The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) submitted an author's text by its member, historian Dragutin Papović.
We transmit the text in its entirety:
"The glorification of Nazi-fascist servants and Chetnik war criminals Draža Mihailović and Pavle Đurišić, carried out by the Serbian Orthodox Church Metropolitans Joanikija Mićović in Lijevče Polje and Metodije Ostojić in the Podmalinsko Monastery, reached its peak in the speech of Andrija Mandić in Kamniška Bistrica, Slovenia. Mandić says that a crime was committed against captured Chetniks there and that "to kill someone who is helpless, who has surrendered...to kill him without a trial and the right to defense - is the killing of justice, humanity, kindness and humanity." The following is a fundamental question for all Chetnik followers. Given that the partisans then in Bleiburg in the same way, without a trial, liquidated, according to the estimate of demographer Vladimir Žerjavić, between 35 and 45 thousand captured Ustashi and Home Guard, does this mean that the partisans-communists also committed a crime against the Ustasha Nazi-fascists? While they are thinking of an answer, it is worth reminding them that British troops in Austria are also responsible for these liquidations. Some of the Ustashi, Home Guard, Serbian and Montenegrin Chetniks, Slovenian White Guards and other Nazi-fascist criminals crossed the border and surrendered to the 5th British Corps in Austria. However, the British disarmed them and returned them to their allies, the Yugoslav anti-fascists – the partisans, who were then, in fact, members of the Yugoslav Army – the regular army of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, a state created by the Tito-Šubašić agreement. Does this mean that these British forces participated in the crime? Can Britain’s contribution to the victory over Nazi-fascism be disputed on this basis? Nazi collaborators in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway experienced the same thing. The Red Army’s brutal reprisals against hundreds of thousands of captured German Nazi soldiers is a special story. Is this a crime and can the decisive contribution of the Soviet Union to the victory over Nazism be disputed on this basis?
It is also undeniable that innocent civilians suffered during the war from all members of the anti-fascist coalition, including the partisans. They deserve a dignified treatment, but everyone knows that the point here is not in the memory of innocent victims, but in the rehabilitation of criminal politics. It has long been clear that the violent revision of these events is an attempt to rehabilitate Nazi-fascist collaborators. In this story, the most important thing is to notice the difference between the means and the end. The violence against history and the rehabilitation of the Chetnik movement carried out by the Church of Serbia and its party wing, the New Serbian Democracy (NSD), with the connivance of the rest of the parliamentary majority, is a means. The goal is to officially annul the achievements of anti-fascism in Montenegro, 80 years after the end of World War II, and to organize the current Montenegro according to Chetnik ideology.
This procedure has been known since 1990, when the clerical Chetnik forces carried out a similar violent revision of the history of World War II, thus ideologically preparing the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. This ended with mass graves, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Srebrenica. The goal of this Chetnik methodology in today's Montenegro is to present Montenegrin partisans and communists as criminals from World War II by discovering and visiting Chetnik graves from World War II, from Vezirovo to Zidani Most. In doing so, it is ignored that the Chetniks mainly suffered because they fought on the side of the Nazi-fascist occupiers and committed numerous crimes, and that the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia (the Partisans) was part of the anti-fascist coalition, which was officially recognized at the Allied conference in Tehran in 1943. According to this revisionist plan, World War II is falsely presented as exclusively fratricide, in which the Partisans were fratricides and the Chetniks were victims. In the next step, the Chetnik revisionists carry out a complete condemnation of communism and anti-fascism, as well as everything that the People's Liberation Movement (NOP) has achieved. It is known that on the basis of the political platform of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) and the NOP and on the basis of the anti-fascist struggle, Montenegro restored its statehood, and the Montenegrin nation gained equality in socialist Yugoslavia. Therefore, it is unequivocal that the goal of the Church of Serbia and the followers of the Chetnik ideology is to nullify historical truth and anti-fascism through the condemnation of communists and partisans, and at the same time to deny Montenegrin statehood and nationality. If this revision of the history of World War II were to pass, it would mean the rejection of all political decisions of the KPJ and the NOP on the basis of which the Montenegrin state was restored in the period 1941–1945, and thus would actually delegitimize the current state of Montenegro. That is why the Serbian Orthodox Church has been emphasizing since 1990 that it does not recognize Avnojev's borders or artificial nations, and by that it also means Montenegro and Montenegrins. The Church of Serbia considers all territories where there are Serbian graves, churches and monasteries to be Serbian land.
If they were to succeed in nullifying Montenegrin statehood, independence and nationality, the next step for the Chetniks would be to confront other nations and religions. It should always be kept in mind that the basis of the Chetnik program is the creation of a homogeneous Greater Serbia in which there will be no other religions and nations. If this policy prevails, and it has already gained a strong foothold in the Parliament and Government thanks to the political power of the NSD, then the multinational and multi-religious Montenegro is in great danger. It is certain that the Chetniks in power are leading to an explosion of national-chauvinism. Now the only thing preventing them from doing so is NATO and the EU, but every international order changes at some point.
From the past five years it is clear that the Serbian Orthodox Church is not satisfied with either majority or dominant political influence. It, in accordance with its internal despotic hierarchy, strives for absolute and uncontrolled power in which there is no place for others or anything else. The Serbian Orthodox Church is fighting for the creation of a unique and unitary Serbia in which there will be only the Serbian nation, Orthodoxy in the Serbian way – St. Saul, and a symphony will reign between secular and spiritual power.
Montenegro needs a legal and institutional response to this threat. Any form of promotion of Chetnik ideology should be punished, because its goal is the destruction of Montenegrin statehood and identity, and then the persecution of other nations and religions. Therefore, the principle of inclusion cannot be applied to Chetnik ideology. An ideology whose goal is the destruction of the state of Montenegro and the persecution of other religions and nations cannot have the status of an acceptable democratic difference. Without legal sanctioning of this ideology, Montenegro is in constant danger of disappearance and of interethnic and interreligious conflict. The state of Montenegro and its civil peace are realistically most threatened today by the representatives of Chetnik ideology who act as the fifth column of the regime of Aleksandar Vučić and Vladimir Putin. Therefore, legal and institutional action should be directed at the core of the problem. It is clear that opponents will immediately launch deafening propaganda that this is directed against Serbs, but this is not true. Ultimately, this ideology is also directed against Serbs in Montenegro, because it brings misfortune to them as well. "The defeat and legal punishment of the Chetnik ideology is a condition for the survival of the state of Montenegro and its civil and anti-fascist society in which every citizen, regardless of national and religious affiliation, has the same rights and obligations," Papović writes in his text.
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