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YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC DECLARES START OF PRODUCTION IN PANCEVO OIL REFINERY
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic declared on Tuesday the beginning of production of oil derivatives in the oil refinery in Pancevo near Belgrade that was damaged in NATO's March 24-June 10 aggression on the country.
NATO aircraft launched seven air raids on the refinery that stopped production on April 4 when its power supply unit was destroyed.
The completion of the first stage of the refinery's reconstruction will make it possible to process 7,000 tons of crude oil into diesel and crude oil daily.
The re-activating of the refinery and other outstanding results achieved in the reconstruction of the country's infrastructure, land links and housing facilities is vital for the country's economy and people.
Also attending were Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, Serbian Premier Mirko Marjanovic, Serbian parliament speaker Dragan Tomic, Secretary-General of Serbia's Socialist Party (SPS) Gorica Gajevic, Yugoslav parliament lower house speaker Milomir Minic, central bank governor Dusan Vlatkovic and other federal and republican officials and representatives of the Yugoslav army and police.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC SENDS FELICITATES TO JIANG FOR CHINA'S 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has sent a message of felicitations to Chinese President Jiang Zemin for the 50th anniversary of the declaration of the People's Republic of China.
Milosevic expressed sincere felicitations to the friendly people of China for their impressive achievements in the second half of this century and sent best wishes for China's further prosperity in all spheres.
Milosevic expressed great satisfaction over the firm friendship, mutual understanding, support and intensive development of comprehensive bilateral relations and cooperation between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the people's Republic of China which will continue to expand in the joint interest of the two countries and the affirmation of equality, peace, stability and progress.
LETTER FROM YUGOSLAV CHARGE D'AFFAIRES TO GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT
Yugoslav Charge d'Affaires at the UN Vladislav Jovanovic has addressed the following letter to the UN General Assembly President Theo-Ben Gurirab. The following is the official text of the letter. Excellency,
The statement of Rexhep Meidani, President of the Republic of Albania, in the general debate of the 54th regular session of the United Nations General Assembly on 23 September 1999 is not a novelty in the overall behaviour of the Republic of Albania towards the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and comes as the last harangue in a string of falsehoods and undocumented allegations levelled against my country. It confirms the continuity of Albania's hostile policy and overt aspirations towards Kosovo and Metohija, the integral part of the Reublic of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
By abusing the rostrum of world Parliament, President Meidani sought once again to divert the attention from the situation in his own country and, by attacking the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and its leadership, to conceal the real role of the Republic of Albania in fomenting the crisis in the southern Serbian Province which came as a culmination of decades-long Albanian territorial aspirations towards this part of the integral territory of the sovereign Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
By falsely accusing the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and its leadership and by taking the aggression of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as a screen for its servile, but active support to this illegal act, the Republic of Albania cannot hide its own direct responsibility for a gross violation of the basic principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the Helsinki Final Act and the Paris Charter, as well as of all other internationally recognized legal acts of the contemporary legal order. There is abundant evidence to substantiate this fact.
1. The Republic of Albania is the only country in the world and the only member-State of the United Nations and the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that has officially recognized and actively supported the illegal separatist creation of the so-called Republic of Kosovo, proclaimed in the sovereign Yugoslav territory. Besides, it allowed that illegal creation to open its "representation" in Tirana. Albania has not recalled these decisions which constitute a glaring example of the most flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the basic OSCE documents and principles.
2. The Republic of Albania has shifted purposefully its own chaos and lawlessness on to the Albanian minority in the neighbouring Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, encouraging it to be disloyal to the State in which it lives. It is widely known that the Republic of Albania took active part in creating and arming the terrorist/separatist so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). It transformed a large part of its territory into a KLA logistics base, a large-scale boot camp, as it were, for armed aggression and terror against civilians and Yugoslav security forces in the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Albania's direct and profuse assistance to KLA terrorists and the refusal to secure its side of the Yugoslav-Albanian border and to prevent the terrorists, arms and drugs smugglers and other armed criminals to cross into the Yugoslav territory resulted in pogroms and genocide of the Serbs, Montenegrins and other non-Albanians of Kosovo and Metohija, the victims of which have often been the loyal Yugoslav citizens of Albanian ethnicity as well. President Meidani is conveniently silent about the enormous human losses and vast material damage caused by the policy of his country in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, for which he and his country bear direct responsibility. That policy is portrayed by President Meidani as the struggle for the protection of human rights.
3. The deployment of United Nations presence in the southern Serbian Province has not deterred the Republic of Albania from rendering support to terrorists. Confident of steady and continued support and assistance by neighbouring Albania, on the one hand, and encouraged by the tolerant attitude of KFOR and UNMIK, on the other, the KLA terrorists and other armed Albanian gangs continue their terror on a daily basis, aimed at ethnically cleansing the Province from the non-Albanian population. The fact that over 250,000 Serbs, Montenegrins, Roma, Turks and other non-Albanians have been driven out of the Province, that over 230 of them have been killed, and that over 300 have been abducted, while tens of thousands of apartments and houses have been broken and moved into is telling evidence of who is responsible for the worrisome developments in Kosovo and Metohija.
4. The true face of its policy of the Republic of Albania towards the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and its entire population regardless of national and/or religious belonging was laid bare by its direct support to, and participation in, the NATO aggression against the people of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in which thousands of civilians were killed and vast material damage was done. The Republic of Albania thus aligned itself with aggressors and those responsible for the international crime against humanity and the crime of genocide. The hauteur with which President Meidani trumpeted the support to, and the role of his country in, the crime without the precedent in recent European history from the rostrum of the world Organization may open the NATO door to Albania, but it will not, nor can it, free its leaders from the responsibility for the crimes they have committed.
5. The statement of President Meidani was unapologetic and persistent in its consistency. This is further proof that the Albanian leadership, even though very vocal in calling for maintaining relations among the States of the region that would be based on democratic and other principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the Helsinki Final Act and the Paris Charter, has not given up its retrograde ambitions and goals. This is particularly true of its active work towards realizing the project of Greater Albania at the expense of a number of the Balkan's sovereign States, primarily the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. These aspirations were made crystal clear also by Albanian Prime Minister Paskal Majko who visited Pristina in the wake of the NATO aggression without even bothering to abide by the relevant diplomatic procedure provided for by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and by his statement made upon return to Tirana to the effect that there was a need for establishing a single educational and telecommunication infrastructure systems for all Albanians irrespective of where they happened to live and for building a road link between Durres and Pristina as if the two cities were in the same State.
6. The policy of the Republic of Albania towards its neighbours, its transformation into a springboard for arms smuggling, illicit trade in narcotics and safe haven for organized international crime and its unrestrained meddling into the situation in Kosovo and Metohija have made Albania into the greatest threat to peace in the Balkans and in Europe as a whole. Attempts to mask the fact by attacking others cannot be disguised, nor can the international public be hoodwinked by such attempts.
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is committed to the policy of peaceful cooperation and good-neighbourly relations, based on strict respect for the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-interference and is open for the promotion of regional security and cooperation which it expects from every other nations of the region. The Republic of Albania can make a contribution to the achievement of there noble goals if it relinquishes its goals of creating Greater Albania and discontinues its support to terrorists, arms smugglers and traders in narcotic drugs and other criminal elements serving the ignoble cause of undermining the peace and security of the entire region.
I should be grateful if you would have the present letter circulated as a document of the General Assembly under agenda item 9 (General Debate).
Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.
Vladislav Jovanovic, Charge d'affaires.
YUGOSLAVIA'S JOVANOVIC HOLDS TALKS WITH UN's ANNAN
Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic met at the UN headquarters in New York late on Monday with the world organisation's Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
In the talks, which lasted some 40 minutes, Annan said that he strongly urged the consistent implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 on Kosovo and Metohija, voicing repeatedly his support to Serbia's and Yugoslavia's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Annan said that the political resolution of issues concerning the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's southern province must be exclusively based on the autonomy and preservation of multiethnic, multicultural and multiconfessional character of the province which is an integral part of Serbia and Yugoslavia.
All issues concerning Kosovo and Metohija must be solved in line with relevant UN Security Council decisions, he stressed.
He informed Jovanovic about the United Nations' activity in securing large-scale humanitarian assistance to Yugoslavia.
Commenting on the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, Annan listed as a priority the creation of conditions for the return of Serbs, Montenegrins and other non-Albanians expelled from the province.
Jovanovic pointed to Yugoslavia's consistent compliance with obligations assumed under the resolution, underlining that other parties concerned should do the same, the UN civilian mission to Kosovo and Metohija (UNMIK) and the UN peacekeeping force KFOR included.
He said that, in the light of its consistent compliance with UN decisions, Yugoslavia had every right to insist that UNMIK chief and Annan's special envoy Bernard Kouchner act in keeping with his mandate and honour the decisions taken.
Yugoslavia considers guarantees of its sovereignty and territorial integrity final and unchangeable, Jovanovic said adding that the country would accept no solution that ran counter to the resolution nor the fait accompli method.
That referred to as the 'transformation' of the ethnic Albanian terrorist organisation calling itself Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is not at all provided for by the resolution, he said adding that the move was nothing but an attempt to prolong the existence and protect a terrorist organisation that is a factor of destabilisation and ethnic cleansing in the province.
Commenting on ways of how to speedily stabilise the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, Jovanovic stressed the need for the immediate implementation of a decision on the return of a contingent of Yugoslav army troops and police to the province.
He pointed to a paradox that Yugoslavia, which is one of the 51 UN founders, was not taking part in the 54th session of the General Assembly, although the violation of the UN Charter through NATO's aggression on sovereign Yugoslavia was in the session's focus.
He stressed the need for granting Yugoslavia again and immediately the right to participate in the General Assembly's work, saying that this was also vital and useful for the world organisation's system.
Jovanovic again invited Annan to visit Yugoslavia.
YUGOSLAV FM JOVANOVIC GIVES INTERVIEW TO CNN
Yugoslavia favours political dialogue so that issues in connection with Kosovo and Metohija could be settled on the grounds of wide autonomy and respect for the equality of all national groups and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia and Yugoslavia, Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic said in an interview to the U.S. CNN television network late Sunday.
In an interview to human rights champion Jesse Jackson, Jovanovic said the method of dialogue was reaffirmed in UN Security Council Resolution 1244 on Kosovo and Metohija.
Dialogue is the only way to resolve political problems, Jovanovic said. He underscored that Yugoslav authorities have no dialogue with members of the ethnic Albanian terrorist organization that calls itself the Kosovo Liberation Army, or those who publicly urge the secession of this part of Serbian lands.
Yugoslav authorities talk with many ethnic Albanians in different structures, different parties, in the leading party, and opposition parties, he said.
Jackson wanted to know about the protests in some Serbian towns for changes in the national leadership.
State authorities were chosen at free elections, and only Yugoslav citizens can decide about elections and who will run the country, said Jovanovic.
President Milosevic is the legitimate president of Yugoslavia, an independent state, and he is president through the will of the people, the minister said.
It is contrary to democratic principles that economic development, partnership, and even humanitarian aid are conditioned with political demands, he said. The general and elementary principles of international relations are equality and sovereignty of all countries, and no country in the world would like to see another country interfere in its affairs using economic or humanitarian pretexts. It is up to the citizens of every state, including Yugoslavia, to elect their leaders and government, Jovanovic said.
Commenting the demonstrations, Jovanovic said they were evident proof of democracy and freedom of expressing political convictions in Serbia.
The demonstrations began very low and are falling lower and lower every day, because citizens do not like the opinions of those who supported the NATO aggression. They do not have the support of the people in those towns, Jovanovic said.
Asked by Jackson about Yugoslavia's activities, Jovanovic said intensive work was under way on renewal and reconstruction, that roads, bridges, central heating plants, and transformer stations, schools and hospitals were being built.
Jovanovic continues lively diplomatic activities in New York, where he is attending the 54th session of the UN General Assembly. He has so far met with senior officials from about 40 countries.
TWO SERBS KILLED, OVER 40 WOUNDED IN BOMBING ATTACK IN KOSOVO POLJE
Two Serbs were killed and more than 40 seriously wounded in a bombing attack that occurred at a market in Kosovo Polje, the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's Kosovo and Metohija province, on Tuesday morning.
According to eyewitnesses, the incident occurred when ethnic Albanian extremists threw two hand grenades on a crowd of people at the market.
Protesting against the incident, Serbs and Montenegrins from the villages of Ugljare and Bresje, and Kosovo Polje have blocked the route linking Kosovo Polje and Pristina, Kosovo and Metohija's chief city, and that linking Pristina and Pec.
TERRORIST BURNED OVER TWO MILLION BOOKS IN SERBIAN
Since the arrival of the international peacekeeping forces in Kosovo and Metohija mid-June, Albanian terrorists have burned in town libraries in Kosovo and Metohija or in other ways destroyed over two million books in Serbian, representatives of the historical archives in Kosovo and Metohija in Kosovska Mitrovica told Tanjug.
Also being destroyed by Albanian terrorists are valuable archives before the eyes of KFOR who do not undertake almost anything to protect books in libraries and other cultural institutions in Kosovo and Metohija.
Burned at the stake are books by Shakespeare, Goethe, Poe and others, and in the worst position are the town libraries in Prizren, Djakovica, Istok, Glogovac, Srbica and Podujevo, which are controlled by uniformed members of the "KLA."
TERRORISM IN KOSOVO-METOHIJA INTENSIFIES, KFOR INACTIVE
The situation in Kosovska Mitrovica has deteriorated drastically following several incidents - the stoning Monday of a bus on the Zubin Potok - Kosovo Polje road, the stoning Sunday of over 30 Serb families on their way home from the Orthodox cemetery in the southern, ethnic Albanian, part of the town, the armed attack on the Serb village Svinjare, 3 km south of Kosovska Mitrovica, and the demolishing of railway tracks on the Zvecan - Kosovo Polje section at the Mijalic village, Vucitrn municipality.
Serbs in the area are deeply worried, as KFOR peacekeepers are doing absolutely nothing to protect them. Despite stories about terrorist KLA demilitarization, the mortar attack on the Svinjare village, inhabited by 130 Serb families, lasted 20 minutes. It was launched from the neighbouring ethnic Albanian village of Pantin, the Serb National Council said in a letter to the Chief Administrator of the Kosovska Mitrovica district Martin Garrod.
The Council demanded that KFOR take firm measures to protect the Serb population and to finally initiate actions against still armed ethnic Albanian terrorists at large throughout Kosovo-Metohija. The terrorists are the sole destabilizing factor for peace and freedom in the province, the letter says.
KFOR SAYS TWO SERBS STABBED IN ATTACK IN KOSOVO POLJE
Two elderly Serbs were stabbed at about 10 p.m. Sunday in Kosovo Polje, a KFOR spokesman said in Pristina on Monday.
The spokesman said one of the persons was in very critical condition, and the other had several knife wounds.
Shooting and two explosions were heard 4km south-west of Gnjilane on Sunday, he said. There was also shooting in Vitina, where KFOR troops arrested four persons for possession of firearms.
In the village of Crepka, east of Prizren, 10 ethnic Albanians were arrested for looting. They were loading onto trucks loot taken from apartments and houses. The KFOR military police will conduct an investigation.
An ethnic Albanian was killed in Pec, a murder was recorded also in Djakovica, a guard of the so-called Kosovo protection corps was killed, a civilian was gravely wounded north of Pristina, in a building until recently housing the headquarters of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Two ethnic Albanians were wounded near Podujevo, and KFOR British troops found a wounded ethnic Albanian near Kosovska Mitrovica. He was armed, so that he was arrested after first aid was administered to him, the spokesman said.
SERBS IN KOSOVO POLJE PLAN OWN PROTECTION CORPS
Unidentified persons opened fire Monday near a school in Ugljare, making evacuation of the children necessary, and local Serbs erected barricades after the incident, head of the Pristina-based Center for Peace and Tolerance Dejan Backovic told Tanjug.
Serb Zoran Galic was shot in the stomach from three passing vehicles, also in Ugljare.
Following numerous attacks, Serbs from Kosovo Polje, Bresje, Ugljare and Kuzmin announced they would have to self-organize, as international peacekeepers have not responded to any of their calls for protection from ethnic Albanian terrorists.
Ratko Maksimovic, who represents Serbs from Kosovo Polje in contacts with KFOR and UNMIK, said he would tell international civilian and military representatives at a forthcoming meeting that local Serbs would set up their own protection corps if their lives and property remain unprotected.
Ten Serb businesses in Kosovo Polje were demolished Sunday night and a cafe owned by Vaso Samardzic was burned down.
Violence continues in Pristina, where a Serb woman, Natalija Sokolovic, was beaten and evicted from her home Monday, the Center said.
RAILWAY TRAFFIC SUSPENDED AFTER ETHNIC ALBANIAN ATTACK
Railway traffic from Zvecan to Kosovo Polje is still suspended because tracks were demolished in an ethnic Albanian attack for a length of 50 meters in the village of Mijalic, 3km south of Vucitrn.
Late Saturday, ethnic Albanian terrorists took out screws from the rails and six cars of a passenger train slid off the tracks and overturned, Zvecane railway station chief Goran Vitorovic told Tanjug on Monday.
The engine driver noticed the sabotage and slowed down train, avoiding greater damage.
Vitorovic said the tracks would be repaired by Wednesday. The passenger train Kosovo Polje-Lesac was the only connection for Serbs from Kosovo Polje, Obolic, Priluzin, and Svinjar, with Kosovska Mitrovica, Zvecan and Leposavic, where they go to purchase staples.
YUGOSLAV LEFT OFFICIAL - KOSOVO AND METOHIJA NOT TO BE GIVEN TO TERRORISTS
Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and ranking Yugoslav Left (JUL) official Milovan Bojic has said that it is wrong to turn the ethnic Albanian terrorist organisation calling itself Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) into a peacetime organisation that should allegedly protect Kosovo.
Addressing a meeting of the JUL local board in Belgrade's district of Zvezdara late Monday, Bojic said that the expulsion of more than 200,000 people from the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's Kosovo and Metohija province was aimed at creating an ethnically pure province.
He said that in this way the ethnic Albanian separatist and terrorist movement would gain control over Kosovo and Metohija's great natural resources, saying that the movement had not achieved this goal either in talks in Rambouillet, nor in talks in Paris nor through NATO's bombing.
"We can neither allow this to happen, nor recognise such a state of affairs," he said adding that Yugoslavia was trying through intensive diplomatic efforts and its foreign policy to inform the world about what was really happening in Kosovo and Metohija and ways of dealing with the issue in the right way.
Head of the JUL Directorate committee on international cooperation Tatjana Lenard, who also took part in the meeting, said that it was by no means accidental that, using the normalisation of the situation in the province as a pretext, UN officials were trying to deny Yugoslavia's sovereignty over the province, to form a protectorate there and then hand it over to ethnic Albanian terrorists.
"Despite the international community's firm declarations that Kosovo and Metohija is an integral part of Serbia and Yugoslavia, the transfer of authority in the province is already being discussed in secret meetings with ethnic Albanian separatists in the world, although it is clear to everyone that any independence for the province would trigger conflicts in the Balkans and entire Europe," she said.
CHIRAC TO URGE IMMEDIATE RESOLUTION OF DANUBE NAVIGATION ISSUE
French President Jacques Chirac has said that he will take immediate measures within the Group of Eight most industrialised nations and the European Union in order to solve the problem of navigation along the River Danube created by NATO's March 24-June 10 bombing of Yugoslavia.
Addressing a news conference that he held jointly with his Romanian opposite number Emil Constantinescu in Paris late Monday, Chirac said that the Danube situation was unacceptable and highly detrimental to a number of countries and in particular Romania.
Voicing concern about the fact that the Danube is not navigable along its entire course, Chirac, however, made no mention of the NATO aggressors' obligation to reconstruct the Danube bridges and other major facilities throughout Yugoslavia destroyed during the aggression.
BUCHANAN CONDEMNS U.S. FOR EXPANDING NATO TOWARDS EAST
Republican Patrick Buchanan, one of the former U.S. presidential candidates, said that the United States owns an apology to Russia for the expansion of NATO into central Europe, Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Buchanan said in a Fox television program that the inclusion of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary into NATO was a mistake, because by so doing they have violated commitments made during the George Bush administration that NATO will not expand to eastern Europe, if Russia withdraws from the region.
Buchanan added that U.S. military guarantees made to Eastern Europe within NATO are dangerous, because, he said, future generations of Americans could refuse to observe those guarantees and the United States could push Russia, with its 20,000 nuclear warheads, into a closer alliance with China. That would, according to the conservative politician, would be a real cataclysm for America.
GERMAN PAPER CRITICISES UNMIK, ITS CHIEF KOUCHNER, KFOR
Berlin's leftist daily Junge Welt lashed out against the UN civilian mission to Kosovo and Metohija (UNMIK) and its chief Bernard Kouchner for taking a series of measures violating Yugoslavia's sovereignty and against KFOR for tolerating the terrorising of the non-Albanian population.
The paper said that Kouchner intended to privatise the Trepca mining complex and sell to private persons major power generation facilities and the mobile phone network. These facilities belong to Yugoslavia and, consequently, one cannot but wonder on what legal basis the Yugoslav people should be stripped of their assets, it said.
The paper also said that the setting up of customs points at which there were no Yugoslav bodies, the withdrawal from circulation of the dinar, Yugoslavia's national currency, the putting into circulation of the German mark and Kouchner's plan to introduce 'temporary' passports were measures that openly violated the UN Security Council resolution on Kosovo and Metohija stipulating that the province must not secede from Yugoslavia.
MONTENEGRO CONNECTION
Exclusive: Italian view on montenegrin mafia ties
By Marinela Raznatovic
There is lately almost no Italian media that is not taking an interest in details concerning dirty business ties between Montenegrin government and Italian Mafia bosses, on the occasion of very profitable business of smuggling cigarettes, which brings profit amounting 1.400 billions Liras (1,400 billion DM) to the smugglers.
The newspapers had very eloquent and suggestive headlines: "A state for smuggling", "Montenegro, bosses and blondes", "Swiss cigarettes", "On Marlborough terminal", "Djukanovic accomplice". Texts following these headlines had detailed and precise facts that clearly showed to the average reader that Italian media, which means Italian government was very well informed about long-term cooperation between Podgorica regime and Mafia.
Dossier since `92
However, it is enough to reveal only one distinguishing detail that eminent weekly "Espresso" based it's text on cooperation of President Djukanovic with cigarette smugglers on detailed dossier of the investigation of Naples District Attorney's office, which dates since 1992.
So now it is revealed that ties between Montenegrin government and Italian Mafia bosses has been a known fact since 1992, although those relations were investigated more thoroughly in 1995/96. Italian newspapers say "corner stone of that cooperation was set by ex representative of Montenegrin chamber of Commerce in Rome and present Montenegrin Foreign Minister Branko Perovic. It is also said that he was given this position in order to have diplomatic immunity, so that he could be protected from further investigation by the District Attorney's office in Naples, whose uncomfortable questions he answered for the first and the last time on April 20th 1996, when he denied all charges."
According to the assessment of the Naples investigation it is known that "Montenegro has annual profit of 120 million DM from cigarettes smuggling." It is also a well known fact, "Manifesto" daily emphasizes, that "the greatest amount of this money is in the Swiss banks". This daily also says that representatives of the Montenegrin political scene actually "do not deny the connection with smugglers, justifying it by economic pressure of Belgrade on Podgorica".
And that things became serious and it was not just temporarily interesting media coverage it was clear when the Italoian Finance Minister Vicenzo Fisco came public recently.He, not accidentally, on the occasion cigarettes trafficking, directly mentioned Montenegrin authorities, At the same time hepersonally suggested to Massimo Dalema's government to stop co-operation and giving any assistance to Montenegro until its government stops the illegal transport via Otrant.
Agitated political scene
However, some of the competent representatives of the official Rome assessed that this thing had gone too far and that slowly goes out of control. According to the local media, that could clearly be seen at the latest assembly hearing in Podgorica.
That is why, as a soother, comes out the Farmesina, i.e. Italian Foreign Ministry, with a statement that, among other things, says: "Italy intends to continue co-operation with the authorities in Podgorica in order to support democratic development of the country.But it should be clear, the statement stresses, that the main element of the future co-operation between Italy and Montenegro, is co-operation in the fighting the crime, so in line with that, Montenegrin authorities must show explicit and determined efforts".
Immediately after that statement and after, until then, unsuccessful attempts of Montenegrin authorities to welcome Italian Ambassador Ricardo sessa in Yugoslavia, he suddenly arrives to Podgorica.
During thetalks with Montenegrin foreign and interior ministers, Branko Perovic and Vukasin Maras, he reiterates his ministry's message, saying after the meeting that "agreed upon were some additional operational stages with the Montenegrin authorities for actions of competent bodies that should give the decisive impulse to common interests", the agency ANSA cites Ambassador Sessa.
Main smuggling through montenegro
That is why the daily "Manifesto" warns "small fish" that "they would, probably very soon, be sacrificed, i.e. that their Montenegrin friends would sell them to Italian agents and that good-will gesture should represent readiness of Montenegro to enter Europe".
However, the sudden tide of articles about Montenegrin mafia deals via Otrant brings about the question - why now and with such intensity when all that was already known . Maybe as one of the answers we can take an assessment of the weekly "Avenimenti".
In the latest issue, its Editor Hanibale Palosca reminds that "Avenimenti's" report, published last April, was totally unnoticed. In the report it was explicitly said that "Italian intelligence, during an investigation, established that main road for smuggling cigarettes leads through Montenegro, involved in which are its President Milo Djukanovic and Montenegrin Foreign Minister Branko Perovic.
Everyone were silent: the press, electronic media, as well as the local authorities.Why? Because then NATO was in war with Belgrade and Djukanovic was at the moment an important figure for Mrs. Albright. All American special envoys on the Balkan's chess board supported Montenegro, the country of "Phillip Morris" and "Marlboro", guaranteeing safety to Djukanovic.
Today nobody talks about the war in Kosovo. Now Italian press and electronic media have the permission to say that Montenegro is a paradise for cigarettes' smugglers. They even compete who will say it first and in more detail.
But that is only one of the possible answers. That question still remains without a complete and real answer, that only the authorities of Italy and Montenegro could give.