Yugoslavia’s Other Republic Takes War Mostly in Stride

In the high-rise apartment district called Block 5, a relic of Communist-era city planning on Kosovo Heroes Street, NATO airstrikes provoke scrambling not for safety but for the best view.

“Some of my neighbors are fighting over who’s going to look through the binoculars when the missiles are falling,” said Vladimir Nenezic, 27, a Block 5 resident. “So some families had to get several pairs. . . . As soon as the bombardment starts, people climb up to the roof of our building to watch.”

The pro-Western government here in Montenegro, Serbia’s junior partner in Yugoslavia, has tried to stay out of NATO’s fight with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic over his brutal crackdown in the Serbian province of Kosovo. As a result, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has limited its attacks in the republic to not much more than airports, some antiaircraft hardware and a bridge on a road linking Montenegro and Serbia.

The relatively limited damage has allowed the vibrant, Mediterranean-style street life of this capital city to survive. Sidewalk cafes on sycamore-lined streets are enormously popular--despite early closing hours because of bombing fears. Men show off a macho style in their clothing and conversation, while women dress to the nines in Italian fashions.

“It’s important to people here to be well dressed and drive good cars,” said Mira Ivanovic, 23, a local woman whose university in Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, is closed for the duration of the war. “You don’t have to eat or have money saved up.”

Many worry, however, that the worst lies ahead. Fears remain rampant that Milosevic supporters, backed by Yugoslav army troops stationed in Podgorica, may try to stage a coup when the war ends.

“We’re going to be left alone for as long as the bombs are falling,” predicted businessman Puco Djekic, 49. “But the army is preparing day by day, edging forward. The moment when Kosovo is not in the focus, we’re going to have a circus here. . . . People are afraid of a civil war and a takeover of the government in Montenegro.”

The economy is also deteriorating. Ivanovic, who was decked out in gold, said lack of supplies just forced her family to close the pharmacy they ran, and she herself is feeling pinched for cash these days.

Good Luck Is Mixed With Air of Unreality

Still, Montenegrins are keenly aware that right now, among all Yugoslavs, they are the lucky ones. Indeed, the very normality of this city seems somehow unreal to any visitor from the outside.

On weekend evenings, thousands of mostly young people still converge on a downtown street-turned-walkway to see and be seen. Endless streams of cars--many of them expensive models stolen in Western Europe through insurance fraud schemes and resold here at bargain-basement prices--slowly cruise through narrow streets past myriad outdoor cafes. Friends spot each other and shout out greetings.

A mildly self-deprecating word is used to describe spending hours in aimless conversations with friends over coffee or beer: “bleating,” as in the sound that sheep make.

“There’s no other place to meet people, only cafes,” said Sandra Nestorovic, 23, a university student with a gold earring in one ear and three imitation diamonds in the other. “I like to go to see some nice guys and talk with friends. We meet old friends and also flirt a little when a nice guy sits at the next table.”

Just across the street, a newly painted bit of graffiti in bold black letters on a yellow wall reflected the anti-Milosevic sentiment of many in the sidewalk cafe crowd. Playing off the old Communist promise of lifelong economic security, and using Milosevic’s nickname, it declared: “From the cradle to the grave, Slobo takes you the quickest way.”

But anger against NATO also runs deep.

“I’m very proud and very pleased with our army and their brave accomplishments and actions,” said Zoran Vukcevic, 42, a hairdresser who has been called up into the army reserve but is still stationed here. “When the planes were bombing Podgorica and when our army shot down a projectile that fell into the center of the town, I sent to our brave guys a case of beer to celebrate after work.”

When Marina Boskovic, 23, a law student, described Milosevic as “crazy,” her friend Nestorovic quickly disputed that assessment.

“He’s not crazy, because Kosovo must be in Yugoslavia,” Nestorovic said.

On the surface, at least, many people take a lighthearted attitude toward the fairly remote threat of getting hit by a bomb. Nearly everyone ignores the sound of air raid sirens, which go off most days but are usually triggered when NATO jets fly over Montenegro to Serbia.

“We even have names for the sirens,” said Drazen Martinovic, 27, a marketing executive. “The one announcing the danger is called Sizela. ‘Siz,’ from schizophrenia, because it brings in unrest and bad feelings. The other one, announcing the end of the danger, is called ‘Mirela,’ where ‘mir’ means peace.”

Some children find a silver lining.

“These days, I still go to school, but our lessons are shorter,” said 12-year-old Ivan Pesic. “The moment sirens go off, they let us go home. My school is not too far, maybe only a couple hundred meters away, and I can run home quickly if something starts.”

One night when the main Podgorica airport was struck especially hard, so that explosions boomed through the city, Ivan stayed up until 4 a.m., he said.

“My plan was not to go to school the next morning,” he said with a grin. “But my mom woke me up and made me go to school. I didn’t like that very much. I thought, if there’s bombing, there’s no school. This way, it seems even if I get bombed, on top of everything I still have to go to school.”

With television full of gruesome images of the wreckage, deaths and injuries from NATO bombs that have gone astray in Serbia, the chance of the same thing happening here keeps people a bit on edge.

At a dimly lighted sidewalk cafe across the street from a compound housing military barracks--which was empty as an army safety precaution--a faulty street lamp flickered back to life one recent evening, prompting a young man to wisecrack: “It’s better with the light on. Then they won’t miss.”

Later that evening, well past the 9 p.m. closing hour that police halfheartedly enforce on cafe and restaurant operators, police officers pulled up in a car, and one of them warned customers: “It’s late, and it’s not safe to sit in front of a coffee shop so close to the military barracks.”

Hardships Are Visited on Business Owners

Even in Montenegro, some people have suffered directly from the bombing. There has been one civilian death in the Podgorica area, a woman killed when cluster bombs hit homes in the village of Zeta, near the airport.

Pedja Klikovac, 34, owner of the Joker Restaurant in Zeta, said that each time the airport was bombed in March and April, he would lose two or three windows in his restaurant. He eventually put tape on most of the remaining windows, but when the airport was hit especially hard in late April, even that proved useless.

“The pressure from the detonation knocked them all down,” he said. “Now my restaurant looks like it survived a real war.”

Because of the danger, guests don’t come anymore, he added.

“Only from time to time the army comes in to have coffee, beer or juice,” he said. “I laid off all my workers except for one waitress. I have no money to pay these people when there is no work.”

Beba Klikovac, 43, the owner of a bed-and-breakfast near the airport, said she is “constantly using tranquilizers” because of the bombing.

“All the windows in the part where we rent rooms are broken, and two big windows in our living room in the part where we live, on the top floor,” she said.

Her family has been taking refuge in the cellar during attacks, but she’s not sure there’s much real point to it, she added.

“It’s more for psychological reasons than for safety, because I’m convinced if something falls real close, the whole house will just collapse on us,” she said. “Maybe it’s even worse to be down in the cellar, from where we can’t come up. From the apartment on the top floor, one can at least get out.”

She hasn’t had a single guest since the war started, and her family is having trouble making ends meet, she said.

Even among the fashionable sidewalk cafe crowd, many feel squeezed for money. Unemployment in Montenegro is now estimated at 50% or more, although figures are unreliable. Smuggling and various scams such as the international car theft linked to insurance fraud play a major role in preserving some appearance of prosperity.

“People used to say, ‘You can get everything from a needle to a locomotive’ ” from smugglers who ply their trade across a lake linking Montenegro to Albania, boasted a local ethnic Albanian trader named Abo, who gave only his first name. “Now they say, ‘Everything from a needle to an Apache helicopter.’ ”

No Apaches have made it over the lake yet. But a lot of other items are still coming, Abo said.

While some traders manage to profit from the dislocations and shortages caused by political isolation and war--or at least find ways to keep their businesses going--most people’s living standards are declining.

“Only 10% of the people are rich and are not going to be hurt with this extremely bad situation,” said Zoran Milacic, 40, who sells vegetables in a market. He added that “90% of the people are poor or on the verge of poverty.”

Supermarket employee Jovana Tosic, 33, said that prices have “rocketed drastically in recent weeks.” The cost of fish has nearly doubled, while sausage and chicken are up more than 25%, she said.

Florists are also in trouble. That may not matter to most people, but one young man, Misa, 20, who gave only his first name, was searching for dark red roses called Santa Marias, which his girlfriend, Biljana, especially loves.

“I walked through the whole city to find them, but I couldn’t,” Misa lamented. “These days, it’s very difficult for men in love to be romantic.”