RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 4, No. 207, Part II, 25 October 2000
KOSTUNICA VISITS MONTENEGRO AND BOSNIA By Jolyon Naegele Vojislav Kostunica, hailed by the West as the savior of democracy in Serbia, wants to preserve the common state of Serbia and Montenegro, although he concedes that the name "Yugoslavia" may have to be sacrificed. Certain problems need to be resolved first, however. The Yugoslav Constitution requires the federal prime minister to be a Montenegrin in the event that the president is a Serb. But the Montenegrin government, led by President Milo Djukanovic's Democratic Party of Socialists, boycotted last month's federal presidential and parliamentary elections. The Djukanovic government claimed that those ballots were unlawful because the constitutional changes that enabled the elections to be held and diminished Montenegro's role in the federal parliament were enacted without the participation of Montenegro. For this reason, it does not consider Kostunica to be the legitimate president of Yugoslavia. Djukanovic and his party also object to serving together with pro-Milosevic politicians. Montenegro's main opposition party, the pro-Milosevic Socialist People's Party, won the parliamentary elections in Montenegro and has agreed to participate in forming a coalition government. Their nominee, Zoran Zizic, is slated to become federal prime minister. Kostunica agrees to Zizic's appointment and says he is making every effort to ensure that the federal government will be composed of experts representing as many parties as possible. Nonetheless, the government's core structure will comprise two parties, his Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) and Zizic's party. Kostunica believes that the cabinet will be approved by the Yugoslav parliament by the beginning of next week at the latest. Noting the absence of the Montenegrin ruling parties in the government, Kostunica said that "at the moment we are forging a government out of the parties that took part in the federal elections." But he added that both the DOS and Zizic's party would welcome Montenegro's ruling parties into the federal government. Last week, Zizic said that the reason his party had to be represented in the new government was to ensure that Slobodan Milosevic would not be extradited to the UN tribunal at The Hague, which has indicted the former president for war crimes. Before visiting Montenegro earlier this week, Kostunica traveled to Bosnia-Herzegovina, the first visit by a Yugoslav leader since Milosevic went there in 1993 in an unsuccessful effort to mediate an end to the fighting. Kostunica went to Trebinje. in the southernmost corner of the Bosnian-Serb entity, to attend the reburial of Serbian poet and Yugoslav diplomat Jovan Ducic, who died in exile in the U.S. in 1943. Kostunica had decided to participate long before he was even nominated to run for president. The Bosnian Foreign Ministry initially expressed outrage at Kostunica's participation. But its anger dissipated once the international community intervened. An RFE/RL correspondent reported from Trebinje that the participants greeted Kostunica with a "storm of applause," although the Yugoslav president did not address the gathering. The entire Bosnian Serb leadership was present, as were the leaders of Bosnia's religious communities and Liljana Karadzic, the wife of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic whom The Hague tribunal has also indicted for war crimes. The head of the UN mission in Bosnia, former U.S. general Jacques Klein, escorted Kostunica from Trebinje to Sarajevo in a UN helicopter for hastily arranged talks with the Bosnian leadership at Sarajevo airport. Kostunica told reporters afterward that Yugoslavia's recognition of Bosnia- Herzegovina is "the issue of the day." He said that their meeting represented a "very serious normalization of diplomatic relations between Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. I can announce that very soon-- I'm convinced it will be realized at the moment when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia forms its new, democratic, federal government." Kostunica also called for full compliance with the nearly five-year-old Dayton peace accords, including their references to the existence of the Bosnian Serb entity, Republika Srpska. The current president of the Bosnian presidency, Zivko Radisic, a Serb, also expressed support for the renewal of diplomatic relations between Belgrade and Sarajevo, while respecting the continued existence of the Bosnian Serb and Muslim/Croatian entities. "This was an opportunity and we are expressing our readiness and willingness to establish and build up relations with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia [while] respecting the existing territorial integrity and sovereignty of our country and state," Radisic said. The speaker of the Bosnian parliament, Halid Genjac, a Muslim, said he expects both sides to agree on specific steps to improve relations. After meeting with Kostunica at the airport, Bosnia's foreign minister Jadranko Prlic, a Croat, said : "We support Yugoslavia in its effort to reach an association agreement with the European Union, but on condition that Yugoslavia undergoes the same procedure for acceptance into European integration [as] all other countries." UN mission chief Jacques Klein called the meeting "historic." "We all know that we cannot change the past, but if we work together we can build a better future," he noted. And he added that "today is the beginning of the future."
Copyright (c) 2000. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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