Slobo's Next Target

By Andrew Purvis/Kolasin

The disintegration of Yugoslavia is not over yet. Eleven years of misrule and military adventurism by Slobodan Milosevic have whittled Serbia's partners in the federation down to one: Montenegro, a slice of mountainous, sun-bleached rock and 680,000 inhabitants wedged between the Serbian homeland and the limpid green waters of the Adriatic Sea. Since NATO jets bombed Milosevic out of Kosovo last year, Montenegro has been accelerating its tentative steps toward independence. But it has acted with the knowledge that the Serbian President could slam the door if he genuinely sensed his power base slipping. Now, with Milosevic facing elections later this month, that time may have come. "He is preparing," says a senior U.S. State Department official, "to be able to move with force."

Rising tensions in the republic have rung alarm bells in Washington, which backs the Montenegrin government as a bulwark against Milosevic and which now must decide what to do if the Serbian President moves against the U.S. ally, either with overt military action or a covert coup. Montenegro may be a very small place, but top Clinton Administration officials are saying it has the potential to produce the most serious foreign policy crisis of the waning days of the current Administration--or the first days of the next.

Trouble began in July, when Milosevic downgraded Montenegro's status in the Yugoslav federation. It was a move of unmasked aggression, a kind of diplomatic dare that caused outrage. It was backed with muscle: over the summer the Yugoslav army reasserted its authority in border areas at the expense of the local police. A Western diplomat called Milosevic "a python, slowly tightening his grip." Later this month, sources tell TIME, the Yugoslav army has scheduled training exercises in Montenegro to coincide with the elections. "[Milosevic] is going to set the stage for action," says General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Europe.

The parallels with Milosevic's earlier wars are unsettling. An estimated 15,000 heavily armed Yugoslav troops are already stationed in the republic. That includes a battalion of elite, well-paid soldiers selected for their loyalty to Milosevic. As in Slovenia and Croatia a decade ago, the Montenegrin government is training and arming an equal number of police to counter the army's threat. In regions such as the northern town of Kolasin, 19 miles from the Serbian border, the two armed sides are taking each other's measure. "If there is a war, we will have no other choice but to defend the majority of Montenegrins," confides a dour-looking police officer at a Kolasin cafe.

Still, ethnic divisions in Montenegro do not run so deep as they do elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia. Montenegrins, unlike Croats and Kosovo Albanians, are ethnically similar to Serbs. Support for outright independence from Serbia among ordinary Montenegrins is mixed: about 35% are for it at any cost, while a much larger proportion--including members of Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic's ruling party--say they would prefer continued ties with Serbia, but under a different regime. "Time is on the side of a democratic Montenegro," says a Djukanovic ally, Save Paraca, mayor of Cetinje, the traditional heartland of Montenegrin nationalism.

All this has left the U.S. and its allies with a dilemma. Madeleine Albright, U.S. Secretary of State, and NATO Secretary-General Lord George Robertson have bluntly warned Milosevic to keep his hands off Djukanovic. But they have yet to back up those exhortations with the threat of force. The current NATO commander for Europe, U.S. General Joseph Ralston, has been "as quiet as a church mouse" on the topic, says analyst John Fox of the Washington-based Open Society Institute. Fox says the West has made a critical mistake by letting Milosevic take the offensive. The current stance--keeping Belgrade guessing with a measured ambiguity--carries the risk that he may call the bluff.

How might he do it? The most probable scenario would be some sort of disturbance or riot in which the police would open fire, allowing the army to step in and seize control--under the pretext of ensuring stability. That could then trigger a broader clash between the army and the police similar to the one that occurred in Croatia and Bosnia. In Podgorica local government officials say they are working hard to avoid that possibility, despite what many consider provocations from Belgrade.

Pro-Serb politicians in Montenegro, meanwhile, deny that anything ominous is afoot. Predrag Bulatovic, vice president of the Belgrade-backed Socialist People's Party, calls rumors of a coup "propaganda" invented by Djukanovic to sow instability and draw NATO into the fight. "The Yugoslav army is not politically motivated," he says blandly during an interview at his mountain farm. "It is a guarantor of stability." The Yugoslav army's top commander, Colonel General Nebojsa Pavkovic, who recently commended Slobodan Milosevic for his "wise and decisive policies that have preserved the dignity of our people," says his troops have been acting in Montenegro only to prevent "the infiltration of terrorists." He wonders aloud why his army would be planning a coup when it had tolerated Djukanovic for so long already.

Such logic aside, Western diplomats point out that Milosevic, like other autocrats, is not above creating bloody diversions if he feels his grip on power is threatened--as it may be by unexpected results in upcoming elections. And while independent-leaning Montenegrins, many of whom fought for Milosevic in earlier Balkan wars, do not savor the prospect of another battle, there is little love lost for a President whose policies have wrecked the economy and turned their homeland into a pariah state. One thing is clear: if there is a war in this tiny republic, it will be cataclysmic. For the West, intervention would be perilous too, probably requiring ground troops, according to some analysts. That's a repellent prospect for any U.S. President--whether he is on his way out, or in.

--With reporting by Dejan Anastasijevic/Cetinje and Massimo Calabresi/Washington