Slovenian Arms 1991–1993: Aid to Croatia and Bosnia, Trade, Money, and Scandals

From shortage to surplus

In May 1990, Slovenia’s main military concern was whether it would have enough weapons at all if conflict with the JNA came. By summer 1991, the situation had changed rapidly. During the Ten-Day War and the subsequent withdrawal of the JNA, Slovenia took control of significant quantities of weapons, ammunition, and military equipment from blockaded or surrendered military depots. Borovnica and Ložnica were among the important locations.[1] The total quantities differ among sources. But the first commander of the Slovenian Republic Territorial Defence Headquarters, Janez Slapar, told a parliamentary commission in 2000 that a substantial amount of weaponry remained after the war that Slovenia itself did not need, and that he gave consent for some of it to be sold.[2] This matters. The story of Slovenian arms trading did not begin only with private smugglers. It also began with a state question: what should a new country do with military material it does not need while its neighbors are already at war?

Croatia — and then Bosnia — urgently needed weapons. The situation in Croatia was completely different from Slovenia’s. The Slovenian conflict ended after a few days. The war in Croatia expanded. Croatian authorities had to build their own armed forces in a country where the JNA still controlled large military facilities, depots, and heavy weapons, while part of the Croatian Serb population had rebelled against Zagreb. When war began in Bosnia and Herzegovina in spring 1992, the need for weapons there became even more acute. Slovenia possessed three things that were extraordinarily valuable in such circumstances:

• weapons and military equipment,
• transport routes toward Western Europe,
• a state apparatus that, after the JNA withdrawal, controlled its territory.

This made Slovenia a potential supplier, intermediary, transit country, and logistical hub.

The state leadership approved assistance

Public memory often compresses the entire story into one word: smuggling. The declassified report of the parliamentary commission headed by Rudolf Moge presents a more complicated picture. The commission reviewed minutes of the Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia and the Defence Council and concluded that Slovenia’s state leadership had adopted a political policy of helping Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina with weapons so long as this did not endanger Slovenia’s own defence capacity.[3] Even more important was another finding.

The Defence Council adopted a policy that weapons and ammunition were to be sold, while used or worn military equipment could be transferred without payment.[3] This significantly changes the historical picture. The sale of arms to neighboring republics was not necessarily, in itself, a private clandestine activity by individual officials. At least part of the sales flowed from a political decision made by the state leadership. “Aid” and “sale” were not the same thing.

Documents and later political debate often use the word aid. But that could refer to several different forms of support. Some equipment could be transferred free of charge. Some weapons and ammunition were sold. Some shipments merely crossed Slovenia and were not Slovenian property at all. Aid could also mean logistics, transport, protection, intelligence, training, or permission for transit. So the sentence “Slovenia helped Croatia and Bosnia” does not tell us whether we mean a donated uniform, a sold rifle, or a foreign container of weapons that only crossed Slovenian territory. Merging all of these categories into a single term later made the controversy much harder to understand.

25 September 1991: the embargo changes the rules

On 25 September 1991, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 713. Acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, it imposed a general and complete embargo on all deliveries of weapons and military equipment to Yugoslavia.[4] This date is an important legal boundary. Before it, the transfer or sale of weapons was primarily a matter of Yugoslav, republican, and emerging Slovenian law and of political relations among the republics. After it, there was also a binding international regime intended to stop the flow of weapons into the war zone. The embargo had an understandable political logic: if fewer new weapons entered the conflict, the parties might have less capacity to continue fighting.

But the parties did not enter the conflict with equal arsenals. The JNA already possessed enormous quantities of heavy weapons, ammunition, and military infrastructure. The emerging republican forces were far less well equipped. Croatia and later Bosnia and Herzegovina therefore also viewed the embargo as freezing an existing military imbalance. The legal language of Resolution 713, however, was clear: states were not to deliver weapons to Yugoslavia.[4] Did the embargo “not apply” to Slovenia?

Some Slovenian official retrospective accounts state that the embargo did not concern Slovenia because fighting on Slovenian territory had already ended.[1] That formulation requires caution. Resolution 713 did not contain an explicit exemption for Slovenia. In September 1991, Slovenia had not yet received broad international recognition. The Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Yugoslavia. The later dissolution of the state, recognition of successor republics, and further UN resolutions complicated the legal framework. This article therefore does not pronounce a definitive criminal-law judgment on every individual transaction.

The safer historical conclusion is: after 25 September 1991, arms supplies into the wars in Croatia and Bosnia had to circumvent, or operated in conflict with, the Resolution 713 embargo regime. That is why secret flights, false cargo declarations, intermediaries, cash, and transit through third countries became so important.

Three different things later given the same name

When discussing the “Slovenian arms trade,” at least three categories have to be separated. Sale of Slovenian weapons. After the war Slovenia possessed weaponry it did not need in full. State authorities approved the sale of part of that material to Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.[2][3] The key questions here are: who set the price, who received the payment, and where did the money go?

Transit of foreign weapons. Some shipments crossing Slovenia did not belong to Slovenia. Slovenia was a transport corridor. The best-known example is the later discovery of weapons at Maribor Airport.[3] Here the question is different: who authorized the transit and who knew what the shipment actually contained?

International purchasing and brokerage

Investigative journalists later reconstructed broader procurement networks involving countries in Central and Eastern Europe, foreign banks, intermediaries, and companies supplying Croatia and Bosnia.[5] Slovenia was not the only actor in these networks. It was one logistical node in a broader regional market created by war and embargo. If all three categories are merged, it becomes impossible to distinguish state assistance, state sales, transit, embargo evasion, and possible private enrichment. The hardest question was not always the weapons — it was the money.

When parliament later tried to reconstruct the business, it encountered a basic problem. The documentation was incomplete. The commission sought quantities sold, buyers, prices, methods of payment, revenues, and the final use of the money. For some transactions, however, the normal accounting chain could not be reconstructed: contract, invoice, bank transfer, booked transaction, and final account. Janez Slapar told the commission in 2000 that he had approved the sale of surplus weapons, but that he had only been informally aware of cash transactions.[2] Other witnesses before parliamentary commissions described cash dealings and people who allegedly handled them operationally.[6] But testimony before a parliamentary commission is not the same as a final court finding. Two claims must therefore be separated.

The first: there are documented testimonies and parliamentary questions concerning cash transactions and incomplete accounting. That is supported. The second: a particular person stole the money or personally enriched themselves. Such a categorical statement requires proof of a specific money trail or legally established responsibility. The arms-trade story as a whole never reached that standard for every public allegation. Wartime secrecy is understandable. Postwar opacity is a different problem.

Context matters. In 1991 and 1992, openly publishing who was buying weapons, where they came from, which routes were being used, where the material was stored, and who was receiving it could directly endanger operations and people. Secrecy in itself is therefore not proof of corruption. A state at war does not procure weapons in the same way it buys office supplies. But after the immediate danger passes, a different question arises: can the state later reconstruct what it sold, to whom, for how much, and where the money went? If it cannot, that becomes a problem of democratic and financial accountability. That is the core of the Slovenian arms controversy. One does not need to prove a grand conspiracy to conclude that incomplete records create space for suspicion, political accusations, and possible abuse.

Maribor 1993: a major scandal — but not quite the scandal first described. In July 1993, a large quantity of weapons and ammunition was discovered at Maribor Airport in a concealed transit operation. The discovery triggered a major political scandal. Public explanations varied: that this was Slovenian arms trading, that the weapons were intended for an internal political confrontation, that they were linked to preparations for a coup, or that they were a covert shipment for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Parliament established an investigative commission, and the case was later re-examined by the Moge commission.

Its declassified report from December 1999 was clear on the central point: the weapons at Maribor Airport belonged to Bosnia and Herzegovina and were in transit through Slovenia.[3] The commission found no basis for claims that the arms belonged to Slovenian citizens or were intended for a coup in Slovenia.[3] For this specific Maribor case, it also did not find that Slovenian public office holders had participated in illegal arms trading.[3] This is a necessary correction. The Maribor case should not automatically be used as proof of a private Slovenian weapons stockpile or a coup plan.

But Maribor was not an ordinary humanitarian shipment

That finding does not mean everything about the Maribor case was normal. The commission found a series of irregular and unusual procedures.[3] Because of the embargo, the shipment was concealed as part of a humanitarian transit. According to the commission, the Security and Intelligence Service knew that the transport included weapons. State bodies coordinated poorly, customs and related procedures did not operate as they would in a normal shipment, and disputes later arose over the handling of the seized weapons and the competences of individual services.[3] Two things can therefore be true at once: Maribor did not prove private illegal trading by Slovenian officials, and Maribor exposed a concealed state transit of weapons and serious problems of supervision, communication, and responsibility. These are not contradictory conclusions.

Why hide the weapons inside “humanitarian” aid? Because of the embargo. Bosnia and Herzegovina needed weapons. An overt arms shipment through an internationally recognized state would have been politically and legally far more problematic than humanitarian cargo. The Moge commission found that the transit had been concealed because of the embargo.[3] This exposes the paradox of the entire policy. On one side, the international community demanded an end to arms supplies. On the other, the Bosnian government argued that without weapons it could not effectively defend the country. Slovenia found itself between the formal international regime, the political decision to help Bosnia, and its own security interests. The result was clandestine logistics.

Ložnica: from independence-war depot to investigative question

Ložnica was one of the important locations of weapons taken over during the Slovenian war. A later parliamentary investigation expanded its mandate to include the arms held at the Ložnica depot.[7] Why did the location matter? Because investigators needed to establish how much weaponry had been there, how much had been sold, to whom, at what price, and how transactions were recorded. In 2011, Slovenia’s Information Commissioner confirmed the existence of extensive declassified documentation from parliamentary commissions concerning Maribor Airport, Ložnica, witness hearings, and interim and final reports.[7] That alone matters. The arms controversy was not merely an invented media issue. It was serious enough for the National Assembly to conduct formal parliamentary investigations across several mandates and for much of the documentation to remain classified for years.

Parliament never completely closed the account. The first parliamentary questions about weapons arose as early as 1993. Commissions, hearings, and document collection followed. Political mandates changed, elections interrupted inquiries, some reports were not discussed in time, and part of the material remained secret. In 2004, journalist Ali H. Žerdin noted that, despite years of investigations, the full quantities sold, all buyers, prices, and all money flows had never been reliably reconstructed.[8] Later disputes over reports and financial records likewise show that no single publicly auditable final account emerged that resolved every question.[9]

This point must remain carefully worded. The absence of a complete public account is not proof of theft. But it does mean that the state did not provide the public with documentation capable of definitively resolving all of the financial questions.

What did investigative journalists find?

Matej Šurc and Blaž Zgaga spent years examining records related to arms supplies across the former Yugoslavia. Their research connected Slovenian state and security structures, intermediaries, producers and traders in Central and Eastern Europe, transport hubs, banks, and buyers in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.[5] Their work is especially useful because it places the Slovenian story in a wider context. The embargo did not create only a Slovenian black market. It created an international scarcity market. Where demand was enormous and official supply was prohibited, intermediaries, clandestine routes, false declarations, cash, offshore accounts, and political protection emerged. The same methodological limit still applies. Investigative reconstruction is an important historical source. It is not by itself a final criminal judgment against every person named in documents.

Personal enrichment: the largest accusation and the hardest question to prove

The most explosive part of the arms story is not whether Slovenia sold weapons. It did, according to state documents and testimony.[2][3] The largest dispute is: did part of the money end up outside state accounts or in private hands? Parliamentary hearings included testimony about cash payments, transactions without ordinary invoices, unusual money routes, and individuals allegedly exercising direct control over cash.[6] Specific figures from the defence and internal-security system were publicly accused on several occasions. Those named rejected the allegations or offered different explanations.[9][10] The greatest error would be to adopt either extreme. The first:

“Everything is proven; politicians stole the money.” That goes beyond the established evidence. The second: “Because there was no final conviction for the whole story, there was no problem.” That also does not follow from the record. The parliamentary documentation itself reveals serious difficulties in reconstructing the financial flows. The most defensible historical formulation is: there were concrete allegations, testimony, and documentary gaps concerning cash and arms revenues, but the full extent of possible personal enrichment was never conclusively established in court.

What did the 1993 law change?

In March 1993, Slovenia adopted the Foreign Trade Act. Article 8 provided that the import and export of armaments and military equipment could be carried out on the basis of a permit.[11] This matters because it shows the gradual shift from an emergency independence-era system toward formal state regulation of arms trade. But another correction is necessary. Article 8 does not say: “weapons may be sold to Croatia and Bosnia.” It establishes a licensing regime. Later political statements that sales to neighboring states were in Slovenia’s strategic interest are interpretations of state policy, not the literal wording of Article 8.[1][11]

What can be stated with high confidence?

Slovenia deliberately assisted Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina with weapons. This is not only a journalistic claim; the parliamentary commission found a political policy for such assistance in records of the state leadership.[3] Some weapons were sold. Arms and ammunition were to be sold, while some used equipment could be transferred without payment.[2][3] After 25 September 1991, an international arms embargo existed. Arms supplies into the war zone therefore had to be concealed and operated in conflict with the Resolution 713 regime.[4] Slovenia was also a transit state. The Maribor weapons belonged to Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to the parliamentary commission.[3]

The Maribor case did not prove a coup plot or private illegal trading by Slovenian officials. The commission rejected those explanations for that specific case.[3] The documentation of money flows remained incomplete. Parliamentary commissions did not produce a complete public accounting of all quantities, prices, buyers, and revenues.[7][8] Allegations of private enrichment are not the same as judicially established facts. There are testimonies, documents, and investigative reporting, but political allegations cannot automatically be converted into proven personal criminal responsibility. The real question is not: “Did Slovenia trade in weapons?”.

The answer to that question is too simple. Yes. The Slovenian state permitted the sale of some weapons and assisted Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.[2][3] The more important questions are: How much was sold? At what prices? Who was the buyer? How much money was received? Where was the money transferred or carried? Which deals were state transactions and which were private? Which shipments were only transit? Who authorized each operation? Was every sale entered into state accounts? Did anyone personally enrich themselves? It is precisely at these questions that the historical record changes from clear to fragmentary.

Between the moral argument and the legal problem

Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina needed weapons in war. Supporters of Slovenian assistance understood it as solidarity, a Slovenian strategic interest, and help to states defending themselves against a much better armed opponent. Critics point out that the state participated in clandestine supplies despite the embargo, that parts of the business were opaque, and that war created opportunities for private profit. Both questions can be examined at the same time. A political or moral conviction that assistance was justified does not answer whether every cash payment, unbooked revenue, or private commission was properly accounted for. Likewise, the legal prohibition on arms deliveries does not by itself answer how fair or effective the embargo was in the circumstances of the war. These are different levels of judgment.

Distinction is more useful than myth. Two myths can emerge from the arms story. The first: “Slovenia only selflessly helped Croats and Bosnians; the scandals were invented.” The record of cash dealings, incomplete accounting, and prolonged parliamentary investigations does not permit such a clean picture. The second: “All the assistance was a criminal private smuggling operation by the political elite.” That is not supported by the documents either. The state leadership politically approved assistance and the sale of some weapons. The parliamentary commission explicitly described the Maribor case as transit of weapons belonging to Bosnia and Herzegovina, not proof of private Slovenian trading.[3]

The real story is more difficult. Within the same system there were state interest, solidarity, wartime necessity, commercial sales, embargo evasion, secrecy, weak accounting, and suspicions of personal gain. The task of history is not to erase any one of those layers. The next step: Croatia itself. This article is the Slovenian side of the wider war. To understand why Croatia was so urgently seeking weapons, we now have to return to the beginning of the conflict. Not through the slogan “the Serbs attacked Croatia,” and not through its reverse, “Croatia provoked a war against its Serbs,” but through the sequence: multi-party elections; the rise of the HDZ and Franjo Tuđman; fears among Croatian Serbs; changes in Croatian constitutional politics; local Serbian rebellions;

the role of Milošević’s Serbia; the JNA; Krajina; the police; the arming of both sides; Borovo Selo; Vukovar; Dubrovnik; and the question of when the JNA ceased functioning as a federal army and became, in practice, a military actor aligned with one side of the conflict. Croatia 1990–1991: From Political Dispute to War — Krajina, the JNA, Tuđman, and the Serbian Rebellion