When Djukanovic gets thrown out, and that day is inexorably coming, where will he go?
The US political and economic oligarchy has had a long history of using the corrupt rulers of puppet states to do its bidding throughout the world. One of the ways that these rulers perform the services useful for the US clandestine, anti-democratic operations, typically conducted by the CIA or the Pentagon, is by granting citizenship to the persons who, due to their allegiance to the promotion of the US oligarchy's interests, have been forced to leave their native countries.
Typically, these cases have to do with persons who are the so-called "high security risks" (high-level criminals and/or terrorists) and hence can hardly fulfill the criteria for the US citizenship. Of course, there are exceptions to this and it often happens that precisely those who are at the top of the criminal pyramid get to enjoy the life of the American suburbia. Still, many more are left "outhere in the cold", in the care of the US puppets such as the long-time prime minister of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic.
Djukanovic's example is particularly glaring because he is the Europe's longest ruling authoritarian leader.[i] He has been in power since 1989 and has turned the entire country into his fiefdom, especially since the country's independence in 2006. The elections, be they parliamentary, presidential or local, are routinely stolen and the opposition leaders, media and ordinary citizens are discriminated against and harrassed. The attacks against and, even, the murder of jounalists and dedicated police investigators go unpunished, while the surveillance by the Agency for National Security (ANB) equals the intensity of the East German Stasi regime with the distinction that the real master in Montenegro is not the KGB, but the CIA.
No wonder, then, that the US political elites, so trigger-happy and quick to condemn the "human rights abuses" within the jurisdiction of its geopolitical antagonists, such as Russia and China, turn both the blind eye and the deaf ear and have only the praise for Djukanovic. Over more than two decades of his puppet-dictator's career, he has met with many high-level US officials, most recently with the US Vice President Joe Biden on April 8, 2014 in Washington DC.[ii] It is worth mentioning that Djukanovic was a special favorite of Bill Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the affections for him being equal to those she has felt for his political ally, the alleged war criminal, mafia head and terrorist guerilla leader, ex-prime minister (now deputy prime minister and foreign minister) of Kosovo, Hashim Taci.[iii]
Heavily indebted for his illegitimate grip on power to the CIA-NATO connection, Djukanovic has dutifully fulfilled orders to naturalize into "Montenegrins" a strange cast of characters, all with a heavy personal file of political abuse and crimes against lives and property in their respective homelands.
In this article, I will examine the two of the most egregious cases, because in these cases the workings of the CIA-based intelligence networks are as clearly visible as the moon on a summer night in the desert. These are the cases of a Palestinian national, Mohammed Dahlan and a Thai national, Thaksin Shinawatra.
Mohammed Dahlan
Mohammed Dahlan is probably one of the most controversial figures in the Middle East today.[iv] Dahlan started out his political career as a militant for the Fatah movement, but, over the years, a lot of evidence has come to light that he has taken part in many shadowy deals with the US and Israeli intelligence agencies against the rival Hamas movement. However, despite the obvious CIA sponsorship, Dahlan lost the power struggle for the control of the Fatah to Mahmoud Abas and had to escape from Gaza, finding a refuge in the US ally United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi).
Abas later alleged that Dahlan was involved in the poisoning death of Yasser Arafat.[v] At this time, Dahlan is being prosecuted in Gaza on the charges of corruption and murder, already having been sentenced in absentia for two years for other abuses of power.
The person with such checkered past and a lot of enemies obviously needs a safe haven beyond the turbulent Middle East so that he and his family can securely enjoy the wealth he has acquired in a suspicious manner. It is at this junction that common friends in the US intelligence community brought Djukanovic and Dahlan together. It appears that Djukanovic was instructed to grant Dahlan the Montenegrin citizenship. In this way, Dahlan is not only able to travel visa free throughout the European Union, but is also protected from the eventual deportation to Gaza .
However, notwithstanding Djukanovic's campaign of repression, Montenegro has a very vibrant free press and the naturalization of Mohammed Dahlan is still very much in the public eye. The daily newspaper Dan as well as the independent political weekly Monitor have published extensive accounts of his corrupt dealings with Djukanovic.[vi] Some opposition parties have demanded that the government strips Dahlan of the citizenship. However, none of this is likely to happen while Djukanovic is still dutifully performing the role assigned to him by the CIA.
The Dahlan story has recently acquired a broader international dimension when the British Guardian on January 30, 2015 published a selected portion of the study by the Balkan Investigative Report Network (BIRN) reporting that Mohammed Dahlan, in addition to the Montenegrin citizenship, has also acquired the citizenship of Serbia.[vii] This means that the CIA links forged by Djukanovic also extend to the Serbian prime minister Aleksandar Vučić. The article alleges that Dahlan is spending his time in Montenegro and Serbia preparing a coup against Abas. The CIA is obviously planning another campaign of destabilization in Palestine.
Thaksin Shinawatra
Another corrupt US-friendly political leader granted the citizenship of Montenegro by Djukanovic was the ex-prime minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra. Shinawatra was the prime minister of Thailand from 2001 to 2006 and his rule was characterized by wide-spread political abuse, corruption, and media censorship. In order to prove his allegiance to the goals of the US foreign policy, he sent more than 400 Thai soldiers to Iraq, two of whom lost their lives.[viii] After he was overthrown in a military coup, he, just like Dahlan, found political refuge in the United Arab Emirates (Dubai).
Those same networks that enabled his UAE transfer made a connection between him and Djukanovic. He got the same deal as Dahlan: the citizenship of Montenegro, which makes possible visa free travel throughout the European Union and freedom from the deportation to Thailand to face the charges of extensive corruption and money-laundering. He was granted the citizenship, even though at the time there was an Interpol warrant for his arrest. The officials of Montenegrin government stated on record that they would not deport Shinawatra even if requested by the Interpol, since, according to the Montenegrin law, citizens can be deported only to the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague.[ix]
Shinawatra made use of the Montenegrin passport to travel to several EU countries. On his visits to Montenegro, he made promises to invest in the tourism industry.[x] However, the talk of investments, just like in the case of Dahlan, only served as the convenient excuse for Djukanovic to justify the naturalization. No money from Shinawatra ever entered the legal economic flows in Montenegro. And even if it did, the money would have to be returned because it justly belongs to the people of Thailand.
Conclusion
The puppet leaders like Djukanovic do an extensive damage to the well-being of the people living in the countries they rule. In contrast to what democratic practice would require, the legitimacy of their rule is purely external. They are allowed to do whatever they want internally so long as they dutifully fulfill all orders from the powerful intelligence structures belonging to the Great Powers.
However, as the case of Dahlan and Shinawatra clearly shows, these leaders sometimes make wrong moves and, as a result, lose power. They, then, have to be rescued and, more likely than not, end up in Djukanovic's Montenegro. The logical question that arises out of this situation is this: when Djukanovic gets thrown out, and that day is inexorably coming, where will he go? Or is Montenegro for him, just like Romania was for Ceausescu and Croatia for Sanader, the end of the line?
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Filip Kovacevic, Boiling Frogs Post contributing author and analyst, is a geopolitical author, university professor and the chairman of the Movement for Neutrality of Montenegro. He received his BA and PhD in political science in the US and was a visiting professor at St. Petersburg State University in Russia for two years. He is the author of seven books, dozens of academic articles. He has been invited to lecture throughout the EU, Balkans, ex-USSR and the US. He currently resides in San Francisco, and can be contacted at fk1917@yahoo.com
NOTES
[i] http://www.academic-foresights.com/Montenegros_Political_System.html
[ii] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/04/08/readout-vice-pres…
[iii] http://www.opinion-maker.org/2013/04/madeleine-albright-balkan-telecom-…
[iv] http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/24/nyt.dahlan/
[v] http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Abbas-suggests-rival-Dahlan-behind-mur…
[vi] http://www.dan.co.me/?nivo=3&rubrika=Politika&clanak=474194&datum=2015-… neće da Dahlanu uzme državljanstvo; http://www.monitor.co.me/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4…
[vii] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/30/palestinian-president-riva…
[viii] http://www.foxnews.com/story/2003/12/28/thailand-vows-to-keep-troops-in…
[ix]http://www.rts.rs/page/stories/sr/story/11/Region/586221/%C4%8Cegovi%C4…
[x]http://www.monitor.co.me/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1…