Breaking Point

We’ll know next week what they’ve decided: whether heads will fall in Montenegro or not. A decision is necessary in both cases and in the past few years, decisions about life and death here have been made by the husband of the most peaceful woman in the world. The only thing she hates more than war are her political opponents and that’s why she’s married to a man who shoots when he can and negotiates when he has to.

Since their policies are directed against this world and these times, there is never a shortage of opponents but this ruler might like just that. He doesn’t need allies, friends and unreliable favors. The number of enemies is the measure of his power which is shown and proved by force. That’s why it’s important not to be right. A just goal can be achieved without force or great power which is best reflected in injustice or even better in damage, misfortune, violence and crime.

In all his battles to date, Milosevic took care never to look better than his opponents, never to be right, forcing the Serbs to choose between the nation and their rights, to stand behind him only as Serbs and to choose force not justice. His national policies are to non-Serbs what his regime is to the opposition.

The people, who at first accepted the logic of force, no longer find it easy to choose the logic of right in disputes among Serbs.

Milo Djukanovic is undoubtedly the most dangerous Milosevic opponent to date, because he’s not part of the opposition but rather comes from within the authorities, because he talks of reforms and modernization which is extremely dangerous as it gives people hope, and above all, because he insists on the principles of justice and equality. Equality, implemented in the relations between the federation and republics, in the operation of the federal parliament and the constitutional powers of the FRY president, can only carry the sound of the branch Milosevic is sitting on being as it's being sawed through.

Djukanovic has sent him three messages. First, he wants reforms and the opening of the joint state. If Milosevic doesn’t want that, then Djukanovic wants great freedom of action for Montenegro. And third, he said he’s prepared to talk and cooperate, which means he’s conscious of political reality and isn’t refusing to compromise.

Milosevic wants to try force first before talking, and that sequence of events is wrong and often impossible. Few people agree to talk and be polite if you first tried to break their neck. That’s what the whole story of the breaking up of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia boils down to, and it holds true for the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. When Djukanovic disputed his policies, he responded with economic punishment for Montenegro along with threats and accusations of separatism.

Milosevic responded to Djukanovic’s offer in his own way: recognize my inviolability and don’t interfere in my affairs or I’ll get tough, and if I can’t beat you up, I’ll separate from you stinking separatists, traitors and American servants.

Right now, we’re at the point where Milosevic is completing preparations for all kinds of violence and aggression, just like before, by keeping quiet and letting others stick their necks out. I don’t recall seeing him say a single word about Djukanovic and Montenegro, but the media, courts, police and Momir Bulatovic have done everything they could, and it won’t be their fault if war doesn’t come to Montenegro.

The press and state TV explained that the election fraud committed in the presidential elections in Montenegro hasn’t been seen in Europe this century, that the regime there is up to its neck in crime, that Djukanovic is breaking up Yugoslavia and that the time has come for people to rise up against this evil. When the time comes for the people who are now putting guns in the hands of the Montenegrins to explain themselves, they’ll come up with standard excuses such as I didn’t know, I didn’t dare, I was drunk or perhaps "didn’t you understand I was referring to Milosevic".

The federal judiciary has offered legalistic arguments and excuses for anything that might be done against Djukanovic.

Just one year ago, Serbia was rocked by the consequences of the election fraud which all the courts verified, and now that honorable judiciary is implementing the same political will without any reservations.

The police will organize everything needed for either a spontaneous and justified citizens’ revolt or separatist provocation. The only problem is that the police is Djukanovic’s and the whole operation would have to be rougher and more obvious.

Finally, Momir Bulatovic deserves the role of leader of a popular protest or uprising or even national liberation movement. But, he’s also got the sequence wrong. Long ago, you first took to the woods and later if you were lucky you got villas and luxury cars. Bulatovic was born into an official posting and he grew fat in it without ever going anywhere without a driver, secretary or telephone. The only plants he’s seen are potted. Now he wants to convince people that his defeat at the elections is an intolerable injustice.

I don’t know what’s more grotesque: that outlaw, his uprising which will be televised, his reasons or the bureaucratic speech he uses to inflame the people.

All that does not have to mean that there won’t be any violence. If everything else is a fake, the guns are real. All it takes is for someone to pull a trigger at one of the rallies and things will go their own way. It doesn’t have to look like a real war, just big riots with some causalities which would mean the army would be ordered to intervene. Or perhaps, the option being considered is the secession of northern Montenegro which means violence.

In any case, the needed evidence would be provided proving one of Djukanovic’s supporters started the whole thing but Bulatovic would find himself playing the role of Radovan Karadzic and Milosevic would play dumb again.

All this is a plan for a crime that might never happen, but we all hear the knives being sharpened and I don’t know whether anyone anywhere was ever so calm in the face of a possibility like this. We can’t say we don’t know what all this means or that we forgot what it looks like or how it will end. I think there isn’t even any covert pleasure this time, or disbelief or fear; people have simply grown numb because of a feeling that their own lives are worthless. As if they’re saying: what’s a few more dead in Montenegro after everything that happened?

There are no indications for now that Milosevic intends to abandoned his planned crime but I believe he will. The threat could grow for a few more days and then on January 15, everything could grow quiet. A final decision probably hasn’t been taken yet and it will depend on a last assessment of the situation. Milosevic doesn’t like giving up force and he’ll be unhappy if his services report that violence is not advisable and would be hard to start.

That doesn’t mean he’ll recognize Djukanovic or that he won’t try some other plan at some other place and time.

Delays aren’t good, and in this case, it could cause anxiety among the people who prepared the crime. Milosevic is counting on them, so he shouldn’t disappoint them or they will feel that their efforts were in vain. Why did the federal court annul all the rulings of the Montenegrin supreme court on electoral rolls if that didn’t prevent Djukanovic from becoming president? Why did the state press and TV waste all their worst insults and threats if he’s still walking around Podgorica and even coming to Belgrade?

What if Milosevic finds some pleasure or at least some comfort in disappointing his accomplices and hanging them out to dry? It wouldn’t be the first time. Moreover, whenever he's pulled out of some war, breakup, robbery, election fraud or similar adventure he's left a scapegoat behind for us to vent our anger on. Usually it was the one who stuck his neck out farthest and couldn’t pull back in time. I have no idea who it could be this time around. I wouldn’t think Bulatovic was that naive, but I would bet on Zizic.