Tough times in Montenegro

On June 17th, the Montenegrin Parliament voted on a resolution supporting NATO membership. However, an almost identical document was adopted less than a year ago. Behind this new resolution lurk the US and German embassies. In the proposal of the resolution submitted by MP’s of the Democratic Party of Socialists, Positive Montenegro, the Social Democrats, the Liberal Party and the minority parties, it is said that over the last ten years of independence Montenegro has demonstrated clear vision and persistence in achieving strategic foreign policy priorities such as membership in NATO and the EU. The reason for the repetition of this resolution is the reconstruction of the Montenegrin government. When the oppositional Democratic Front began protests against Djukanovic, in which a large number of citizens participated, the US embassy immediately got involved. The main goal then became saving the Djukanovic government. So they decided that, instead of Djukanovic stepping down from power, they would form a government of electoral unity. The entire opposition was invited to join government. The Democratic Front refused, but the three opposition parties, under pressure from the US embassy, have since entered the government. This allowed Djukanovic to survive, and now the goal of the resolution is to send a new message to centers of power in the West that after the reconstruction of the government, the Assembly contains a strong majority for joining NATO. At the same time, a NATO missile frigate arrived in Montenegro in the form of the Italian command ship ,,Libeccio” F-572 for the international three – day exercise “Adrion – Livex 16”, which was participated in by warships from Italy, Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia. All members of ADRION initiatives, except Montenegro, are members of NATO, but the navy of Montenegro has cooperated with them for years.

The US has two main goals regarding Montenegro.

The first is based on the fact that the main ally of Russia in the Balkans is Serbia, and the Serbs as a nation in the general. Besides Serbia, Serbs have another “state” in the Balkans, Republika Srpska, which is now part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but only on paper. Today, Serbia and Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina) are surrounded by NATO countries with the exception of only Montenegro and Macedonia. But Macedonia has no access to the sea. Thus, if Montenegro joins NATO on the other hand, the matter could be very negative for Russia, which is the ultimate goal for the US.  Montenegro is the only part of the Adriatic which is not in NATO. If the unstable Balkans again come to war, Russia could find itself in a situation in which it cannot deliver assistance to Serbia and Republika Srpska given their encirclement by a hoop of NATO countries stretching as far as from Albania through Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Croatia. Russia already experienced such a situation with Bulgaria when the latter closed its airspace for Russian planes en route to Syria in September 2015.

Thus, the important task of the day facing Russia is helping the people of Montenegro stop Djukanovic in his plan to introduce the country to NATO. It is obvious that the destabilization of the Balkans is a process that is currently being intensified. We have the resurrection of the Ustasha movement in Croatia, frequent anti-Serb statements from Sarajevo, and the anti-Serb and anti-Macedonian policy of Albanian political and paramilitary structures. All of this complicates the geopolitical situation in the region, yet it is clear who encourages these processes from the shadows: the US.

The US’ second goal is to sever the spiritual and civilizational circle to which Montenegro historically belongs. Under Milo Djukanovic, Montenegro is breaking with its tradition, history, culture and spirituality. Accordingly, the main attack is on the Serbian Orthodox Church, which in all surveys still has the most confidence of Montenegrin citizens, and to which belong almost all Orthodox Christians in Montenegro. In addition, in 2007, after the adoption of the Constitution, the “Montenegrin language” was promoted as the official one, although by census most of the population speaks Serbian. All public inscriptions, institution names, schools, signs, etc. are now written only in the Latin script whereas before Djukanovic, everything was in Cyrillic. Special attention is devoted to brainwashing children in schools. History books have long since been put in line with the official policy, and even if they are not scientifically justified, they are still imposed. Although Montenegrins throughout history were Serbs and have always been with Russia, today the government is trying to violently delete this reality.

How much longer people in Montenegro will be able to tolerate the Djukanovic dictatorship remains to be seen. But the history of Montenegro teaches us that its people has always fought for freedom.