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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 07/04
Montenegro Briefing: Calm Before the Storm
August 1999
Abstract
Just under a year ago a nervous Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic warned the world thatYugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was preparing to trigger a new Balkan war by launching a campaign of violence against the tiny republic of Montenegro. Djukanovic was right about Milosevic's intent, but wrong about the target. In March of this year, the dictator struck against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and unleashed the barbarous Operation Horseshoe.
Now, in the aftermath of the Kosovo conflict, Milosevic seems to be concentrating his fire on the opposition within Serbia, which is struggling to build sufficient momentum to mount a major challenge to the dictator's rule. At the same time Djukanovic and officials supporting them, including head of the Montenegrin police force Vukasin Maras, are warning that while violence may yet come to Montenegro, any clashes are weeks if not months away. If they are correct, this may mark an important opportunity for the international community to pre-empt another bloodletting in the Balkans.
