Nicholas Wood* | International Herald Tribune | May 23, 2006
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/22/news/balkans.php
Fifteen years after ethnic conflict exploded in the western Balkans,
Montenegro voted by a bare margin to separate from Serbia in what
may be the last phase in redrawing the contentious borders of the
region.
The decision would dissolve what was left of the remaining republics
of the six that formed Yugoslavia during the Communist era. Its
secession from Serbia could pave the way for a very different
agreement - under international auspices - for the Albanian-
dominated province of Kosovo to split formally from Serbia in coming
months.
The voters of Montenegro, the smallest of Yugoslavia's six former
republics, decided by the narrowest of margins in a heavy turnout.
The government said that with results in from all but 49 of 1,100
polling stations, 55.4 percent of voters favored independence. That
was just four- tenths of a percentage point more than was necessary
to pass the referendum under rules agreed on by the government and
the European Union, which said it would respect the results of the
election.
Parties opposed to independence demanded a recount. Serbia, though,
seemed to accept the vote, grudgingly, recognizing that the
Constitution of the uneasy Serbia and Montenegro federation permits
secession.
Once the full results are established, the government in Podgorica
is expected to push for a meeting of Parliament to enact enabling
legislation. Government officials predicted that approval by a two-
thirds majority that is required for such a change would be a
formality.
Montenegro would then be able to seek international recognition and
a seat at the United Nations and other international institutions.
The votes disappointed a substantial minority of the population of
just 650,000, many of them Serb.
But the union with Serbia has been unhappy. Since 1997, the prime
minister of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, has distanced this
mountainous nation from Serbia. The two now share control of the
army and foreign service, but little else.
In Serbia on Monday, there was a reluctant acceptance that
Djukanovic's supporters had succeeded, although some media outlets
suggested that the referendum had not been fought on equal terms.
Djukanovic is the only Balkan leader to have clung to power
throughout the break-up of Yugoslavia, and he campaigned avidly for
the referendum. "Milo's majority is questionable," ran a headline in
Serbia's conservative newspaper Politika.
"One can conclude that the sovereigntists won, but no one can tell
by how many votes," Aleksandar Simic, an adviser to Prime Minister
Vojislav Kostunica of Serbia, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
Simic's office said neither he nor a government spokesman could give
any further comment until the complete vote results were confirmed.
Serbia could choose to make Montenegro's separation more complicated
by disputing such issues as debt and federally owned property.
"The risk is they could do it out of spite," said a Western diplomat
who was monitoring the referendum in Podgorica.
A mechanism already exists, dating to 1998 when the four previous
breakaway republics - Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and
Macedonia - negotiated issues left over by the Yugoslav breakup.
But most international observers doubt Serbia will obstruct
Montenegro. "It would be a bit like flogging a dead horse. They have
enough problems with other issues," said the Western diplomat.
Those "other issues" may be much harder for Serbia to solve.
Belgrade is under enormous international pressure to surrender one
of the region's leading war crimes suspects, Ratko Mladic, the
former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army during the 1992 to 1995
conflict in Bosnia. Its negotiations on closer ties with the
European Union have been put on hold until his arrest.
More difficult is the question of Kosovo, the UN-controlled province
that is formally a part of Serbia. British and American diplomats
have hinted that they believe that Kovoso, with its ethnic Albanian
majority, should be granted independence this year. Serbia refuses
to countenance the idea.
Djukanovic repeatedly cited Serbia's strained relations with the
international community as a principal argument for independence.
But most analysts here ascribe his victory to his dominance of the
media and the orchestrated rallying of Montenegro's diaspora and
minorities to his cause.
While most broadcasters tried to give balanced coverage of the
referendum, the prime minister was able to dominate television
during the campaign, simply in his capacity as leader of the
government.
Figures from the border police suggest that Montenegro's diaspora
had a decisive role in passing the referendum. About 16,000
Montenegrins from abroad returned in the three days before the
election, a number equal to 3 percent of total voter turnout.
"I think the diaspora is probably the major decisive factor," said
Mihailo Jovovic, political editor of the Montenegrin newspaper
Vijesti.
"I think we made a difference," said Began Cekic, a demolition
expert from Brooklyn, New York, who returned to his parent's home in
Gusinje in the north of the republic. His friends and neighbors, a
mixture of Montenegrins, Albanians and Muslim Slavs, celebrated late
into the night, waving Montenegrin, Albanian and Bosnian flags.
Hundreds of them, he said, came back to vote from the New York
region. "I think we gave them the yes vote," Cekic, an ethnic
Albanian, said in a telephone interview.
EU officials said privately that the bloc, which had previously been
resistant to new independent states forming in the Balkans, now
viewed the independence of Montenegro as inevitable. They said the
EU remained determined to retain its political neutrality in the
region and had no choice but to respect a democratic vote.
An EU development spokesman, Altafaj Tardio, said the commission
would begin drafting a proposal to start talks on a separate aid
package for Montenegro.
Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, said the bloc would
respect the outcome but that it was too soon to discuss whether and
when both sides could begin to discuss closer ties; NATO made
similar comments. "Let's wait and see," Solana said. "I think
probably it's much more important that they begin talking among
themselves."
*Dan Bilefsky contributed from Brussels.
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