth anniversary of precursor of the Slovenian army marked
Ljubljana, 17 May - The 30th anniversary of the rejection of an order to disarm Slovenian military units during independence efforts and the formation of the Tactical Line was marked today by the Association of Veterans of the War for Slovenia. PM Janez Janša also issued a statement, reaccussing ex President Milan Kučan of responsibility in connection to the order.
Ljubljana
Laying of wreaths for victims of 1991 independence war.
Photo: Nebojša Tejić/STA
This year's commemoration was restricted to the laying of wreaths and video addresses, including by the association's head Ladislav Lipič and the president of the Sever union of police veteran associations Tomaž Čas.
Lipič remembered how some of the local units of the Territorial Defence, a military formation under the control of individual republics in Yugoslavia, rejected the order to have weapons transported from their warehouses.
Their arms and staff formed the bedrock of the Tactical Line, a military unit founded covertly on 17 May 1990. Lipič said that both the prevention of disarmament and the Tactical Line had been of enormous importance for Slovenia.
"We have no need today for quarrelling and for the laying out of evidence about who was important and who was even more important...and even less so for the help of some of kind verdict passers who did not even participate in the defence and security process of the independence efforts," Lipič said.
Meanwhile, PM Janša, who served as defence minister during the efforts for independence, issues a statement today that labels the disarming of the Territorial Defence "one of the most disgraceful periods of modern Slovenian history".
Pointing the finger at former President Milan Kučan, Janša suggests Kučan had been among the Slovenian leaders at the time who had known about the order but failed to act.
He adds that two esteemed Slovenian politicians from that period, Jože Pučnik and Ivan Oman, had "clearly labelled the actions of those responsible for the disarmament as high treason", which Janša says "calls for more than just establishing their political responsibility".