You are reading a daily contextual review of the news that marked the previous weekend.
By Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM observer
Potocari, the former base of the Dutch UN contingent, today the Memorial Center, marked the anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. At the invitation of the Sarajevo Canton, I was in Bosnia on Friday and I decided to be in Potocari on Saturday, the day before the big event, when the participants in the Peace March came. At the same time, there was a large Montenegrin delegation in Bosnia. This year, perhaps due to the events in Montenegro, the number of visitors to the complex in Potocari was higher than in the last few years.
The Montenegrin delegation was led by President Milo Djukanovic, who participated in the funeral of the found and identified victims. DPM Dritan Abazovic also stayed in Bosnia for a couple of days. He saw this event more as a political platform and a PR tour, so his whole trip was a bit tragicomic. He took pictures with passers-by, so we could get the impression that he walked freely around the city, but he was also photographed by Sarajevo residents, so it was obvious that he was not going anywhere without a big security ring. In Sarajevo, he spoke about Montenegrin nationalism, visited every level of government from local to state – followed by disgusting videos on Government channels. His PR team wanted to push him among the official speakers in Srebrenica, which in the end did not happen, so he held a press conference when he finally realized that he was undesirable. In the end, however, he had to give pompous statements to the gathered journalists in Potocari. Instead of him, Parliament Speaker Aleksa Becic spoke at the commemoration, whose remark that the criminals do not have a nationality also caused controversy.
Andrej Nikolaidis from Sarajevo has best explained why Dritan went to Bosnia in the wrong way in his new column On Kings and Chigoes.
Srebrenica in Montenegro
As every year, numerous delegations laid wreaths at the Pobrezje park in Podgorica, at the monument to the victims of the war in the former Yugoslavia. After the ceremony, many reacted violently to the speech of Ombudsman Bjekovic, who never used the word genocide in his speech. Aleksandar Sasa Zekovic, a member of the 21. Maj Civic Initiative Council, and Adnan Muhovic, a member of the Bosniak National Council, protested in a joint statement. Both the Islamic community and the Bosniak Party responded, seeking clarification.
Civic activists, whose slogan is Because We Love Montenegro, said yesterday that they raised a large flag in memory of the victims of Srebrenica on the main city square in Kotor, with the message that the Square of Weapons should become the Square of Memory and the Square of Empathy.
Budva’s Palma
Marko Bato Carevic, the mayor of Budva, does not stop entertaining the public. It looks more and more like Palma from Jagodina. He distributes municipal money to the poor, while earning millions for asphalting and construction. Budva is still being concreted and he is making a profit from it. For the weekend, he was walking around the city with trumpeters, so people thought that he had abolished city music and imported new music from Guca. He spoke scandalously on television about selling kilograms of drugs. It is a pity what this city has turned into. Nothing bad has changed for the better, only the city has lost its identity.
13 July awards
Parliament Speaker Aleksa Becic, in cooperation with the PM Zdravko Krivokapic, organized a ceremony on Saturday on the occasion of the Statehood Day – 13 July, where he presented the 13 July awards to the painter Tomo Pavićevic and the guitar duo consisting of Srdjan Bulatovic and Darko Nikcevic.
Discussion on anti-fascism
There are serious fascist tendencies in Montenegrin society and the potential for their development, but the real problem is that anti-fascism is performative today. This was stated at the panel organised by the 21. Maj Civic Initiative on Friday. Boban Batricevic, Andrej Nikolaidis and Janko Ljumovic spoke at the event, and the conversation was moderated by Ana Ivanovic.
That’s it for today. See you tomorrow at the same time and at the same place tomorrow.
