Montenegro poll: Result may trigger freedom fever in Balkans

By Vaiju Naravane

PARIS, APRIL 21.The tiny mountainous republic of Montenegro goes to the polls on Sunday to elect a new Parliament. With its large and powerful neighbour Serbia, Montenegro makes up what remains of the once prestigious Balkan federation of Yugoslavia.

It is an election which is causing a great deal of worry in western capitals. If the Socialist Party of the present President, Mr. Milo Djukanovic, wins the poll, as it is tipped to do, this consultation will lead to a referendum next June on the total independence of the 600,000-strong Balkan state. This is a worrying scenario because four different and potentially hostile communities live there together.

The Montenegrins themselves do not make up more than 50 per cent of the population. The north of the country is populated by a Serb majority which is very close to Belgrade. The south of the country is dominated by the Albanians (between seven and nine per cent of the population). The centre of the

country, that is to say the Montenegrin part of the Sandjak region is peopled by Muslims of Turkish and Bosnian descent.

In this situation, Mr. Djukavonic has promised everything to everyone, guaranteeing, that should independence become a reality, each community would be given a large degree of autonomy including freedom of education in the various languages.

But the real problems of the republic lie elsewhere and the European Union managed to place its finger on them last February.

The E.U.'s view of the situation, which is now shared by the U.S. as well, runs as follows: the independence of Montenegro could once again upset the very fragile equilibrium in the Balkans and could even lead to another war in a region which has above all need of reform and integration into Europe's geo- political and economic system.

The independence of Montenegro could in effect awaken similar aspirations in Kosovo, which, since the victory of the Federal President, Mr. Vojislav Kostounica, in Belgrade, demonstrated its determination to break away from Serbia, despite

U.N. Resolution 1244 which strictly rules out such a possibility.

Kosovo's case would not be an isolated one. Even the former autonomous Serbian province of Voivodina, peopled by a Hungarian majority, could see the rise of nationalistic demons and claim independence.

In fact, all the big and small Balkan states could succumb to independence fever. Herzegovina, inhabited mainly by Croats could redouble its demands for Croat-dominated territories to be attached to Zagreb, as Croat nationalists have been doing these past weeks. The Bosnian Serb Republika Srpska could ask

for independence or for its attachment to Serbia. The West fears the creation of a series of mini-states, a Balkan sieve, which would return the geo-strategic situation in the region to what pertained during the first decade of the 20th century.

The international community's perplexity is not limited to this reality. For many years now, Montenegro has been seen as ``a problem state''. On its territory, hundreds of mafia barons find refuge, mainly Italians, but also Greek, Turkish, Bulgarian and Russian. The port of Bar in southern Montenegro

is the centre of intense smuggling in drugs and cigarettes. Boats leave from there for the Italian coast from where the merchandise is expedited to the rest of Europe and the U.S. The Podgorica government's main source of revenue comes from illicit activity.

The independence of Montenegro is seen by many as the emergence of a mafia state which would enter into a liaison with neighbouring Albania, already highly tainted by illegal activity. This would make the eastern coast of the Adriatic sea the centre of all kinds of traffic, from arms, drugs, cigarettes to prostitution and illegal immigrants.

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Section  : International
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