Balkan Report: March 3, 2000

Monitors For Montenegro? The idea of deploying several hundred international monitors in Montenegro came up on the sidelines of an international conference in Podgorica this week. The conference was convened as a dialogue between Montenegrin and Serbian pro-democracy politicians and activists to address constitutional differences.

The head of one of Montenegro's three ruling pro-democracy parties, Social Democrat Zarko Rakcevic, said that as long as Montenegro fails to gain international recognition as a sovereign state, it will be unable to borrow on international financial markets to rebuild its industry. Western support for Montenegro, he says, has been laudatory but devoid of investment: "As far as we are concerned, by establishing its basic rights, Montenegro is not 'provoking' [Yugoslav President Slobodan] Milosevic since this is our right to self-determination. Part of [our] society may want to live in a close community with Serbia. We have to do what is in our fundamental interest. But Montenegro cannot accept the task of democratizing Serbia. "

Rakcevic says he hopes the international community changes its position toward Montenegro and accepts Montenegro's basic right to national self -determination--the right to separate its fate from that of Serbia, as he puts it. That, he believes, would prevent a repetition of recent tragic experiences in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. He says Montenegro is the best example that Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Muslims can live together in harmony.

The Montenegrin parliamentarian says the solution is to take preventive action in the field of security by deploying observers before trouble starts: "We want to say that if the international community really recognizes Montenegro as a positive example, please help us now. Please understand us now. We think that, for example, with 200 [international] monitors here, Milosevic will [behave] completely differently" from how he would without the foreigners present.

Rakcevic says deploying monitors would be a clear sign to Milosevic to cease his destabilization of Montenegro, which has included an economic blockade and the setting up of Yugoslav TV transmitters on Yugoslav military bases. But Rakcevic warned that if the international community waits until after Milosevic puts military and paramilitary pressure on Montenegro, it will be too late.

A senior official with the international community's Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe, Finnish diplomat Alpo Rusi, told RFE/RL that the international community is coming around to the idea that deploying monitors in Montenegro would make sense. "I think, yes, it cannot be ruled out, and I would like to see this type of monitoring to be set up through the OSCE or otherwise in case it is commonly accepted. But it is in my own thinking and clear-cut view that this country should now have this type of instrument, like a monitoring mission. And we should discuss this matter further," Rusi concluded.

He notes that although Yugoslavia is barred from the EU's Stability Pact for now, Montenegro is in practice functioning as a member state of the pact. But he says that putting together a monitoring mission for Montenegro is not yet a part of the pact's official brief.

The concept of preventing conflicts by stationing international monitors in trouble spots is not new. The UN deployed observers along Macedonia's border with Kosovo and Serbia more than six years ago, and their presence--including that of several hundred U.S. soldiers--is one of the reasons Milosevic never started trouble with Macedonia.

In contrast, however, the EU's deployment in 1991 of a European military monitoring mission in Croatia after the fighting and ethnic cleansing had begun--while providing the West with military intelligence--had little effect. Serbian forces soon shot down a mission helicopter and the mission did little, if anything, to hold back the fighting. Clad in white uniforms, they were derisively known to the locals as "ice-cream men" as much for their ineffectiveness as for their appearance.

Similarly, the presence of UN peacekeepers from UNPROFOR in Bosnia did not prevent the systematic destruction by Serbian forces of the areas that the UN had designated safe areas. Nor did it deter Serbian forces from carrying out the massacres of some 7,000 mainly Muslim males near one of the so-called "safe areas," namely Srebrenica in 1995.

Later, an unarmed OSCE mission in Kosovo was slow in deploying. It never reached full capacity and was soon forced to withdraw after Serbian forces made its job impossible--and the launching of NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia last spring inevitable. Since the Serbian capitulation and withdrawal from Kosovo last June, the international community has failed to deploy anywhere near the agreed-upon number of NATO-led peacekeepers and UN civilian police in Kosovo. That is true despite the worsening situation in Mitrovica and along Kosovo's eastern border with Serbia.

It is thus far from clear whether sufficient willingness can be mustered to deploy observers in Montenegro. The issue poses many questions: Would the observers be armed? Would they stand firm or flee in the event of the likely Serbian provocation? And what would the justification for deployment be? Do humanitarian aid convoys bound for Kosovo really require the security of observers in Montenegro, when their main "obstacles" are in Kosovo just over the border? And what would be the reaction of the Yugoslav Second Army based in Montenegro? It is already in a heightened state of alert and now manning fresh barricades along Montenegro's sole border crossing with Albania.

Based on the international community's record to date, a deployment of monitors in Montenegro is unlikely to be agreed upon before it is too late. (Jolyon Naegele for RFE/RL in Montenegro)

Klein Looks To The Future. Jacques Klein is perhaps best known to readers of "RFE/RL Balkan Report" from his days as the UN's man in Eastern Slavonia. The physically imposing French-born U.S. general quickly established a reputation there as a fair, serious, and no-nonsense administrator of what some journalists dubbed The Kingdom of Klein.

Now Klein represents the UN in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He recently gave his views on the current state of the region at a press conference in New York.

Klein, like most Westerners, is quite upbeat on the new Croatian government and its potential impact on regional peace and security: "As you know, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia have an almost symbiotic relationship. As Croatia moves into Europe, Bosnia moves with it. The problem we always had with the previous regime was that their impact on Bosnia-Herzegovina was negative. It was obfuscation, delay, avoidance, fantasies of partition. Hopefully, that is behind us."

Klein noted that the new government of Prime Minister Ivica Racan plans to provide support to the Croats of Bosnia-Herzegovina in educational, cultural, and religious affairs, but that it will no longer treat Herzegovina as an integral part of Croatia.

But the real problem for the Balkans remains: "My own view is that the whole region will not work, the whole region will not be stable until we have a democratic government in Belgrade and that Serbia becomes part of Europe again and is reintegrated into European structures" (see "RFE/RL Balkan Report," 29 February 2000). The general warned that "Milosevic is actually becoming stronger by the day" thanks to energy assistance from Russia and credits from China. Milosevic "is a man who has led the nation brilliantly back into the 19th century," Klein concluded.

The UN diplomat then turned to one of his favorite subjects, namely the need to arrest and bring to justice indicted war criminals in Bosnia: Radovan "Karadzic is still, as far as I know from sources, wandering around the eastern part of the [Republika] Srpska. I think that [to arrest him] takes national will, political will that is, perhaps, lacking." Some observers suggested that this was a reference to the country of his birth, whose peacekeepers control much of eastern Bosnia.

Looking to the future, Klein urged the EU to be serious in implementing its own long-term plans for the region: "The [Balkan] Stability Pact I think sent a message that it's costlier to keep this region out of Europe than bring it in, so let's get on with it."

The no-nonsense general regrets, however, that when one asks EU leaders about what they want the Balkans to look like in 10 years' time, all one gets is "long, blank stares." He stressed that "if you start out and if you don't know where you are going, you are probably going to wind up somewhere else." (Patrick Moore. Quotes by RFE/RL and Reuters)

Quotations Of The Week. "Albania in the past several years has been and still is an open enemy of Yugoslavia, Serbia, and the Serbian people." -- Predrag Bulatovic of the pro-Milosevic Socialist People's Party of Montenegro, quoted by AP on 29 February.

"After the war is the time before the war. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic regards politics simply as a continuation of war by other means.... [With him] a war has either just been prepared or just carried out, or yet another defeat has just been experienced. Post-war and pre-war times mix freely with each other." -- "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung," 1 March.