Yugoslav army sending soldiers home for weekend to save on food

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Yugoslavia's cash-strapped army, struggling to adapt to the postwar era and a crippled economy, said Monday it will let some of its troops spend weekends at home to help preserve dwindling food rations for winter.

Maj. Gen. Milan Jevtic, of the general staff's logistics department, said the army "lacks food for winter and has to borrow new uniforms from the federal reserves."

"To preserve supplies and combat readiness, we are encouraging units to send approximately 25 percent of troops to spend weekends at home," the state-run Tanjug news agency quoted Jevtic as saying.

The initiative is part of an effort to deal with huge bills for the 70,000-member army, once a mighty force under former Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito.

Two-thirds of the federal budget for fiscal 2002 -- about $660 million -- is being allocated for an army so short of money it has even resorted to selling off some of its property, warehouses and redundant navy vessels.

"By Sept. 15, we spent 98 percent of the annual budget, and the vast part of it was used to cover overdue payments for food suppliers," Jevtic said.

In another attempt to save assets crippled after four unsuccessful Balkan wars and a 78-day NATO air war in 1999, launched to end former President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown in Kosovo, the military has decided earlier this year to trim compulsory service from one year to nine months.

The army also will demand additional funds from the Yugoslav government "to cover costs and debts for fuel and other supplies," Jevtic said.