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Ventura mandou celebrar um Te Deum, Montenegro virou-se para o Tribunal Constitucional e desafiou, batendo com um punho na palma da outra mão, “bem feita, bem feita, para não estarem com esquisitices”. Rangel enviou um mail para Netanyahu garantindo que sabemos muito bem honrar os seus exemplos, Costa remeteu um emoji com aplausos e até Van der Leyen telefonou ao chefe do governo insuflando-lhe coragem para continuar a combater uma descabelada Constituição da República.

Para sossego de todos nós, alegremo-nos por isso, a peste dos agonizantes arribados em jangada desconjuntada às rentáveis areias dos Algarves vai voltar para donde veio e de onde nunca deveria ter saído. A nossa raça privilegiada não aceita mais ser conspurcada e não tem culpa de que os náufragos famintos, fiados nos mitos da nossa hospitalidade tradicional e do reconhecido humanismo dos nossos egrégios avós, tenham nascido na hora e no lugar errados e, ainda por cima, com uma cor de pele demasiado tisnada.

Se fossem como nós, com a vantagem suplementar de terem cabelos aloirados e olhos azuis e tivessem chegado em automóveis topo de gama de terras da Galícia e da Volínia agregadas à Ucrânia, então tudo bem, haveria sempre lugar para mais um, para muitos mais.

Mas atreverem-se a vir do Norte de África em redescobertos tempos de purificação da raça é uma rematada inconsciência, uma desafiadora provocação.

As autoridades e os juízes de serviço olharam para as leis com os olhos assépticos e tecnocráticos que lhes competiam e fizeram o que tinham a fazer: mandá-los embora.

As entidades de socorro armaram umas tendas e, para isso, até tiveram a boa vontade de cancelar uns quantos eventos desportivos; deram sopinha e umas sandes reforçadas aos intrusos, reservaram umas camas de hospital aos mais débeis até que conseguissem pôr-se de pé e agora ala que se faz tarde. Cumprimos a nossa missão evangélica e, a partir daí, que vão morrer para outro lado porque isso é assunto que já nos diz respeito.

É verdade que essas três dezenas de potenciais terroristas e criminosos eram oriundos de um país muito nosso amigo e que representa a “nossa civilização” no Norte de África, sob o comando firme e democrático do rei Mohammed VI. Marrocos é como se fosse um nosso irmão na União Europeia, é pena que se tenha desenvolvido num continente de incivilizados e bárbaros, mas tivemos o cuidado de fazer acordos especiais com ele para que se sinta quase como um de nós.

Tem as suas bolsas de pobreza, é certo. Há muitos marroquinos como os portugueses, sem outro remédio que não seja o de procurarem sobreviver, com a dignidade possível, noutros países. É muito provável que naquela terra até haja barracas, mas isso é porque os seus responsáveis ainda não receberam formação em Loures e outros criativos municípios portugueses sobre os métodos para acabar com elas.

Marrocos, aliás, tem ainda a seu favor o facto se ser uma espécie de Israel aqui bem mais perto, merecendo assim as correspondentes atenções dos governos da União Europeia por tratarem o povo do Sahara Ocidental tal como o nosso aliado Netanyahu cuida dos palestinianos. Neste caso, porém, há ainda mais vantagens para o nosso lado: como paladino da democracia que é, o rei Abdallah VI pode gerir como quer as riquezas do Sahara Ocidental que não lhe pertencem, sobretudo os generosos recursos de pesca. E fá-lo até de maneira altruísta, permitindo aos irmãos da UE, entre eles nós, como seus dilectos vizinhos, partilhar à vontade dos grandes banquetes de rapina em águas territoriais do Sahara Ocidental, sob os olhos tornados democraticamente impotentes dos seus legítimos proprietários.

O rei Mohammed VI é um amigão, mas amigos, amigos, negócios à parte e não pode distrair-se com os indigentes que vivem contrariados no seu país e querem incomodar a segurança de outros com manobras clandestinas e a salto.

Os cuidados securitários

Sim, não se trata de exagero. Aquelas três dezenas de farrapos humanos que se arriscaram, atraídos pela miragem de uma vida melhor, nas águas do Atlântico e sob o abrasador sol estival, são uma ameaça à segurança da Europa. Assim o dizem os nossos governantes e não há que duvidar deles. Em verdade vos digo que este turismo da fome é muitas vezes pior que o turismo de pé descalço.

Como se não bastassem as ânsias expansionistas dos bárbaros russos, ainda temos de enfrentar a terrível ameaça dos esfomeados do Norte de África, invejosos do brilho das nossas vidas e, quiçá, industriados para sujar a pureza do nosso sangue lusitano.

O governo e os seus aliados do “não é não” querem acabar com essas ameaças e pôr fim à permissividade do convívio com os povos inferiores, mais uma mania das que ainda restam da catástrofe de 25 de Abril de 1974. Como muito bem diz o nosso bom amigo Netanyahu, a propósito do “muro de separação” que cuida da pureza sionista, “nós cá e eles lá”. É assim que deve ser, é assim que irá ser pelas mãos de Montenegro, Ventura e adjacências mais ou menos “liberais”. Racismo? Xenofobia? Segregacionismo? Isso são rótulos anacrónicos, incompatíveis com os novos tempos que estão no horizonte, tempos de redenção instaurados, assim se deseja, sob o estalar de periscópios e bengalins de almirantes e generais, há demasiado tempo afastados da condução da grei.

Bem basta a mistura que já vai por cá e que tanto tempo custará a corrigir. Devolver estas três dezenas de esfomeados ameaçadores à procedência é um exemplo dissuasor que ficará como advertência para outros eventuais atrevidos, e um sinal indelével de que agora a música é outra. Vinha uma criança de um ano entre os potenciais criminosos? Não interessa. O primeiro-ministro e também o presidente de Israel, Netanyahu e Herzog, nossos gurus, já tiveram o cuidado de prevenir, a propósito de Gaza, que essa gente, os bárbaros, já nascem terroristas. Nada de maciezas, corações moles ou contemplações. Naquele caso, a sua liquidação é indispensável para combater o Hamas. Aqui, há que cortar o mal pela raiz para que não tenhamos de sofrer reincidências.

Além disso, fizeram muito bem as nossas diligentes autoridades em investigar a pente fino caixão de madeira ou “o barco” – houve quem lhe chamasse isso – em que chegaram os invasores. Nunca se sabe quais são as manhas e artimanhas dos traficantes de droga, capazes até de se disfarçar de esfomeados para fazerem negócio. Ao largo da praia ao lado, entretanto, poderá ter ancorado um luxuoso iate transportando mais umas dezenas de quilos de coca, mas quem iria desconfiar de tão aperaltada encadernação?

Por cá, de vez em quando citam-se estudos de autoridades policiais e de investigadores nas áreas sociais e sociológicas segundo os quais a percentagem de imigrantes envolvidos na criminalidade é ínfima. Além disso, as comunidades de imigrantes integradas no tecido português contribuem com o seu trabalho e assinalável generosidade para a sobrevivência do sistema de Segurança Social. Comunidades essas que, em tantos casos, estão disponíveis para realizar trabalhos reles para os quais as elites portuguesas já não se se sentem vocacionadas. Há quem diga até que, no caso de haver uma expulsão em massa de imigrantes, a economia do país e a qualidade de vida dos portugueses cairiam a pique.

Isso não passa, garantem as nossas autoridades, de manipulações mal intencionadas por parte de quem se recusa a aceitar a mudança e, em última análise, é cúmplice de todo um processo de adulteração da pureza rácica original dos portugueses, destruindo grande parte da genuinidade lusitana que o salazarismo tão bem cultivara.

Está bem de ver que a expulsão dos refugiados (imigrantes seriam se cá ficassem) que chegaram de Marrocos não é mais do que a aplicação dos conselhos do clarividente Josep Borrel, quando era “ministro” dos Negócios Estrangeiros da União Europeia, e que recomendava a defesa e a segurança deste nosso “jardim de civilização” cercado de bárbaros por todos os lados. O facto de os invasores virem depauperados nada tinha de tranquilizador em matéria de segurança europeia, porque não tardariam a ficar em pleno modo de ameaça a partir do momento em que lhes fossem concedidas cama, mesa e roupa lavada, como sempre tem acontecido até agora. Nada de ilusões.

Em suma, são muito bem expulsos, nem que seja para morrer, circunstância que, além disso, iria aliviar a pressão demográfica sobre este nossos superpovoado planeta, a necessitar da aplicação dos visionários programas de eugenia pelos quais, como bons seguidores do génio Kissinger, alguns frequentadores do Fórum de Davos são responsáveis.

Outros se seguirão, se deixarmos Ventura e Montenegro continuar com as mãos na massa dos assuntos governamentais. Tudo farão para garantir, à sua maneira, a segurança da Europa segundo o modelo de Van der Leyen, Macron, Kallas, Merz, Costa, Meloni, Tusk, Orban e outros sociopatas, sob a tutela do sempre fiável e lúcido Donald Trump, alumiados pelo farol da democracia que é a NATO. Trinta e poucos esfomeados vindos de Marrocos tiveram a ousadia de desafiar as regras desta ordem estabelecida e vão receber um tratamento exemplar. A grande Europa unida e pura ultrapassou, com galhardia, mais esta cobarde provação.

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Albania and Croatia became official members in April 2009, followed by Montenegro in June 2017.

By Imtiaz GUL

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With NATO’s expansion and Europe’s push to militarise Ukraine, history’s forgotten promises resurface – was Russia the real violator, or has the West rewritten the rules? And at what cost to Europe’s future?

Speaking to media after the Euro-Summit on Ukraine in London (March 2), British Prime Minister Keir Starmer made a critical, albeit dubious, point about a possible “breach” of a deal by Russia. He said, “We cannot accept a weak deal like Minsk – which Russia can breach with ease.”

By linking the word “breach” to Russia, Starmer implied that the latter has often violated agreements, suggesting that Europe must work to put Ukraine in a strong negotiating position. However, this dubious insinuation belies history. In 2017, the National Security Archive at George Washington University declassified 30 documents related to commitments and assurances made by Western leaders to Russia in 1990, when the fall of the Berlin Wall appeared imminent.

No major Western media outlet ever reported on or referenced these documents, noted authors Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton in a study published for NATO Watch in January 2018.

Let us examine the historical record to determine who actually breached commitments.

Starmer’s statement reminds us of American international relations experts such as Prof Jeffrey Sachs and Prof John Joseph Mearsheimer. Both call out the West for its unilateral critique of Russia without context. They have long argued that NATO’s relentless eastward expansion – after Moscow dismantled Warsaw Pact – triggered security alarms in Moscow. It was, in fact, a continuous US-led NATO strategy to create a sort of “ring of fire” around Russia and China.

Military bases in the South China Sea region and the eastern Pacific Rim (Japan, Koreas, the Philippines, Australia and others) served as a bulwark against China. Similarly, in Eastern Europe, the continuous accession of multiple Baltic states projected NATO’s power eastward, eventually forcing Russia to respond by taking Crimea in 2014. More importantly, historical evidence suggests that it was NATO that breached its promises to Moscow.

The declassified documents revealed a torrent of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Mikhail Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and into 1991, according to a NATO Watch paper, published on January 2, 2018.

President George HW Bush had assured President Gorbachev during the Malta Summit in December 1989 that the US would not take advantage of the revolutions in Eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests, stating, “I have not jumped up and down on the Berlin Wall.”

The first concrete assurance came on January 31, 1990 when West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher made a major public speech in Tutzing, Bavaria, on German unification. He said, “The changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an impairment of Soviet security interests. Therefore, NATO should rule out an expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e., moving it closer to the Soviet borders.”

In February 1991, then-US Secretary of State James Baker assured his Soviet counterpart, Eduard Shevardnadze, that in a post-Cold War Europe, NATO would no longer be belligerent – “less of a military organization, much more of a political one, with no need for independent capability.”

He promised Shevardnadze “iron-clad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward.” On the same day in Moscow, Baker famously told Gorbachev that the alliance would not move “one inch to the east.”

In a meeting with Gorbachev the following day (February 10), German Chancellor Helmut Kohl reiterated the same assurance: “We believe that NATO should not expand the sphere of its activity. We have to find a reasonable resolution. I correctly understand the security interests of the Soviet Union.”

According to the NATO Watch paper, “The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991. Discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory. Subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled over NATO expansion were founded on written contemporaneous memos and telephone conversations at the highest levels.”

The declassified documents list Bush Senior, Genscher, Kohl, CIA Director Robert Gates, French President Mitterrand, British PMs Thatcher and John Major, and NATO secretary-general Manfred Woerner.

Their assurances against NATO expansion evaporated into thin air in 1997 when Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were invited into NATO, followed by formal accession of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia on March 29, 2004.

Albania and Croatia became official members in April 2009, followed by Montenegro in June 2017. The Republic of North Macedonia joined in March 2020, Finland in April 2023, and Sweden in March 2024.

The documents released by the GWU archives echoed the criticism by former CIA Director Robert Gates, who warned against “pressing ahead with the expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”

It is the latter-day Western leaders who have breached their commitment not to pursue NATO’s eastward enlargement. The mainstream Western media also contributed to the falsification of historical facts by consistently demonising Russia – projecting it as an encroaching monster.

The Euro-Summit in London and its four-point declaration on Ukraine represent yet another attempt to enforce the permanent militarisation of the Ukraine-Russia border.

Without the US military’s involvement in this coalition the efficacy of the declaration remains doubtful. Further militarisation of Ukraine could lead to the hemorrhaging of Western European economies and deepen political divisions leading to far-reaching consequences.

As the Euro-Summit’s latest declarations pave the way for further escalation, it is worth asking: How much longer can 32-member NATO dismiss its own role in fueling tensions? And, more importantly, what price will Europe pay for ignoring the lessons of history?

Original article: tribune.com.pk

Britain’s direct involvement in NATO raid that killed a Montenegrin civilian revealed for the first time.

Phil MILLER

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Twenty five years ago today NATO bombed Montenegro’s main airport.

It came amid airstrikes on Yugoslav forces in Kosovo, where Bill Clinton and Tony Blair waged a “humanitarian intervention” ostensibly to save ethnic Albanians from Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic.

Yet a 61-year-old woman, Paska Juncaj, was killed in the strikes on Montenegro’s capital Podgorica, which lasted for 24 hours.

“Shrapnel hit her in the head while she was on the way to an air raid shelter with her son,” a hospital official told Reuters.

Three others were injured – one seriously – and two houses destroyed after a cluster bomb missed its target.

Bombing Montenegro at all was controversial, because the country was friendly to NATO.

And although it remained in Yugoslavia with Serbia, its president Milo Djukanovic was anti-Milosevic and took a neutral stance on Kosovo.

The country would eventually join NATO as a member in 2017.

Approving air strikes

The Atlantic alliance did not specify which of its members had taken part in the air strikes on Montenegro at the time.

Such secrecy would become a common feature of future NATO air wars, making it hard for victims to hold individual states responsible.

But a formerly classified document reveals that Britain was heavily involved in the attack on Montenegro.

Blair’s defence secretary, George Robertson, believed an attack on Podgorica’s airport was justified because “it was being used as a base for operations in and over Kosovo” by Yugoslav jets and helicopters.

John Sawers, Blair’s foreign affairs adviser and future head of MI6, gave clearance for “precision guided munitions” to be dropped at 4 points of the airfield, which had both civilian and military functions.

“The risk of casualties was low, for both civilian and military, and of collateral damage, medium”, Robertson’s private secretary Christopher Deverell noted in a memo to Downing Street marked, “Secret – Personal” and “Limited distribution”.

On the same day, a Cabinet Office meeting of legal advisors recorded “some concern about the acceptability of explanations that have been given by NATO and national spokesmen for attacks by non-UK NATO forces on certain targets which were on the face of it civilian in character.”

Sawers concluded: “I think it would be right to continue to plan on the assumption that the Prime Minister is almost certain to agree to targets where collateral damage is assessed as high but civilian casualties remain low.”

The file has since been declassified and was passed to the National Archives in London this December.

The MoD, NATO and Lord Robertson did not respond to requests for comment.

Culture of impunity

Dr Iain Overton from campaign group Action on Armed Violence told Declassified: “The lack of transparency displayed by the Ministry of Defence over its air strikes is long and concerning. They repeatedly deny civilian harm even in the face of detailed evidence. This revelation just adds to the proof that this culture of opacity and impunity prevails at the highest level.”

It is unclear whether Britain had any involvement in another NATO attack on Montenegro the following day – 30 April 1999 – when a bridge in the village of Murino was struck by ten missiles.

Six civilians died in that airstrike, including three children, sparking a long running campaign for justice.

British aircraft did participate in the wider bombing of Serbia and Kosovo. The 78-day campaign by NATO left around 500 civilians dead, according to Human Rights Watch.

Milosovic was later overthrown and died while on trial at The Hague. Blair’s ally in the conflict, Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leader Hashem Thaci, is currently on trial for war crimes.

Over the next 25 years, Britain conducted airstrikes in eight countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

The list does not include military interventions like in Sierra Leone, as they did not feature aerial bombardments.

This month the RAF flew missions to protect Israel from Iranian drones.

‘My enemy’s enemy’

Britain’s military intervention in Kosovo produced mixed results. Although it allowed the return of ethnic Albanian refugees, it sparked reprisals against ethnic Serbs and empowered the KLA.

During the air war, Sawers pushed for Britain to deepen ties with the KLA, who were fighting Serb forces on the ground.

Sawers said Britain risked being “too sniffy” towards the KLA and that: “Our starting point in a conflict like this should be that your enemy’s enemy is your friend. We can sort out our differences later.”

Sawers also suggested a “minimalist interpretation” of the UN arms embargo. Blair replied: “I agree”. The KLA had easy access to small arms from their bases in Albania, where the collapse of pyramid schemes had left the state in tatters.

The file gives an important insight into the mindset of Sawers, who went on to run MI6 a decade on from the Kosovo war. In 2011 he oversaw a similar strategy in Libya where British intelligence sided with banned terrorist groups to topple Muammar Gaddafi.

Narco-state

In both cases, the Machiavellian policies have left a troubled legacy. Kosovo became virtually a narco-state on the edge of Europe, while Al Qaeda spin off groups like ISIS flourished in Libya’s power vacuum and spread terrorism to the UK.

A memo on the KLA written by a Whitehall staffer in 1999 noted it “does contain unsavoury elements…Links to drugs/crime.”

It added that the UK “do not support their goal (independence) or methods,” although Britain would be the first country to recognise Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008.

The MoD and Foreign Office warned: “Not all the Kosovo Albanians support the KLA. And the KLA is prone to feuding, and not incapable of atrocities itself. NATO cannot be seen to be in alliance with them…KLA rule might not be a liberal experience.”

Another document warned they were “not much better than the Serbs”.

Two months after Milosevic agreed to pull his forces out of Kosovo, leaving Thaci in control, the Independent reported “around 30 people a week are being killed in Kosovo as organised gangs take advantage of the UN’s failure to police the province.”

A NATO spokesman admitted there was a “law and order vacuum” with Western diplomats saying “gangs, some of which are suspected of having links to the Kosovo Liberation Army, are taking apartments, real estate, businesses, fuel supplies and cars from Kosovo Albanians and Serbs, who have little recourse to justice.”

A declassified British government file written shortly after the war said a senior KLA veteran was “up to his neck in smuggling and organised crime”. Kosovo was described in the media as a “smugglers’ paradise” and “the Colombia of Europe”, supplying up to 40% of heroin on the continent.

Sex trafficking and forced prostitution also rose in post-war Kosovo as gangs supplied NATO peacekeepers with “hundreds of women, many of them under-age girls”, Amnesty International warned in 2004.

Organised crime

Thaci became Kosovo’s first prime minister, despite NATO believing he was among the country’s “biggest fish” in organised crime.

An investigation by the Council of Europe accused Thaci of organ harvesting, with his inner circle allegedly murdering Serb captives to sell their kidneys on the black market.

It also cited reports from anti-narcotic agencies who identified Thaci as having “violent control over the trade in heroin”.

Kosovar gangs often have close familial links with the wider Albanian mafia. The National Crime Agency said in 2017 that “Albanian crime groups have established a high profile influence within UK organised crime, and have considerable control across the UK drug trafficking market, particularly cocaine.”

Drug deaths in Britain have now reached a 30-year high, with almost 5,000 fatalities in 2022.

After decades of impunity, Thaci is now on trial for 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to the KLA.

The degree of corruption and intimidation is so high in Kosovo that his trial has to be held at a special court in The Hague.

Tougher rules on prison visits had to be implemented in December after prosecutors complained that visitors tried to compel “witnesses to withdraw or modify their testimony in a manner favorable” to the defendants.

Thaci denies all the charges against him.

Original article: declassifieduk.org

Milo Djukanovic, the outgoing Western puppet who ruled and plundered Montenegro for the last three decades, betrayed everything he ostensibly ever stood for during his insufferably long public career. Everything, that is, with the single exception of his own political survival. His finely tuned antennas assisted him at every turn to make opportunistically correct choices. The end came when it no longer depended on him and his puppeteers decided that his shelf life was over.

Djukanovic will now be swept away as were Mobutu, Suharto, Mubarak, and scores of similar satraps who were allowed to misrule and steal for decades, until the inscrutable overseers decreed that their time was up. Will Djukanovic be humiliated like the deposed Mobutu who memorably showed up at a Brussels bank to withdraw some of the plundered cash, only to be told that his account was frozen pending clarification of “human rights violations” that had been alleged against him? Or will he be put on trial in a cage like Mubarak (he was, after all, chased out of office in a rough Montenegrin equivalent of the “Arab Spring,” such as marked the end of Mubarak’s rule)? We will find out as the scenario, which certainly is not being written in Montenegro, further unfolds.

In the meantime, the clueless masses joyously celebrate what they believe to be their electoral victory. They never learn that regimes are fungible, but that the system that oppresses them is sacrosanct and immutable. Their notion of a solution for their problems rarely goes beyond the infantile search for a “new face.” They almost never notice that the new face, delivered to satisfy their craving for novelty, is but a mask.

In elections held on Sunday, April 2, Djukanovic was replaced by Jakov Milatovic, a virtual political unknown but with impeccable Atlanticist credentials (see puff piece here). The pretentious name of Milatovic’s party, “Europe now!”, of course makes absolutely no sense at a time when the European Union and its “values” are imploding. But it is a powerful virtue signal to the new President’s future overlords, leaving no doubt about his policy commitments.

For those who do not remember, and they should not be blamed if they don’t because Djukanovic’s public presence has been intolerably long and his chameleonic transformations too numerous to keep track of, here are some highlights of his treacheries. He began as an ardent Serbian nationalist and political ally of Slobodan Milosevic in the late 1980s. When the civil war in the former Yugoslavia began in earnest, Djukanovic was personally at the front lines, directing fire and making threatening noises against those that would soon become, in one of his future incarnations, his allies. During the 1990s, as Yugoslavia was developing survival strategies to defeat Western sanctions, Djukanovic saw an opportunity to turn national policy into a source of private profit. He kept for himself a steadily increasing cut of the proceeds of goods that under state auspices were being smuggled from neighbouring Albania and from across the Adriatic Sea not to stuff his pockets but to relieve the plight of the population that was being devastated by merciless Western sanctions.

He liked this cash cow system so much that he continued to operate it long after sanctions were removed. He simply substituted more lucrative items such as drugs and tobacco for consumer goods.

As a result, according to no less an authority than the London “Independent,” the President of tiny, impoverished Montenegro which produces nothing of substance (“mysteriously,” as the British coyly put it) managed to join the ranks of 20 richest heads of state. A business genius of such calibre, now that he is leaving politics, unless he is arrested should perhaps be usefully hired as a consultant by failing Western banks. That just might save the financial system.

When he judged the moment opportune, Djukanovic eventually turned his back on everyone who ever helped him in his rise. He grasped very early which way the wind was blowing and that identifying with his mentor Slobodan Milosevic would put him at a severe disadvantage in amassing ill-gotten wealth and surviving politically, so he hosted Milosevic’s political opponents on his Montenegrin turf. During the 1999 NATO bombing he went a step further and brazenly hosted on territory under his rule Western intelligence operatives while his country, Montenegro, and the rest of Yugoslavia were being demolished by air strikes.

Djukanovic’s most radical betrayal, perhaps, was of his indisputably Serbian roots. He is a descendant of proudly Serbian ancestors who included a prime minister of the Kingdom of Montenegro and a commander in the nationalist anti-Axis movement of General Drazha Mihailovic. But when he grasped that the Western-engineered fragmentation of Yugoslavia was more than merely political dismemberment and that it encompassed the ethnic break-up of the Serbian nation as well, he unhesitatingly jumped on that bandwagon, not caring that his grandfathers and uncles were turning in their graves. He reinvented himself overnight into a vociferous proponent of a distinct Montenegrin ethnicity and, absurdly enough, of language also.

Djukanovic also dutifully turned his back on Russia, Montenegro’s traditional ally and protector, imposing “sanctions” on its historical patron. Montenegro’s grateful attachment to Russia went so far that in 1905 it declared war on the Japanese Empire in a gesture of solidarity. To this day the declaration of hostilities against Japan has not been officially rescinded, nor has a peace treaty been signed. Djukanovic, who is poorly educated and reputed by those who know him well to be a man who does not read books, was probably unaware of this curious historical fact. Otherwise, he surely would have ostentatiously apologised to the Japanese for the insulting gesture of his patriotic forebears.

Toward the end of his interminable rule Djukanovic apparently fell victim to a delusion of omnipotence. He actually pioneered (or tried to) in his country the creation of a fake, regime-sponsored Orthodox Church to which he planned to assign the assets of the genuine, canonical Orthodox Church of Montenegro, which is in communion with and an integral part of the Serbian Orthodox Church. (Alert readers will unmistakably detect elements of the Ukrainian scenario in self-admitted atheist Djukanovic’s insolent scheme.) But far from submitting to the pillage of their church, in 2020 for months the people of Montenegro staged massive, spontaneous processions in every corner of their country to protest Djukanovic’s hubris. Faced with popular intransigence, the greedy tyrant was compelled to concede and withdraw the church seizure law that he had previously rammed through his puppet legislature.

That marked the start of his undoing. His sponsors realised that Djukanoic was turning into a liability. His voiceless subjects were seriously tired of him and the massive self-organised protest, though triggered by predominantly religious concerns, could easily acquire unambiguously political characteristics. Unless adroitly deflected, such a development could topple the system which for decades had served Western interests perfectly and had held Montenegro in subjection as a geopolitical pawn.

The solution was found, and his name is Jakov Milatovic. He combines all the features that are required to successfully deceive the masses and by their enthusiastic and uncritical consent to replace the discarded political dinosaur. Milatovic unquestionably is a “new face” (his previous public exposure having been minimal), he is also young (as if that mattered) and, unlike Djukanovic, he probably has read a few books in the course his life. He has also had a semblance of education (much as Andrey Martyanov would undoubtedly and rightfully sneer at it). But it was acquired in all the wrong places, given the geopolitical realities and all the known and ominous facts about how “young leaders” are groomed and “educated” in the shrinking domain known today as the West-centric “international community.”

Milatovic learned everything he knows, and will soon apply it as President of Montenegro, as the beneficiary of educational grants at Illinois State University, Vienna Economic University (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien), La Sapienza University in Rome, where he spent a year on a grant generously provided by the European Commission, and finally as a UK government grantee when he attended economics training at the University of Oxford.

Milatovic received additional preparation and instruction in programs such as Oxbridge Academic at Oxford, numerous International Monetary Fund programs, as well as the London School of Economics and the Stanford University Leadership Academy. An impeccable CV, is it not, for things to change in order to remain the same?

Wise Montenegrin Orthodox cleric, archpriest Jovan Plamenac, was on to something when he commented the election outcome thus:

“I am glad that Djukanovic lost, but I take no joy in Milatovic’s victory!”

​​​​​​​The Russian foreign policy establishment shouldn’t, either.

Just less than a decade ago, Dusko Markovic, the last prime minister of ‘Montenegro’, the country established in place of what used to be and has always been Crna Gora (and is now mercifully back on the historical and political maps), back then contrived by Milo Djukanovic‘s DPS political party, Markovic bragged about something that an intelligent person would well and truly be ashamed of, that more than 85% of the people of Montenegro were against Montenegrin government’s recognition of Kosovo as an independent state back then. But he said (somewhat sneeringly): ”We did recognize it nonetheless’ They had a vision to do exactly that – he said so emboldened by this ‘success’, they, in the same ‘visionary’ way, could conveniently do away with the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro ‘in one leisurely sweep’, which (the Serbian Orthodox Church in the newly identity-ed Montenegro) reminds them all in a rather uncomfortable way that Kosovo is Serbia after all and that Njegoš and the King Nikola knew that historical fact centuries ago. And those Crnogorci (who do not know the truths which Njegoš and King Nikola knew cannot essentially and truly ‘be’ Crnogorci any more after they had ceased to be Serbs as well. Anyhow, who are they indeed if not who Njegoš and King Nikola were? It is common knowledge that he used to go ‘namo, ‘namo da vidju Prizren…(6). because Kosovo is mine and ours and I belong to it and oнамо покој добићу души, кад Србин више не буде роб.

Thus, there emerges a justifiable question.’ When did the country of Crna Gora come to be if it is not in any way the same as or similar to who King Nikola used to be during his reign? Shortly afterwards, the unwavering people’s litije began – long, nationwide processions of Serbian Orthodox Church believers in pious pursuit to protect and defend the Serbian Orthodox Church and its thousands of holy places of worship and Montenegro did, commensurate to how much is ‘allowed by the NATO standards’ slowly begin retrieving its Crna Gora centuries-old, historical and political identity.

Therefore, this case of Crna Gora is most precious due to the fact that the same issue is hovering in the political mid-air above Serbia too. It is called the French – German Plan, which has unwittingly evolved into the European Plan in the meantime. It is heavily supported by the USA so it could be conveniently called the NATO plan as well. Let me remind you, NATO is the military pact which committed a brutal act of aggression on SR Yugoslavia (N.B. the official union of Serbia and Montenegro at the time) in order to eventually rip Kosovo and Metohija away from us, the Serbs. In brief, this NATO plan is now for the rest of the then Yugoslavia, which is in fact Serbia now, after Crna Gora had already done it, to recognize that Kosovo does not belong to Serbia any more. They want us to believe that it is not ours any more but theirs. What (utterly lackluster) Dusko Markovic called a ‘vision’, the EU mediator Miroslav Lajcak describes as a difficult decision to make, yet the crux of the matter is the same. Namely, we the Serbs are ordered to do what the Serbian people are absolutely against. It seems that a ‘particular’ kind of ‘democracy’ is that in which these all manner of ‘envoys and leaders’ of all sorts do not act in accordance with the will of the Serbian people but completely contrary to it.

In Serbian language we interpret this sort of (arrogant doublespeak) approach as: subjugation. The U.S. ambassador in Belgrade, Christopher Hill seems to have thought it was incumbent upon him on that count to approach us in a certain weekly magazine with his address to the Serbs in this way as follows: ‘I had heard people talking about sovereignty in the Balkans, and I would always ask the same question ‘How come some other countries in the Western Europe as small as Serbia do not worry about their own sovereignty?’ Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani elaborated further on what that truly meant. Europe does not have a real foreign and defense policy. We always follow in the (political) footsteps of the USA – he told the Italian reporters of La Stampa. Ramush Haradinaj said something very similar a few years ago in the capacity of the then prime minister of the pseudo state of Kosovo, though we laughed at him back then. Now we understand that this aberration is more common than we thought. There seem to be some nations who welcome their usurpers of their own land with joy. They threw flowers at the Germans when the Germans entered Maribor (Slovenia) or Zagreb (Croatia), for instance. The very same Germans threw bombs at Belgrade (Serbia) at the time. Slovenia and Croatia are now NATO members jumping with the very same joy. (Macedonia and Montenegro were swindled into NATO in the meantime). And yet again all of them are together on their Generalplan Ost onward march against Russia. But we (the Serbs) again bang on stubbornly about our sovereignty, eh? That is the reason why the Germans, and the Germans always follow in the footsteps of the Americans, just like the Italians and Ramush Haradinaj do, as one of the conditions and there were seven of these conditions in total, they asked for our mindset to change. But, we adamantly refuse to forget our past and our history and surely not their bombs.

Adrian Schockenhoff, Bundestag and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s envoy to Serbia a decade ago or so, demanded exactly that in all seriousness, and he even committed that demand to paper, translated into Serbian. He handed it out to the reporters so as to avoid any possible misconstructions lost in translation. It happened in 2012 because a little earlier in 2010 we did not obey the commands by Wolfram Mass (the German ambassador in Serbia before him) He said ‘I have to voice my criticism of the Serbian authorities for still using the terms such as NATO bombing. Imagine that you walk along Knez Milos Street and your child asks you ‘Daddy, who did this?’ (showing the buildings torn down by the NATO bombing). You would respond ‘ NATO did ‘. What do you expect your child to think of NATO then? Unlike this particular situation, when I was a child, says Mass, I used to see some ruins in Germany but I did not hate those who did it because there were others there who were able to explain to me why they did that. He then added that the European and NATO integrations are interconnected, because the issue of Serbia joining NATO is not a matter of ‘if’ but of ‘when’, regardless of what we think about that. (Truth be told) that means subjugation for the Serbs and we are not having it!

The very same things are now demanded by the U.S. Ambassador Hill, after he sent a message to the Serbs that we should not do what we want to do but we should do what he wants us to do; he explained to us ‘in a nice way’ (as if we would fall for Hill’s niceties) that Serbia is now at its most important pathway in its history, towards joining Euro-Atlantic integration, including EU of course… and including NATO of course. That is the true meaning of the Euro-Atlantic integration. That is the reason why, the (infamous) ambassador complained to that Belgrade weekly magazine: ‘It was the greatest disappointment for me that the matters which I thought had been resolved a long time ago, are still fresh in the minds and memories of the locals. I was surprised when I came here last March that there were some remembrances of 1999 on a regular daily basis. You have to look into the future! This geographic region is packed with history. One should respect history but one should not be its hostage.’

Moreover, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, Russian Ambassador in Serbia, warned that Hill would like to erase historical memory of brutal atrocities committed on the Serbs and our tragically lost lives taken away by NATO. And indeed, if history is the life’s teacher, which it is, where would these history teachers (such as the arrogant, infamous Hill) take us in the future, and where would the likes of those who would like to erase our history take us? When they place us, that is, on that most important pathway in our history, the way Hill depicts it. To be something we have never been before, the generations of Serbs who willingly renounce its own Kosovo and Metohija, rather than simply singing patriotic songs about Kosovo at least, waiting for the ‘Dogodine u Prizrenu’. When would the history of the Serbs in that case (the way Christopher Hill wants us to see it) begin the same as in the case of those Montenegrini in Crna Gora?

We would renounce Kosovo and (in that far-fetched scenario of theirs) we would renounce our centuries old Serbian Kosovo, pre-Battle of Kosovo cantos and post-Battle of Kosovo cantos of epic poetry from our folklore national heritage, what would in that case our children learn in Serbian language classes in school? And the famed epic poem quote ‘Kasno Marko na Kosovo stize’ would not be ours anymore because we are not Marko’s own people any more. ‘Pocetak Bune protiv Dahija‘ would not feature in our Serbian language and literature classes anymore because even there we recite poetry and sing songs about King Lazar, Milos Obilic and Kosovo and our liberation from the Ottoman Turks and then onward to the revenged Kosovo in 1912. Yet, the likes of Christopher Hill want us to believe that those appear to have been some other Serbs and not us. The same as what happened in 1999 and 2006 when the Constitution of Serbia was passed, our Serbian most beloved and revered Patriarch Pavle also voted for it and led the whole nation in their pious pursuit, because the Constitution says that Kosovo is the heartland of Serbia, be it with its essential autonomy.

Yet, this is a kind reminder that in 2008 there seemed to have been ‘some other Serbs’ who rejected rather than accepted in total subjugation the self-proclaimed pseudo state of Kosovo.

If we were to obey what Hill orders us to do and the likes of him preaching about the life lessons, and all the other thieves of our history and our land, if we were to make those tough choices with which Miroslav Lajcak relentlessly continues to threaten us, if they were to blindingly blur the scope of our vision which Dusko Markovic had, we would become but sheer subjugated slaves who, because they do not have the past anymore, cannot have the future either ‘the future which is in our own hands and not the hands of others. Of course for the sake of the interests of others (i.e. the interests of NATO, USA and EU and surely not our own). To the Serbs, it feels far more like freedom to be the hostage of our history. It is ours at least. And history is a life’s teacher, way better than Ambassador Hill, Wolfram Mass and all the rest of those who would rather brutally and illegally seize and plunder our land and distort our mindsets. our world views and our consciousness in such a way that we start thinking (mistakenly) that we deserve it all.

This article is based on the video report by Nikola Vrzic, a renowned Serbian reporter. Annotations and useful notes on cultural and historical references added by me for this article can be read here.

Well, what else is new? Afghanistan is said to be the graveyard of empires, but turbulence in the Balkans often is also the precursor to an empire or two being buried in its wake. Not for nothing, in the fall of 1918, as the Salonica front was crumbling, Kaiser Wilhelm complained to his General Staff what a shame it was for the outcome of the Great War to be decided by 70,000 Serbs. Some decades previously, his chancellor Bismarck (who himself had more than a few drops of Serbian blood on his grandmother’s side) averred dismissively that the Balkan riff-raff was not worth the bones of a single one of his Pomeranian Grenadiers. By 1918 Wilhelm had learned better.

At the moment, it is Montenegro that holds centre stage in a brewing Balkan political storm. The ostensible provocation – the consecration of the country’s new Orthodox metropolitan – is as unlikely a trigger for a major crisis just as Montenegro (once celebrated in breezy operettas such as “The Merry Widow”) appears to be an unexpected mise en scène for a major geopolitical earthquake.

In the event, most Balkan eyes will be riveted on the old Montenegrin royal capital of Cetinje, where on September 5 an oddly controversial ecclesiastical consecration ceremony should take place in the local monastery, which also happens to be the metropolitan’s residence and symbolic headquarters. Why would a solemn religious rite in a monastery be anything but routine? Because it is scheduled to take place in a part of the world where everything offends someone, or has a double or even triple, or occult, significance which is thought to menace someone’s perceived self-interest, and because in that part of the world where everything is convoluted and simplicity is scarce, virtually nothing can be passed off as routine.

Without seeking for an explanation which goes back centuries (an approach that history-obsessed natives would undoubtedly prefer) we can probably manage to get a good grasp of it by backing up a mere couple of decades. The statelet of Montenegro, the only patch of Serbian territory to avoid falling under the Ottoman yoke, was a proud Orthodox principality (after 1910 recognized as a kingdom) which cherished its organically close ties to Russia to the extent that in 1905 in all seriousness it declared war on Japan, in solidarity with its Big Brother. After World War I Montenegro joined Serbia and Slavic lands that had formed part of defeated Austria-Hungary in the newly established Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In the interwar period, many ideologically naïve Montenegrins were unable to distinguish between the Russia for which they went to war with Japan and the new dispensation that had replaced it. Consequently, communism became “in” with a portion of the population, while another portion remained steadfast in its more sober Russophile yet also traditional Serbian nationalist convictions.

The split in Montenegrin society, pretty much down the middle, bore bitter fruit in the form of unrestrained factional slaughter during the dark and confused period of World War II Axis occupation. After 1945, the winners in the tragic civil war, waged within the context of anti-occupation resistance, sought to reshape Montenegro (as well as the rest of Yugoslavia) in their own ideological image. After ruthless extermination of traditionalist elements, the supporters of the new system decreed not just that God was dead, but also that everything Montenegrins had been told before about their identity was false. The “nation builders” who seized control of the country now informed their subjects that they were not Serbs at all but were partakers of a distinct Montenegrin ethnicity, with all the requisite appurtenances which always accompany such identity decrees issued from on high. Yes, eventually a “Montenegrin language” was also invented and adorned with two new symbols that no one had ever heard of or seen before, thought up by a committee of foreign linguists specially hired for the purpose.

With the advent of “democracy” in the 1990s, the fiefdom of Montenegro was turned over to a promising young politician by the name of Milo Djukanovic. Belying his youthful appearance (that was thirty years ago) Mr. Djukanovic displayed some remarkable political nimbleness by successfully combining newly prescribed, post 1990 political forms with the ideological substance inherited from the preceding not-so-democratic times. The resulting, breathtakingly hybrid, system of governance produced numerous ostensible anomalies. The rebranded old political elite, led by Djukanovic, took Montenegro into NATO, glibly talked Euroatlanticist “values” gibberish while never fully mastering their own “Montenegrin” dialect, with its two contrived but distinctively unique symbols, which they were disingenuously promoting for use by others, and in general it toed the new Washington-Brussels party line with old-time ideological fervour, and without ever missing a beat.

The seemingly eternal ascendancy of the refurbished old regime cabal, now conveniently repackaged as pro-NATO and “European” enthusiasts (sadly, an opportunistic conversion not in the least unique following the disintegration of the Eastern bloc), came to a screeching halt two years ago when quite possibly they made the biggest mistake of their political career. At some point, NATO overlords had apparently hinted to their Montenegrin vassals that in addition to its own language, airline (since gone into bankruptcy, as irony would have it), etc. the fledgling new Alliance “partner” was expected to seal its new identity with the formation of its own “church” (analogies to the Ukraine scenario are anything but accidental). Presto, the atheist crew steering Montenegro into NATO and values-based European “integrations” promptly undertook to comply. It composed a new law divesting the metropolitanate of the predominant Serbian Orthodox Church of its status and property, intending thus to set the stage for replacing it with the self-styled “Montenegrin Orthodox Church” that regime operatives had earlier brazenly set up as an NGO. It was again a re-enactment of the Ukrainian playbook, complete with feelers to Patriarch Bartholomew to bless the impious new arrangement.

And that is when all hell broke loose, to the infinite chagrin and gnashing of teeth of all concerned in this atheist-inspired religious swindle, but with very serious political implications.

Massive, spontaneous religious processions erupted throughout the tiny country in which over half of the population participated. They lasted for months and in the previously scheduled parliamentary elections of August 2020 a new majority coalition, though not as coherent as one might have wished, emerged to govern the country. Upon the advice of the late metropolitan Amfilohije, who subsequently passed away with a covid diagnosis, a new prime minister, Zdravko Krivokapic, was installed to struggle with the residual hydra of the previous regime. As it turned out, compared to the Montenegrin swamp, the Washington swamp that Trump had proposed to eradicate was a rather innocuous affair.

Months after taking office, prime minister Krivokapic has precious little to show for his efforts. Most key figures from the ancien régime are still firmly in place and sabotaging at every turn. They have already provoked numerous physical incidents, manipulating crowds of brainwashed identitarian “Montenegrins” fanatics to destabilise the country and prepare the conditions deemed necessary for the cabal’s political restoration.

Fast forward to the consecration of the new metropolitan on September 5. The cabal has made it clear that the consecration of the newly elected Serbian Orthodox Church metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral Joanikije in his Cetinje monastery would not be allowed because he is an agent of Serbia, a foreign state, and an official of the “foreign” Serbian Orthodox Church. This preposterous demand, made by elements of the preceding pro-NATO and pro-European Union regime, is equivalent to objecting to the investiture of the archbishop Paris at the Sacré-Cœur cathedral on the rationale that he is an agent of the Vatican.

Tensions are rising in Montenegro as September 5 approaches. Goons of old regime supporters are staging hostile demonstrations in front of the ancient monastery and threatening violence if the consecration proceeds as planned. The only comment so far of the U.S. and British embassies on this outrage, the extraordinary trampling of religious liberty in a NATO country fully on track for membership in the enlightened European Union, was an insipid appeal for “calm,” while endorsing the search for alternative venues for the “controversial” ceremony.

On September 5 blood may or may not be shed, but at the instigation of NATO’s Montenegrin foot soldiers feathers are guaranteed to fly. Empty Atlanticist “human rights” and respect for religion promises are again on ostentatious display. The perfidious weaponisation of a religious ceremony as a high potency political issue to generate social strife and even violence is part and parcel of the ominous chaos strategy for the Balkans that Western strategists are pursuing, whose general contours are increasingly visible even to the untrained eye.

As work nears completion in the first phase of an ambitious project in Montenegro to develop a highway that will connect the Adriatic port of Bar with Serbia, Western officials and mainstream media are ramping up attacks on the endeavor. Western commentators are united in condemnation, ranging from fear-mongering over China’s role to disparaging the plan’s viability. Consistently, they dismiss it as “the highway to nowhere,” implying foolishness on the part of Montenegro and presenting it as a cautionary tale on the dangers of doing business with China. The theme fits neatly within the framework of Washington’s campaign to economically isolate and cripple China, its main competitor in the global economy.

“One of the world’s most expensive roads,” the New York Times informs us, has reached “its destination: a muddy field outside a hamlet with a few dozen houses, many of them empty.” [1] It is an image meant to invite contempt. Never mind that this is the endpoint of one stage of the project, and the plan is to continue construction of the highway; it is better to repeat as a mantra, “the highway to nowhere.” Like a steady drumbeat, Western ridicule is relentless and unvarying: Montenegro has launched a “megalomaniac project” that serves no useful purpose, taking on debt of monstrous proportions in the process.

Western officials warn that China has captured Montenegro in a “debt trap” that will allow it to wield undue influence over Montenegro’s policies and seize control of territory or infrastructure. Moreover, it is argued that the debt to the Export-Import (Exim) Bank of China is unsustainable. The New York Times reports that Montenegro “is now saddled with debts to China that total more than a third of the government’s annual budget.” [2] The impression given is one of unsustainable excess, and that would be so were the entire debt due to be repaid in a single year. A closer look at the details of the loan shows how misleading the Times article is.

The initial interest rate on the Exim Bank of China loan was 2%, and former Montenegrin President Filip Vujanović reports that the loan terms “were by far the most favorable, and no bank or financial organization could match them.” [3] However, Western media warn that the loan totals $1 billion, which is due and cannot be repaid.

Although Montenegro is not a member of the European Union, it relies on the Euro for its currency. However, Exim Bank of China’s loan required payments to be denominated in U.S. dollars. To be precise, the agreement that Montenegro signed in 2014 with Exim Bank of China covers up to a maximum of $944 million, which is €796 million at today’s exchange rate. The contract established between the Chinese construction company building the highway and the Ministry of Transport and Maritime has a fixed conversion rate. However, the fluctuating value of the Euro against the dollar has added to the cost. [4] The loan is in the form of a draw-down, which means that the government can access money in installments on an as-needed basis while construction proceeds.

The latest Montenegrin government statistics show that the actual loan balance, as of the end of 2020, is €640 million. [5] Under terms of the 2014 loan, Exim Bank is responsible for financing 85 percent of the project’s first phase. A six-year grace period was provided, which Montenegro took advantage of, and a 20-year repayment schedule. This year, Montenegro made its first annual loan repayment, amounting to €27.79 million. [6] Far from having a ruinous economic impact that is destroying the economy, that amount accounts for a mere 1.5% of the government’s annual budget of €1.88 billion.[7]

Objections are also expressed over the amount of the Chinese loan relative to the size of the national economy. It is said that the loan has sent the nation’s GDP/debt ratio “soaring” to stratospheric levels, far beyond the norm. The latest figure for Montenegro’s GDP/debt ratio stands at 103%. [8] That is, the nation is carrying more debt than its gross domestic product. Taken at face value, this would seem an unsustainable burden, as Western reports would have us believe.

A comprehensive comparison reveals a different picture, though. On the international scene, Montenegro’s GDP/debt ratio is not unusual. Statistics for 2020 show Japan leading the pack at 266%, and several other countries exceed Montenegro’s standing, including the United States at 131%. [9] When only Montenegro is singled out, a different impression is given than reality suggests.

One question never asked is to what extent the loan from Exim Bank of China is responsible for Montenegro’s supposed predicament. We are led to believe that this loan is single-handedly responsible for a mountainous debt load. You will never see it pointed out in mainstream media, but the Chinese loan accounts for only 15% of Montenegro’s GDP/debt ratio. Montenegro’s Eurobond debt is more than triple that. There are also several loans from Western financial institutions, which cumulatively easily surpass the amount of the Chinese loan. [10]

Is it plausible to claim that there is something uniquely unsustainable about 15% of Montenegro’s debt because its origin is Chinese? Or that concern over debt should focus on that single loan while ignoring the primarily Western loans comprising the remaining 85%? It would appear that Western resentment over Chinese competition is driving this narrative.

Whether the impact of the loan is measured against the national budget or the GDP/debt ratio, the standard narrative is misleading either way. So in the latter case, the €27.79 million that Montenegro paid this year to Exim Bank of China amounts to less than one percent of its GDP, hardly a crushing weight. [11]

An oft-repeated canard is that China seized the port of Hambantota as collateral when Sri Lanka ran into difficulties in making loan payments. The lesson imparted is of the danger involved in taking out a loan from a Chinese bank. But, as usual in Western reports, assertion substitutes for evidence. Chinese banks have never grabbed an asset from another country and have often reduced interest rates or written off debts when a nation has run into difficulties. Nor is it true that China grabbed the port of Hambantota. [12]

Montenegro’s government was eager to modify the loan terms, and Exim Bank of China generously agreed to reduce the interest rate to 0.8%. [13] Montenegro also struck a hedging deal with Deutsche Bank, Société Générale, Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs that provides a cross-currency swap, allowing the nation to make loan payments in Euros rather than dollars to eliminate the potential impact of fluctuating rates.[14]

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Palmer regularly visits the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica, urging the government to exercise “caution” in its dealings with China. [15] In an interview on the Montenegrin news station Televizija Vijesti, Palmer praised the hedging deal the nation reached with Western firms as a demonstration of “fiscal responsibility” and progress on “limiting the ability of outside actors, in this case China in particular, from making mischief.” He added, “China around the world employs this kind of debt-trap diplomacy to get countries on the hook for obligations that they’re not in a position to finance and then use that as leverage to extract political concessions.” [16] American officials are prone to such wild accusations, which generally serve as imprecations rather than statements of fact. Responding to Palmer’s defamations, Chinese Foreign Minister Spokesperson Zhao Lijian pointed out, “The true intention behind the false accusation of ‘debt trap’ is to sow discord between China and relevant countries.” [17]

The United States and European Union sense an opportunity to muscle in on China’s presence in Montenegro, thereby sending a message to the rest of the Western Balkans. A source familiar with the debt negotiations reveals that the plan is that once the hedge agreement was reached, talks would likely continue with the aim of having Western financial institutions refinance the entire loan and take Exim Bank of China out of the picture. [18] Montenegrin Finance Minister Milojko Spajić says that the hedging deal “was an intermediate step towards refinancing.” [19]

It seems unlikely that any Western loan could match Exim Bank of China’s reduced interest rate of 0.8%. But then, Montenegro may not have much maneuvering space if it wants to remain on the path to EU membership.

Although Montenegro is the only European country without a highway, we are taught that this endeavor is unnecessary, and money is being thrown away. Construction of the road is proceeding in three phases, the first of which is scheduled to be completed by the end of November. When the final phase is done, a modern 164-kilometer highway will connect Montenegro’s port of Bar on the Adriatic coast with the Serbian village of Boljare on the border. From there, Montenegro will link to the rest of the Balkans and Central Europe.

The China Road and Bridge Corporation is leading the first phase, the 41-km Smokovac-Mateševo section, which is the most technically difficult. The cost-per-kilometer is often disapprovingly remarked upon in Western reports. We are led to question why this section of highway should be expensive. However, this is no ordinary road. The terrain the builders must contend with is suggested by Montenegro’s name — Crna Gora, meaning ‘Black Mountain,’ and known in the English-speaking world by the Spanish equivalent.

Tunnels had to be blasted through mountains and bridges built to span deep chasms. In all, bridges and tunnels account for 60% of this section of the road.[20] The Moračica Bridge is one of the tallest in the world, [21] requiring 100,000 cubic meters of concrete, 15,000 tons of reinforcement, and 2,000 tons of cables. [22] It makes for an imposing sight.

The Vjeternik tunnel presented a particular challenge. According to engineer Lazar Smolović, “Half a million cubic meters of earth and stone were excavated.” [23] Chinese engineer Wang Xinwei explains that the greatest difficultywas dealing with around one hundred karst caves discovered during tunneling. [24] According to an observer, these subterranean caves had to be filled with concrete. He noted the difficulty the construction team faced in working at high altitudes and strong winter winds. As he rather poetically put it, “Across the mountains and karst, and through the canyons and plateaus, where only goats and donkeys could fight their way through the centuries, today’s Chinese builders are building” the first section of the highway. [25]

When completed, the road will include 48 tunnels and 107 bridges and viaducts, traversing some of the most challenging terrains in the Balkans. [26] View this engineering marvel or even the Moračica Bridge alone, and ask how intellectually honest Western reporters are when they jeeringly question why this highway should have a price tag on the higher end when ordinary roads cost so much less.

The remaining two sections of the highway will be considerably easier and cheaper to tackle. Despite the New York Times sarcastically describing the initial section as “petering out in the middle of a largely uninhabited forest,” implying that it serves no purpose, it will be put to immediate use all along its 41 kilometers. This section of the road will also enable the government to launch its plan to develop the northern region, where plentiful natural resources have been essentially inaccessible up to now. [27]

It is incorrect to suggest that the first phase of the highway is any measure of the costs to be expected going forward. Nor is it accurate to maintain, as the New York Times does, that there are “no funds available to extend it” while the first phase is still underway. On the contrary. Finance Minister Milojko Spajić has announced that funds are available to continue the project, and Montenegro plans to call a tender for the two easier sections by the end of this year. [28]

Another charge frequently hurled at the China Road and Bridge Corporation is that it missed the deadline for completing work on the Smokovac-Mateševo section, resulting in a contract extension that demonstrates the unreliability of China as a business partner. Unmentioned is any indication of the reasons for the schedule change. Covid-19 severely hampered progress in terms of labor shortages and supply disruptions, not uniquely so on the world stage. [29] Also, as work progressed, the need for additional construction, water, and electrical supply was discovered. [30]

We are told that the China Road and Bridge Corporation is taking all the money back to China, while Balkan companies and workers are excluded from involvement. This is yet another accusation made without foundation. The Montenegrin civil engineering firm Bemax plays a significant role, as do other companies, including the Serbian firm Titan Cement. As for the exclusion of local and regional workers, the contractor’s report from May shows that of 1,131 personnel, only 34% are from China. [31]

Western reports argue that the highway makes no economic sense for Montenegro, as tolls from anticipated traffic from Serbia and elsewhere cannot possibly compensate the project’s expense. Montenegro has never claimed otherwise. An international bond prospectus issued by the government of Montenegro on the London Stock Exchange declares, “It is expected that in the longer term, approximately half of the [highway] project’s expenditures will be covered from road toll fee revenues.” [32] This is not negligible, but the highway has far broader significance for Montenegro and the Balkans.

Indeed, one could argue that toll fares comprise the least of considerations. Montenegro’s economic development is heavily concentrated along its coastal region, leaning heavily on the tourist trade. Due to the pandemic’s near-total elimination of tourism, the economy contracted by 15 percent last year, illustrating the nation’s need for economic diversification. [33] Moreover, the lack of adequate roads has a disparate impact in the country’s northern region, where the unemployment rate is more than six times that of the coastal area. [34] Completing the highway, the government reports, should more evenly balance economic development and reduce the heavy population outmigration from the northern region. [35]

Improved transportation should also accelerate agricultural development in the mountainous area, where market access is constrained. [36] The European Project management Journal reports, “In the north, the road from Podgorica to Kolašin through the Morača canyon and continuing onto Serbia is considered the bottleneck of Montenegrin road network, as it is a curvy mountainous road, often unsafe during the winter.” Completing the highway, it continues, “will result in more equitable development of Montenegro” and “enable greater and safer mobility of people, goods, and services.” [37]

Montenegro will also more fully integrate with the rest of Europe. Associated plans include the modernization of the Bar-Belgrade railway, which is currently in poor condition. [38] Additional rail projects are envisioned, and Montenegro intends to increase capacity at the port of Bar and develop the port industrial complex. [39] The government says that the highway is expected to “allow for increased exports from the landlocked countries in the region (such as Serbia, Montenegro’s largest trading partner)” and significantly increase the amount of freight passing through the port of Bar. It is also anticipated that “facilitating access to regional markets and decreased direct purchase costs” should improve the business environment. [40]

The Bar-Boljare highway links Montenegro to the Pan-European Corridor XI, running from the Adriatic port of Bar to Belgrade and Bucharest, Romania, and including a ferry connection to Bari, Italy. In addition, the corridor will connect with Pan-European Corridor X, involving several Balkan nations and running from Salzburg, Austria, to the Greek port of Thessaloniki on the Aegean. [41] According to the European Union’s Western Balkans Investment Framework, the Bar-Boljare highway “will link the ports on the Adriatic Sea to those on the Danube” and provide “the shortest connection from Hungary and Romania through Serbia and Montenegro to southern Italy and Albania.” [42] The potential economic benefits, not only for Montenegro but the region as a whole, are enormous. To reduce the question of profitability, as Western critics do, to a simple matter of toll revenues on Serbia-Montenegro traffic is misleading in the extreme. The impact of the highway and related enterprises promises to be nothing less than transformational. Washington cannot be happy about any of this and has repeatedly advised Montenegro against the highway or doing business with China.

Western lending institutions have been resistant to providing support. Having failed to prevent Montenegro from starting construction, advisors are trying to convince the government to set aside plans to proceed with the subsequent two phases. The IMF is typical in warning Montenegro “that caution is needed in implementing the next phases of the Bar-Boljare highway project until feasibility, cost-benefit analyses, and financing issues are fully addressed.” Moreover, public-private partnership arrangements “should be approached with caution to reduce the risk of assuming significant contingent fiscal liabilities.” More bluntly, the IMF advised Montenegro that it has better things to do with its money and to “weigh the benefits of the Bar-Boljare highway project,” with its “low economic return on the overall highway, based on limited potential for toll revenues relative to cost.” [43] The focus on tolls alone is so wrong-headed that one wonders if Western financial institutions are being deliberately obtuse as a means of discouraging Chinese involvement. Similar admonishments from Western financial institutions preceded the launch of the first phase of highway construction. Montenegro’s challenge may be in finding a willing partner that Washington finds acceptable. The United States can be counted upon to exert every effort to block Montenegro from continuing its partnership with China. Whether the United States can succeed in stopping the project altogether or limiting its scope remains to be seen. The Montenegrin government is keen on joining the European Union, and numerous conditions have been put in its path. However, the highway could potentially prove to be another hurdle.Shortly after last year’s election in Montenegro, but before the new government took power, U.S. diplomat Matthew Palmer stated that among other things, “we expect the next government…to cooperate well and closely with the United States.” [44] Neither a partnership with the Chinese nor completion of the highway fits in that picture. Montenegro is ensnared in the U.S. war on China. By around the end of the year, the first phase of the highway will become operational, and Montenegro will stand at a crossroads. The Bar-Boljare highway project has advanced too far, and the potential benefits are too great for it to be readily abandoned. At the same time, imperialism has many ways to inflict pain on a small wayward nation. Will Montenegro leap into the future and see the highway project through to completion, or will it bend to pressure and allow Washington to hinder its development?

Notes.

[1] Andrew Higgins, “A Pricey Drive Down Montenegro’s Highway ‘From Nowhere to Nowhere’”, New York Times, August 14, 2021.
[2] Andrew Higgins, “A Pricey Drive Down Montenegro’s Highway ‘From Nowhere to Nowhere’”, New York Times, August 14, 2021.
[3] Filip Vujanović, “Accusing China of Creating ‘Debt Trap’ for Montenegro Groundless,” Belt & Road News, April 22, 2021.
[4] “Although the loan facility does not include a fixed U.S. Dollar/euro exchange rate, the construction agreement between the CRBC and the Ministry of Transport and Maritime includes a fixed U.S. Dollar/euro exchange rate of $1.3718 to €1.00.” https://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/2057L_-2018-4-17.pdf
[5] “Report on the General Government Debt of Montenegro, as of December 31, 2020,” Montenegro Ministry of Finance and Social Welfare.
[6] Radomir Ralev, “Montenegro Pays First Installment of China’s Exim Bank Loan – Report,” SeeNews, July 21, 2021.
[7] Radomir Ralev, “Montenegro’s Govt Adopts 2021 Draft Budget with 3%/GDP Deficit,” SeeNews, March 31, 2021.
[8] “Report on the General Government Debt of Montenegro, as of December 31, 2020,” Montenegro Ministry of Finance and Social Welfare.
[9] https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/public-debt-percentage-gdp
[10] “Report on the General Government Debt of Montenegro, as of December 31, 2020,” Montenegro Ministry of Finance and Social Welfare.
[11] “Report on the General Government Debt of Montenegro, as of December 31, 2020,” Montenegro Ministry of Finance and Social Welfare. Note on bottom of page 3 provides the GDP for 2020 as 4,193 million Euros.
[12] Kevin Acker, Deborah Brautigan, Yufan Huang, “Debt Relief with Chinese Characteristics,” China-Africa Research Initiative, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, June 2020. Deborah Brautigan and Meg Rithmire, “The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth,’ The Atlantic, February 6, 2021.
[13] Predrag Milić, “Spajić: Vlada Sa Kineskom Bankom Dogovorila Smanjenje Kamate Na Dug Za Autoput,” Voice of America, July 8, 2021.
[14] Nikola Đorđević, “Montenegro Narrowly Avoids Chinese Debt Trap, for Now,” Emerging Europe, August 9, 2021.
[15] https://twitter.com/usembassymne/status/1413142985210941448
[16] https://ms-my.facebook.com/montenegro.usembassy/videos/das-palmer-tv-vijesti-interview/514085246479986/
[17] “Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s Regular Press Conference on July 13, 2021,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China,” July 13, 2021.
[18] Guy Faulconbridge, “Montenegro Close to Deal on Lifting Chinese Debt Burden – Minister,” Reuters, July 7, 2021.
[19] “Montenegro Agrees Hedging Deals to Ease Chinese Debt Burden – Report,” Reuters, July 21, 2021.
[20] https://www.crbc.com/site/crbcEN/77884/info/2015/46840520.html
[21] http://www.highestbridges.com/wiki/index.php?title=Moracica_Bridge
[22] “Спојен мост Морачица, завршетак до марта 2020,” Politika, October 11, 2019.
[23] Veliša Kadić, “Морачица мост за понос,” Večernje Novosti, July 14, 2017.
[24] https://m.cdm.me/english/1600-metres-vjeternik-tunnelled/
[25] https://alexsrb.livejournal.com/396102.html
[26] https://waytomonte.com/en/n-615-novost-47
[27] Filip Vujanović, “Accusing China of Creating ‘Debt Trap’ for Montenegro Groundless,” Belt & Road News, April 22, 2021.
[28] “Montenegro’s Chinese-funded Highway to Replace ‘Death Road,” Reuters, June 1, 2021.
[29] https://www.cdm.me/english/bar-boljare-motorway-project-380-chinese-workers-returned-to-montenegro
[30] Z. Zorić, “ПЕНАЛИ ИЛИ ПРОДУЖЕТАК: Кинези поднели захтев да им се одобри одлагање завршетка ауто-пута,” October 6, 2020.
[31] “ЗАВРШЕНО 95 ПОСТО РАДОВА: За ауто-пут Бар – Бољаре до сада плаћено 700 милиона евра,” Večernje Novosti, June 25, 2021.
[32] https://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/2057L_-2018-4-17.pdf
[33] “Western Balkans Regular Economic Report No.19: Subdued Recovery,” World Bank, Spring 2021.
[34] “Montenegro 2020 Report,” European Commission, October 6, 2020.
[35] “Detaljnog Prostornog Plana Autoputa: Bar-Boljare,” Montenegro Ministry of Economic Development, August, 2008.
[36] “Detaljnog Prostornog Plana Autoputa: Bar-Boljare,” Montenegro Ministry of Economic Development, August, 2008.
[37] Sanja Međedović and Michael Ellis, “A Project Management Approach to a Highway Construction in Montenegro,” European Project Management Journal, Volume 7, Issue 1, December 2017.
[38] “Bojanić: Crna Gora će Predložiti Srbiji Zajedničku Gradnju Autoputa,” Vijesti, April 12, 2021.
[39] “Detaljnog Prostornog Plana Autoputa: Bar-Boljare,” Montenegro Ministry of Economic Development, August, 2008.
[40] https://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/2057L_-2018-4-17.pdf
[41] https://www.worldhighways.com/wh8/news/serbia-and-china-discuss-preljina-boljare-section-corridor-xi
[42] https://www.wbif.eu/project/PRJ-MNE-TRA-006
[43] “IMF Country Report No. 19/293: Montenegro Article IV Consultation,” IMF, September, 2019.
[44] https://m.cdm.me/english/palmer-about-montenegro-we-expect-people-who-are-committed-to-the-nato-agenda-to-be-in-key-ministries/

counterpunch.org

The August 30 parliamentary elections in this coastal former Yugoslav republic of some 620,000 people brought electoral defeat to the party of Montenegrin strongman and current president Milo Djukanovic for the first time in some 30 years. This was proclaimed by some as the long-awaited fall of the Berlin Wall in that country, seeing that the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) had seamlessly evolved from the League of Communists of Montenegro at the beginning of the 1990s, thus making its rule basically uninterrupted since the communist takeover of Yugoslavia in 1945. On September 23, the three opposition lists that won a narrow 41 seat majority in the 81-seat parliament elected the parliament’s new president and formally proposed the leader of the “For the Future of Montenegro” list, mechanical engineering professor Zdravko Krivokapic, as the new prime minister. Djukanovic has 30 days to offer him the mandate to form a government. In theory, he can offer it to someone else, but only Krivokapic has secured a majority. In any case, a new government must be either confirmed by parliament within 90 days or new elections called.

However, while to the casual observer the “Montenegrin Spring” appears to be in full bloom, it seems that some things are not open to democratic or any other debate after all. In the first place, the country’s pro-Western course, most importantly its NATO membership, EU integration path and the recognition of Serbia’s breakaway Kosovo province. Which tells us much about where we have arrived some three decades after the West’s proclaimed victory in the Cold War, and Fukuyama’s annunciation of the “end of history” and the final victory of “liberal democracy.”

Of course, there are no NATO troops concentrating at the Montenegrin border, no overt threats of foreign armed intervention – yet. Which is not to say that there are no threats at all. In fact, Djukanovic, a recent winner of the “Person of the Year in Organized Crime” award, has threatened violence twice in the space of several days, just in case the new government should decide to stray from the “correct” path.

In a recent interview for Sarajevo’s FACE TV, after speaking approvingly of the new majority’s assurances that the country would not veer from its westward course, Djukanovic nevertheless warned that he was prepared to defend Montenegro “from the woods if necessary,” invoking the country’s long history of armed resistance to attacks on its “statehood.” He also threatened to “demolish” any stone used to build a new church in the old capital of Cetinje – which was clearly an arrow aimed at the Serbian Orthodox Church, which led the mass resistance to Djukanovic’s Orwellian “Law on Religious Freedom” that turned out to be driving force behind his party’s election loss.

Djukanovic reiterated his threat in another interview several days later, throwing in, for good measure, the usual westward-directed virtue signaling and scaremongering about the Russian and Serbian threat to Montenegrin statehood and all that is great and good in the world.

What should be noted here is not just Djukanovic’s ominous rhetoric but the uniform silence with which it has been greeted by Western embassies and capitals, otherwise quick to detect and decry phantom Russian (and, locally, Serbian) threats at the drop of a hat. Which shows that the new parliamentary majority will be under the watchful eye of Brussels, Washington, London, Paris and Berlin, who are still counting on Djukanovic, warts and all, as a viable insurance policy just in case Montenegrins start getting some ideas of their own about how to run their country and start taking democratic choice a tad too seriously.

So, while Djukanovic is allowed to casually sling threats of violence from the sidelines, ready to pounce at his opponents’ slightest misstep, the new democratically elected majority is compelled to offer endless pledges of fealty to the country’s “unalterable” pro-Western course. Note, for example, the inquisitorial tone of a question posed to Krivokapic in a recent Deutsche Welle interview: “Djukanovic has distanced himself from Milosevic, declared Montenegro’s independence, supported EU sanctions against Russia, recognized Kosovo and entered NATO. How will you convince Brussels and Washington that you will not change his Western-supported foreign policy course, which is not supported by your own supporters, especially the pro-Serbian and pro-Russian parties in coalition with you?”

Naturally, Krivokapic assured his interrogator that neither he nor his political partners had any intention of straying from the Washington/Brussels party line or path, pointing to their coalition agreement as proof. In a nutshell, to quote Brezhnev’s famous policy speech given to Polish workers in November 1968, Krivokapic and company assured Western comrades that “none of their decisions should damage either socialism democracy in their country or the fundamental interests of other socialist democratic countries, and the whole working class democratic movement, which is working for socialism democracy.”

And, taking no chances, in a subsequent article written for the Washington Times, Krivokapic additionally reassured the Westintern that the new majority’s three-way agreement “guaranteed not only to maintain Montenegro’s commitment to NATO membership but to deepen our place in the alliance; and we pledged to accelerate reforms that can take our country into the European Union.”

In his defense, this approach is basically understandable, as Krivokapic and his partners are well aware of all the obstacles they will face tackling their most important challenges, which are of an internal nature – deconstructing Djukanovic’s corrupt political machine, opening up the media for diverse political views, ending anti-Serb discrimination, voiding or amending the afore-mentioned Law on Religious Freedom, reforming the judicial system and coming to terms with the country’s high indebtedness and rising unemployment, exacerbated by the destruction of the tourist season as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But of course, even internally, we can be sure that the neo-Brezhnevite guardians of Western “fundamental interests” will be closely watching for any kind of opening to Russian, Serbian or Chinese “malign influence,” even if it might be economically beneficial to this impoverished country. That’s where Krivokapic may run into trouble down the road as, set-in-stone foreign policy pledges notwithstanding, he has also unequivocally stated that Serbia and Montenegro are “the closest of states,” that “the Russian Federation is our brotherly country and great, centuries-long friend” and that he and his political allies are “obliged to repair our political relations with Russia, as well as Serbia.” He also did not neglect to remind that Djukanovic had granted recognition to so-called Kosovo despite the fact that, quoting Montenegro’s outgoing prime minister, “85% of Montenegro’s citizens were against the recognition of Serbia’s southern province.” In the eyes of the Westintern, such views are doubtlessly seen as double-plus-ungood.

Which means that more “pro-democratic” reinforcements are bound to be brought in, such as the former commander of U.S. forces in Europe, Ben Hodges. In a recent interview for the pro-Djukanovic Pobjeda daily, Hodges, now an associate of the neocon CEPA Washington think tank, gently reminded the future government that it is “expected to fulfill its NATO obligations,” while sending the usual barrage of unsubstantiated accusations Russia’s way, covering everything from using “force, disinformation and poison” to being responsible for Syria’s refugee crisis and other similar nonsense.

In observing the situation in Montenegro, the words of former England striker Gary Lineker come to mind, “Football is a simple game – 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.” What the collective West seems to be saying to Montenegrins these days is, “Democracy is a simple game – the people cast their ballots on election day and at the end, NATO and the EU always win. Or else…”

Behind the new Democratic Curtain, the Brezhnev Doctrine has found new life.