You are reading a daily contextual review of the news that marked the previous weekend.
By Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM observer
Despite the awareness of the risks involved in the enthronement of Serbian Metropolitan Joanikije II in Cetinje, the Montenegrin government continues to insist that it take place in Cetinje at any cost. In addition, on social media, the enthronement is accompanied by a kind of campaign of intimidation by well-known extremists close to the authorities. And all that with well-known Chetnik choreography. It is this campaign of extremists that says that this is not about any religious ritual, but about the conquest of Montenegro. Along with the online campaign, Cetinje and Lovcen are also visited by other figures of the Serbian World – Drasko Stanivukovic, who is taking a selfie on Jezerski peak announcing the renovation of the chapel on Lovcen, while Serbian Prince Filip Karadjordjevic is visiting the Serbian Metropolitan in Cetinje. Imagine the perfidy of the procedure that in such a heated situation, you bring Prince Karadjordjevic to Cetinje to further awaken the associations of 1918.
The spontaneous reaction of the protest on social networks slowly got an organizational form. Yesterday, people from all over Montenegro gathered in Cetinje, and a protest was announced for 22 August in order to give the authorities and the Church of Serbia another chance to change their decision. Organizers invited people from all over the country to gather near the Monument to Lovcen Fairy. The protest will send a message to move the enthronement of Joanikije, and if that does not happen, they said that a mass protest would be organized on an even larger scale than the one on Sunday, on the day of the enthronement itself. Banners of solidarity with Cetinje are displayed all over Montenegro, as in Niksic and Danilovgrad, where a banner was set on fire, and then placed again.
Although many public scene participants called for protests in Cetinje, the reaction of the former police director Veselin Veljovic, whose column was condemned by the Prime Minister, provoked the most reactions from the authorities. Milan Knezevic called on the Prime Minister to organize Veljovic’s arrest, and Minister Sekulovic spoke out as well. Sekulovic was somewhat forgotten, and has so far served only as an apologist for those who drive drunk or trample people on barricades. I read Veljovic’s column, and I honestly didn’t see anything controversial in it. The excessive reaction of the authorities is probably the desire to identify the entire protests with Veljovic and the DPS, and in that way you are preventing some people from coming. However, everyone understands that the protest reaction of people is much bigger than any individual and any organization, and that is perhaps what worries them the most.
Acting Supreme State Prosecutor Drazen Buric asked the head of the High State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica to reconsider whether there are elements of a criminal offense in the position of the advisor to the President of Montenegro, Veselin Veljovic. This hysterical reaction to Veljovic’s column is very interesting, while ignoring the months-long campaign of fear and calling for a civil war and the formation of paramilitary formations by the highest-ranking politicians in power is underway.
“Kill, slaughter…”
There is an unprecedented amount of primitivism and hatred in Montenegro during this season. Chetnik songs in Berane, nationalist rallies and gatherings, sponsored by local authorities, produce an atmosphere where some feel it is perfectly normal to call for the killing of Albanians, for example, as they did the other night allegedly in Tivat. 21.Maj Civic Initiative immediately forwarded the recording of the rage to the Prosecutor’s Office and the police and called for an investigation into whether the incident really happened in Tivat, and if so, to act in accordance with the law. The mayor of Tivat reacted immediately, not condemning the incident, but accusing the opposition of what was happening. The mayor had to know that the organization of nationalist orgies in the city would not teach the youth anything smart.
Census torments
After the DF’s pressure on the census, and after the initial reactions from the government that it would not be organized, the first reaction to the DF’s position followed, and it came from the DF’s most reliable ally – Dritan Abazovic, who said he didn’t mind if it could be technically organized. This DF-Dritan connection, which everyone began to notice, may have inspired historian Rakovic, Joanikije’s favorite, to propose an ethnic demarcation between Serbs and Albanians in Montenegro, by ceding part of Plav and Rozaje, Gusinje and Malesija to Albania.
That’s it for today. We wish you a pleasant rest of the day.
