Good morning! Yesterday I was in Dubrovnik with a group of American students. In preparation for the excursion, I rewatched Koca Pavlovic’s documentary “War for Peace”, and I thought that in a time of widespread relativisation and revision of history it is important to restate some facts and present some that may be new.
What Montenegro did in Dubrovnik
Montenegrins did not first attack Dubrovnik in 1991, but almost two hundred years earlier during the Napoleonic Wars, when they, together with the Russians, besieged the city and burned and looted everything from Konavle to the city entrance.
Then they attacked it in 1991, after having previously replaced the communist leadership under the diktat of Slobodan Milosevic. Our honour was preserved at that time by people from the anti-war movement, primarily the LSCG led by Slavko Perovic.
But they were a minority. Indoctrinated by state media propaganda about how Yugoslavia was being saved in Dubrovnik, and that Croats themselves were being liberated from Ustasha rule, Montenegrins rushed off to fight “thirty thousand Ustashas” who had gathered on the Montenegrin border.
The truth was that fewer than seven hundred people defended the city. Among them, among the fallen defenders of Dubrovnik, in the memorial room in the old town, I also saw the name of one Montenegrin, Nikola Krivokapic, who is buried in the Orthodox cemetery in the city.
Many of our twenty thousand soldiers, reservists and police officers never even saw a Croatian fighter. Pavlovic’s film shows the full absurdity of propaganda: Emilo Labudovic, Perica Djakovic, and other anti-heroes of the siege of Dubrovnik; prisoners from Morinj and Bileca, who were beaten if they had been mobilised in the police or were HDZ members.
Looting, burning houses, and artillery fire on the Old Town have left traces on the walls and pavements of Dubrovnik to this day. Croatia paid a high price for its freedom. In Dubrovnik, much less so than in Vukovar and other parts of the country where the so-called Serbian Krajina was proclaimed.
What our authorities did in Croatia should be a shame for all Montenegrins—a shame we will hardly stop feeling whenever we cross Debeli Brijeg.
Nevertheless, we can improve relations with Croatia. DPS showed readiness, and the first steps were made twenty-five years ago. Today, in Dubrovnik’s Old Town, next to the Croatian tricolour, a Montenegrin flag also flies on the consulate building next to the Church of St. Blaise.
The provocations towards Croatia coming from Krapovic and others in the Government of Montenegro can only backfire on us. Relations are strained, and it would be good to return everything to the beginning.
That is all for today. Have a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(Columnists’ opinions and views are not necessarily those of the CdM editorial office)
