ROME, Jan 20 (Hina/AR) - The Republic of Montenegro, associated with Serbia within current Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, might also run for independence soon, an Italian news agency said on Saturday.
ROME, Jan 20 (Hina/AR) - The Republic of Montenegro, associated
with Serbia within current Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, might
also run for independence soon, an Italian news agency said on
Saturday. #L#
"Our people has realized it should regain its independence
within the international community. We cannot remain harnessed to
the Serbian carriage," the ADNkronos agency quoted Montenegro's
prime minister Milo Djukanovic as saying.
The agency recalled that Montenegrin President Momir Bulatovic
had floated the idea of independence in 1991, but was bluntly
snubbed by his powerful Serbian patron Slobodan Milosevic who had
said that his words were backed by alleged "Italian promises of
lucrative financial help."
The accusation against Italy was groundless, the agency said,
but was useful to Milosevic in order to force Podgorica to set up
the federation with Belgrade.
The agency also quoted Bulatovic (his "latest statement") as
saying "when the Serbs were subjected to the Ottoman Empire, the
Montenegrins were fighting tooth and nail for their independence."
The historic Kingdom of Montenegro won the international
recognition at the Berlin Congress in 1878, after centuries of
successful resistance against the Ottoman Turks offered by the tiny
nation composed of clans of patriarchal highlanders. Sharing the
religion and historic patterns with another newborn Balkan state,
Serbia, Montenegro has become its close ally, as both nations
joined the Entente Treaty in the World War One.
However the prospects of forming what would eventually become
Yugoslavia in 1918 -- in competition between ideas favored by
Croats and other groups living under Habsburg throne and rising
"great-Serb" nationalism -- finally provoked a deep split among the
Montenegrins. One faction championed merging with Serbia, while the
other, cautiously backed by old Montenegrin King Nikola, would not
give up the sovereignty.
Later popular speculations on some "Italian connection", to
back the latter faction, were mainly derived out of Nikola's
marital tie with the Italian court of Vittorio Emmanuele III.
Bulatovic and Djukanovic seized power in the former Yugoslav
republic in 1988, in a series of mass rallies orchestrated by
Milosevic and in an irreparable violation of the former
Yugoslavia's constitution.
As Milosevic's proxies, they had allied with him in the war
against Croatia in 1991, but met stiff opposition by the
independence-faction, and some analysts predicted they would
eventually turn their backs on him.
(Hina) bk
201438 MET jan 96