Word: montenegrins
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...have been surprised by Kostunica's popularity, and they've mounted a near-hysterical propaganda campaign to stop him. There's a big opposition rally scheduled for Belgrade on Wednesday, but Milosevic won't be around. He's going to Montenegro to hold his first rally there since the Montenegrin government began moving toward independence...
Rising tensions in the republic have rung alarm bells in Washington, which backs the Montenegrin government as a bulwark against Milosevic and which now must decide what to do if the Serbian President moves against the U.S. ally, either with overt military action or a covert coup. Montenegro may be a very small place, but top Clinton Administration officials are saying it has the potential to produce the most serious foreign policy crisis of the waning days of the current Administration--or the first days of the next...
...parallels with Milosevic's earlier wars are unsettling. An estimated 15,000 heavily armed Yugoslav troops are already stationed in the republic. That includes a battalion of elite, well-paid soldiers selected for their loyalty to Milosevic. As in Slovenia and Croatia a decade ago, the Montenegrin government is training and arming an equal number of police to counter the army's threat. In regions such as the northern town of Kolasin, 19 miles from the Serbian border, the two armed sides are taking each other's measure. "If there is a war, we will have no other choice...
Still, ethnic divisions in Montenegro do not run so deep as they do elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia. Montenegrins, unlike Croats and Kosovo Albanians, are ethnically similar to Serbs. Support for outright independence from Serbia among ordinary Montenegrins is mixed: about 35% are for it at any cost, while a much larger proportion--including members of Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic's ruling party--say they would prefer continued ties with Serbia, but under a different regime. "Time is on the side of a democratic Montenegro," says a Djukanovic ally, Save Paraca, mayor of Cetinje, the traditional heartland of Montenegrin nationalism...
...election means Montenegro's acceptance of the principle of rule from Belgrade, and even the idea doing the rounds in NATO circles of Djukanovic himself challenging Milosevic for the Yugoslav presidency is likely to be a non-starter - Belgrade's mooted anti-terrorism law would make the Montenegrin leader liable for arrest if he tried to campaign in Serbia. But rejecting the constitutional changes and pressing on toward independence, as many of his supporters want Djukanovic to do, would demand that the Montenegrin government prevent Yugoslavia's presidential elections from taking place on its soil. And that would give Milosevic...