Around 30 citizens gathered today on the main road, a few hundred meters from the place where the Morinje camp once stood.
They said they would gather again on October 10th and demand that the authorities remove the "fake" and "malicious" plaque. They said that if the state does not remove the plaque, they will do so.
Video: Predrag Tomović
They also stated that the plaque was placed illegally and that it "falsely" describes events from the period of the Morinje camp.
The gathered citizens did not want to say who organized the protest.
The St. Michael's Choir previously told "Vijesti" that they would not organize a rally in Morinje today due to the arrival of Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman at the site of the former concentration camp.
The non-governmental organization (NGO) also said that they have information that a gathering will be organized in Morinje today. However, no gathering in that settlement has been reported to the police for today.
The president of the St. Michael's Choir, Zdravko Nišavić, told "Vijesti" the day before yesterday that they had reported the gathering in Morinje to the police on October 10th.
"Vijesti" announced on Tuesday that Grlić Radman will be in Montenegro at the end of the week and will lay a wreath and light a candle in front of the memorial plaque at the site of the former camp in Morinje, for which, according to the editorial office's information, permission has been obtained from the Montenegrin Ministry of Defense.
The plaque in Morinje was unveiled in early October 2022 by the then Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense, Ranko Krivokapić and Raško Konjević, with Grlić Radman and Tomo Medved (Minister of Croatian Veterans), in memory of the fact that in the early 1990s, a so-called Collection Center for prisoners of war from the Dubrovnik battlefield operated in Morinje for several months.
There, 292 people from the Dubrovnik region were imprisoned in inhumane conditions (the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Montenegro and Croatia were coordinating the lists of detainees because their documentation on this matter did not match). 169 prisoners testified about the inhumane treatment they were subjected to. Four people were sentenced to 12 years in prison for this war crime in court.
The plaque was placed outside the procedure stipulated by the Law on Memorials, i.e. without a decision of the Government and the consent of the Municipality of Kotor. Therefore, in mid-October 2022, the former Administration for Inspection Affairs issued a Decision on the removal of the plaque and obliged the Municipality of Kotor to implement it. However, the removal was repeatedly prevented by members of the Army of Montenegro.
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The plaque, according to a part of the Montenegrin public, does not properly treat the historical circumstances when Montenegro was a participant in the aggression against Croatia in the area of Konavle and Dubrovnik. In January last year, Defense Minister Dragan Krapović (Democrats) said that the plaque should be replaced with another one, “with adequate text”. It mentions the “Greater Serbian aggression against Croatia” and reads: “We remember the crimes committed to disgrace the name and spirit of Montenegro. We express regret for all the suffering that the prisoners endured. May it never happen again”.
Montenegro and Croatia began bilateral consultations at the end of January with the aim of overcoming disputes that prevented Zagreb from closing Chapter 31 (foreign, security and defense policy) in negotiations with the EU.
As “Vijesti” recently wrote, an agreement is close and should include the payment of compensation to Croatian citizens who were detained in the former Morinje camp and the non-removal of the memorial plaque at the site, as well as changing the name of the city swimming pool in Kotor. In August 2021, the Kotor parliament decided to name it after Zoran Džimi Gopčević, who they said was one of the best water polo players from the region. Zagreb condemned this, claiming that Gopčević was a guard at the Morinje camp.
Part of the agreement should also be that the ship "Jadran", which Zagreb claims, should not be discussed in either Montenegro or Croatia, until the issue is resolved by agreement between the two countries or by international arbitration.
In addition to the "Adriatic Sea", the topic of the maritime border between the neighbors will remain open, while the case of the Split "Lora" camp, in which 14 members of the former Yugoslav People's Army from the so-called Nikšić-Šavnik group were killed, will not, claims a "Vijesti" source, be included in this partial agreement.
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