Montenegro - Serbia
Marko Vukovic of the independent news pool "AIM", reports on June 17, 1998 from Podgorica on the current relations between Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic and Slobodan Milosevic.
A question is raised whether there could be talk of peace between Djukanovic and Milosevic or about a forced out truce, which will last until the next occasion for conflict arises. Due to war in Kosovo, this truce is essential to both of them - to Milosrvic, because it is quite important to him to involve Djukanovic in a crime he organized himself, while the Montenegrin president has very little manoeuvring space as far as the Kosovo question is concerned and not earn the epithet of a traitor and co-conspirator of "shiptar terrorists." What is in question is a game of poker which Milosevic is already losing, but is making an attempt to cut his losses by passing part of them onto somebody else, while Djukanovic is attempting to position himself as an onlooker who is not risking or winning anything, which he could succeed with only if not a single recruit from Montenegro is killed in Kosovo. On the contrary, Djukanovic, who is already under heat since both the parents, the opposition and his coalition partners are pressuring him to withdraw the recruits within the Montenegrin borders, would have a major political and moral setback, as much as to bring down his currently very high credibility with Montenegrin population.More than anything, the unbridgeable gap between Belgrade and Podgorica is indicated by the passage of a new majority law on elections of representatives to the Republican /upper/ house of the Federal Parliament, by which Bulatovic's party has been eliminated in advance, electing only members of the ruling coalition. With this act, Montenegro took a firm stance towards Milosevic, and now, he cannot even formally take a more important decision on the federal level by himself, since he will be blocked in the Republican house by the monolithic Montenegrin vote.
Source: "AIM" news service, June 17, 1998