Djukanovic has reason to be concerned. Last Sunday’s local elections in Montenegro were the leader’s first real political test since he broke from Serbia, Montenegro’s larger partner in the rump Yugoslav federation, in 1997. Djukanovic’s party was expected to win the vote, a victory that should embolden him to move closer to the West and to his ultimate goal of independence. But it’s a dangerous game. The regime in Belgrade is unlikely to let Montenegro slip away unchallenged, and it has 20,000 Serb troops on Montenegrin soil to enforce its will. The threat of violence was made clear on May 31, when Goran Zugic, Djukanovic’s top security adviser, was gunned down outside his home in Podgorica. The motive and assassin remain unknown, but the killing shocked Djukanovic, who mingles with locals and often drives himself around town. “This is an attempt to show Djukanovic how far Milosevic can reach,” says Deputy Prime Minister Dragisa Burzan. (The Serb Interior minister blamed the hit on the CIA.)
Djukanovic’s political rebirth is one of the Balkans’ more remarkable transformations. An avid communist under Tito, he was an early ally of Milosevic and a Serb nationalist. As Montenegro’s prime minister in 1991, he helped recruit volunteers to shell Dubrovnik. But Djukanovic began to question Milosevic after international sanctions and war shrank Montenegro’s economy by 80 percent in the 1990s. He broke from Milosevic in 1997; two years later, when NATO began bombing Yugoslavia, Djukanovic welcomed Kosovar Albanian refugees and attacked Milosevic’s expansionism. Since then, Djukanovic has inched further toward independence. A well-armed force of 20,000 police now stands eyeball-to-eyeball with the Serb Army. Last fall Djukanovic replaced the Yugoslav dinar with the German mark as the republic’s currency. Milosevic responded with a blockade, but generous Western help has prevented economic collapse. The United States poured $55 million into Montenegro last year, and the European Union has given tens of millions more.
Despite the tensions, almost nobody in Montenegro expects Milosevic to go to war now. “Slobo has his hands full in Belgrade right now,” says one Western diplomat in Podgorica. Milosevic’s best hope is that Djukanovic will damage himself politically, creating a climate for a coup. But Djukanovic is moving cautiously, recognizing that declaring independence outright might force Milosevic to move against him. “When we feel the situation is stable, we’ll organize a referendum and go for it,” says the deputy prime minister. As last month’s assassination shows, stability may still be a long way off.
