Single Taxation The government has adopted four decrees regulating the turnover and taxation
on goods between Serbia and Montenegro. From now on merchandise produced in
Serbia and sold to Montenegro will no longer be taxed twice.
Serbia-Montenegro Serbia-Montenegro has become the 45th member of the Council of Europe. The
ceremony took place with the president of Serbia-Montenegro, Svetozvar Marovic,
the Foreign Affairs Minister, Goran Svilanovic, and the President of Parliament,
Dragoljub Micunovic in attendance. Apart from joining the organisation Serbia
Montenegro also signed the European Convention on Human Rights.
YUGOSLAVIA: THE END OF AN
ANACHRONISM The name "Yugoslavia" is now gone from the political maps of Europe. Its
disappearance was long overdue. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia passed into
history on 4 February, when the Yugoslav parliament approved the Constitutional
Charter of the new state of Serbia and Montenegro (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 5
February 2003). The new name may be unwieldy, but it replaced one that had long
ceased to have any real meaning. The idea of Yugoslavism -- the unity of all
South Slavs -- is a Croatian concept dating from the 19th century. Most
nationalist movements in Europe, including Serbia, at that time aspired to
create a state ostensibly of a single nation.
But some Croatian thinkers felt that close cooperation with ethnically related
neighbors on an equal footing was the best hope for their people, who were
divided between the Austrian and Hungarian halves of the Habsburg monarchy and
subject to pressures from Hungarian and Italian nationalist movements. In short,
Yugoslavism was a concept born out of the weakness of a people that had not had
truly independent statehood for centuries and little hope of attaining it in the
foreseeable future.
The Yugoslav state that was born at the end of World War I owes its existence to
the wartime efforts of Allied politicians to force Serbian leaders to work with
Croatian and other political exiles from the Habsburg monarchy. Serbian leaders
had hoped to create a greater Serbia without any large number of Roman Catholic
Slavs, but after the Kingdom of Serbia's defeat by the Central Powers during the
war, those exiled leaders had little choice but to do as the Allies wished.
The new state was first called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (SHS),
which in itself speaks volumes about the ethnically based pecking order,
particularly where Macedonians, Albanians, Muslims, Hungarians, Montenegrins,
and others were concerned. A German joke at the time suggested that SHS stood
for "Sie hassen sich," or "they hate each other." After nearly a decade of
political instability, King Aleksandar I Karadjordjevic proclaimed a unitary
Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 6 January 1929. Despite one very belated attempt at
reform to placate the Croats in 1939, this Serb-dominated state remained in
place until the Axis invasion in the spring of 1941.
The communist Yugoslav state that emerged from World War II was founded on the
basis of national equality, at least in theory. Serbs, Croats, Slovenes,
Macedonians, and Montenegrins were full-fledged "peoples of the state." The
Slavic Muslims were granted that same status more than two decades later. The
non-Slavic Hungarians and Albanians had an official status of "nationality" in
the country whose name meant Land of the South Slavs.
In reality, the country was the Land of the League of Communists, whose
leadership included officials from all of the main ethnic groups. When Slobodan
Milosevic found at the close of the 1980s that he could not use the Yugoslav
state for his own purposes -- thanks primarily to the objections of Croatia and
Slovenia -- he proceeded to destroy it. The state he was ultimately left with
was a greater Serbia, including Kosova and Montenegro. His policies then led in
1999 to the loss of Kosova, whose ethnic Albanian majority wants full
independence. For its part, Montenegro's current leadership is also bent on
independence. What is left of the old Yugoslavia thus seems to be in the final
stages of disintegration.
Whether Montenegro remains in some sort of political arrangement with Serbia or
not, a state that is a Land of the South Slavs has long ceased to exist. That
project probably ended in 1991 with the independence of Slovenia and Croatia and
certainly with the subsequent independence of Macedonia and Bosnia.
Milosevic kept the Yugoslav name when he set up his federal republic in 1992 in
hopes of keeping the old state's property and international prestige. Those
hopes are now history -- as is Yugoslavia.
(Patrick Moore) (Much of this article first appeared in "RFE/RL Balkan Report,"
15 February 2002).
Growth The Minister for Finance and Economy Bozidar Djelic who was speaking to
journalists during a forum called " Strategies for New Europe" in Vienna,
declared that he estimated a growth rate of 5% in 2003 for his country.
Candidature According to the Economic Relations Minister Goran Pitci, Yugoslavia would
like to present its application to integrate the EU at end of 2004. http://www.seeurope.net/
Customs Co-operation Representatives of the customs services of Yugoslavia, Montenegro, Croatia,
the Serb Republic and the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina met in Banja Luka to
discuss future co-operation in the fight against human trafficking and against
contraband goods. http://www.seeurope.net/
Presidential
Election
Natasa Micic, President of Parliament, annonced that the presidential
elections had been brought forward to 29th September 2002, three
months before the expiry of Milan Milutinovic, the present head of state's
mandate. Reformers hope to rid themselves of someone they consider to be one
of the last vestiges of the Milosevic era. The two main candidates should be
the President of the FYR Vojislav Kostunica and the Yugoslav Deputy Prime
Minister, Miroljub Labus.
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/news/2002-07/18/325242.html
MILOSEVIC'S TV BOSS JAILED FOR BOMBING DEATHS A Serbian court sentenced Dragoljub Milanovic on 21 June to 9
1/2 years in prison for failing to protect the lives of 16
employees of Radio Television Serbia (RTS) who died when NATO
aircraft bombed the RTS high-rise building on 23 April 1999,
Reuters reported from Belgrade. Presiding Judge Radmila
Dragicevic-Dicic said that Milanovic "failed to act according to
regulations governing the safety of RTS even though he was aware
this could provoke danger for the lives of the people because NATO
aggression had already started." Victims' families brought the
lawsuit against Milanovic, who they said knew that the RTS
building was likely to be a bombing target. ("RFE/RL Newsline," 21
June)
THE HAGUE DEMANDS INQUIRY INTO PUBLICIZING
IDENTITY OF PROTECTED WITNESS The Hague Tribunal will request the Yugoslav authorities to
submit a report within 30 days to clarify the circumstances under
which Belgrade tabloid "Nacional" publicized the identity of a
protected prosecution witness, spokesman Christian Chartier told
B92 on 19 June. The witness, identified in court only as K5, was
introduced in the courtroom as a Kosovo Albanian go-between with
the Serbian police. Chartier said that the paper's revelation of
the name of the protected witness "was the most severe violation
of the tribunal's regulations to date." Dragan Vucicevic, the
deputy editor of "Nacional," said that the Serbian police had
already contacted the paper on this matter, but that the paper
will not reveal its source for the information. The editor said
that his paper had revealed the identity of K5 because they were
not aware that it was "such a crime." ("ANEM Media Update," 15-21
June)
The Yugoslavian parliament voted by an overwhelming
majority to abolish the Yugoslav Federation and replace it with a
more flexible link between the remaining members, Serbia and
Montenegro. The Upper Chamber adopted the plan by 23 votes against
6 and the Lower Chamber 74 against 23. http://www.boston.com
Montenegro
Quite the opposite to forecasts President Milo Djukanovic -
who accepted to delay the declaration of independence by three years on the EU's
request - has seen his position strengthened in the local elections.
WOMAN KILLED IN KOSOVA. An ethnic Serbian couple walking down a street separating the Serbian and
Albanian sections of the town of Lipljan were fired upon with an automatic rifle
on the evening of 22 February, and the 57-year-old woman was killed, AP reported
the next day. A UN spokesman said the woman's husband escaped injury. Some 1,000
Serbs protested the killing on 24 February, demanding protection by the
international civilian and military missions in Kosova. Momcilo Trajkovic, a
Kosovar Serb leader and a deputy in the Serbian parliament, said he viewed the
shooting as "a carefully planned terrorist act" aimed at frightening the 2,500
Serbs living in\ the Lipljan area into leaving Kosova, Beta reported.
("RFE/RL Newsline," 25 February)
PRIME MINISTER WON'T GIVE UP MLADIC, WANTS EU TO PAY UP.
In an interview with the German weekly "Der Spiegel" released on 23 February,
Zoran Djindjic said he won't order the arrest of war crimes suspect Bosnian Serb
General Ratko Mladic for fear of starting a civil war, AP and Reuters reported.
"Am I now to risk the lives of our police so that Mladic and his 100-strong
personal guard can be served up at the table in The Hague? What if it caused
civil war to break out? We have over 200,000 refugees from Bosnia, many of them
armed. The price is too high," Djindjic said. In the interview, Djindjic also
complained about slow and delayed reconstruction payments from the EU. "In the
past year, two-thirds of the promised 300 million euros ($263 million) has been
taken away as debts from
the Milosevic time.... These are cheap tricks," he said. ("RFE/RL Newsline," 25
February)
FORMER RUSSIAN PREMIER READY TO DEFEND MILOSEVIC.
Chamber of Trade and Industry head Yevgenii Primakov said he is prepared to
speak out in defense of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in his
ongoing trial at The Hague's international war crimes tribunal, RIA-Novosti
reported in Moscow on 19 February. Primakov, who was prominent in diplomatic
activity surrounding the Kosova crisis in 1999, added that the tribunal should
take in account the positive
role Milosevic played in negotiating the Dayton accords. ("RFE/RL Newsline," 20
February)
PRESIDENT SLAMS MILOSEVIC'S HAGUE TRIAL.
Vojislav Kostunica, who has long regarded the tribunal as an anti-Serb tool of
U.S. foreign policy, said in Belgrade on 18 February that "so far we have seen
much politics, a huge media spectacle, but least of [all] what this court should
be about: trying the defendant for serious crimes," AP reported. He added that
"the prosecution's opening statement had little to do with law but was full of
shallow misinterpretation of history." Kostunica argued that "the prosecution's
claim that this trial is against one person, not all Serbs, that there is no
collective guilt but only individual [guilt], sounds extremely stretched. There
is certainly room to ask the question" whether Milosevic can get a fair trial.
In the spring of 2001, Kostunica opposed the extradition of Milosevic to The
Hague. Elsewhere, Reuters reported that 40 percent of the Serbian respondents to
a poll by the Belgrade-based firm Strategic Marketing gave Milosevic "full
marks" for his testimony.
("RFE/RL Newsline," 19 February)
