Where is Montenegro Headed?

Whether or not the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the founding of Yugoslavia will initiate the turning of the final page in its history is a question which imposes itself, as the representatives of official Montenegro refuse to participate in the committee for celebrating that which, for many Montenegrins, is a very problematic date.  The first year in the life of Yugoslavia is remembered by Montenegro for the banishment and bloodshed of the supporters of King Nicholas.

Today, 80 years after that event, Montenegro only acknowledges the President of Yugoslavia, although it does not support the policies of Slobodan Milosevic.  Milosevic has been legally elected to that position and is the legitimate chief of Yugoslavia, according to the assessment of Montenegrin officials who question the legitimacy of the Federal Government and Parliament, as well as the federal courts - it could be said, the entire administration, which does not have the blessing of the coalition that won the May elections in Montenegro.  Along with that, decisions made by the Federal Government are not acknowledged or implemented in Montenegro.  President Milo Djukanovic recently announced from the DPS congress microphone that Montenegro will not put up indefinitely with the violence of the authoritarian Federal Government, but added that it is better to be tardy that to rush even a single day too early into making a decision about the state status of Montenegro.

CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION: Premier Filip Vujanovic’s answer to the question of whether the insistence on the limits of endurance of Montenegro in continuing the federal administration would actually break up Yugoslavia is:
“We do not wish to break up the federal state.  We are against the federal administration which is breaking up Yugoslavia.  All measures taken by the Federal Government to the detriment of Montenegro can be pronounced destructive for Yugoslavia.  Thus, if they continue with that policy, they are heading toward a break-up of Yugoslavia.  We from Montenegro will not destroy it, for we in DPS believe that we should head toward integration and relating within a federation of equal republics our economic, political, cultural and global interests,” stresses Vujanovic.

Miodrag Vukovic, President of the Committee of the Political System of the Parliament of Montenegro and Assistant to President Milo Djukanovic, otherwise one of the authors of the “Zabljak” Constitution, states that “those who say that the project of the agreed upon Yugoslavia in 1992 has been, to a large extent if not definitely compromised, are correct.  The 1992 Constitution, according to the opinion of experts, is nominal and not normative.  It is a constitution which is absolutely not followed, which is called upon here and there in order to hush up and legitimize in a vulgar way unconstitutional authority, which serves as a bandage which fits over all sores - the many dangers and the many defeats incurred by the faulty policies of the state chiefs of Yugoslavia.

The vice-president of the Social Democratic Party - SDP (a member of the ruling coalition), Ranko Krivokapic, publicly claims that the day of a sovereign Montenegro is approaching quickly, and that his party is working on drafts defining the new relations between Serbia and Montenegro.  Montenegro is in a perpetual state of conditioned defense, states Krivikapic, that is to say, of a need to protect its citizens from suffering and a need to redefine its fundamental jurisdictions, so that it should work on its relations with Serbia and should create stable relations with it, for the present relations merely inspire differences and animosities, and bad blood between the two republics.

WHOSE IS THE SKY: Novak Kilibarda and his associates persistently keep repeating the already well known slogan - Montenegro always with Serbia, but never under it.  Kilibarda is also for a Yugoslavia with an equal Montenegro and Serbia, but not even Kilibarda’s People’s Party believes in the realization of this principle, at least for as long as Milosevic, Seselj and Mira Markovic are in power in Serbia.  Both the social democrats and the populists believe in strengthening the attributes of Montenegrin statehood, and in this sense DPS demonstrated enviable unity at their last Congress.  The policies of the Liberals, as far as strengthening state priorities of Montenegro are concerned, is already well known, but their criticism of the indecisiveness on the part of the ruling coalition is ever increasing.  Liberals are asking for a still bigger step, but their attitude that two thirds of the population of Montenegro should voice their opinion in an eventual referendum is also known.

In any case, in recent months Montenegro has been making moves which are directed at the strengthening of state institutions and a reinstatement of certain jurisdictions which were at one point given over to the Federal Government.  Laws on citizenship and on property in Montenegro are in the process of adoption.  The Socialist People’s Party (SNP) has not made criticisms of the texts of these laws, states Vuksan Simonovic for VREME, SNP Member of Parliament in Montenegro, but there are criticisms of amendments by DPS coalition partners who would work toward exclusively separatist oriented laws.

At the time of the writing of this text, the drafts of the mentioned laws have still not been tabled in Parliament, but the Liberals and SDP have demanded that the airports in Tivat and Podgorica be declared the property of Montenegro, as well as diplomatic quarters of the former Kingdom of Montenegro, and also the air corridor above Montenegro, so that Montenegro would be able to charge for flights of airplanes over its territory as well as for the use of air frequencies, which is presently in the ownership of the Federal State.
For now everything is in the phase of testing the strength of the rope which is being stretched to its limits between Belgrade and Podgorica.