Blagoje Adžić


Blagoje Adžić was a Serbian politician who served as an acting Minister of Defence of the Yugoslavia government.

Biography

He was of Serbian ethnicity. Although his rank was Colonel General, he was in charge of the Yugoslav People's Army after the resignation of Veljko Kadijević in 1992. He held office from 29 September 1989 until 8 May 1992, when he resigned. He was succeeded by Života Panić.
Adžić was born in a village of Pridvorice near Gacko, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which is now Bosnia and Herzegovina. As a child, he purportedly witnessed the slaughter of his entire family by Ustaše forces rampaging through his village while he and his family were in hiding.
After his third year in industrial school, he graduated from officer training school in 1953. After he had graduated, he also received a diploma in foreign languages from the JNA military school. He traveled to the Soviet Union and graduated from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1969, and then graduated from JNA War College in 1973. Adžić then graduated from the People's Defence School in 1987. He held a number of posts in the JNA including commander of the 1st and 3rd battalions of the 4th Proletariat Infantry Regiment, commander of the 25th and 26th Infantry Division and commander of 52nd Corps. He served ten other smaller posts all throughout his military career.
He became Deputy Commander of the 7th Army in 1986 and held that position until 1987, when he was promoted to Lieutenant General. He held the position of Deputy Chief of Staff in Yugoslav Army Headquarters until 1989 when he was promoted to Colonel General. According to Marko Hoare, a former employee at the ICTY, an investigative team worked on indictments of persons whom they labelled a 'joint criminal enterprise', including Adžić, Slobodan Milošević, Veljko Kadijević, Borisav Jović, Branko Kostić, Momir Bulatović and others. Hoare claims that, due to Carla del Ponte's intervention, these drafts were rejected, and the indictment limited to Milošević alone, as a result of which most of these individuals were never indicted.
Adžić died in March 2012, aged 79, in Belgrade.