Montenegro

WASHINGTON -- Montenegro has been an oasis of relative calm in the smoldering Balkan states, shielded in some small measure from the brutal, fratricidal conflicts that have ripped through the region for the better part of a decade.But in recent weeks, Montenegro's persistent steps toward independence have focused attention on this small Yugoslav republic, and worried U.S. foreign policy-makers are hoping this will not be the next Balkan hot spot.The integrity of Yugoslavia is a policy still unambiguously espoused by such NATO allies as Italy and Greece.

SAG HARBOR, N.Y. -- Decisions, decisions! Where should we go to war next? It looks like Montenegro. Or maybe Colombia.Montenegro, as you know, is not a country, but rather a member of the Yugoslav Federation -- the same as Serbia. Except that Montenegro, which is now demanding independence, has only 500,000 people. It cannot defend itself against Slobodan Milosevich's Serbia, much less break away as a separate country.Unless we help. Well, we, or rather NATO, do have troops all around there: 50,000 in Bosnia and 30,000 in Kosovo, which was only a Yugoslav province when we decided to go to war there.

PODGORICA, Yugoslavia -- NATO's bombs don't bother Miodrag Vlahovic as much as the swirling rumors and divided loyalties that grip Montenegro.With flak-jacketed police taking orders from one government and heavily armed military from another, with journalists hassled and politicians choosing sides, Vlahovic fears that Yugoslavia's second republic could be vulnerable to a crackdown orchestrated from Belgrade by Slobodan Milosevic."

Peace. It's wonderful. Savor it while Milosevic still hasn't overturned Montenegro or the KLA shot any of our guys yet.If Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin were alive today, someone would be running him for mayor.Never send to know for whom the Belle tolls; it tolls for anyone with the temerity to displease him.Without the Calvert House, it just isn't Calvert Street.Pub Date: 6/11/99

George W. Bush is not George H. W. Bush. Good thing.Everyone in Baltimore, Philly and New York pays a toll to cross the Patapsco, Delaware, Hudson or East rivers, but Washingtonians don't over the Potomac and won't for the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge. Aren't they just special?Milosevic has one more war left in him, Montenegro, but not if our side gets there first.Cheer up. Al Gore is running.

ROZAJE, Montenegro -- Using contacts inside Serbia as well as images from spy planes, satellites and unmanned drones equipped with high-altitude cameras, infrared sensors and battlefield-monitoring radar, NATO has mapped out the locales and proportions of a bloodcurdling campaign of destruction and terror.Further information is provided by terrorized refugees, whose stories are examined and cross-checked through extensive interviews by human rights experts.Taken together, officials say, the grim oral histories and the high-tech eyes in the sky have documented the ruthless and systematic campaign that heavily armed Serb forces backed with tanks, artillery and, in some cases, combat helicopters have used to drive perhaps a third of all the ethnic Albanians from Kosovo.

CETINJE, Yugoslavia -- In a city of shuttered palaces, old embassies and frayed dreams, a place remains for young men to toss a Frisbee and talk politics in a soft spring rain.Neno Lopicic and Nikola Bogdanovic are 19-year-olds united by friendship yet increasingly divided by politics. As they play and talk in the main square near the rust-colored royal palace of Montenegro's old capital, they symbolize a fractured generation coming to grips with war.Neno is for a united Yugoslavia, a powerful Slobodan Milosevic and a NATO defeat.

WASHINGTON -- Steve Hanke, the Johns Hopkins University economist who stirred political and financial waters last year by trying to revamp Indonesia's monetary system, has accepted a similar assignment in another politically sensitive spot: Yugoslavia.A well-known monetary engineer for developing nations, Hanke is designing a currency system for Montenegro, the pro-Western junior partner to Serbia in the Yugoslav federation. Because a separate currency would represent a big step toward Montenegrin independence, and because the Clinton administration has said it favors a unified Yugoslavia, Hanke is again being watched warily in Washington.

PODGORICA, Yugoslavia -- Dragan Soc dares the Yugoslav army authorities to come and take him away.The 42-year-old father of two collects conscription notices like parking tickets. He gives interviews and sets himself up as one of this country's more famous draft dodgers, reasoning that if the army really wants him, it knows exactly where to reach him.Soc is Montenegro's justice minister."A few days ago, I told the army publicly, if they intend to judge people, start with me," Soc said yesterday.

CETINJE, Montenegro -- In the arid mountains of this tiny Yugoslav republic, where myths seem to spring to life in the smoky cafes, men and women still believe in heroes.They believe in Njegos, the great 18th-century poet and king, who drove many of his people to their deaths fighting the Turks. They believe in King Nicholas; in the early 1900s, surrounded by the Hapsburg empire on three borders, he refused to be dominated by a foreign power.And now, it seems, they have found a new hero in their new pro-Western president, Milo Djukanovic -- a former Communist insider dubbed "The Penknife" for his sharp criticism of opponents.

2 die as wildfires force evacuations near L.A. LOS ANGELES : Two huge wildfires driven by strong Santa Ana winds burned into neighborhoods near Los Angeles yesterday, forcing frantic evacuations on smoke- and traffic-choked highways, destroying homes and causing at least two deaths. More than 1,000 firefighters and nine water-dropping aircraft battled the 4,700-acre Marek fire at the northeast end of the San Fernando Valley and the 5,000-acre Sesnon fire at the west end. Residents downwind were warned to remain alert into the night, as winds were forecast to roar over 60 mph. Authorities confirmed more than three-dozen mobile homes burned in the Marek fire and TV news helicopter crews counted about 10 homes destroyed by the Sesnon fire.

The Balkans, as a region, is continuing to fracture. This week, the people of Montenegro voted to split from Serbia; by the end of this year, Kosovo, too, may have achieved some form of independence. The Serbs have driven them all away, just as they provoked ruptures with the Slovenians and Macedonians and - with considerably more violence - the Croatians and Bosnians in the 1990s. Montenegrins want the respectability of membership in the European Union and even in NATO, but that respectability was going to continue to elude them as long as they remained hitched to a government in Serbia that has refused to cooperate with the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal.

PODGORICA, Serbia-Montenegro -- Though not yet official, it appears that the family of European nations has a new member. With 95 percent of the vote counted, Montenegro's election commission confirmed yesterday that 55.4 percent of the electorate voted to secede from Serbia and become an independent nation. Under rules set by the European Union, a 55 percent majority was needed for independence. About 25,000 votes remain uncounted; most are apparently from polling stations in Podgorica where there were reports of irregularities.

PODGORICA, Serbia-Montenegro -- The pro-independence movement in Montenegro appeared to hold a slim lead in yesterday's referendum on whether to sever ties with Serbia, according to unofficial results announced by CEMI, an election monitoring agency. The vote was initially put at 56.3 percent in favor of independence. That figure was later revised to 55.5 percent, just crossing the 55 percent mark established by the European Union as the threshold for independence. Turnout was 86.1 percent.

CETINJE, Serbia-Montenegro -- Residents of Montenegro vote today on whether they will part ways with Serbia. Independence would be a giant step for this tiny former kingdom on the shores of the Adriatic, but as the ranks of once-proud embassies that cluster on Cetinje's main square and along its linden-lined streets attest, it has been there before. The Kingdom of Montenegro was an independent state from 1878 until 1918. Its first and only king was Nikola I. He spoke several languages, wrote poetry and died in exile when the modern state of Yugoslavia was created at the end of World War I. These days the paint is peeling from the old British Embassy.

BELGRADE, Serbia and Montenegro -- In its harshest terms yet, the European Union sharply criticized Serbia's failure to hand over accused war criminal Gen. Ratko Mladic and broke off talks yesterday with the Balkan state aimed at admitting it to the EU. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said his government has been unable to find and arrest Mladic and urged him to surrender. The escalating crisis threatened to undermine Kostunica's fragile grasp on power, and his reform-minded deputy quit in disgust.

PRISTINA, SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO -- Kosovo's Serbs and Albanians finally are meeting to discuss the fate of what U.N. special representative Soren Jessen-Peterson describes as the "last piece of the puzzle in the Balkans." Although a final decision on whether Kosovo, a province of Serbia in the former Yugoslavia, should become an independent country lies with the U.N. Security Council, the duration of the process and its outcome will largely depend on the behavior of the two disputing parties, which are meeting in Vienna.

POZAREVAC, Serbia and Montenegro -- Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was buried in his hometown yesterday on a day that had the air of a political rally, with fervent crowds chanting his nickname, "Slobo," as though he were still their leader. Although more than 60,000 defiant supporters had gathered in the capital, Belgrade, earlier in the day to commemorate the former president, the burial service here in a small central Serbian town was low-key and oddly devoid of emotion.

BELGRADE, Serbia and Montenegro -- Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic remained a divisive figure in death yesterday as controversies erupted over the display of his body and his former political opponents hurried to organize a demonstration to counter the adulation expected at his funeral tomorrow. They launched a text-message campaign urging their supporters to go to the center of Belgrade and let fly balloons at the same time as the rites. The former president was found dead Saturday in the United Nations detention center at The Hague, where he was being tried on charges of genocide and war crimes before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

SERBS ARE waking up to the realization that if NATO decides next fall to admit Bulgaria and Romania, it will have Yugoslavia surrounded. What to do? More and more people in Belgrade think the answer is to wise up and just go with the flow. Join Europe, in other words, and begin to enjoy the fruits of democracy and a modern economy. Fine, says the European Union. But first, show us you can get along with your neighbors. And so what's left of Yugoslavia, the country that gave the world 10 years of Balkan warfare and that finally drew NATO itself into the fight, is wrenching its way toward a more pacific future.