The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.63/No.22           June 7, 1999 
 
 
Washington Pushes Montenegro's Breakup From Serbia  

BY BOBBIS MISAILIDES
ATHENS, Greece - As the U.S.-NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia has intensified, tensions have risen in Montenegro. Washington has been trying to engineer a breaking away of this republic from the federation with Serbia.

About 5,000 people participated in a May 21 rally in the city of Cetinje, some 30 kilometers southwest of Podgorica, Monten egro's capital. They gathered to protest the Yugoslav federal army reinforcements of up to 1,300 troops around Cetinje.

"We are telling the army today that it is not welcome in our city," said Savo Paraca, the city's mayor, at the protest rally. The troop reinforcements in Cetinje are part of the Belgrade's efforts to keep Montenegro under a firm grip. "The Yugoslav army has blocked Montenegro completely, tension is increasing, Belgrade is tightening the noose," said a May 20 statement by the republic's Information Ministry. The Yugoslav army reportedly setup checkpoints on all major roads into Montenegro. Meanwhile, the Albanian population of Montenegro - 7 percent of the republic's prewar total of 650,000 - has been swelling with the influx of more than 70,000 Kosovar Albanians, adding another major element to the tense situation.

The army is controlled by the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which is comprised of Montenegro and Serbia. Montenegro president Milo Djukanovic's administration has kept under its control a well- armed police force, rejecting demands by Belgrade to turn over its command to the federal army. The two armed forces face each other in an often hostile atmosphere.

"This tense situation could easily erupt into a civil war," said Dragan Duric, officer of international relations of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Montenegro (CITUM), in an April 24 interview with Militant reporters in Podgorica.

The Djukanovic administration warned it will consider using its police force to remove the army checkpoints. "The police were ready to do it," said Dragisa Burzan, Montenegro's deputy prime minister, on May 20. "But it would be a very bloody thing to do. The problem is, it can move to a huge conflict."

After a week-long standoff, the Yugoslav army pulled back and tensions eased somewhat. "They struck some kind of agreement," said Ivan, a student from Belgrade who now lives in Montenegro, in a May 25 phone interview. "There's no army in the streets for the last few days. Only the police."

Djukanovic won the presidential elections last year and the coalition he heads controls the republic's parliament. He was a former official in the local affiliate of Milosevic's Socialist Party, which split last year, and advocates attempting a more rapid integration of the country into the world capitalist market than Belgrade has tried. Many in his government favor declaring independence for the republic. In a May 22 interview on the republic's state television, Djukanovic called for changing Yugoslavia's constitution "to provide autonomy to Montenegro." He also advocated turning the Yugoslav army into a professional army that "would protect those who do not want to participate in its service from violence and force."

A declaration of independence for Montenegro would tighten the encirclement of Serbia and deny Belgrade its only access to the Adriatic Sea through the port of Bar.

The People's Socialist Party, which is pro-Milosevic and opposed to independence for Montenegro, won 40 percent of the vote in last year's elections. Officials of this party and Belgrade often accuse Djukanovic's administration of being pro- imperialist. Djukanovic has refused to recognize Belgrade's declaration of a state of war in the face of NATO's assault. On May 21, Nebojsa Vujovic, spokesman for the Yugoslav foreign ministry, denounced Djukanovic and other Montenegro government officials for their recent visit to NATO member countries. "This is one country, one foreign policy," Vujovic said.

To appease the "pro-western" government of Montenegro, Washington has refrained from widespread bombings there. Industry and infrastructure have been largely spared. Unlike Serbia, destruction of residential areas has been isolated, although the May 1 bombing of the village of Murino and the remote mountain commune of Plav killed four civilians, including two young girls who had fled Pristina, Kosova. The economic crisis in Montenegro, however, has been exacerbated by the bombing since the republic's economy is intertwined with the rest of Yugoslavia.

The sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia for the last eight years, at Washington's initiative, have" destroyed Montenegro's main industries, textile and metal," said Duric. About 50,000 workers lost their jobs and Montenegro's employed workforce declined to 115,000. In addition, while 70,000 workers are not regularly paid, average wages since last February declined from 200 to 160 Deutsche marks (1 DM = US$.54) a month. According to Duric, "A working-class family of three needs a minimum monthly salary of 400DM for a normal life." To make ends meet thousands have turned to the flourishing black market, smuggling cigarettes and other products in short supply into Serbia. Others manage through help in food from relatives who are farmers.

Djukanovic's attempts to rapidly open up the republic's economy to imperialist bank trusts have been enthusiastically applauded in the big-business press but have produced minimal results. "There is not one foreign bank functioning in Montenegro," said Duric, and only one factory has been "privatized" -a beer brewery employing 800 workers that was bought by a Belgian company.

The Confederation of Independent Trade Unions, which organizes 90,000 workers, has advocated selling "vouchers," that is, shares, of all companies to workers. The port at Bar, for example, is 80 percent state-owned, while employees bought 20 percent of its shares through their union.

In its program adopted at its 11th congress in September 1998, CITUM delegates concluded that the decades-long bureaucratic mismanagement of the economy by the regime of Josip Broz (Tito) "proved to be incompatible with elementary rights and political freedoms and with required economic efficiency. On the other hand, the liberal capitalist market economies in themselves proved incapable of providing full employment, righteous distribution, social security, human activities, and ecologically responsible care for the future." The union federation called on workers to "decisively oppose the march toward uncurbed capitalism." It made it clear that the task of the trade unions in Montenegro is not simply protection of the standard of living of workers but "general social relations, particularly those that are directly connected with economic and social rights of the workers."

"It will not be easy to establish capitalism in this region," Duric said, because of workers' unwillingness to give up without a fight the social conquests of the Yugoslav revolution of the 1940s. Most workers oppose large-scale layoffs and cuts in social programs - such as child-care centers and clinics that offer essential services to working people at affordable rates or free of charge - that many foreign investors demand, Duric said.

This was confirmed in interviews with a number of workers. "If foreign companies bring in capital and technology it's okay, but not at our expense," said Aleksandar Dabovic, a sailor in Podgorica. "Under Tito the economy was mismanaged and development limited. But we are used to a certain kind of socialism, protections for workers, that people in the `West' don't have. We are not going to give that up. Look at what happened in Thailand and south Korea," he said, referring to the crisis in southeast Asia.

The trade union federation opposes NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. It also calls for "civil peace" between the federal army and police, while leaving the settlement of the issue of whether Montenegro should remain part of the federal republic for when the U.S.-NATO assault is over.

Argiris Malapanis contributed to this article.

 
 
 
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