And if there wasn't one in 1997 hand twists or warm recommendations of the then Clinton administration, Đukanović would either not be alive today, or, at best, would have ended up in prison long ago. If it weren't for America, Milo would either have lost his head like some of his closest associates in the showdown between the smuggling clans, or he would be lying alive and well in some prison unit. Scheveningen, not Spuž. Together with his war comrades Karadžić and Mladić. And instead of thanking official Washington, he tells them in a sneer - you are guilty!
So, when in 1997 he decided to make a proper change in his mind, and not insanely and suicidally like Mašan then or Jakov today, Đukanović had Washington behind him. In the event that he lost the 1997 elections with a pro-Western and anti-Russian platform, the Americans guaranteed the salvation of Milo's ranks from the reprisals of his political opponents. The stakes were high, because they knew what was in store for him in the event of defeat - either he would be liquidated by Milošević's death squads like Stambolić and Ćuruvija, or Momir and Peđa would put him in Spuž.
America then did everything to turn Milo, a political marginal, a puppet of official Belgrade, similar to today's Mandić and Knežević, into a significant political figure, a leader, not only of Montenegro but also of the region. Which, lo and behold, they succeeded. Instead, thanks to official Washington, Đukanović is spitting fire - you are guilty!
In a PR text that the controversial Al Jazeera Balkans presented as an interview, the former Montenegrin president expressed a host of views that have no connection to reality and arguments, concluding that the biggest culprit for negative tendencies in Montenegro and the region is precisely American policy from the last decade.
"Look at the state of reform depth in the Western Balkans today. I would say that there are no reforms in the Western Balkans today.", Đukanović explains to us! Or even more humorously: "If I were to judge Western policy in our region over the past few years based on its consequences today, I would say that it was pro-Russian."! And then a crescendo: "This policy was created by the State Department, and Europe just followed suit."!
The reasons are also known, except that this is not being said by Vučić or Vulin, or the saber-rattling Mandić, but by the "pro-Western" Đukanović himself: "Guided by their selfish interest, to achieve their goal, they (the Americans, ed.) believed that everything else was a matter of agreement. So the matter of agreement was to allow the authorities in Belgrade to show off a little in this region."!
It would take much more space than one column to present the true arguments that refute these and other theses of Đukanović. And to draw a completely opposite conclusion: that it was Milo Đ. who created a policy that was pro-Russian in its consequences! And that he personally established a system of endemic corruption and organized crime that has distanced Montenegro and the Western Balkans miles from essential reforms! It was Đukanović who patented the system of the private state that has spread like a plague throughout the region. First Gruevski in Macedonia, then Orban in Hungary, then Rama in Albania and finally Vučić in Serbia - they all learned from Milo! But not how to implement reforms, but how to build absolutist power and personal wealth.
However, of all the theses from Djukanovic's monologue on Al Jazeera, it is easiest to dispute the most important and main one around the Serbian and Russian world - and prove that it was precisely his policy that most "allowed the authorities in Belgrade to have a little fun in the region"! The policy of official Washington in this context may be an accomplice but not the ringleader. The Obama administration may have been blind in 2010/11 when it listened to its regional partner and sheriff Djukanovic that Vučić, not Tadić, was the promising boy. It was Milo who passionately lobbied his partners in Washington for Vučić, that he was the right choice because, as a Serbian nationalist and radical, he would recognize Kosovo long before democrat Tadić, which would then relax the atmosphere in the region and bring the Western Balkans into the EU!
Didn't the entire public, domestic, regional, and global, read Đukanović's eulogies about Vučić, from 2011 to 2019, almost a decade, about the best relations between Montenegro and Serbia ever, about the most stable region and the EU membership of the Balkans ever more certain! Even before Vučić, more than two decades ago, Đukanović personally spread the pink cancer throughout Montenegro! By installing the Pink TV antenna on the top of the humiliated Public Service building. Later, Vučić sent Informer, Happy, Prva and other garbage to help him brainwash and kill hope. Beba, Vučićević, Mitrović, Marić, Vučelić... The biggest criminals of the propaganda machinery of official Belgrade in the last three decades were here, from the referendum to the march, Milo's main supporters and promoters! The heads of the organized propaganda group who directed and coordinated domestic traitors Đuranović, Kusovac, Šuković, Rutović, Boxer, Radmila and Đago... Only in 2019, when Milo Đ. kicked them out on the wave of protests, did they open their eyes and show that their policy in the previous decade was "essentially pro-Serbian". And that means pro-Russian. Because a greater Serbia is, as Milo Đ. describes it vividly, just an outpost of imperial Russia. The only thing that ignores his own, grandiose contribution to that project. For which he deserved Vulin's saber much earlier, and much more than Mandić. In fact, if only Milo deserves Vulin's saber for his contribution to the development of the Serbian and Russian world in the region, Mandić would, in that competition, only get a razor. And a rusty one at that.
On the other hand, an equally important question is the following: what are the reasons for Djukanovic's such disappointment in the American administration and its policy in the Western Balkans! When that same policy kept him as its main partner and regional leader for two decades?!
There are two possible explanations. One is the evident weariness of man. The world in which Milo Đukanović lives has long had no connection with reality. Lord Acton long ago defined the state of mind of every absolutist: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"! Sometime before the start of the procession, Amfilohije asked a mutual friend to go to Đukanović and present to him the consequences of the Law on Freedom of Religion, with a request that Milo revise or withdraw it. "Come on, try, although he is no longer the man I once knew," the late metropolitan said as he sent off the courier. Self-love and uncontrolled power have separated Đukanović from reality, so that in the distorted picture he always sees the culprit in someone else, not in himself. Now his own party (DPS) is also to blame, so he is not letting it revive and increase its coalition capacity, but is preparing to groom it from the position of honorary president in the future. And how power corrupts the best is being witnessed today by his good student Vučić - until two months ago he acted as an absolute master and an all-powerful vizier, and now he is on the ropes, knocked out by student protests, roaming Serbian villages and Instagram and singing about the external and internal enemy. Refusing to admit that in fact he is the greatest enemy of Serbia. That is the price that every politician who decides to rule for more than two terms must count on, especially one who spends those eight years strengthening personal power and not institutions. Like our Milo, and not two but six, seven terms.
Another possible reason for the anti-American hysteria could be Djukanovic's anxiety about his own fate. Instead of retiring into political retirement in 2006 and securing his place in the history books, greed led him in the opposite direction. And now he is awaiting the outcome of a series of prosecutorial investigations into corruption scandals that have arisen over the past 15 years. Is Lomi a little nervous about rumors that the investigative circle is narrowing, and for that reason he has opened fire on America, holding it responsible for supporting the "sky prosecutor", as his party youth describes Novovic?! It is possible, but let's not speculate, time will tell.
And maybe Djukanovic, as he has done many times in his career, will get lucky. Not only the current government but also the prosecution, above all the SDT, will fall after the protests that started in Podgorica. It seems like a joke, but it seems that this is the perception of reality not only of Djukanovic but also of his son, Roćen's daughter-in-law, Gvozd's little one, Milo's long-time friend, Mijajlo and Tigra, as well as other Djukanovic fans and followers who, by regularly responding to local protests, provide energy for the desired changes. At the same time, all the listed, virtuous protesters, show, like the beloved leader Milo in the aforementioned interview, that they do not see anything bad or wrong in the politics that have dominated Montenegro for more than three decades. The culprit is someone else. America, for example.
History is repeating itself as a farce, and the somewhat forgotten slogans of Đukanović's political opponents, with which they attacked him for the best things he had done in his career, now seem serious and well-founded. And one of them, you remember, was: "Milo, Milo, shame on you"!
Bonus video:
