The last soldier of the Yugoslav People's Army (JLA) left Slovenia in the morning of 26 October 1991, marking the closure of the final chapter of the struggle for Slovenia's independence. "It is from then on that we could finally start talking about peace and sovereignty," according to Srecko Lisjak, the head of the Association of the Veterans of the War for Slovenia.
The withdrawal of the last Yugoslav soldiers, who left Slovenia from the Port of Koper, is widely considered as the pinnacle of the independence process that started with the first multi-party elections in 1990, continued with the 1991 independence referendum and culminated in the ten-day war for independence in the summer of 1991.
The withdrawal of the Yugoslav army started in September, after the expiry of a three-month moratorium on independence activities that was agreed with the Brijuni Declaration of 7 July 1991. The declaration was signed by representatives of Slovenia and Yugoslavia under the auspices of the EU.
"They concluded that delaying the departure would not keep the former country and army together. It is simply that the army was defeated in the 1991 war, so it was logical that it withdrew," Lisjak said, adding that this was not a voluntary withdrawal: the JLA was chased out when it was finally defeated.
Lisjak, who was a commander of a special squad of the Slovenian Territorial Defence during the war, explained that most of the Yugoslav troops were transferred to Bosnia-Herzegovina, while some were also sent to Croatia to wage war there.
According to him, there had been many attempts to steal equipment and weaponry from the barracks which the army left behind, despite the agreement that the equipment remain in Slovenia.
"This happened literally to the last moment when the Yugoslav soldiers were boarding the ship in Koper. They tried to take with them the weapons and ammunition that should have stayed here and be transferred over to the Territorial Defence," Lisjak added.
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