We Ain`t Angels

In response to Bozovic's admission, Slavko Perovic, President of the Liberal Alliance of Montenegro, said the following to VREME: "The Liberal Alliance doesn't even consider reacting, nor can it allow itself to fall to such a level of discussion". At a press conference given by the Socio-Democratic Party of Reformists, Vice-President Dragisa Burzan told reporters that "Prime Minister Bozovic has insulted the Montenegrins; it is a question of undermining the Montenegrins within the Federation, so that, at the moment, there is a quiet struggle going on, but it is impossible to know what it could escalate into."

Whatever the case, nobody is taking it seriously, mostly because they say it is a matter of accounts being settled inside a certain clique of Montenegrins who for the last few years have held the floor, so that the antagonists have taken to using the weapon that suits them best.

With the victory of the "anti-bureaucratic revolution", the most urgent task was to re-establish the Montenegrin's Serbian identity. The Montenegrins took the lead in this task: one of the first was Metropolitan Amfilohije, who didn not want to baptize Montenegrins without their registering as Serbs, provoking the anger of the Montenegrins. It is openly admitted that many Montenegrins travelled to other Orthodox countries, to Rumania, Bulgaria, Greece or Russia, so that their children could be registered as Montenegrins. Not even the refugees from Albania who came to Montenegro crying "we are Montenegrins" were spared; on being baptized later on, Mr Amfilohije persuaded them that they had been deluded that they were really Serbs. This mission caused conflicts, even bloodshed, but there was no adequate reaction from the government.

Government representatives strengthened their positions by submitting to the extremists at numerous protest meetings. In this manner Dr Branko Kostic announced that he was a Serb and a Montenegrin, and President Bulatovic talked of a nation of Montenegrin name and surname, while a good portion of the brotherhood didn't allow any mention of a Montenegrin nation on the grounds that it was a product of the "Broz-Vatican-Comintern" conspiracy against Serbianhood. With the abundant help of the media, at the time when reality was clouded by the fight against the "anti-Serb coalition", this idea found fertile soil, particularly when the Slovenes and Croats had to be confronted, followed by "other enemies of Yugoslavia and Serbianhood".

The story is widespread in Montenegro of how Dr Kostic, throughout the time of his presidency in Belgrade, was drugged by someone, and this is why he did what he did. Dr Branko Kostic himself confirmed that there could be something in this story when he effectively defended Prime Minister Panic in the Federal Parliament! The Montenegrin national feeling of those who were until recently hardened fighters for the "Serbian and Yugoslav cause", now threatens the national feeling of those who wore badges saying "100% Montenegrin". Slavko Perovic and other leaders of the opposition who plead for a sovereign, not a totalitarian, Montenegro, have become irrelevant because they already live in such a Montenegro. A Montenegro that won't fence itself off from any of the former Yugoslav republics, or any other country in the world, least of all Serbia. At last the word "Montenegrin" can be heard in the Federal Parliament.

It is interesting that the Serbian Renewal Movement for Montenegro and Hercegovina sees the incapability of reaching an agreement in the State Council to be a result of the fact that six of the ten members are Montenegrin, "representatives of Broz's plan to divide Serbs into Serbs and Montenegrins". Dr Radovan Bozovic is one of those identified. Whether he will be able to redeem himself for this sin by his latest announcement is difficult to say.