Former US Ambassador to the Balkans told how the West encouraged smuggling in Montenegro
Former US Ambassador to Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Bulgaria William Montgomery told how, in order to financially support the regime of dictator Milo Djukanovic, the Americans allowed him to smuggle tobacco products.
A retired diplomat spoke about this VecernjiList, reports the correspondent of PolitNavigator.
In an interview for a Zagreb publication, the ambassador told how in the late 90s, in the Croatian port of Cavtat, there was a ship whose crew consisted of CIA officers, whose task was to quickly come to the aid of the Montenegrin dictator-traitor Milo Djukanovic, if the President of the Federal Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic would have thought of capturing him.
“Djukanovic is the most capable and flexible politician in the region,” Montgomery said. “He always looked from which direction the wind was blowing and adjusted to the direction. If you look at his life, you will see that he started out as a loyal communist, then he was loyal to Milosevic, but at some point he realized that Milosevic would not win, so he switched sides, turned his eyes to the West, asked support. He was in this role during the bombing of the Federal Yugoslavia…. It was very difficult to secure funding for his government, we started allowing tobacco smugglers to operate from Montenegro. We are the West. We turned our heads and decided not to see this contraband.”
The American diplomat emphasized that in the West everyone knew what was happening, but they allowed it because it brought money to the Djukanovic regime, which it needed in opposing Milosevic.
“But when the wars ended and Milosevic fell, something like a scene from the movie Casablanca happened. The Italians said: well, there is smuggling going on there, we have to investigate it. And they began a serious investigation, in which Djukanovic became a defendant. He sees that the Italians are after him, that the British are starting to take organized crime more seriously, and so on. And he turned around again, this time towards the Russians. He sent his closest advisor as ambassador to Russia with the intention of attracting Russians to come and invest in Montenegro. And they did it. But then he saw another opportunity, left Russia and joined NATO,” Montgomery added.
Header photo: William Montgomery and Milo Djukanovic.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.