In the town of Zaostro near Berane, eighty years after columns of innocent people were expelled, killed, raped and burned in the name of nationalist ideology, a monument to Pavle Đurišić has been erected, a man whose name is listed among the most brutal criminals of World War II.
In a country where thousands of Bosniak civilians died precisely because of the ideology that Đurišić advocated, today - in 2025 - a life-size monument is being erected in his honor. Not as a work of art. Not as a historical distance. But as a symbol of ideological resurrection.
And to make matters even more absurd, the monument was erected in a place with which Pavle Đurišić has no biographical connection - he was neither born there, nor buried there, nor does he have any relatives. So why here? Because Zaostro has become a geographical symbol of a shameful nostalgia. A place where his name is no longer whispered, but carved into stone.
The suspect in the illegal erection of the monument, a certain VD, was deprived of his liberty, but the reaction of the institutions to the entire case reveals a much deeper problem - not only legal, but also moral.
The competent inspection, instead of immediately removing the monument as a clear consequence of the criminal act, issues an order - to remove the monument within three days at the latest.
Three days.
Three days in which citizens were allowed to gather around the statue of the criminal, as a sign of support.
The state gives crime three days of space. Three days to live, to celebrate, to be photographed, to become a viral symbol of a defeated but never finished idea. Three days to write the message: "This is still possible. Still legitimate."
And we? We remain silent? We leave the reaction to non-governmental organizations, citizens' associations, and the occasional honest voice? Aren't the state institutions the ones that are obligated to protect public order, the dignity of victims, and the constitutional order?
Because if a monument had been erected to the victims of Đurišić, I fear everything would have been removed on the same day. But when it is erected to him, the state apparatus becomes vaguely vague, inspection becomes ineffective, and justice postpones execution. Was the gathering waited for? So that the "patriotic" audience wouldn't be upset? So that someone wouldn't say that the monument fell before it was painted?
This is not a polemic about history. This is a question of conscience.
Because whoever erects a monument to a crime does not honor the past. He plans for the future.
The man who does this - like the suspect - may lead an ordinary life. He has Muslim neighbors, he knows people of character, he lives in a community. And that is precisely the most terrifying thing. That such people, without moral qualms, can take out a statue of a man whose hands are soaked in blood, and put it on a hill as a symbol of "justice."
This is not just nostalgia. This is a threat. A threat to a society that is still healing its wounds, that has received neither truth, nor justice, nor repentance.
In a society that does not know how to condemn a criminal, it will soon no longer even know how to recognize him.
Today, Đurišić is in stone. Tomorrow, if this process of moral blindness continues - he could be in a textbook. As a "duke", a "hero", a "liberator". And the victims? They will be just a footnote. If even that.
This is not the time for nuance. Nor for institutional calculations. This is the moment when it must be clearly stated: erecting a monument to a war criminal is an act of moral decline and a collapse of civilization.
And the state, if it wants to be a state for all its citizens, must react immediately, clearly and without compromise.
Because the monument that stands today in Zaostar, if it is not removed immediately, will become not only a symbol of a criminal - but also a mirror of a cowardly society.
The author is the executive director of the Montenegrin Committee of Lawyers for the Protection of Human Rights.
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