The shelling of Dubrovnik on December 6, 1991, the blackest Friday in the city's history, greatly contributed to Croatia's international recognition.
This was assessed for "Vijesti" by a recognized journalist from Dubrovnik in retirement, Luko Brailo, saying that on that day the former JNA fired, "politically speaking, the most expensive shells".
"Then the European community jumped to its feet, and already on January 15, 1992, Croatia was an internationally recognized country. So we in Dubrovnik think that that war and everything that happened with Dubrovnik, as the most famous city of Yugoslavia at the time, greatly helped Croatia to be internationally recognized", with these words Brailo describes how in Croatia, 33 years later, they look at the attack on Dubrovnik , which began on October 1, 1991, by members of the JNA and Montenegrin reservists from the territory of Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and which resulted in a large number of victims and material destruction.
"Dubrovnik and the Dubrovnik area are small, but the fact is that during the war and all that was happening here, the then European community in Vukovar understood that a war of bloody proportions was being waged, and in the case of Dubrovnik, they realized the nature of that aggression," Brailo said. .
A few days ago, the people of Dubrovnik celebrated December 6 - the Day of Dubrovnik Veterans, a day that is considered the blackest Friday in the history of the city, when it was attacked in the early hours of the morning, from land and sea. On that day, 19 people lost their lives, and 60 were injured and wounded. Several hundred shells were fired at the old city center, which is protected as a UNESCO world cultural heritage. Six buildings were completely destroyed, several of them damaged, as well as the main street Stradun. The old town was exposed to an artillery attack for more than ten and a half hours. They died within its walls Pavo Urban (23) and Tonći Skočko (18), while three people were seriously wounded...
During the six months of the conquest of the wider Dubrovnik area, according to the data of the Croatian Center for Coping with the Past - Documenta, 116 civilians were killed, 194 Croatian fighters and 165 members of the JNA from Montenegro were killed, while 443 people were imprisoned in the "Morinj" and "Bileća" camps. in inhuman conditions.
33.000 people were exiled, 2.071 residential buildings were destroyed and private and public property was systematically looted.
The city of Dubrovnik was without electricity and water for 138 days, in a naval and air blockade.
During that time in Montenegro, a part of intellectuals, journalists and public figures, gathered mainly around the Liberal Alliance Slavko Perović and the Social Democratic Party, demanded an end to the war and accused the regime of aggression Slobodan Milosevic and the then Montenegrin government.
Only the JNA general at the time was convicted of war crimes committed during the attack on Dubrovnik Pavle Strugar and his subordinate commander Miodrag Jokić, and before the Hague Tribunal. To date, no criminal proceedings have been initiated in Montenegro.
Milo Djukanovic who was the prime minister of Montenegro during the war in 1991, in his capacity as president in 2000 in Cavtat expressed his regret for the events in Dubrovnik. The then Croatian president Stipe Mesic and Đukanović then agreed that individual responsibility for war crimes should be determined.
However, the questions of who from Montenegro committed war crimes and who issued orders remained unanswered. The official explanation of the Montenegrin authorities is that they had no authority during the attack on Dubrovnik, and that everything was coordinated and ordered from the political and military leadership in Belgrade...
Embarrassing episode
Human rights activist and former employee of the Center for Coping with the Past - Documenta, Eugen Jakovcic, said that December 6 was the most difficult day - the day when Dubrovnik faced enormous aggression, heavy shelling, the suffering of a large number of civilians and cultural heritage, which was the target of all wars in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.
"The people of Dubrovnik then felt quite lonely, isolated, left at the mercy of themselves and those who kept them in the environment. It's a shameful episode," Jakovčić said.
He pointed out that there are a large number of organizations in Montenegro that have been insisting on dealing with the past for decades, and that a lot still needs to be done, although "a good part of dealing with Montenegro has been done".
"We also have a current play that deals with the attack on Dubrovnik, so there is a solid core of Montenegrin society that resists being forgotten, but not in the sense of returning to the past, but rather of making young people aware of the facts and the flow of cooperation between "We made Dubrovnik and Montenegro and Croatia much more normal, because without this confrontation there is no future," said Jakovčić.
Montenegrin theater play "Death in Dubrovnik" directed by Petar Pejaković, which is based on personal and archival materials and is the result of a three-year research process, premiered this summer in Podgorica, and later in Kolasin, Kotor, and a few days ago again in the capital.
Answering the question of how much young people from Dubrovnik are interested in details from the war past, Brailo is optimistic:
"Yesterday, together with a colleague and a good friend, who was a volunteer veteran, I had a great opportunity to talk to some 50, 60 young people and tell them what it was like in 1991. What makes me especially happy is that not a fly was heard for 45 minutes and that at the end they saw us off with applause, which means that they are interested", said Brailo.
He assessed that care must be taken in how to approach this issue to the young generations:
"I think that they should be talked to and that they should be included in all these things - that they should help us old people to bring it closer to them in their own way, that it should be okay for them," said Brailo.
Jakovčić: Dubrovnik managed to get away
Answering the question of how Croatia views the attack on Dubrovnik 33 years later, Jakovčić said that Croatia has two myths, the myth of the victim - Vukovar and the myth of victory - the "Storm" action.
"They are deeply determined in our society. All the departures from those narratives are still problematic, even though 30 years have passed", said Jakovčić.
He pointed out that "Dubrovnik managed to get away with it, because tourism is there and in a way it managed not to become a graveyard like Vukovar":
"In that sense, there is an awareness of the war, but with the passage of time, which is normal, people accept it much more rationally and from my perspective, as someone who is not from Dubrovnik, they are much more open".
Dealing with the past is not going well in Croatia
Jakovčić assessed that, unfortunately, Croatia is not doing well in the process of dealing with the past, "with those crimes that were committed in our name".
"That process is very difficult. However, there are organizations that oppose it, and it is also a process that we knew would not be progressive, that it would have its ups and downs. At this moment, we are actually in a position of decline, when it is very difficult to talk about the crimes committed by the Croatian army. In particular, the biggest problem is the 'Storm'", pointed out Jakovčić.
He said that it is important for Croatia to understand that it is possible to talk about "our crimes" without degrading the resistance and all that civilians have gone through.
"In this sense, the organizations in which I work or have worked - both Documenta and today the Serbian National Council, actually work to ensure that the sufferings of all people are recognized, regardless of whether, when we are talking about Croatia, they were Serbs or Croats", he assessed is Jakovčić.
The EU is wandering without an elaborate strategy on war crimes
Commenting on the fact that the topics of war crimes are not at the top of the agenda of the European Commission, Luko Brailo says that the European Union has so many problems and wanders so much in certain moments, in the organization and seeking its own priorities, that for the great suffering that people went through in the former Yugoslav territories, or what is happening in Gaza, the Middle East and Ukraine, they simply do not have time.
"Neither do they have an elaborate strategy on how to perform. That's not good. This will certainly happen not only with the appearance, but with the takeover of power by strictly right-wing parties, one day it may turn into I don't know what. I would not want my children and my grandchildren to have a difficult future," said Brailo.
The European Commission stated in its latest report for Montenegro that the results in the prosecution of war crimes are limited.
It was stated that there were no new indictments during 2022 and 2023, and that the Special Prosecutor's Office "processed" 12 cases, nine of which are in the investigation phase, and one trial is ongoing.
Prosecution of war crimes is part of the EU accession agenda of all Western Balkan countries.
Eugen Jakovčić believes that it is very problematic that the European Commission does not currently support organizations dealing with dealing with the past.
"Our lagging behind in dealing with the past and the prosecution of war crimes stops with Croatia's entry into the EU, we have seen this somewhere from civil society and warned. However, it did not pass, so from the Croatian perspective, the incentive to our colleagues in Montenegro to use this period before Montenegro's entry into the EU, to put pressure on the institutions to prosecute war crimes, because everything that will happen after the entry, eat very unmotivated", assessed Jakovčić.
Mass tourism has eaten away the spirit of the city
Speaking about today's Dubrovnik, compared to 30 years ago, Luko Brailo believes that the spirit of the city has been lost.
"This mass tourism has eaten it up... Dubrovnik lives like a pressure cooker for ten months a year. Five million souls pass through Stradun every year. In such a small area, it simply 'eats' people, and we locals get a discount in the city's restaurants, because we simply cannot stand those prices. So life today is completely different than it used to be. It's so different... Those times, the end of the eighties, and now - it's simply indescribable," said Brailo.
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