By deciding to compensate 16 families of victims of the deportation of refugees, the kidnapping of passengers from a train in Štrpci, and the NATO bombing of Murin and Tuzi, the state of Montenegro indirectly acknowledged that these crimes had occurred.
The director of the Action for Human Rights (HRA) assessed this for "Vijesti". Tea Gorjanc Prelevic, saying it was "a big deal, of historical significance."
"We remain committed to and insist on revealing the truth about the suffering of all victims and punishing those responsible who are still alive and who can be prosecuted," she said.
Last week, the government decided to compensate 100.000 families of the victims of the aforementioned tragic events with 16 euros each. The amount of 1,6 million euros will be divided over two years in order to reduce the fiscal burden. The compensation is linked to the status of civilian victims of war, who are recognized by amendments to the Law on Veterans and Disability Protection.
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"This measure represents a step towards confronting the past and has important symbolic and practical significance for restoring trust in state institutions...", the executive branch announced.
Money should not be compensation.
Gorjanc Prelević said that compensation is only one of several types of victims' rights to reparations, which also include the right to the truth about the crime, to punish those responsible, to a worthy monument at the crime scene...
"Of course, money is not and must not be compensation for the impunity of crimes, although it could have appeared that way in Montenegro, considering the practice so far in some unpunished cases of the most serious human rights violations. I am thinking of compensation for victims of the war crime of deportation, as well as victims of unpunished police torture," she stated.
The interviewee said that the state also has an obligation to provide guarantees against the repetition of crimes, which, according to her, means implementing measures such as lustration or vetting, reforms in the army, police, judiciary, and educating new generations of police and military employees that they must not accept orders to commit war crimes...
"In addition, it is crucial to educate the younger generation for life in a democratic, civil society, for knowledge and respect for differences between people, as well as human rights and mechanisms for their protection. It is crucial that we teach children in a timely manner to recognize intolerance and discrimination, which, if not stopped in time, turns into serious violations of rights, such as war crimes," stated Gorjanc Prelević.
In the case of deportations, in May 1992, according to official documentation, the Montenegrin police illegally arrested at least 66, and according to unofficial data, more than a hundred civilians who had fled the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina to Montenegro, and handed them over as hostages to the Bosnian Serb army to be used in the exchange of prisoners of war. At least 54 people were killed, while 12 survived severe forms of torture in the camps. The bodies of all the victims have not yet been found. To date, no one has been convicted for the deportations, and non-governmental organizations have been indicating for years that Montenegro has been avoiding the issue of command responsibility in this case.
The crime in Štrpci occurred at the end of February 1993, when members of the Army of Republika Srpska stopped a train traveling on the Belgrade-Bar line at that railway station in Bosnia and Herzegovina and took 20 passengers off it, robbed them and killed them simply because they were not of Serbian origin, and threw their bodies into the Drina River. Ten people have been convicted of the crime so far - one in Montenegro and nine in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the criminal proceedings conducted against Nebojša Ranisavljević in Montenegro, it was determined that the kidnapping was planned and carried out with the knowledge of the then high-ranking officials of the civil, police and military authorities of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
During the NATO bombing of the bridge in the settlement of Murino (Plav municipality) at the end of April 1999, six civilians were killed, three of whom were children, while one person was killed during the bombing in Tuzi.
Murić: A gesture of the state - a moral act
President of the Montenegrin Committee of Lawyers for the Protection of Human Rights Velija Murić, also told "Vijesti" that money cannot be compensation for not solving war crimes, but that, by the nature of things, "carries a moral note with it."
"This at least somewhat builds a relationship of satisfaction with the families of the victims," he said.
Murić stated that he believes that this is not just a formal gesture by the Government, but a "substantial relationship".
"In the case of the Murin victims, I have submitted three requests to the Government in the last five years, and I have not received any response to any of them. But now... the Government has assessed that it can do it, it has done it without any requests. The state's gesture is an absolutely moral act," he said.
Asked what else should be done, besides financial compensation, he replied that the financial situation of each family should be studied and help, for example, through employment of family members, "to make them feel that the state is thinking of them."
Tea Gorjanc Prelević said that Montenegro's recognition of the status of civilian victims to all civilians killed in the wars of the 1990s, who had Yugoslav citizenship, regardless of where they died, was a very important and just move.
"Of course, the right to social protection, to monthly financial benefits, is provided only for Montenegrin citizens, because other countries have taken care of their citizens in the same or similar way," she explained.
She stated that there remains an unfair difference in the rights of the families of the kidnapped passengers in Štrpci - while Serbia does not recognize the status of their citizens from that train, just because they died outside its territory, Montenegro has recognized not only the status, which now brings their families from Montenegro a monthly allowance, "but now also de facto retroactive payments for the period in which their status was not recognized."
"I hope that conditions will soon be created in Serbia for the victims of the abductions in Štrpci to be recognized there, and for their families to receive the social support they deserve. Montenegro has reason to be proud because it has shown itself to be a humane state that accepts international standards of reparations for victims of war crimes and other serious human rights violations," adds Gorjanc Prelević.
Compensate the victims of Bukovica and Kaluđerski Laz
Murić, who is the legal representative of the families of those killed in Kaluđerski laz and the injured families from Murin, said that there are several more cases that should be included in the government's decision. This, he said, also applies to the families of the victims of the crime in Bukovica, Pljevlja, who are citizens of Montenegro.
From 1992 to 1995, according to available data, six people were killed in Bukovica, two committed suicide due to torture, 11 were kidnapped, 70 were tortured, and around 270 were expelled... To date, no one has been convicted for these crimes in Montenegro, and the perpetrators or those who ordered them have not been identified.
Murić said that reparations should also be provided for the Kaluđerski laz case - "a war crime committed by members of the then Army of Serbia and Montenegro (SiM), for which the direct perpetrators have not yet been identified."
This crime occurred during the NATO bombing, in the territory of Kaluđerski laz (municipality of Rožaje) and surrounding villages, where there was no conflict. Members of the Yugoslav Army killed 22 and wounded seven civilians of Albanian nationality, who had crossed into Montenegro with the war-torn Kosovo. To this day, no one has been punished for these murders, it has not been established that a war crime was committed, and the victims and their families have not been compensated.
"Victims exist as silent witnesses, but the law has not done this in a quality manner in terms of reparation. It is true that it is limited only to families, that is, victims in Montenegro, but in this case it concerns victims and families who were citizens of Serbia and Montenegro at the time. This is a legal specific that should be taken into account...", said Murić. He also said that the Ibrahimaj family from Peć, who have been living in Rožaje for five years, is among those who should be awarded reparation, because at the time of the crime in Kaluđerski laz they had citizenship of Serbia and Montenegro.
Gorjanc Prelević says that HRA was surprised by the government's decision to recognize 16 families, and not a few others. According to her, this is a small number of people who will not impoverish the state, but on the contrary - "make it more just and morally stronger."
She said that they also advocate for the right to compensation for victims of war crimes, such as those in Kaluđerski laz, whose claims for compensation were not accepted by the courts because, due to unsuccessful prosecution, the event itself was not determined to be a war crime, nor was anyone's responsibility established.
Gorjanc Prelević: Expand the circle of families deserving of payments
Gorjanc Prelević said that - given that Montenegro, through amendments to the Law on Veterans and Disability Protection, has recognized the status of civilian victims of war to all passengers abducted from the train in Štrpci, victims of enforced disappearances in Kosovo, victims of NATO bombing, as well as all other forcibly disappeared and killed after August 17, 1990, and has provided their families with the right to social protection - she believes that there is no justification for distinguishing between victims in terms of payment of one-time benefits.
"For example, just as the child abducted in Štrpci acquired the right to compensation because the state ignored him for three decades, the same right must be given to the child killed in Bukovica or abducted in Kosovo who has Montenegrin citizenship, or had it until the age of 26, until which time the state was obliged to provide him with social protection, and it did not. That is why we reacted by demanding that the circle of families deserving one-time payments be expanded," she stated.
Murić: Do not single out the case of the Dacić boy from the Murić victims
Murić said that the case of the boy Dacić, who was killed by cluster bombs dropped by the Serbian-Montenegrin army, cannot be singled out from the Murić victims.
"That boy was killed in the same way as the Murin victims, only the culprits are different. There's NATO there, here are domestic planes," he explained.
On March 26, 1999, the boy was walking through the forest in his native village of Besnik near Rožaje when he was killed by a bomb explosion.
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