Serbia and Montenegro
Serbia and Montenegro is located in southeastern Europe, bordering Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia. Its landmass is approximately 102,136 square kilometers (39,435 square miles). The capital of Serbia is Belgrade, and that of Montenegro is Podgorica. Common government institutions are situated in Belgrade. The population was estimated at 10,825,900 in July 2004. Estimated per capita income in 2003 was $2,300.
In 2001 the United Nations (UN) admitted Serbia and Montenegro under the name Yugoslavia. In February 2003 Serbia and Montenegro created a loose confederation under their constitutional charter and abandoned that name. Each constituent republic is entitled to independence subject to a voter referendum that was scheduled to be held no earlier then May 2005. Serbia and Montenegro is also a member of the Council of Europe (CoE).
After liberation from Ottoman rule in the early twentieth century and a short period of independence as a constitutional monarchy, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was created in 1918. After a period of political instability during the dictatorship of King Alexander I (1888–1934), who changed its name to Yugoslavia, the country broke up under Nazi occupation in 1941. The Serbian government, with the support of "Chetnik" troops, collaborated with the Nazis. Communist Party leader Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) led the fight against the Nazis and Chetniks. Upon their defeat Tito became leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on November 29, 1943. Tito ruled as an absolutist, serving as president of the republic, commander in chief of the military forces, and president of the Communist Party until his death.
In 1987 Slobodan Milosevic (b. 1941) assumed leadership of the Serbian Communist Party and in four years came to dominate Serbian political life. His attempt to seize control of Yugoslavia was frustrated by effective declarations of independence by Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia in 1992. Declaring Serbia and Montenegro to be the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Milosevic led an extended but ultimately unsuccessful effort to invade the neighboring republics of the former Yugoslavia to establish a unified Serb republic. In 1999 attempts by his military and Serb paramilitary forces to expel ethnic Albanians from Kosovo drew international opposition and the stationing of a UN peacekeeping force in Kosovo. Milosevic was defeated in the general elections in the autumn of 2000 and then arrested and handed over in 2001 to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague to be tried for crimes against humanity.
Major political leaders following Milosevic were the pro-Western reformist Zoran Dindic, Serbian prime minister until his assassination in March 2003, and
(MAP BY MARYLAND CARTOGRAPHICS/THE GALE GROUP)Vojislav Kostunica of the nationalist Center-Right Democratic Serbian Party, the prime minister as of late 2004. Political life in Montenegro at that time was characterized by an even split between supporters of independence and supporters of a union with Serbia.
Serbia and Montenegro has a common assembly elected indirectly by the assemblies of its constituent states. The number of representatives is proportionate to state populations (ninety-one from Serbia and thirty-five from Montenegro). The president of the state is elected by the assembly for a period of four years. Other institutions include a five-member Council of Ministers with its seat in Belgrade and the Court of Serbia and Montenegro in Podgorica. Each constituent state has its own parliament, government, and president. Despite the country's turbulent history in the 1990s, respect for human rights in Serbia and Montenegro improved in the early twenty-first century, with citizens free to exercise them.
Bosnia and Herzegovina; Kosovo; Slovenia; United Nations.
Bibliography
Benson, Leslie. Yugoslavia: A Concise History, rev. ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Commission of the European Communities. Serbia and Montenegro, Stabilization and Association Report 2004. COM(2004) 206 final, SEC(2004) 376.
Freedom House. "Serbia and Montenegro." Freedom in the World 2003: Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties. New York: Freedom House, 2003. <http://www.freedomhouse.org/res earch/freeworld/2003/countryratings/yug oslavia.html>.
"The Opinions of the Badinter Arbitration Committee: A Second Breath for the Self-Determination of Peoples." European Journal of International Law 3, no. 1 (1992): Appendix. <http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol 3/No1/art13.html>.
"Serbia and Montenegro." CIA World Factbook. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2005. <http://www.cia.gov/cia/publicat ions/factbook/geos/yi.html>.
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