Slovenian leadership declared secession from Yugoslavia unilaterally, against the Yugoslav constitution, which was illegal according to any international law.
It may well have been illegal under Yugoslav law, but I hardly can imagine how this would be illegal under international law.
JNA was under harassment over there from 1989 – due to the trial of the JNA sergeant and proven NATO spy Janez Jansa who, later had become Slovenian Defense Minister! Conflict was created by the Slovenians because Jansa was tried in Military Court (Court Marshal) on the OFFICIAL language in JNA-Serbo-Croatian! Question for you: who prosecutes spies in US Army and where? In what language?
I'm not sure what this has to do with anything, but OK...
The friction between JNA and Slovenia goes even more in the past: in 1982 a new Chief of General staff was appointed: a Croat Serb, admiral Branko Mamula. He tried to introduce some reforms in JNA. One of them was to put weapons and the equipment of the Territorial Defence (republics) units under the centralized, army care and command. As in any normal country, but, Slovenes started creating obstacles, and launched a smear campaign against him and the JNA and Yugoslav Defense Industry in 1986 in their press using unofficial “student” newspaper “Mladina” (Youth). The campaign was, more or less, laughable! The accused YU Army for exports of weapons to Africa and other countries (YU was 10the in the world in arms trade, at that time) as if that was something unusual and criminal. They conveniently forgot to mention Slovenian companies involved in that trade.
The question I would have, being currently in the Aerospace/Defense industry, would be did the companies independently contract with these African countries, or did they fill government contracts that the government then sold to other countries? In addition, wasn't Yugoslavia a Socialist country at that time with a centrally-directed economy?
So, the stage was set. Jansa was a spy, he openly admitted the fact, but, Slovenians decided that Army is guilty for contemporary law in Yugoslavia (Military Tribunal for such offenses committed by army staff!) and for using Serbo-Croatian language. The actual theft of documents from the Slovenian Army Headquarters and spying was irrelevant! At the end of the day, it was animosity against Belgrade and the Serbs. Simple.
That does seem reasonable. But if that is the case, wouldn't it be the logical and prudent thing to do to secede from the country, rather than deal with all of this ethnic strife?
After the Slovenian independence JNA remained in the barracks. Then, Slovenians cut off electricity, water and phone lines. So, there were no OFFENSIVE actions from the JNA! None at all! They were lost! Slovenian TA moved and surrounded every single JNA unity in their barracks. For the propaganda purposes they sent civilians to demonstrate at the gates of the JNA barracks and prevent movement of vehicles in front of the friendly Austrian/German TV crews! Army was thirsty and hungry! Soldiers were sick but couldn’t be taken to the local hospitals! Only one civilian was killed (accident) in front of the cameras when one JNA vehicle tried to leave the barracks in Ljubljana and push its way through the crowd (after the long negotiations and warnings) to get 2 sick soldiers out. And, one overzealous woman fell under the armored vehicle.
Well, the death of that woman was a tragedy, without a doubt, and obviously an accident.
However, the question I'd have is this: Slovenia declared independence, right?
If that is the case, Yugoslav military or paramilitary would have no right to be in that country (Slovenia) except with the permission of the government, right?
Were the Yugoslav military ordered to leave (and refused) first, or did they cut off electricity and water without first ordering the Yugoslav military to leave? (Unless you can show me otherwise, I suspect the first to be the case)
Army leadership was lost and confused: they knew what was happening but federal presidency (their Commander in Chief) was paralyzed. No orders, nothing. And, soldiers had become clay pigeons! JNA tried to feed the soldiers using SA 341 Gazelle helicopters. Slovenians shot one down over the center of Ljubljana. You should see the faces of those murderous bastards gloating over the wreckage of the chopper and the burned bodies of the pilots (SLOVENIANS!!!) mixed with loafs of BREAD scattered on the street! Does Mogadishu and Black Hawk Down come to your mind!
No, Mogadishu does not come to mind. Slovenia had declared independence from Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav troops in their barracks were foreign troops that were violating Slovenian sovereignty. If the helicopter refused to land or to turn around, it is perfectly within their rights to shoot it down.
We could go on with this, but the bottom line is this: if the assertion is that Slovenia was right in declaring their independence, then they were right in each of the actions described. If, on the other hand, they were wrong in declaring their independence, they were wrong to take any actions at all. This is a POV issue...and the POV spins the independent facts and assertions of the story. The story's author obviously did not believe that Slovenia's secession was legitimate. OK, fine. If that is the case, he has the right to his POV. But the story is told in such a way that the facts are clouded by that POV.
Again, you'll have to show me where Slovenia declaring its independence is a violation of International Law. If you can do so, I will re-evaluate my POV. If not, then I'm afraid that I can't see where they did anything wrong. Sorry, FRiend.