Tale of two cities

Yugoslav army headquarters in central Belgrade was ruined during NATO's spring 1999 bombing campaign. Scenes in Belgrade such as this one are difficult to record for Western journalists today.

By Steve Nettleton
CNN Interactive Correspondent

PODGORICA, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- Montenegro has become the "Casablanca" of the Balkans in the 1990s -- as in the fabled Humphrey Bogart movie, a haven for Yugoslav draft dodgers, for refugees from the wars in Bosnia and Croatia, and for thousands of Kosovo Serbs driven from their homes by ethnic Albanian revenge attacks.

It also seems to have become a refuge for journalists.

Although it is just as much a part of Yugoslavia as Serbia, its sister republic, Montenegro has chosen a political path that veers away from Belgrade, toward the West.

It has forged its own international policy, it has adopted the German mark as a parallel currency to the Yugoslav dinar, and it has attracted American and European institutions keen on building a stable democracy in Slobodan Milosevic's back yard.

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK • Reporter's journey reveals the prospects for peace are as elusive as ever • Macedonia struggles to avoid Kosovo's deadly legacy • Still missing: Albanians seek relatives in Serbian jails • Mitrovica: Symbol of divided Kosovo • A sprawling enclave of Americana in Kosovo • House arrest: Kosovo's segregated Serbs feel stranded, abandoned • The Coca-Cola patrol: On the beat with U.N. police in Kosovo • New tragedies burden historic Serb city • Montenegro press avoids Belgrade's big chill • Montenegro president: We will not compromise with Serbia • One faith, two churches: Religion splits again in Yugoslavia • Sarajevo: A city searches for its lost soul

Not surprisingly, Montenegro is lax in enforcing a strict Yugoslav media law that levies heavy fines and possible prison terms on news organizations that publish or broadcast anything the government considers threatening to state interests.

'You can be punished for any reason'

The media in Montenegro show no fear in criticizing the government -- even in denouncing Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic. In Serbia, journalists must think carefully about how the government will react to any negative press.

Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, a haven for refugees from nearly everywhere in the Balkans, offers journalists freedoms that are non-existent next door in Serbia

"There isn't any strict rule," said Serbian independent journalist Katarina Spasic. "You can be punished for any reason."

And if you are called into court, your guilt is predetermined, Spasic said. "You know you will have to pay."

The contrast between working as a journalist in Montenegro's capital, Podgorica, and working in Belgrade is so dramatic that it is almost hard to believe the two cities are even in the same country.

Upon our arrival in Yugoslavia, my CNN colleague and producer, Zoran Stevanovic, and I split up for two days as he traveled to Belgrade and I remained in Podgorica.

My experience in Montenegro struck me as quite pleasant. Politicians were open to discussing the troubles facing their nation. Citizens on the streets showed little fear in expressing their views to an American-based news network.

Stevanovic, however, entered a city saturated with suspicion and embedded with a deep distrust of the international media, U.S. agencies in particular.

Republic Square, Belgrade's main plaza. The city is digging out from one of the worst winter storms in decades. Temperatures have plunged to minus 22 degrees Celsius.

"It's like a Catch-22," Stevanovic said. "When you ask government officials to give you a comment or sound bite, you can't lie and say it is not for the Western media. But if you say that you are with the Western media, they won't talk to you. So it's a magic circle."

Public enmity is only the beginning. Battling through the one of the worst winter storms to hit Belgrade in decades (with 6 feet of snow and temperatures plunging to minus 22 degrees Celsius), Stevanovic also had to keep an eye out for the police.

"Once you start walking around with a camera and tripod, even if you don't see anyone around, you just have this fear that the police are going to appear from around the corner and ask you what you're doing," he said.

'You come to Montenegro ... you feel safe'

While Stevanovic was taking pictures of the abandoned U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, two officers suddenly approached him on either side.

This graffiti on the wall of the abandoned U.S. Embassy in Belgrade speaks for itself

"Bato [boy]," they said. "Shut down your camera and get lost. You can't film this."

"But the building is empty," Stevanovic told the policemen. "There's nobody there."

"But you can't film this," one of the officers replied.

"And I was speaking in Serbian," Stevanovic told me later. "If you were speaking German or English, you would be immediately arrested for filming something you shouldn't."

The challenges and risks of working in Serbia have prompted some journalists to move to the friendlier media climate in Montenegro.

"You leave Serbia and you come to Montenegro, which is technically the same country, and all of a sudden, you feel safe," Stevanovic said. "You feel relieved."