Commotion Caused by the Closed Border

Despair on Both Sides

AIM Podgorica, 20 September, 1998

The latest decision of the government of Montenegro to close the border for all the unfortunate people from Kosovo due to incapability to continue to receive displaced persons, caused great commotion in Montenegrin public. The first target of criticism was the vice prime minister in charge of displaced persons, Dragisa Burzan, who has for days defended the decision as an imposed and desperate move: "We are now in the situation in which 11.6 per cent of our population are the refugees, which is a completely unbearable limit. We have tried to find a different solution, but there was none. Had we continued to receive displaced persons, we would have started mechanisms which would have led to general chaos in Montenegro. I am certain about that", said Burzan in the explanation of this decision. He believes that humaneness of Montenegrin authorities cannot be doubted, that it is especially indecent that those who refused to receive refugees are now preaching humaneness. Burzan claims that three months ago the government of Montenegro addressed European and world humanitarian and political institutions, pleading for assistance, but "they just gave us empty promises and patted us on our backs".

"There are other directions in which refugees can go, either in Kosovo itself, parts of it which are not stricken by conflicts, or Serbia, Macedonia; Montenegro cannot be the only address where help is sought", Milo Djukanovic, president of the Republic was even more explicit in his defence of the government decision. A couple of days prior to that he received support from Yirzi Dinstbir, UN envoy for humanitarian issues, who said when he visited Podgorica that he did not approve of this decision, but understood it. "Those who criticize must first prove that they have received, in percentages, more displaced persons than Montenegro, or they must send sufficient aid for all these people", said Dinstbir.

Foreign minister of Montenegro, Branko Perovic, also claims that he has provided similar support of New York and Washington, where he has just been in order to, among other, clarify motives of this decision of his government. Montenegrin officials obviously fret that they might clash with international norms because of closing the border with Kosovo, and therefrom with the international community the support of which they see as the key factor in stabilization of conditions in this Republic. Judging by the initial reactions, the government can hope for a favourable outcome. The impression one gets from the reactions that arrived so far from relevant international offices is that, like the humanitarian worker Dinstbir, they do not justify, but certainly understand this decision.

This does not mean that things will not change. The destiny of this decision and the position of the government, externally and internally, will depend on stabilization of the conditions in Montenegro itself. And that is where the government decision has not met with the necessary support. Political parties of the Albanians, the Democratic Alliance and the Democratic Union, condemned the attitude of the government concerning the ban of entrance of banished members of their ethnic group. They claim that this decision was playing into Milosevic's hands and in favour of his policy of ethnic cleansing, and that it is contrary to international norms and conventions. "It would be humane, gallant and statesmanlike to help somebody who is in trouble, and the people from Kosovo are at this moment in big trouble, through no fault of their own", it is said in the statement of DU.

On the occasion, independent daily Vijesti carried a statement of Anton Berishaj, head of the office of the Open Society Fund in Pristina, who is by origin from Montenegro, and who reminded the current authorities that in the previous elections they had full support of the Albanian population which hoped that life would get better for it, and now these very authorities are returning the good deed in the manner of Seselj: "There have been all kinds of authorities in Montenegro, but refugees and people in trouble have never been banished. They were always welcomed and accommodated in Podgorica, in the neighbourhood of the Albanian population, new-comers from Vrake, Bosnian Serbs and Croat Serbs, Muslims, Romanies. People in trouble were also welcomed and it occurred to nobody to question their moral and political fitness, school curricula, diplomas, etc. Is this the case only with the Albanians", wonders Berishaj in his very sharply formulated article.

Independent weekly Monitor poses a similar question. Had the refugees been Serbs, like in '92, '93 and '94, and not the Albanians, would Montenegro have taken this step - Monitor wonders. It also poses an interesting questions: what is a bigger threat for Montenegro, refugees from Kosovo or Milosevic, and if it is Milosevic who, as the authorities claim, stands behind this invasion of people from Kosovo, why do not Montenegrin authorities show the same or an even greater amount of resoluteness and resistance towards him?

This topic - who stands behind re-direction of lines of refugees on their way to Montenegro, who are the people in these lines, and what is the ultimate aim of this plan - were the questions which were treated in Podgorica to some detail and with much energy. Vice prime minister Burzan fanned the flames when, defending the decision of the government about closing the border, in addition to all the other arguments, mentioned the factor of security. According to his words, in the last group of three thousand refugees re-directed towards Albania by Montenegrin police, there were a few hundred members of the Liberation Army of Kosovo (OVK) who threw away their weapons along the way or surrendered them to the police, which was, in order to corroborate the arguments, dilligently registered by Montenegrin state Television. In defending the position and the stands of his party colleague Burzan, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Zarko Rakcevic, established that the decision of the government was "the least bad solution": "In the situation when Macedonia has closed its border with Serbia, when the federal government has created the impenetrable buffer zone towards the border with Albania, when Serbian police and army have started new operations of ethnic cleansing, lines of refugees and a part of the units of the OVK with them were directed towards Montenegro, with the intention to change inter-ethnic relations here and provoke chaos", claims Rakcevic.

To all that, the democratic public just shakes its head. This story about armed persons and pictures of their weapons remind of propagandist tricks of Milosevic himself, but because it is evident that Milosevic is pulling all the strings in this tragedy, it is hard to justly evaluate what is the essence of this obviously controversial government decision. On the one hand, it is hard not to accept the majority of truly convincing arguments of government representatives, and on the other, it is hard to accept the fact that doors are slammed in the face of the unfortunate banished persons. "Indecisiveness, indifference and hypocrisy of the international community are much greater offences than this decision of the government of Montenegro", says leader of the SDP, Rakcevic.

What the authorities have no support for is uneven treatment of the originator of this problem. It is not the fault of refugees that they have met such destiny, nor was the corridor towards Montenegro the only one left open by their will. The originator of this tragedy is peacefully sitting in his warm Court in Belgrade, so it would have been logical had these authorities closed their border to him and his plans much earlier. Had this been done, it is certain that the government of Montenegro would never have come to such a hopeless situation.

Marko VUKOVIC

AIM Podgorica