Posted on 05/23/2006 11:25:00 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Montenegro's independence could open a Pandora's box for other separatist movements in Europe and the former Soviet Union, with some already claiming the right to follow the same path.
Separatists in Spain's Basque and Catalan regions were among the first to welcome Montenegro's independence vote as a positive omen for their aspirations of loosening ties with Madrid.
But Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos stressed the situations in his country and Montenegro were "politically, diplomatically, juridically" incomparable and that making such a comparison would represent a "great irresponsibility".
His view was supported by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who said any such comparisons would be "delirious".
A total of 55,5% of Montenegrin voters who took part in Sunday's referendum opted for independence from the tiny Balkan state's federation with Serbia.
Podgorica's union with Belgrade was the last vestige of the former Yugoslav federation, consisting of six republics that broke apart in a series of wars in the 1990s.
However, after Montenegro the EU has to immediately tackle the issue of the United Nations-administered Serbian province of Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians are the majority. Kosovo Albanians hope to gain independence this year, a demand Belgrade fiercely opposes.
Tim Judah, a Balkans specialist at the Centre for European Reform based in London, said regional stability depended far more on Kosovo -- "the final act in this 15-year drama" -- than on Montenegro.
"Compared to Kosovo, Montenegro is easy," he said, stressing that "Kosovo is a much, much bigger problem".
"Although some refuse to establish a link, possible independence of Kosovo, which would be internationally recognised, would legitimise the ambitions of other separatists who never had their own state," a Western diplomat based in the Croatian capital Zagreb told Agence France-Presse, wishing to remain anonymous.
Bosnian Serbs have already said Montenegro's independence was a good model to be followed by their entity of Republika Srpska, which, along with the Muslim-Croat Federation, has made up post-war Bosnia.
For those fighting for the independence of the Germanic Tyrol region of Italy, and its annexation to Austria, the outcome of Montenegro's referendum inspired dreams to organise a similar vote.
A senior Russian lawmaker estimated that Montenegro's decision to separate from Serbia would spur debate on the status of Kosovo and could set a "heavy" precedent for other countries with separatist minorities.
Konstantin Kosachev, chairperson of the Russian Parliament's foreign-affairs committee, warned of setting a precedent over Kosovo.
"This will create a precedent heavy with consequences for other regions," he said, citing in particular Turkish northern Cyprus and Spain's Basque separatists.
But even in the former Soviet Union, several regions are hoping to follow the lead of Montenegro. They were unilaterally proclaimed during the bloody conflicts that followed its 1991 collapse and supported by Moscow, but not recognised by the international community.
Among them, the breakaway republics of Transdniestr in Moldova and Abkhazia in Georgia, were the first to say the vote serves as a model of "self-determination".
"One can only welcome such a civilised method for gaining self-determination," said the "president" of Abkhazia, Sergei Bagapch, quoted by Interfax.
The "foreign minister" of Transdniestr, Valeri Litskai, said the outcome of Sunday's referendum in the tiny Balkan republic was a day for celebration.
"The chief diplomats of all the unrecognised republics of the former Soviet Union were satisfied" with the referendum result, he said after a meeting with representatives of regional minorities in Moscow. -- AFP
I condemn the Kosovar Albanian destruction of Serb churches in Kosovo as well as the Serb attacks on Albanian mosques, tekkes, and Albanian Catholic Churches. I also condemn the Serb destruction of the hundreds of Christian churches & monasteries they dynamited, shelled, looted, and otherwise desecrated in Croatia and the Croat-inhabited areas of Bosnia.
So Lion, do you condemn the Serb attacks on Croatian and Albanian Christian Churches?
Or you side with islamics mongrel Albanians..
ALL CAPS makes up for neither your ignorance or your racism.
In any case, for obvious reasons, arguments for sovereignty based on who lived somewhere hundreds of years ago are not valid. The problem Serbs have with Kosovo is the illegitimacy of an oppressive government. As Senator Jesse Helms said in his speech to the United Nations:
But nations derive their sovereignty – their legitimacy – from the consent of the governed. Thus, it follows, that nations can lose their legitimacy when they rule without the consent of the governed; they deservedly discard their sovereignty by brutally oppressing their people. Slobodan Milosevic cannot claim sovereignty over Kosovo when he has murdered Kosovars and piled their bodies into mass graves.
And therein lies the crux of the argument for Kosovo independence, not Albanian demographics or ancient Serb claims.
TaLk about ignorant... MARK IT IS you WHO IS IGNORANT... albanians a RACE.... hahaha!!!
YOU are a mussie sympathizer!! Proved time and timne again...NOW, go away!
He IS a mussie apologist!! WHAT do you expect from him?? Sense???
What do you expect from a mussie or utaschi apologist!!
When the US government dismisses all the Hispanic local officials in the Southwest and replaces them with Anglos from outside the area, fires Hispanic workers from their jobs, beats & jails those who protest, burns the villages & schools & religious buildings of the locals, and then sends in the army assisted by drunken bands of paramilitaries to wholesale cleanse the Hispanic population from out of their homes, no matter their citizenship or how long they've lived there--shooting enough to "encourage" cooperation--then and only then can you make a comparison between Aztlan and Kosovo.
As US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton said:
"... the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia, the ethnic cleansing and humanitarian crisis of 1999, ... make Kosovo a very, very special case."
Classic Balkans logic. I condemn the destruction of Catholic Churches by the Serbs in the 1990s and you translate that into me supporting WWII Croatian Nazis.
Markies trying to back down.... HAHA!!
and your CROAT butchers destroyed 10 times AS MANY SERBIAN CHURCHES than any Serb or moslem did in Croatia.
I hate Croatia ... for what they did in WWII at Jasenovic, they have no saving graces whatsoever.
Just keep your head in the utaschi/mussie sand-pit...
I do, but we should strive to stay fact-based both when we send messages and when we receive them. The results of perception-based, fact-free reasoning are readily apparent in the rantings of the poster one above you. However, there are more significant ramifications to that way of thinking in Balkans politics.
One of the incentives for the Montenegrins to vote for secession was that Serbia was not going forward into structures such as the EU and NATO and that Montenegro wouldn't either because it was tied to Serbia.
Serbia was road-blocked primarily because of its failure to deal with the war crimes issue, specifically Mladic & Karadzic. It was politically impossible--and perhaps even hazardous to your health (think of the late Prime Minister Djindjic) to deal realistically with Serbia's recent bad behavior in the Balkans. And the reason for that was perceptions--polls showed that large numbers of Serbs didn't believe there had been a massacre at Srbrenica or that hundreds of Kosovo Albanian bodies were hidden in mass graves inside Serbia even after their own government announced it. The Serb Radical Party—advocate of Greater Serbia and denier of any Serbian wrong-doing—is still the largest party in Serbia. And the result insofar as Kosovo is that as long as Serbs continue to believe that they did nothing wrong in Kosovo, the international community in no way is going to put the territory of Kosovo and the lives of its ethnic Albanians back under Serbian control.
I just don't see how Montenegro is going to make it on its own (economically) given it's small population 600,000. They're going to have to increase foreign tourism.
Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Malta, Andorra are all pretty small and doing OK. The fundamentals of a good economy are property rights, low taxes, low trade barriers, deregulation, and freedom of movement for goods & services & labor & capital. Add in a decent infrastructure and something people want and you are there. Montenegro has huge tourist potential, but needs some work in the other areas--in the long run Montegegro will do jsut fine.
Wrong as always, marky, wrong as always.
Following the collapse of the Albanian economy, Kosovo was flooded by illegal aliens, often drawn from the criminal classes of Albania. They initiated a campaign of terror starting in the 1980's (or continued were they had left off previously, if you prefer) and began to drive out the indigenous Serb population. When they achieved majority status, they claimed it as their own.
And it will happen again here thanks to cowards such as you.
Typical Soros fluffery going on here (be very careful to avoid it when he spits).
You are referring to the actions of the Communists while you support the Islamofascists. Your latest attempt at appeasement will not save you.
Mladic is in Montenegro and you've insured he will get away, hahhahahhah!
He just needs a quick change of kneepads.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.