Martin Spegelj was born 11 November 1927 in Stari Gradac, Pitomača. He was a partisan soldier during World War II. Eventually, he rose to become General of the 5thYugoslav Army Army District based in Zagreb, Croatia. After the first free elections in Croatia, he was second Defence Minister. Špegelj was one of the few in the top leadership of Croatia who saw the impending war as unavoidable. Together with the Slovenian command, Špegelj formulated a joint defence plan in case either country was attacked by the JNA. At the same time he was smuggling weapons into Yugoslavia, arming paramilitary troops and organizing them for attacks on legitimate JNA forces.
Špegelj Tapes
At the onset of the war in Croatia in mid-1990, the Croatian Serbs orchestrated an armed rebellion, refusing to accept Croatian government authority. As they were supported by the JNA, Croatian forces were poorly armed, so Špegelj undertook a campaign of acquiring arms through the black market community, importing weapons from former Warsaw Pact countries like Hungary and Romania. He was caught on tape in October 1990 talking to an assistant who was actually an undercover KOS operative. At the time, war in Croatia had not started yet. In the conversations, Špegelj talks of arming Croatians in preparation for secession of Croatia and the impending civil war. The so-called Špegelj tapes were turned into a documentary film by Zastava military film center, and aired in January 1991 to the larger Yugoslav public. They were made public in order to bolster the attack of the Belgrade government against the newly elected Croatian government. The Croatian leadership, including the main "actors" themselves, initially quickly dismissed the tapes as fake, claiming that the presumably innocuous videotaped conversations were subsequently dubbed. Their authenticity, however, was later confirmed by Stipe Mesić, the president of Croatia, was one of the first on Croatian side who admitted that the tapes are authentic, although he claimed some of the sentences were taken out of context. Most of the tape has audio garbled and the text subtitled and read by a narrator, so the accuracy of the tape is in question. The JNA leadership in Belgrade wanted Špegelj to face trial for treason for this. As a result of the affair, and to calm tensions, Tuđman dismissed him from his post. Fearing for his life, Špegelj fled to Austria where he remained for several months.
Return to Croatia
Considering the rising tensions and the fall of first deaths of the impending war, Špegelj was persuaded to return to Croatia to become the chief of staff of the new army that was in the process of forming. When the Slovenian War occurred in June 1991, Špegelj advocated activating the joint defence plan, which would put Croatia into war against the JNA by attacking its army barracks in Croatia. However, Tuđman feared confrontation and refused to support the Slovenians. Špegelj was then made inspector-general of the Croatian army, replaced partly due to his disagreements with Tuđman. Only several months later, full-scale war broke out, and Špegelj's plan for attacking JNA's army barracks in Croatia was implemented and resulted in the Battle of the barracks, bringing much needed heavy weapons to Croatia. The war in Croatia entered a phase of lower intensity after the signing of a at the start of the 1992. Špegelj then officially retired.
Post-war and criticism
Following the war, Špegelj became a fierce critic of Tuđman's politics, accusing him and his followers of war profiteering. In 2001, he published his autobiography in which he was very critical of the Tuđman's HDZ and its political maneuverings, which he argues needlessly escalated the war. He also accused them of supporting Bosnian Croat separatism which led to their conflict with the Bosniaks during the Bosnian War. Špegelj was in turn criticized by pro-Tuđman elements of the Croatian military, notably Davor Domazet-Lošo who considers that the June 1991 Slovenian War was just an excuse to draw Croatia into the conflict.
