Montenegro Regards Serbia Warily

The average monthly salary in Montenegro now buys less than three gallons of gas.

The tiny, mountainous republic finds itself surrounded by enemies: Croats to the northwest, eager to retaliate for the Yugoslav army’s shelling of Dubrovnik; Albanians to the south, warily watching Montenegrin bases in fear of attack; the U.S. 6th Fleet patrolling its shores to enforce international sanctions.

Montenegro has also been saddled with 60,000 Serbian refugees fleeing the carnage the Serbs provoked in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Industry and tourism--the economic lifeblood of the republic--have ground to a halt as a result of the blockade, prompting layoffs and factory failures that are bankrupting thousands of families.

For their willingness to stand by Serbia in a confrontation with the rest of the world, the people of Montenegro are paying dearly. Yet few here are prepared to break off with the bellicose ally that has pushed them into isolation, poverty and shame. The lesson of Bosnia, where Serbs crushed an independence bid with brute force, hangs so heavily over Montenegro that even the liberal opposition is resigned to what it sees as an abusive but inescapable marriage.

“It’s more like an occupation than an alliance,” said Miodrag Perovic, editor of the popular weekly magazine Monitor, which advocates a loosening of the reins held in Belgrade. “We probably have a denser concentration of armaments in this republic than anywhere else in the world, and they are all controlled by the Serbs.”

Perovic and other opinion makers in this statelet of 600,000 estimate the number of Yugoslav troops on their territory at upward of 50,000. At least 30 Soviet-built MIG attack planes are parked on the tarmac of the airport here in Podgorica (formerly Titograd). The aircraft are ready to be called into action if a new round of Serbian-inspired fighting flares. Here, and in the federal army stronghold of Niksic, tanks and armored vehicles are so numerous that dozens have to be parked outside the gates of the crowded bases.

Perovic estimated that a good 25% of the public still supports the neo-Communist leadership installed by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. Because the leaders control the preponderance of weapons, any attempt at secession would trigger civil war.

“We just want the possibility to negotiate for ourselves, not to be governed from Belgrade. Decisions dealing with the interests of Montenegro have to be made here. This is a civic demand, not nationalism or separatism,” said Miodrag Vlahovic, a leader of the Liberal Union, a coalition of opposition parties convinced that it now speaks for the majority.

But Vlahovic believes Montenegrins have caught themselves in a “double trap” by siding with Serbia and then thinking better of it when it was too late. “Even if we succeeded to break this kind of coalition with this kind of Serbia, we would probably remain under sanctions because we would be seen as a possible source of goods for Serbia,” he said.

The United Nations in May imposed wide-ranging economic sanctions on the two remaining republics of Yugoslavia--Serbia and Montenegro--aiming to deprive them until they stop supporting the deadly Serbian sieges in Bosnia.

Montenegro’s Information Ministry estimates that about one-third of the republic work force has been placed on compulsory leave--a euphemism for unemployment. The average monthly income was 16,000 dinars in August, then the equivalent of about $50 on the black market but with far less buying power because of hyper-inflation and shortages. Gasoline, for example, costs 1,500 dinars per liter (roughly a quart)--close to $20 a gallon.

As the economic noose tightens, political leaders say the people are beginning to question the wisdom of having thrown in their lot with Serbia.

“Every day, more and more people are losing their jobs and seeing their lives ruined. They realize they would be better off if Montenegro was a sovereign state,” said Leka Luldjuraj, president of the Democratic Coalition that unites Montenegrin minorities, who together account for nearly one-third of the population.

“I believe even the new Montenegrin leadership sees it made a mistake in siding with Milosevic,” Luldjuraj said, recalling how Montenegrin delegates to the federal Parliament recently balked at Belgrade’s attempt to oust Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic.

“But they cannot go so far as to declare a sovereign Montenegro, because that would cause civil war to break out. The army has distributed weapons to various groups on the basis of party and political affiliation. The army needs only the instruction to set off inter-communal violence.”

In light of the massive military buildup, many fear Montenegro will be used as the staging area for Serbian attacks on the nearby restive province of Kosovo. Milosevic rose to power by manipulating nationalist feelings about Kosovo, scene of medieval Serbia’s most glorious, though losing, battle in 1389. A police state was imposed on the province on the pretext that its ethnic Albanians, who make up more than 90% of the population, were plotting to secede.

Montenegro’s ruling party is staffed by Milosevic loyalists. But they have sought to walk a middle path between the Serbian president and Panic, who appear to be in a power struggle for control of the army and Belgrade’s extensive private militias and secret police.

Vice President Hazbo Nuhanovic brushed off suggestions that economic hardship has affected Montenegrins’ loyalty.

“Montenegrins feel they are Serbian, that they are actually the elder Serbs,” the former Communist contended. “This is hard for Westerners to understand, but for Montenegrins it is more important to respect the spell of Kosovo than to get foreign loans or help to build a modern railway.”

The opposition concedes that tradition is probably the strongest tie binding Montenegro and Serbia. But its members claim that the bond has been exploited and that the majority of the people would gladly escape what Monitor editor Perovic refers to as Serbia’s “mortal embrace.”