Koprivica: Don't forget who attacked Dubrovnik, those people had a pentagram on their heads

Leaving the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) was necessary because it was the worst country after World War II, but independent Montenegro is not what its citizens imagined it to be.

This was stated by participants in the digital conference "20 Years of Independence: From May to May" of the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT).

The coordinator of the Civic Initiative 21.maj, Rade Bojović, assessed that the goals, when it comes to foreign policy, have been partially met, but on the domestic front they have not.

"The sovereignist authorities that ruled until 2020, in my opinion, wasted much of what they should have done and to a significant extent betrayed the referendum messages that were created at that time through the Movement for a European Independent Montenegro," said Bojović.

He added that it is positive that before the referendum it was shown that party narrowness and a difficult political legacy can be overcome.

"I would feel much better if 90 percent of citizens voted for independence, as was the case in some other Yugoslav republics, but unfortunately that is not the case," Bojović said.

CDT Executive Director Dragan Koprivica assessed that there was no serious alternative in the referendum and that the FRY was the worst state after World War II.

"After the 1992 referendum, a state was created that was the worst in Europe after World War II," said Koprivica.

He said that the summary of that state is that it is a generator of wars, not the only one responsible, but they started from that state.

"I never felt it was my own. The highest inflation, the robbery of our own citizens, murders, wars, all the worst things imaginable," added Koprivica.

As he said, there is a lot of Yugoslav identity in him, and for him, the FRY "was a fraud on that Yugoslav identity."

"Don't forget who attacked Dubrovnik, the five-pointed star, those people had a five-pointed star on their heads, which was an additional deception, they used that Yugoslav identity to package us into a homogeneous religious and national community," said Koprivica.

He added that Montenegro was practically a protectorate of the international community before the referendum.

"The rules were accepted by everyone, the decision was accepted by everyone. I imagined that country to be much better than it really is," added Koprivica.

Commenting on the increase in support, former Montenegrin Foreign Minister Miodrag Lekić said that the increase in support for Montenegro's independence does not surprise him, but that the topic is not currently relevant.

Responding to the question of what Montenegro's European path would look like if it had remained in the federal state of Serbia and Montenegro, Lekić said that such an outcome would be filled with tensions.

"It's hard to predict what would happen. It would certainly be filled with tensions, even if the idealists had a "modus vivendi", and they had it for quite a long time, the tensions were objective," said Lekić.

As he stated, Montenegro, a former Yugoslav republic, had six percent of the population.

"Our ambition in that federation was to be, at least verbally stated, 50 percent politically, in the decision-making system, in personnel, where Serbia could conclude that it was unequal. Reducing Montenegro to six percent, in all these elements, represents total inferiority. That federation would be unsustainable," said Lekić.

He emphasized that it was a good thing that Serbia immediately recognized Montenegro, recalling that the then President of Serbia, Boris Tadić, was a Pivljanin and that he came in and correctly recognized the results of the referendum.

"It ended well considering the drama. When Scotland and other countries have these referendums, there is no drama," he said.

Koprivica added that Montenegro is now turning into an ethno-federal state and that all peoples are to blame for that.

"We are starting to create national municipalities in 2012. A geographical division of Montenegro is being made, a system of fraud against the Constitution is being set up, and we are coming to the point where it looks more like an agreement between structures representing nations than the creation of a civil nation," said Koprivica, adding that he would not have voted for a sovereign Montenegro if he had known that it would be an ethno-federal state.

Lekić agrees that the biggest problem in Montenegro is precisely the fact that the civic concept of the state has not been realized.

"Now we are on the ground of some positive sides, especially on the foreign policy front. These deformations, and there is the economy, which has never been consolidated, mostly gambling and with heavy debts," said Lekić.

He stated that the exact figure is that Montenegro was in debt by 750 million euros until 2006, and today it is more than five billion.

"That bubble could burst, and this miracle of bureaucracy needs to be financed," Lekić pointed out.

Bojović assessed that a large part of the state is not functional, citing municipalities as an example, of which he said that most should be reduced to local community offices because they are not sustainable and are constantly in debt and must be rescued from the equalization fund.