Yesterday, Montenegro did not receive a note of protest from Croatia, but a note of warning because of the proposal that the Assembly adopt the resolution on Jasenovac, which is a milder form, a government source told "Vijesta".
He explained that Croats are not protesting, but warning, because nothing has happened yet regarding the announced resolution on Jasenovac, that is, a conversation was held that had no outcome.
The leaders of the parliamentary majority met on Monday in the Assembly, but they did not have concrete conclusions about the resolution on Jasenovac. President of the Assembly Andrija Mandic told journalists after the meeting that he expects that many things will become clearer after the meeting of regional leaders today in Kotor, which will be attended by representatives of Brussels and Washington.
Croatian "Večernji list" announced yesterday that Croatia handed a note of protest to Montenegro due to Mandić's announcement that Serb political representatives will propose the adoption of the resolution on Jasenovac in the parliament, as a kind of reaction to the resolution on Srebrenica sent to the United Nations. The charge d'affaires of Montenegro was invited to the Croatian Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and was handed a note.
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"The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of Croatia condemns attempts to instrumentalize Croatia in any way for internal political purposes and points out its expectation that Montenegro and its institutions refrain from moves that could have a negative impact on the future of bilateral relations, as well as on the European path of Montenegro", it says, among other things, in the note.
With this, Croatia indirectly warned Montenegro that, as an EU member, it could block its further path, even obtaining the Report on Assessment of Fulfillment of Premature Benchmarks (IBAR) for Chapters 23 and 24 in June.
The Government did not answer the question of "Vijesti" whether they expect Croatia to block the negotiations between Montenegro and the EU, if the Parliament adopts the resolution on Jasenovac. The ruling majority parties - the Europe Now Movement (PES), the Democrats, the New Serbian Democracy, the Democratic People's Party and the Socialist People's Party - did not answer the questions either.
The "Vijesti" source from diplomatic circles does not believe that there will be a blockade because, as he says, Croatia, as a neighboring country, has a strong interest in Montenegro joining the EU. He believes that this is a distant threat to the neighbors, but that they should not "put a finger in their eye" and provoke such reactions.
"Montenegro as Serbian cloth"
Editor-in-chief of "Dubrovočki vjesnik" Jadran Kapor believes that the Montenegrin resolution on Jasenovac is as necessary as the resolution on Sobibor or Sachsenhausen, but Montenegro serves here as a Serbian rag trying to shift attention from Srebrenica to someone else's territory and another historical period.
"That rag, however, does not want to deal with its role in Srebrenica, and it extends its jurisdiction beyond its own borders and to only one country. For example, there is a monument in Vienna that lists all the concentration camps, including those about which I never learned anything - Bor, Belgrade, etc. Each name of the camp on that monument is placed in relation to the side of the world in which it was located. Maybe we need a resolution that our bloody hogwash will never happen again. But such a promise is not realistic," Kapor told "Vijesta".
He says that Croatia has never denied the crime and the existence of the Jasenovac concentration camp, reminding that Croatian state delegations go there every year, there is a monument, it is taught in school.
"Jasenovac was created at the time of a nationalist-Koljak system that never had the majority support of the people (it was not a totalitarian system because even such a system would have been built on certain principles, but this one was really Koljak)," he said.
He reminds that the Croatian partisan movement was not minor and that Dalmatians perished numerically in the absolute greatest number on Sutjeska (and Montenegrins in relative terms, in relation to the number of inhabitants and the number of forces present).
"It is clear that there are radicals who claim all kinds of nonsense. It is harmful to Croatia and is gladly used to associate Croatia with the NDH. "Croatia also bases its right to statehood on anti-fascism in the Constitution, and explicitly against the NDH," stated Kapor.
However, he believes that it is in Croatia's interest for Montenegro to join the EU and that Croatian officials are clear about where Montenegro would be today if it were not a member of NATO.
"That's why I don't believe that they will block, but that they will help Montenegro on the European path that it itself had to go through. There are no shortcuts, so it is absolutely certain that IBAR depends more on Montenegro than on Croatia", he said.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Croatia Gordan Grlić Radman he said yesterday that from a Montenegrin colleague Filip Ivanovic did not receive guarantees that the resolution on Jasenovac would not be adopted, which is why they decided to send a note of protest. He told journalists at the EUSAIR summit in Šibenik that the note was preceded by communication between him and Ivanovic, with whom, he said, he has a very good cooperation.
"I expressed my astonishment and concern over the fact that the declaration on Jasenovac is being discussed at all, which the Montenegrin parliament is supposed to adopt by the end of the week on the proposal of President Andrija Mandić. I asked myself what kind of historical and political context it is and the reason why Montenegro is doing it. I said that the adoption of such a resolution, which is strange to us and which we believe is being politicized and misused for internal political contests in Montenegro, will have a negative impact on Montenegro's European path, but of course also on our bilateral and open issues. Grlic Radman said.
He assessed that the resolution on Jasenovac was passed in the context of the UN Resolution on Srebrenica and probably wanted to "defocus Srebrenica, politicize Jasenovac and manipulate the victims".
Ivanović replied that he had told his Croatian colleague that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) could not influence the negotiations that were being conducted in the Parliament, and on the other hand, he assured him that no one in Montenegro was linking the crimes in Jasenovac with the collectivity of the Croatian people or with Croatia.
The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) assessed that Croatia's note was a consequence of the behavior of the ruling coalition, which, in order to protect the seats, allowed Mandić and Milan Knežević that they deliberately break the good neighborly relations of Montenegro and that they undermine the country's European path.
Kapor: The difference is between the attitude of Croatia towards "its" crimes, and that of Serbia and Montenegro
Jadran Kapor says that the difference between the Croatian attitude towards Jasenovac and the Serbian or Montenegrin attitude towards Srebrenica, Štrpci, Morinje or The fact that it is quite obvious.
"At the same time, I am not talking about the views of the citizens, but about the state's point of view. Remember that the Montenegrin Minister of Justice was expelled from the party (PES) because he characterized the attack on Dubrovnik as a crime and said that he would advocate for the punishment of the guilty. Montenegro is not New York - you you know the culprits by name".
He said that the father of the prime minister's chief of staff will get a street in Pljevlje because he was killed in Ravno "while his comrades were demolishing and burning houses there".
"He did not die in combat because only the elderly remained in the village, but he died while his comrades in Ravno were committing war crimes," stated Kapor.
If, as he says, he was against it, then let him present himself as such, and not that he was killed by a sniper's bullet because there was no opposing sniper at least 10 km from the air line.
"At the time of his death, the song 'Sva se sela, sva se sela a bit krivila/samo Straight, only Straight lies horizontally' was written. There is a difference in the attitude of the state towards crime," he said.
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