BELGRADE, Serbia, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- Yugoslavia's three-man supreme military council chaired by President Vojislav Kostunica decided Wednesday to restructure the army and cut the number of 79 generals and admirals by a third. Also, the federal parliament passed a $1.1 billion budget for 2002, allocating two-thirds for the country's defense.
In a curt statement, the council said personnel changes had also been decided but gave no details. Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, a council member, later said no changes had been made at the very top of the army.
It was expected that the council would replace the army chief of staff, Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, and the commander of the Third Army Corps, Gen. Vladimir Lazarevic, to meet one of the conditions set by the U.S. Congress for continued American financial support and Yugoslavia's entry into the Partnership for Peace.
Both generals had been in command of Yugoslav troops in Kosovo before and during NATO's 1999 air campaign on Yugoslavia to stop alleged atrocities by Yugoslav and Serbian security forces against ethnic Albanians in the province. Both are listed in the tribunal's indictment against ousted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic as participants in the conflict in Kosovo.
Some officials in Belgrade suggested Wednesday evening that it was Djukanovic who had blocked the removal of Pavkovic from his post. Djukanovic, a leading advocate of Montenegro's independence from Yugoslavia, boycotted supreme military council meetings throughout the Milosevic presidency and has been a rare and reluctant participant since the new democratic reform coalition came to power in October last year. If the suggestion is true, it may only be explained by Djukanovic's possible desire to coax the international community into putting more pressure to bear on Kostunica and other Belgrade leaders who have resisted Djukanovic's separatist plans.
Pavkovic was present at the council meeting attended also by the third council member, Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, wanted by the international criminal tribunal in The Hague as a war-crimes suspect.
Milutinovic used to be Milosevic's closest friend since student days and succeeded him as Serbian president in 1997. In an interview in the current issue of Blic News magazine, he said, "My conscience is clear for the very simple reason ... that I was completely outside everything (control of the army and police) because in all my working hours and with all my capacity I was involved in quite different things in 1998 and 1999."
The council statement made no reference to Yugoslavia's military assistance to the Republika Srpska, the Serb enclave in Bosnia, which the Americans also said must be brought to an end as interference in the affairs of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
But Deputy Federal Prime Minister Miroljub Labus had said earlier that Yugoslavia would give up financing military college training for 1,200 cadet officers for the RS at the end of this year. He said the cadets would have the choice of joining the Yugoslav army or returning to the RS.
The council made arrangements for the protection of secret documents of special importance for the security of the state, its statement said.
Kostunica recently said he had refused to grant a request by Hague tribunal prosecutors for access to archives and documents concerning ethnic wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, the territories of the former Yugoslavia, in the 1990s.
The council also decided to start a phased withdrawal of Yugoslav army border guards, replacing them with the federal police.
