By Joshua Kucera
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia — Since the fall of
Slobodan Milosevic, a push by Montenegro for independence has threatened to
dismember Yugoslavia permanently.
In an
unusual twist, another independence drive is coming from the dominant Yugoslav
republic of Serbia.
One political party in the
Serbian ruling coalition, the Democratic Christian Party of Serbia (DHSS), has
initiated a petition drive for a referendum on
independence.
The group needs 100,000
signatures to open debate in the parliament. The petition backers say they
already have 140,000 and are shooting for
300,000.
"We're trying to make a political
statement," said Milan Protic, a top DHSS official and former Yugoslav
ambassador to Washington. "This initiative is pretty questionable, because of
the positions of the other parties in Serbian parliament, and we're aware of
that."
But the success of the petition drive
underscores the ambivalence among Serbs for remaining together with tiny
Montenegro.
The two republics are all that
remain of Yugoslavia after the secession of Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Macedonia and Croatia in the past decade.
A
recent poll showed that 61 percent of Serbs are in favor of a referendum on
Serbia's status.
What makes the move unusual is
that Montenegro, a tiny mountainous republic on the northwestern edge of Serbia,
has fewer than 700,000 people, compared with 10 million for
Serbia.
That would make Serbia's secession
roughly comparable to England declaring its independence from Great
Britain.
In March, an accord was signed between
Serbian and Montenegrin officials agreeing to preserve a joint state, to be
called Serbia and Montenegro rather than Yugoslavia. It calls for a new
constitution and for any referendum on independence to be put off for three
years.
The deal followed months of heavy
diplomacy by European Union foreign-policy chief Javier Solana. The United
States and European Union have opposed
separation.
The so-called "Belgrade Agreement,"
however, is short and vague. Serbian and Montenegrin officials must flesh it out
and come up with a workable constitutional charter that would then be approved
by the Serbian, Montenegrin and Yugoslav parliaments. That's a tall order, many
here say.
A recent report
by the think tank International Crisis Group said the agreement "may not be
implementable even with good-faith efforts in both
republics."
It's not just Serbia that
could derail the deal. Shortly after the Belgrade Agreement was signed, the
Montenegrin government collapsed because the pro-independence Liberal Party
dropped out of the ruling coalition. Then, local elections in Montenegro last
week gave a boost to the Liberals, who now will have more
leverage.
Until recently, most political
parties in Serbia and Montenegro have gone along with the preservation of the
joint state because Western governments have promised that is the quickest way
to becoming integrated into the EU and
NATO.
But Serbia's DHSS is banking on the fact
that, at some point, the deal will break down.
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020521-31006734.htm
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