Freedom in the World 2004 - Serbia and Montenegro

Political Rights: 3
Civil Liberties: 2
Status: Free
Population: 10,700,000
GNI/Capita: $1,267
Life Expectancy: 72
Religious Groups: N/A
Ethnic Groups: N/A
Capital: Belgrade

Overview

The dangers facing reformers in post-Communist southeastern Europe became evident in 2003 when Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic was assassinated in Belgrade on March 12. His assassins came from a mixed group of organized crime figures and members of Milosevic-era security structures. In the wake of Djindjic's assassination, the government declared a state of emergency, and police conducted a massive operation to apprehend those responsible that drew criticism from human rights groups. In November, presidential elections in Serbia were declared invalid after less than 50 percent of the electorate participated, as required by law. Meanwhile, in Montenegro, the political situation remained tense as allegations emerged that government officials at the highest levels were involved in smuggling and sex trafficking.

In April 1992, the former Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro jointly proclaimed the formation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) after Marshal Josip Broz Tito's Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) disintegrated in 1991. Throughout the 1990s, Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) ruled the country by virtue of its control over the country's security forces, financial and monetary institutions, and state-owned media. The first serious damage to Milosevic's power came in 1996, when the Serbian opposition won numerous municipal elections and the SPS lost control of the main urban areas in the country. In 1997, an anti-Milosevic coalition of political forces came to power in Montenegro. In 1999, NATO occupied one of the FRY's two autonomous provinces, Kosovo, after conducting a 78-day bombing campaign. The final end for the Milosevic regime came on October 5, 2000, when a botched attempt to steal the September presidential elections resulted in hundreds of thousands of people converging on Belgrade to overthrow the Milosevic regime. On October 6, Milosevic publicly conceded to the DOS's Vojislav Kostunica, who had defeated Milosevic in the September poll.

The Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), a coalition of 18 political parties and one independent trade union, took power following parliamentary elections in December 2000. Despite the DOS's victory in Serbia, however, improving relations between the constituent republics of the FRY has been difficult throughout the post-Milosevic period. In March 2002, the European Union (EU) brokered what has become known as the Belgrade Agreement. It created a new state, now simply called "Serbia and Montenegro," that would preserve some vestiges of a common state but also provide each republic with its own currency, central bank, and separate customs and taxation systems. Since that time, the EU has begun voicing support for a stronger union of the two republics. Nevertheless, the new union was proving problematic, as it gave Montenegro – which is only one-tenth the size of Serbia in population and contributes a negligible part of the overall Serbia and Montenegro economy – parity representation in most organs of government, and also because of differences over cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Ratification of the Belgrade Agreement took place only in January 2003.

Despite the ratification of the Belgrade Agreement, the future of Serbia and Montenegro remains unclear. There is some debate within Serbia itself over whether it would be preferable for Serbia to go it alone in its efforts to gain EU accession, rather than maintaining ties with Montenegro. Moreover, in light of the still unresolved issue of the Serbian territory of Kosovo and the uneasy truce in Serbia's Presevo Valley (which contains a sizable Albanian population), Serbia and Montenegro continues to face a very uncertain future. On the more positive side, Serbia and Montenegro is expected to be invited to join NATO's Partnership for Peace in 2004.

Within Serbia itself, the dominant parties and political leaders of the DOS for most of the post-Milosevic period were the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), led by Kostunica, and the Democratic Party (DS), led by the late Serbian premier Zoran Djindjic. On March 12, Djindjic was assassinated by a group of organized crime figures and members of Milosevic-era security structures. With Djindjic's killing, Serbia lost one of its most capable politicians, and over the summer, revelations emerged of the involvement of some members of the DS in a variety of corruption scandals. Further eroding the DS's public support was the revelation that it had orchestrated a controversial quorum in the parliament to elect a new National Bank governor.

Presidential elections held in November failed because the most attractive candidates, Kostunica and former federal vice premier Miroljub Labus, refused to participate. Only 37 percent of the electorate turned out, far short of the required 50 percent required for a valid election, which precipitated new parliamentary elections in December. It was unclear to what extent the parliamentary elections would resolve the country's governmental crisis.

In Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, the president since 1998, decided to step down from his post in 2002 and assume the republic's prime ministerial position. Two attempts to elect a new president that year failed after the elections did not attract the required 50 percent voter turnout. In February 2003, a new presidential law came into force that dropped the 50 percent rule. Subsequently, in May, Filip Vujanovic, the Djukanovic party candidate, was elected. Vujanovic won 64 percent of the votes, with 48.3 percent of eligible voters participating. Opposition parties refused to field candidates, although the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) deemed the elections to be generally in line with international standards.

Frequent charges of corruption against high-ranking members of Djukanovic's regime continued to harm the government's reputation. In June, an Italian judge in Naples investigating organized crime and smuggling issued formal arrest requests for several Montenegrin officials, including Djukanovic himself, though most observers believed Djukanovic would enjoy immunity because of his high-level government position. Djukanovic's reputation suffered a further blow when the former interior minister in his government accused him of being personally involved in the trafficking of sex slaves.

Montenegro remains split between the majority of the Orthodox Christian population that declares itself to be Montenegrin and/or Serb and wants to maintain ties with Belgrade, and a minority of the Orthodox Christian population, supported by ethnic Albanians in Montenegro and some Muslims in the mainly Muslim Sandzak region, who prefer independence. (Many Muslims, however, prefer maintaining the union because separation would mean the division of Sandzak region between two independent states.) The pro-independence cause suffered a setback in 2003 when a new census showed that 30 percent of the Montenegrin population declared itself to be Serb, an increase of some 21 percent over the past decade and a further indication of how strong ethnic and emotional ties between Serbia and Montenegro remain.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Citizens of Serbia and Montenegro can change their government democratically. Throughout the 1990s, the Milosevic regime manipulated and falsified election results. Opposition parties were routinely denied access to the main electronic media in the country, and the tabulation of votes was extremely suspect. However, the DOS victory in October 2000 significantly changed the way in which elections are conducted. Citizens in both Serbia and Montenegro can now choose their leaders in generally free and fair elections. In Montenegro's February 2003 presidential vote, monitoring organizations reported that Milo Djukanovic's Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) threatened workers in state-owned enterprises to vote for the DPS candidate.

Freedom of the press has improved vastly since the Milosevic period, when the regime enjoyed the support of state-owned media and some prominent members of the independent media were assassinated by "unknown" assailants. However, during the state of emergency imposed after the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic on March 12, 2004, many journalists and media watchdog groups criticized the government for going too far in censoring critical coverage of the government's crackdown on organized crime groups.

Libel is still listed as a criminal offense in Serbia, and several government officials filed libel charges against journalists and political opponents during 2003. In July 2002, the Montenegrin parliament passed several changes to its Media Law that drew criticism from domestic and international watchdog groups. The new regulations require editors to consult political parties about the content and even the headlines of articles, and restrict the number of articles that can be published about parties during the campaign. There were no reports of the government restricting access to the Internet, although there were reports that the police monitored e-mail traffic during the massive operation undertaken to apprehend those responsible for Djindjic's assassination.

According to the constitution, all citizens enjoy freedom of religious belief. However, with ethnic and religious identities closely intertwined in the region, increases in interethnic tensions often take on the appearance of religious intolerance. Restitution of church property nationalized by the Communists remains a point of dispute between church and state. There were no reports that the government attempted to restrict academic freedom during the year.

Citizens enjoy freedom of association and assembly. Numerous political parties exist and compete for power in elections. Foreign and domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) enjoy the freedom to pursue their activities. New laws are currently being drafted to codify relations between trade unions and the government.

Significant legal and judicial reform is under way. However, the judicial system is still plagued by a large backlog of cases, underpaid judges and state prosecutors, and an excess of judges left over from the Milosevic era. There are reports that the system takes an excessively long time in filing formal charges against suspects. Moreover, the authority and independence of the judicial system continue to suffer as a result of the failure of legislative institutions to heed judicial rulings. In 2002, for instance, the Constitutional Court of Serbia ruled that the government's revocation of the mandates of some 40 members of parliament belonging to the DSS was unconstitutional. However, the Djindjic government consistently refused to comply with the court's order to reinstate the DSS deputies. An EU report issued in March 2003 noted that little progress had been made in reforming the police and the judiciary in the post-Milosevic period. Prison conditions generally meet international standards.

After Djindjic's assassination in March, the government declared a state of emergency and the police conducted a massive operation code-named "Operation Sabre" to apprehend those responsible. Some 10,000 people were taken into custody in the ensuing months. Human rights groups warned that the government campaign was excessive and that many aspects of the crackdown, such as media restrictions and a suspension of the rights of the accused to legal representation, were violating civil liberties. There were also serious reports that many individuals taken into custody were victims of torture and other forms of police abuse.

Cultural and ethnic minorities have their own political parties, access to media in their mother tongue, and other types of associations. Nevertheless, the number of individuals from ethnic minorities participating in government does not represent their percentages in the entire population. An important constitutional and political challenge facing Serbia and Montenegro is to satisfy increasing demands from regions with large ethnic minorities, such as Kosovo, Sandzak, and Vojvodina. Similarly, there are frequent complaints of unfair treatment and police harassment of the Roma (Gypsy) community.

Although women are legally entitled to equal pay for equal work, traditional patriarchal attitudes prevalent throughout the Balkans often limit women's roles in the economy. In 2003, women held several highly visible governmental positions, including acting president of Serbia and governor of the National Bank of Serbia. However, in general, women are underrepresented in higher levels of government. Domestic violence remains a serious problem. According to one estimate, 50 percent of the women in Serbia and Montenegro have been the victims of domestic violence.

Some towns in southern Serbia have become an important part of the network trafficking women from the former Soviet Union to Western Europe for purposes of forced prostitution. In one especially noteworthy case in 2003, a Moldovan woman accused senior Montenegrin officials of involvement in human trafficking and the promotion of sex slavery. The case collapsed in May, allegedly because of a "lack of evidence." The Council of Europe and the OSCE both criticized the way the Montenegrin judiciary handled the case, and the investigating judge in the case claimed she had been harassed by the Djukanovic government's security services.

Trend Arrow

Serbia and Montenegro received a downward trend arrow due to the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and the government's subsequent response to the killing, as well as increased reports of corruption within the ruling governments of both Serbia and Montenegro.

Name Change

On February 5, 2003, the Yugoslav parliament adopted a constitutional charter establishing the state of Serbia and Montenegro. Unless specifically noted, references to Serbia and Montenegro in this chapter do not pertain to Kosovo.