Montenegro is not rehabilitating the Goloto prisoners for fear that it will reveal unpleasant truths about former party clashes in the country and the officials responsible for them, and for fear that this legal process would represent the rehabilitation of the radical ideology of some of these former prisoners.
This was told to "Vijesti" by Nikola Zečević, a historian and senior researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Montenegro (UCG), commenting on the fact that the state is not passing an act on the rehabilitation and compensation of people who were imprisoned on Goli Otok, even though there were by far the most people in that camp compared to the population of the ex-Yugoslav republics.
The latest call to do so was made on Wednesday by the head of state, Jakov Milatović, who submitted an initiative to parliament to adopt a law on the matter. However, nothing will come of the rehabilitation of the Goloto residents - at least not anytime soon, because Milatović's proposal does not have the support needed to be voted on. Despite the "green light" from part of the parliamentary majority, the initiative is not supported by the strongest ruling party - the Europe Now Movement (PES), nor by the majority of the opposition, and without one of them - there will be no adoption of the law.
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This raises the question: why do Montenegrin authorities, unlike most others in the former Yugoslavia, not care about the victims from Goli Otok?
Zečević: Ideological conflict left deep divisions
Zečević said that the reasons for this are multiple and primarily relate to the long-standing lack of political consensus and political will. He assessed that within the previous ruling structure, led by the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), it was not possible to reach an agreement on the legal rehabilitation of the Goloto residents because, he said, raising the issue would require a critical review and accountability of the former communist officials responsible for the "party showdowns", some of whom, he added, or their families, are still active in public life.
"The Bare Island is a taboo subject for a part of the public, because it opens up a whole series of unpleasant truths about the intensity of 'party conflicts' in Montenegro. Such issues are often refracted through the lens of 'treason' and 'loyalty', and thus, even today, an aura of political sensitivity is created around this issue," Zečević noted.
On the other hand, he states that this ideological conflict left deep divisions in Montenegro and created fears that, by passing a clear and comprehensive law on rehabilitation, the then ideological positions of some prisoners would be "rehabilitated" in some way, with which, he says, the contemporary state narrative does not want to identify.
The interlocutor said that he assumed that the aim was to avoid the risk of equating, at least in political interpretations, the human injustice towards the persecuted with the rehabilitation of their Stalinist or pro-Soviet orientation. However, he stressed that he was convinced that equating the rehabilitation of innocent victims with the rehabilitation of the ideology attributed to them was deeply wrong, and that it would be important to include an explicit condemnation of Stalinist ideology and a clear distancing from its legacy within the framework of a possible legal solution.
"If the Montenegrin political community wants to confirm its democratic capacity, it is obliged to clearly acknowledge and recognize the injustice inflicted on former prisoners and their families - including inhumane treatment and the absence of a fair trial - regardless of their ideological preferences at the time. This does not rehabilitate a radical ideology, such as Stalinism, but rather confirms the basic principles of justice and human dignity," Zečević said.
Gorjanc Prelević: It's hard to watch PES' move
Milatović's initiative was publicly supported only by the ruling Democrats and the Socialist People's Party, while their other colleagues from the parliamentary majority - with the exception of PES - did not make any statements, although some of these parties unofficially told "Vijesti" that they did not see why they should not raise their hands in favor of the proposal.
PES, the former party of the President of Montenegro, claims that his idea is humane, but that "in the current political context" it could cause "further divisions and polarization", as well as "the parallel opening of other painful and traumatic topics from the past".
"That is why PES insists on bringing together political entities and society around the fulfillment of Montenegro's strategic goals, as defined in the 'Barometer 26' document," said PES MP Miodrag Laković, adding that resolving this and similar issues should be left after fulfilling the "state priorities" for which citizens "gave them a mandate."
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On the other hand, the opposition - both officially and unofficially - told "Vijesti" that they see the head of state's idea as an attempt to politically rehabilitate himself and that they are not interested in commenting on his initiatives.
The Executive Director of the Human Rights Action (HRA), Tea Gorjanc Prelević, told the newspaper that the non-governmental organization will send an initiative to Prime Minister Milojko Spajić (PES) with additional arguments to rehabilitate the people of Goloto, in the hope, she said, that he will consider it more carefully and use the opportunity to do a "good deed", unlike his predecessors in office.
"Progress is in facing difficult truths, not in running away from them," she stated.
Gorjanc Prelević said that there is always time for a "good deed", especially, she notes, if it is two decades late, if it is known that time is running out and that the last living Goloto residents will soon be gone. From their perspective, she says, this is the last moment to pass this law, so, according to her, it is difficult to see how PES is "so ready to say rejection to their face".
"Regardless of the complex historical circumstances at the time, as well as the possible existence of any real will or action on the part of some to act against the declared state interest, the victims of the captivity on Goli Otok should not have experienced the torture they experienced and should not have been sent to prison without any trial and the right to a defense. Recognizing the individual unjustified suffering of each prisoner and his family is an important practical lesson against repeating something like this in the future," she says, reminding that, in this sense, a contemporary, well-known example is Guantanamo.
"Therefore, we are far from ruling out such phenomena," the interviewee concludes.
More than three thousand prisoners from Montenegro
The initiative of the head of state refers to those who, without a (fair) trial and valid evidence, whether by administrative decisions or not, were imprisoned and subjected to inhumane conditions and torture (physical and psychological) on Goli Otok, Sveti Grgur and other prisons, due to alleged or presumed support for the Informburo Resolution of 1948.
The Informburo was the successor to the Comintern (Communist International), an organization of communist parties, and its resolution criticized the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, led by Josip Broz Tito, for, among other things, deviation from Marxist-Leninist policies.
This resulted in a break in relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, after which the Yugoslav authorities began a crackdown on those they considered to be supporters of Soviet leader Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, while the Red Army rattled weapons on the borders of what was then Yugoslavia.
A system of prisons was created for these people, the so-called informers, the largest of which was the one on Goli Otok, an island near Rab, in Croatia.
According to data from the former Federal Secretariat of Internal Affairs of the SFRY, there were 1949 prisoners on Goli Otok and other prisons in that system between 1956 and 16.101, of which 3.390 were from Montenegro (or 21 percent of the total number). Only a few of them are alive today...
It is estimated that at least 300 people died on Goli Otok.
Milatović proposed that the Draft Law on the Annulment of Judgments, Decisions, Acts and Actions of State Bodies of the Republic of Montenegro and the FNRY pronounced against persons suspected of supporting the Informbiro Resolution of 1948, which was prepared in 2006 by the Citizens' Association "Goli otok", be used as the basis for drafting the law.
The document states that the right to compensation for damages belongs to the spouse, and if there is no spouse, the children of the deceased, murdered or missing person.
The only official act adopted in Montenegro so far that deals with the issue of compensation for political prisoners is the Declaration on the Condemnation of Violations of Human Rights and Abuse of Power, adopted by the Parliament of the Republic of Montenegro in January 1992. This document condemned “gross violations of human rights and freedoms, arrests and abuse of innocent people, terror against convicts on Goli Otok and other notorious camps and prisons, which, as its tragic consequence, had a number of innocent victims, long-term labeling and undeserved persecution of a large number of people”, and the state had pledged to provide all of them with “moral and legal satisfaction”.
The compensation could be high and the legal requirements broad
Nikola Zečević also assessed that one of the reasons why the Goloto residents are not being rehabilitated could be that the law on this would also include certain material compensation for the surviving victims or their families, and that, since the number of detainees from Montenegro was proportionately huge, the costs of compensation could be high, and the legal range of claims (pension rights, additional restitution, non-pecuniary damage) could be very wide.
The 2006 draft law proposed a compensation amount of 10.000 euros.
Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia have passed laws enabling former political prisoners to be rehabilitated and compensated for damages to them and their families.
In 2003, Slovenia offered the Goli Otok residents 6.300 euros for each year spent on Goli Otok, and Croatia and Serbia around seven euros per day spent in the camp.
Bajagić: Milatović's proposal at the right time, traumas not healed
Radmila Bajagić, daughter-in-law of Golotočnik resident Mihailo Bajagić, told "Vijesti" that too much time has passed for the initiative to rehabilitate camp inmates to be postponed, and that it should be accepted "as a very significant step in the democratization of society, correcting historical injustice and promoting key aspects of social cohesion."
She stated that Milatović's proposal comes at the right time and is based on "the general social interest because it also contributes to fulfilling the obligations from the integration pre-accession process of our country, based on the democratic standards of the European Union member states."
Bajagić said that it is true that in 2001 the government "hurriedly prepared to 'break' with the legacy of the former regime", based on the Decree on the Opening of Secret Files of the State Security Service, and not, she says, based on the law, "as was the obligation, because it was a gross violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms of the UDBE of the SFRY".
She stated that access to the files was limited in time - for a period of one year, and that this opening was supposed to be the beginning of the process of "reform" of the security service "for what later followed, through its transformation into the National Security Agency..." She added that the greatest interest in gaining access to the secret files was expressed by informers or their family members.
"Precisely those whose families carry traumas that are transmitted transgenerationally and cannot be healed. The aforementioned ad hoc reforms confirm the inconsistency in dealing with the past and support the justification of President Milatović's initiative that this complex area must be regulated only by law," she underlines.
The interviewee said that it is necessary to choose an approach with modalities and instruments appropriate to Montenegrin culture and specific circumstances, in order to legally provide legal and moral rehabilitation for those who have been unjustly and without trial imprisoned and tortured for their political beliefs, as well as to define adequate compensation for them and their families, who suffered injustice while their children were deprived of the opportunity to advance.
A legal solution, according to her, could include: recognition of the suffering of the victims, their moral rehabilitation, financial compensation, preservation of memory, and raising awareness.
"This legal solution could play a key role in strengthening social cohesion, justice and equality in society, and contribute to building a better future," Bajagić concluded.
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