-Caveat Lector- >From Int'l Herald Tribune Paris, Tuesday, April 6, 1999 In Montenegro, Split Loyalties By Blaine Harden New York Times Service PODGORICA, Yugoslavia - At the bus station Sunday morning, nervous people with suitcases were skipping out on Montenegro, convinced that soon there would be bloodshed in this mountainous Yugoslav republic. The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, which consists of Montenegro and the far larger republic of Serbia, has blasted open a chasm of suspicion and resentment in this republic of about 640,000 people. They are split between supporters of an elected government that wants to embrace Western Europe and supporters of the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb who is defiantly waging war against NATO. The bombing of military targets inside Montenegro, which NATO halted four days ago as it accelerated the pace of strikes inside Serbia, has handed Mr. Milosevic's supporters a resonant battle cry. At the same time, it has badly undermined the arguments of Montenegro's moderate leadership that good things come when you cozy up to the West. ''There is hate here now, and I think there will be civil war. There are two sides that disagree about everything,'' said Samira Sukolica, a Muslim woman who with her children and grandchildren was voting with her feet, abandoning Montenegro by bus for the safety of neighboring Bosnia. Like Bosnia, which was convulsed by war from 1992 to 1995, this republic is a soup of different ethnic groups - Montenegrin, Serb, Muslim, Albanian and Croat. Once started, as everywhere in the Balkans, ethnic violence in this republic could spin out of control as it did in Bosnia. The fear voiced by people packing outbound buses has been echoed by the State Department. It said last week that Washington was ''highly concerned'' that Mr. Milosevic would provoke violence in Montenegro in order to give the estimated 12,000 Yugoslav troops based in the republic an excuse to take over an elected government that has declared itself neutral in the conflict over Kosovo. Late last week Mr. Milosevic replaced the commander of those troops with General Milorad Obradovic, believed to be a nationalist hard-liner. Any such takeover, however, would likely provoke a fight from the estimated 8,000 police in Montenegro, who are loyal to Milo Djukanovic, the young Montenegrin president who has been trying for a year and a half to ease this republic out of the crushing embrace of Mr. Milosevic, whom Mr. Djukanovic knows well as his former patron. Mr. Djukanovic's government is walking a tightrope, trying to prove to the West that it is opposed to dictatorship in Serbia but also trying to avoid a direct challenge to the Yugoslav Army. That army has heavy weapons; the local police do not. In an interview Sunday night, Mr. Djukanovic, who has told friends in Belgrade that he was not alerted by the West that NATO would bomb military facilities in his republic the very first night of the air campaign, complained angrily that NATO's action had made his position ''much more difficult.'' ''It is hard, very hard to speak and work for a democratic and pro-European policy,'' he said. ''NATO bombs have allowed Mr. Milosevic to create a new division in the Yugoslav political scene. Patriots are those who support his policies, and anyone who criticizes him is a traitor. In Montenegro, pro-Milosevic forces are becoming much more aggressive.'' Police officers loyal to Mr. Djukanovic were out in force Sunday night as Mr. Milosevic's supporters put on a huge rock concert in the capital's central square. It was an event that mimicked regime-staged concerts in Belgrade, where in the past week Serbs have gathered to sneer at the United States and the NATO bombing and to voice their support for Mr. Milosevic's war in Kosovo. ''We must help our Serbian brothers against the NATO attack,'' said one of the placards that waved above a crowd that was by far the largest gathering in this republic since NATO bombs started to fall 12 days ago. The bombings in Montenegro stopped after what Mr. Djukanovic described as his furious complaints to Western diplomats that NATO was destabilizing its best friend in Yugoslavia. He said that the absence of falling bombs and cruise missiles in the republic in the past four days had eased tensions only slightly. ''The bombing has really made a horrible mess for this republic,'' said Milka Tadic, general manager of Monitor, an independent weekly. ''Djukanovic was put in this horrible political situation of being bombed by his allies,'' he said. ''It gave the nationalists and the regular people of this country who are very confused a perfect reason to say that this government does not want to defend itself from outside attacks.'' At the concert, Mr. Milosevic's men did their best to make political hay out of Mr. Djukanovic's woes. Girls in skintight pants writhed on stage as a singer led a crowd of more than 20,000 in chants about how Montenegro and Serbia must be united against NATO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ >From wsws.org WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : The Balkan Crisis The United States and the war in the Balkans: On the road to catastrophe By the Editorial Board 6 April 1999 It has taken but two weeks for the bombing campaign initiated at the behest of the United States to provoke a massive refugee crisis and draw the entire Balkans region to the brink of all-out war. The stated military aims of the US and its NATO allies are being reformulated on a daily basis, while the war assumes ever more barbaric dimensions. There should be no mistake: the masses of people in Europe and the United States are being dragged into a catastrophe of incalculable proportions. This is the price humanity is paying for the pursuit of US imperialist interests by an utterly reckless ruling elite. The White House pledges of yesterday are controverted by the declarations of today. Thus Clinton's disavowals of plans to introduce ground troops are, without discussion or explanation, supplanted by the announced dispatch of a 2,000-man US Army force to deploy Apache attack helicopters against Serb forces in Kosovo. Albania is to be turned into a US-NATO garrison, with the dispatch of 8,000 troops, while the NATO force in Macedonia is expanded and the bombing of Belgrade and other Serbian cities intensified. >From one day to the next developments in the war defy the expectations of US policymakers, who seek to rectify their previous miscalculations with a further exertion of military force. This, in turn, creates new conditions of chaos, mass suffering and political destabilization throughout the region. Tensions are heightened with other regional powers, above all Russia. Washington's response is a further escalation of the war, dictated by the need to maintain US "credibility." The widening conflagration unfolds before the eyes of a public which is dazed and disoriented by a vast media propaganda campaign and barely able to keep up with the spiral of events. But the very speed of developments reveals that the US-led war drive has a momentum of its own. One indication of the disaster looming ahead is the tragic dimensions of what has already unfolded in less than a month's time. On March 18 the US and NATO announced that a peace agreement had been signed with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), requiring that the Yugoslav government restore autonomy to Kosovo and accept the deployment of 28,000 NATO troops in the Serbian province. After three years (during which the KLA would consolidate its power under US and NATO protection) the separatists' demand for an independent Kosovo would be addressed. This unilateral agreement was presented to Belgrade as an ultimatum, backed by the threat of NATO bombing. Clinton, US National Security Adviser Samuel Berger and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright calculated that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic would either submit to their terms in order to avoid an air attack, or quickly yield once the bombing had begun. Milosevic refused to back down, and the air assault was launched on March 24. In an address to the nation that day, Clinton told the American people that the purpose of the bombing was to "degrade" Serbian military capabilities and force Belgrade to accept the agreement signed in France. However Belgrade responded, to the apparent surprise of the US, with a military offensive against the ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo. The result was precisely what the bombing was supposed to prevent--a massive exodus of Kosovars into neighboring Albania, Macedonia and the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro. When the initial bombing of Serb forces in Kosovo failed to produce the desired results, the US insisted that the bombing be extended to Belgrade and other urban centers in Serbia. Since then the war aims of the US and NATO have expanded along with the escalation of their military offensive. Washington and NATO are now officially demanding the safe return of the hundreds of thousands of refugees to their homes in Kosovo. Unofficially various NATO sources are calling for the use of NATO troops to "escort" the ethnic Albanians back to their villages and towns, and the establishment of a protectorate in all or part of the province, to be policed by US and NATO forces. Others are declaring that the policy of Kosovan autonomy should be explicitly scrapped in favor of independence, and the Washington Post reports that discussions are taking place within the Clinton administration to make the ouster of Milosevic one of the objectives of the war. A growing chorus of US politicians, policymakers and media spokesmen are denouncing these measures as inadequate, and demanding the preparation of a full-scale ground assault on Kosovo and Serbia itself. Typical was a column published in Sunday's Washington Post by Clinton's former Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Under the headline "Whatever It Takes," Christopher wrote: "We--NATO and the United States--must prevail in Kosovo. We must do so unambiguously, using whatever force is necessary to accomplish this goal." There are a host of questions not addressed by Christopher and the other advocates of a ground invasion. What, in the first instance, are the implications for the Balkans? Are Christopher and his co-thinkers talking about the carpet-bombing of Yugoslavia? Are they including the use of tactical or even strategic nuclear weapons? How do those who argue for Milosevic's removal intend to accomplish this task, and at what price? The only logical conclusion that flows from such demands is the long-term occupation of Serbia and its transformation into a de facto colony of the United States. Such a policy would require the indefinite deployment of hundreds of thousands of American and NATO troops in a hostile environment. How many thousands of American and European soldiers are US policymakers prepared to sacrifice under the banner of "whatever it takes?" How many thousands, or millions, of Serbs? Even if one assumes that a US-NATO force could secure a rapid military victory, which is by no means self-evident, the conquest of Serbia would create a whole new set of explosive conditions. What measures, for example, would be taken to respond to external forces and governments that provided aid and comfort to the defeated Serbs, who would undoubtedly establish a government-in-exile? Would attacks on American troops in Serbia require thrusts into Rumania, or Bulgaria? Critical issues are raised, moreover, that go well beyond the confines of southeastern Europe. What about Russia? How long would it take before a US-NATO invasion of Serbia produced a full-scale military confrontation with Moscow, which, it should be remembered, continues to deploy a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons? Clinton, Albright and company give complacent assurances that events in the Balkans would never bring Russia to the point of military conflict with the West. Here ignorance merges with arrogance, producing an incendiary combination. The US proclaims that the fate of Kosovo, thousands of miles from its borders, is a crucial US interest, while denying that Russia, whose geo-political interests in the Balkans go back hundreds of years, has vital concerns in the region. US policymakers seem to overlook the fact that for 45 years the Balkans formed a critical part of the defense perimeter of the Soviet Union. Still earlier in the century, Russia entered the First World War in response to a foreign attack on its Serb ally. Nor is there any public discussion of the domestic implications of a US-led ground war in the Balkans. An invasion and occupation of Serbia would inevitably draw hundreds of thousands of American soldiers into a combat situation that would last for years. Such a venture could not possibly be sustained on the basis of a volunteer army. It would require the reinstitution of the military draft. All-out war would, moreover, have vast economic and social ramifications, to the detriment of the working population. There would be a vast increase in military expenditures, at the expense of what remains of social programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Every war generates inflation, which in turn pushes up interest rates. This would quickly undermine the stock market boom, which has been sustained by an environment of low interest rates and cheap credit. Deep recession and mass unemployment would follow. Anyone inclined to take for good coin the assurances of Clinton that the escalating military campaign in the Balkans will be relatively painless for the US population should recall other major ground wars of the past half-century. The United States stumbled into a war with China after General Douglas MacArthur had assured Truman in 1950 there was no prospect that Chinese troops would intervene in Korea. Vietnam began with the introduction of 16,000 US advisers, but there too, miscalculations, blunders and a vast overestimation of the efficacy of sheer military power to achieve America's aims became the starting point for a bloody conflagration. This article is available as a formatted PDF leaflet See Also: US attitude toward "ethnic cleansing" depends on who's doing it [3 April 1999] Will ground troops be next? US rains bombs on Yugoslav capital city [3 April 1999] Behind and beyond the propaganda: Why is the US bombing Serbia? [2 April 1999] Why did events in Kosovo take the Clinton Administration by surprise? [1 April 1999] "Executed" Kosovar leaders reemerge: Easter miracle, or media fraud? [2 April 1999] Top of page Readers: The WSWS invites your comments. 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