The co-president of the Igman Initiative for Montenegro, Branko Lukovac, assessed that, despite the strides and significant results in relations with its neighbors and integration, Montenegro has not yet faced the part of the past in which it willingly or unwillingly was part of wars and crimes.
"That is why today the political elites who led it in that period, and who mostly still exercise power today, are expected to clearly and openly admit to their citizens, even with a delay of two decades, that they led a wrong policy that caused enormous damage to the Black Gori and its relations with its closest neighbors, as well as that they are ready to take responsibility for the consequences of such a policy.
Without that, they cannot have the necessary grounding, credibility and objectivity, and realistically their great merits for the restoration of Montenegro's independence and the acceleration of its European path", said Lukovac at the Round Table. "Relations in our region - from reconciliation to reintegration - how to proceed ?", which was organized today in Podgorica by the Council for International Relations and the Igman Initiative for Montenegro.
Everyone has to face crimes at some point
He assessed that the readiness to conduct investigations and organize trials for the deportation of Muslims - Bosniaks, the Morinj and Bukovica camps, will lead to justice if the investigations and trials include all those who held the levers of power at that time. In that period, the president of Montenegro was Momir Bulatović, and the prime minister was Milo Đukanović.
"Otherwise, those trials will not achieve their goal, which is an objective, true and complete confrontation with crimes, with truth and justice, and they will have to be opened at some point," said Lukovac.
Leadership is not chest beating
With the satisfaction that Belgrade received positive evaluations from Brussels for regional cooperation last year, the co-president of the Igman Initiative for Serbia, Aleksandar Popov, said that we should get rid of the phrase that this country is the leader in the region, as is often said by part of the political elite there.
He gives her the impression that part of the Serbian political elite has never accepted the independence of Montenegro, so Serbia is overwhelmed by a feeling of paternalism towards its neighbor, to which Podgorica's reactions are "justified".
While reminding that the part in the Strategy on Serbia's relations with the diaspora and the Serbs in the region, which calls for the constitutionality of the Serbian people in Montenegro, was deleted, Popov said that "that position should not have been included in the Strategy at all, if we are a serious country.
Popov added that Serbia's mistake was the politicization of the population census in Montenegro.
"We need to get rid of it if we want normal relations in the region. Because leadership in the region is proven not by beating your chest, but by contributing to regional stability,'' said Popov.
The participants of the round table said that the states of the region must face the past and work on reconciliation.
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