Photo: BIRN.

Several thousand opponents of the Montenegrin government staged an anti-NATO rally on Saturday in Podorica, shouting “No to NATO” and “Long Live Russia” and demanding a referendum on Montenegro’s membership of the alliance.

Accusing the government of pushing the country into the alliance against the will of the citizens, they also blamed Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic for backing Western sanctions against Russia, a country “without whose help Montenegro would not exist”.

“Anything other than a referendum [on NATO] would be occupation of Montenegro, which can only end with an armed uprising,” Janko Vucinic, from the Workers Party, said

Protesters carried Serbian and Russian flags and banners proclaiming “We are not for war, and you?”, “We love our homeland” and “No to NATO”.

Addressing the crowd, the former President of Montenegro and Yugoslav Prime Minister, Momir Bulatovic, said: “Normal people must not be silent about Montenegro’s entry into NATO.”

NATO was an “association of thieves, not just of killers”, he added.

Bulatovic, a longtime ally of late Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, quit politics in 2001, so this was his first public political appearance in almost 15 years.

Ljubomir Komatina, whose father was killed in NATO air strikes in 1999, related to the Kosovo conflict, addressed the protesters saying: “I didn’t come here to weep for the NATO victims but to invite all honorable Montenegro to say that there is no place for NATO here.”

One of the organizers of the rally, the pro-Serbian NOVA party, said it was very important for all those who oppose membership to NATO to unite in resisting the dangerous intentions of Prime Minister Djukanovic “who only seeks to extend his uncontrolled power.

“Djukanovic and the NATO promoters obviously want to have a decision on this important issue made without consulting the citizens, and we don’t accept it,” the party said.

The rally ended peacefully after protesters marched through the centre of Podgorica.

On December 2, Montenegro received a long-awaited invitation to become the 29th member of NATO. The government called it a “historic moment”.

Prime Minister Djukanovic hailed the invitation as the result of the government’s hard work on reforms, which he said would continue.

“The invitation is not understood here as a token recognition but as a strong impulse for continuous work on the implementation of reforms,” he said.

Podgorica has pushed to join the alliance after it split from a loose State Union with Serbia in 2006. It obtained a Membership Action Plan in 2009, which was regarded as a step before membership – but the expected invitation to join failed to materialise at last year’s alliance summit in Wales.

While the pro-Western government sees joining NATO as a strategic priority, Montenegrins remain bitterly divided about membership.

Many in the large Serbian community are still angry about NATOís bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in the 1990s, which forced Belgrade to withdraw from what was then the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Russia has described NATO’s extension into the Balkans, where Moscow enjoys historically close relations with fellow Orthodox Christians, as a “provocation”.

The Kremlin has called the membership invitation to Montenegro a blow to European security and to relations between Russia and NATO.