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Serbia, Montenegro to discuss divorce
By Stevan Zivanovic
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Serbian and Montenegrin
leaders start the final round of crucial talks in Belgrade Monday,
aiming to redefine the two-republic Yugoslav federation. They will be
joined by the European Union's most senior diplomat, amid international
concern that breaking up Yugoslavia could lead to instability in the
Balkans. Top Stories
President Milo Djukanovic and Prime Minister Filip Vujanovic of
Montenegro will meet with Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and
Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in what observers fear will be the
last attempt to bridge apparently irreconcilable differences.
The Montenegrins will restate their long-standing basic proposal
for Serbia and Montenegro to break into two independent states each with
its own seat in the United Nations and then to form a loose union.
The two countries are the last remaining of Yugoslavia's six
republics, which broke away from the rule of Serbian strongman Slobodan
Milosevic during a series of bloody wars in the early 1990's.
In an interview on Belgrade's BK Television Saturday night,
Djukanovic confirmed that the European Union's High Representative for
Foreign and Security Affairs, Xavier Solana, will be at the talks. The
Montenegrin President said Solana should not be an "arbitrator." He said
his role should be to "instigate a good and quality dialogue."
The international community is concerned that the break up of the
federation could precipitate a new round of regional instability.
European Union foreign ministers instructed Solana at a meeting in
Brussels last week to urge Serbia and Montenegro to continue their
dialog on restructuring the federation as the best way to eventual EU
membership for both countries -- and the benefit of its financial
assistance. They reiterated they wanted to see "a democratic Montenegro
in a democratic Yugoslavia."
In a similar vein, the American ambassador to Yugoslavia William
Montgomery told the Belgrade newspaper Danas this week that in the view
of his government it would be best for Montenegro to remain a part of
Yugoslavia.
"To be sincere, there is really no need for another small non-self
supporting country that can only increase instability in the region,"
the ambassador said.
Djukanovic said he hoped the international community would accept
the will of the Montenegrin people if the majority voted for
Montenegro's independence from Serbia in a referendum early next year.
The two constituent republics already are largely separate, and the
federal army -- still stationed in both republics -- is one of the few
surviving joint institutions. Montenegro runs its own foreign and
domestic policy, and has its own customs regime. It also has its own
central bank and has replaced the Yugoslav currency, the dinar, with the
German mark -- to be replaced in turn by the euro as from Jan. 1 next
year.
Serb leaders, on the other hand, have insisted they will accept
nothing less than a restructured federation with the army, foreign
policy, customs, transport and sanitary regulations and a common
currency as a minimum of joint functions.
"If the citizens express a desire for an independent state, I am
quite certain that the international community will accept Montenegro as
an fully-fledged member of the (international) community, as (it has
done with) other countries in the region," Djukanovic said.
"It should be made clear that Montenegro does not wish for a
Balkanization of the Balkans," he added, "We want to make a first step
toward of a new European type of integration in the Balkans ... to
achieve a European-style union."
Opinion polls in Montenegro indicate that its population is split
down the middle on whether the tiny republic should become an
independent state and then possibly form a loose union with Serbia or
whether to stay with it in a restructured federation. The pro-Yugoslavia
faction says that the country's small Albanian and Muslim minorities
could tip the scale toward independence.
Djukanovic said that redefining the relationship within Yugoslavia
does not imply redrawing borders or the need for citizens to have
passports and visas to enter each other's country. "Such claims have
come from political manipulators" in both Montenegro and Serbia, he
said.
To suggestions that the mountainous, economically backward republic
could not survive on its own, Djukanovic replied that Montenegro could
live comfortably on tourism along its beautiful stretch of the Adriatic
coastline and on intensive agriculture only recently started.
The alienation between the two republics that remained in the rump
Yugoslavia when the federation disintegrated amidst so much violence in
the early 1990s began when Serbia blocked food supplies to Montenegro in
1993, accusing it of re-exporting the food to neighboring Albania, then
bitterly hostile to Belgrade.
Growing tension between the two came to a head in February 1997
when Djukanovic, then prime minister, called on former Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw from politics and step down
from power.
Things worsened further when Djukanovic at the end of that year
defeated Montenegro's President Momir Bulatovic, Milosevic's close aide
and protege, in the presidential election. Immediately afterward,
Djukanovic said Montenegro no longer accepted its status as "a satellite
of the authoritarian central authority" in Belgrade. He refused to
implement in Montenegro the "state of war" declared by the federal
government when NATO started air strikes against Yugoslavia over Kosovo,
and also rejected Belgrade's decision to break off diplomatic relations
with the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany.
Djukanovic has complained that Kostunica continued Milosevic's
policy toward Montenegro after replacing him as president in October
last year and relations between Podgorica and Belgrade have remained at
a low level ever since.
Belgrade wants the talks that open Monday to be over within the
next two and a half months so that the status of the two republics is
known before Yugoslav officials are due meet with the International
Monetary Fund in March for vital talks on further financial
arrangements.
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