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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Independence by Default

6 July, 1999 - 00:00

By Vitaly PORTNYKOV,The Day
President of Montenegro Milo Djukanovic said the other day that a referendum
might be held on the status of this Yugoslav republic. In fact, it is the
question of Montenegro leaving the Yugoslav federation, an action for which
the Montenegrin political elite is carefully and cautiously preparing the
populace frightened by the latest Balkan war. The president of Montenegro,
incidentally a former Communist, has been receiving appeals from the academic
and creative intelligentsia to urgently consider the problem of their republic's
future. It should be noted that the Montenegrin President made such a serious
statement after the recent meeting with the US President: could Djukanovic
may have received assurances from Bill Clinton that the West will not tolerate
the Milosevic regime's interference in the affairs of Montenegro?

But this is independence by default. Even President of Slovenia Milan
Kucan expressed the wish that Montenegro remain part of Yugoslavia. It
will be recalled that Mr. Kucan was the symbol of Slovenia's exit from
federal socialist Yugoslavia, the first secession. The shrewd Slovene leader
is fully aware of the difference between the conscious desire to live independently
and the flight from a weak center that failed to come up to expectations.
Was it different in the former Soviet Union? The Baltic nations, like Slovenia,
had striven for freedom even when one could not imagine leaving the empire
even in one's wildest dream. Belarus and Macedonia proclaimed independence
because they had to. To be more exact, they renamed their declarations
of sovereignty as those of independence, nothing more.

And Ukraine? Could we ever have mustered the courage, but for the putsch?
The difference between the will for freedom and unintentional independence
lies in how people live. I wish Montenegro would have more luck.

 

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