Thick Borders

The border ramp at Debeli Brijeg, the only border crossing between Montenegro and Croatia wasn’t raised after the FRY and Croatia signed an agreement on border crossings. The border crossings with Albania are also closed. The sea border towards Italy is far from open and the border between Montenegro and Serbia is increasingly closed. Unbelievably, Montenegro’s border with Bosnia isn’t sealed, which shows that Yugoslavia’s southern republic is in a kind of cage. An informed source from Dubrovnik spoke to VREME about why the border with Croatia was still closed although all the other border crossings between the FRY and Croatia are open. "States fight wars for years, have unresolved territorial issues for decades but after the war it’s in everyone’s interest to raise the border ramps as is the case in the civilized world," the source said. There have been signals coming from Dubrovnik that Debeli Brijeg should be opened and some even set that as a condition for the border agreement.

No one explained why Foreign Ministers Milan Milutinovic and Mate Granic skipped Debeli Brijeg, but most of Montenegro sees that step as a continued attempt by Belgrade and its followers in the republic to keep Montenegro in isolation. Momir Bulatovic’s opponents said the border with Croatia will be opened after the elections, that is once Bulatovic can’t be harmed by the announcement that the Prevlaka peninsula has been given to Croatia. Milica Pejanovic-Djurisic voiced disappointment in the foreign ministers’ agreement and demanded that Bulatovic publicly say whether he lost Prevlaka and what deal was made about it in Dayton. The tourist industry says their trade can’t rise unless the border is opened, while Bulatovic claims that Croatia is suffering more damage than Montenegro because of plans to build an Adriatic road from Croatia to Greece. That road is a reality that is accepted by both Croatia and Montenegro. Croatia’s preparations are going ahead and Montenegro is planning to build a road from Debeli Brijeg to Ulcinj. That undertaking should resolve the Prevlaka issue which will clearly be given to Croatia. That would make it easier to establish soft borders between the tow republics, but the whole thing could be a disaster for Bulatovic’s presidential election campaign.

Bulatovic has been saying that he hasn’t handed Prevlaka to Croatia because UN troops are stationed there, but once Croatian troops deploy there, it’ll be clear that it’s impossible to preserve Montenegro’s territorial integrity and the integrity of Boka Kotorska bay.

His statement drew questions from the association of veterans of the 1990-92 war: "Does Bulatovic want us to fight and die for Prevlaka once more. We’ll have to wait and see whether Bulatovic will have to hand over Prevlaka and whether the alleged border dispute is just an excuse not to open the border crossing.

It’s also a mystery why the border with Albania is still closed even though dramatic events in that country have blown over. Montenegro appealed for the opening of that border several times, but instead, the army stepped up security.

Border ramps have also been raised on all the roads from Montenegro to Serbia. That border seems to be harder to cross than any other.

It’s a little easier to cross into Bosnia, and increasingly complicated to get to Italy because of naval control. Even the skies are limited. This reporter saw a Montenegrin business delegation being searched extremely rigorously by customs officers at Podgorica airport last week after a trip to Italy.