POLITICS-YUGOSLAVIA: Milosevic Gets Tough With Domestic Rivals

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, May 21 1998 (IPS) - Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, a civil war brewing in his own country, is playing tough with his opposition in the neighbouring republic of Montenegro, Serbia’s junior partner in what remains of the Yugoslav Federation.

With an election due this month and opposition to Milosevic’s authority growing in Montenegro, Milosevic has ordered the gloves off in the growing dispute between the political leaderships in the two countries.

Milosevic wants to stop a challenge from supporters of Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic, one of his strongest critics. Djukanovic has said he will try to oust Milosevic as federal president if his party wins the May 31 elections.

This week Milosevic’s supporters struck first, ousting Djukanovic’s tacit ally, federal prime minister Radoje Kontic, installing fellow Montenegrin Momir Bulatovic as his replacement. Bulatovic, who narrowly lost the Montenegrin presidency to him last Oc tober, remains Djukanovic’s main opponent at home.

Serbia and Montenegro have separate parliaments and governments, but also send representatives to a federal parliament. Under the terms of the federal constitution, Serbia (10.5 million people) and Montenegro (650,000) are equal partners. When the presid ency is held by a Serb, the premiership must go to a Montenegrin.

Milosevic’s allies in both chambers of the parliament made it easy to see Kontic out and Bulatovic in. Bulatovic’s appointment was waved through by both chambers of federal parliament on Wednesday.

Kontic was formally accused of ‘incompetence’, but Milosevic’s main grievance was that he refused to take his side against Djukanovic. In a loaded statement, Milosevic’s office described Bulatovic as “the most respected man in Montenegro”.

Djukanovic aims to win control of the upper house of the parliament on May 31, thereby ending Milosevic’s ability to pull off such coups. Without a majority in the upper house, which is split 20 seats each between Montenegrin and Serbian MPs, Milosevic w ill be powerless to make constitutional changes.

Milosevic wants the constitution changed so that he can be elected president in a national election, not by the vote of the federal parliament, as at present. He only became federal president when constitutional rules barred him from another term as pres ident of Serbia.

The entire process has fearful echoes of the process that led to the breakaway of four out of six of the former Yugoslav federal republics in 1991.

Milosevic’s allies are accusing Djukanovic of fomenting secession and rival supporters are already fighting on the streets of the Montenegrin capital Podgorica. Opposition parties criticised Milosevic for engineering Kontic’s removal in an ‘internal coup ‘ against Montenegrin reformers.

“If someone wants violence in Montenegro, he should know what to expect,” Djukanovic told local media this week, suggesting that his police and armed supporters would be ready to fight to preserve the republic and its 600,000 people.

The Montenegrin parliament, dominated by Djukanovic’s supporters, said Tuesday it does not recognise Kontic’s replacement by Bulatovic and would no longer recognise laws passed by the federal parliament.

“The decision (to remove Kontic and his government) is a blow against all of us,” said Djukanovic. “This is an act of breaking up Yugoslavia.”

Montenegrin MP Stefan Susic warned that the next target would be Army commander General Momcilo Perisic for his attempts to keep the military neutral during Milosevic’s political battles with his opponents. “Kontic’s ouster is the beginning of a civil w ar in Yugoslavia,” he told journalists in Belgrade.

On May 31 Djukanovic’s Democratic Socialist Party (DPS) and Bulatovic’s Socialist People Party (SNP) go head to head. Bulatovic formed the breakaway SNP after Djukanovic narrowly beat him in last October’s presidential elections. The SNP has the total ba cking of Milosevic’s state controlled media.

Djukanovic accuses Milosevic of planning to declare a state of emergency in Montenegro if Bulatovic’s SNP lose. “There is a clear intention to create an environment in which a state of emergency in Montenegro would be declared,” he has said.

A Western diplomat here said Milosevic was counting striking while the West is preoccupied with the crisis in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo. There the ethnic Albanian majority are agitating for independence, risking another war in the Balkans.

Djukanovic met Tuesday with U.S. envoy Richard Miles, who handed him a letter from U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright. Djukanovic, 35, has received U.S. and West European support for his drive to break with Yugoslavia’s communist-style political

systems and promote free market reform — in total contrast to Milosevic.

Bulatovic, 42, is best known here as the economist appointed by Milosevic to lead the ‘anti-bureaucratic revolution’ in the former Yugoslavia in the late 1980s, driving out the old guard of Communist leaders who had held on to power after the death of Ti to.

He only once defied his mentor, in 1991, voting in favour of a peace plan for breakaway Croatia that Milosevic had already rejected. Bulatovic changed his mind later. His critics say that he sees Montenegro only as a province of Serbia. “Montenegro’s pe ople have Montenegrin Christian names but their surnames are Serb,” he often says.

“It’s going to be interesting to see what will happen in Montenegro on May 31 if Djukanovic’s party wins the local parliament” Dejan Djordjevic, a Belgrade journalist says.

“So far, Djukanovic is the only one who has succeeded in standing against Milosevic, and that can really make the strongman mad.”