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Hundreds took to the streets Feb. 15 in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro — a country of 650,000 on the Adriatic Sea adjacent to Bosnia and Herzegovina — protesting high unemployment and demanding the government resign. “We can’t pay our 500 euros electricity bills with 100 euros [monthly] salaries,” protest organizer Ljubo Varagic told Associated Press. The action comes days after thousands of workers and youth in Bosnia rallied against mass layoffs, unpaid wages and government corruption. “Bosnia has taken to the streets. What are we waiting for?” said organizers of the Montenegro action on their Facebook page. “Tens of thousands of unemployed, hungry and robbed people should take justice into their own hands!” Montenegro police fired tear gas and stun guns in an effort to disperse the protesters. Twenty demonstrators were detained. Nine cops were injured in the ensuing clashes. “I think the corporate elite, led by Djukanovic, should end up in prison,” protester Marko Milacic told AP. Milo Djukanovic, now prime minister, has shifted back and forth between prime minister and president for most of the time since the country was forged out of the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The country’s official unemployment rate is 15 percent, with nearly one-third of those between the ages of 23 and 30 out of work. |
| — BRIAN WILLIAMS |