Montenegro splits from Serbia

Montenegro splits from Serbia
Small Balkan country declares independence.

Published Sunday, June 4, 2006

PODGORICA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Montenegro’s Parliament declared independence for the tiny Balkan republic yesterday, forming a new European state and dissolving what was left of the former Yugoslavia.

The assembly adopted a declaration of independence, verifying the results of a May 21 referendum in which Montenegrins supported a split from Serbia by a slim margin. The document envisages Montenegro as a "multiethnic, multicultural and multireligious society ... based on the rule of law and market economy."

After the assembly meeting, authorities raised a red-and-gold Montenegrin flag over the Parliament building and played the ancient Montenegrin anthem - "Oh, The Bright May Dawn" - as fireworks exploded in the sky.

The declaration says Montenegro’s strategic national goal is integration into the European Union and NATO, and the new country will immediately apply for admission into the United Nations and other international organizations.

The independent Montenegro "expresses special interest and full readiness" to "build good and friendly relations with Serbia," the declaration added.

No Serbian officials were at the independence ceremonies after conservative Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica refused to officially congratulate Montenegro’s pro-independence leaders on the referendum results.

But, in a message issued by the office of Serbian President Boris Tadic, the pro-democracy leader wished the people of Montenegro "peace, stability and overall prosperity" on their way to European integration.

"On that road, as always in our history, Serbia will be the closest friend," Tadic said. "I am in favor of preserving family, historic, cultural, economic and political ties because they present an unbreakable bond between our two countries."

The proclamation formally ended the Serbia-Montenegro union, the last shred of what was once Yugoslavia, after years of crisis in the Balkans that began when the federation of six republics disintegrated in violence in the 1990s.

Unionist parties opposed to the split with Serbia boycotted the Parliament session.

Serbia opposed previous declarations of independence by Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, triggering nearly a decade of wars.

Montenegro was an independent kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but it abandoned its statehood to join a new Serb-led Balkan union in 1918.

Montenegro, with 620,000 people, was the only republic to stay with Serbia, but it gradually edged toward independence during the autocratic rule of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who died earlier this year while on trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal for his part in the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia.