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Yugoslavia Recruitment and Service Obligations
Conscription was the principal source of soldiers in
Yugoslavia. All male citizens were subject to conscription,
regardless of nationality. The ethnic breakdown of YPA conscripts
closely approximated the ethnic composition of the population as
a whole. Under law twelve months of military service was
compulsory. Young men registered for conscription on their
seventeenth birthday. Usually inducted in the spring or fall
after their nineteenth birthday, young men remained eligible for
the draft until age thirty. In 1990 about 2.8 million males in
this age-group were fit for military service, out of the total
population of 23.5 million. Within this group, about 180,000
reached the normal induction age of nineteen every year. Between
60 and 70 percent of the 180,000 were drafted in their first year
of eligibility. By law men between the ages of eighteen and
fifty-five could be drafted in the event of war or imminent
threat of war. Five million males were eligible for service under
this category.
Treatment of conscientious objectors was harsh, and no form
of alternative service was available for those who refused.
Article 214 of the federal criminal code provided for
imprisonment for one to ten years for avoiding military service.
In time of war or immediate danger of war, the penalty for
refusing to serve ranged from five years in prison to capital
punishment.
Even after the reduction in the size of the YPA in the late
1980s, the ratio of soldiers to civilians remained high. By the
late 1980s, a new military obligation law had shortened the term
of conscription from fifteen to twelve months. Military
policymakers did not reduce the term of service willingly, but
demographic factors had left no alternative.
Young males working abroad reduced the number of potential
conscripts for the YPA, although this problem was less acute in
the 1980s than in the 1970s. A limited number of exemptions were
based on physical disability or family hardship. Students
enrolled in or preparing to enter a university program also
received deferments. University graduates were unlikely to serve
a full year in the military. Many fulfilled their service
requirement by receiving reserve officer commissions upon
graduation from a university. Yugoslav sources reported that
20,000 reserve officers were commissioned annually through the
TND and university training programs.
Although not ordinarily subject to conscription, women served
in the military in several capacities. Beginning in 1983, women
were allowed to volunteer for noncombat duty as communications,
medical, and clerical personnel. They also served in the reserves
and could be drafted into the YPA during war or imminent threat
of war, upon a special order of the federal secretary for
national defense. A large percentage of TDF personnel were women.
Between 1987 and 1990, financial and demographic factors
gradually reduced the number of YPA personnel from 266,000 to
180,000. The economic rationale was apparent: in a time of
extreme national economic crisis and lessening international
tension, the military was a natural target for budget cutting. At
the same time, by 1987 Yugoslavia's population growth was
relatively slow at 0.3 to 0.4 percent annually. Because the
ethnic Albanians of Kosovo accounted for most of this small
increase, maintaining force strength in the YPA would mean
inducting higher percentages of this potentially disruptive
segment of the population--a course not favored by Yugoslav
military policy makers in the late 1980s.
Noncommissioned officers were generally selected from two
sources. Commanders could recommend that soldiers attend an NCO
school upon completing basic training. Other qualified youths
could apply to an NCO school directly from civilian life. NCO
candidates graduated with the rank of sergeant. They signed up
for three- to nine-year tours of duty.
Commissioned officers were trained primarily in higher
military schools run by the three service branches
(see Military Training and Education
, this ch.). Particularly well-qualified
NCOs who passed the officer examination could also receive
commissions. Civilians with technical specialties such as
engineering or medicine could be commissioned directly from
civilian life.
Retirement in the YPA was mandatory after forty years of
service or at age sixty, except for those in the general officer
ranks. Service in the reserves began on completion of active
duty. Conscripts and NCOs were obligated until age fifty-five,
warrant officers and commissioned officers until age sixty. Women
served in the reserves until age fifty. NCOs could enter the
reserves as second lieutenants after completing a reserve officer
course. During war or imminent threat of war, the federal
secretary for national defense could extend reserve service
obligations. Promotion and other advancement generally came more
slowly in the reserves than in the active service.
Organized civil defense was another form of citizen
participation within the national defense establishment.
Beginning in the late 1960s, the emphasis on the TDF and local
defense drained personnel from the extensive civil defense and
urban evacuation program already in existence. Nonetheless, in
1989 civil defense units included about two million adults not
included in the YPA, its reserve, or the TDF. The Council for
Civil Defense was a joint military and civilian body within the
Federal Secretariat for National Defense. It brought
representatives of the federal secretary for national defense
together with military and government officials from each
republic or autonomous province. The former provided assistance
and advice to the latter as they formed civil defense
organizations at every level of government in the republic or
province.
Civil defense originally was directed at planning for the
mass evacuation of large cities and defense against nuclear,
biological, or chemical attack. It later acquired other major
wartime reconstruction and reconstitution responsibilities, such
as fire fighting, provision of public health, sanitation, and
emergency shelters, evacuation, and civil engineering. Civil
defense units also were involved in damage recovery from natural
or manmade disasters and other national emergency situations.
Data as of December 1990
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