In the year that marks the 25th anniversary of the death of Rear Admiral Vladimir Barović, who committed suicide, not wanting to bomb the Croatian coast under the command of the JNA at the time, another high-ranking officer with his unexplained tragic story of the 91 war. deserves to be mentioned.
We are talking about Rear Admiral Krsto Đurović, the former commander of the garrison in Kumbor, who, according to the testimony of Radio Free Europe's interlocutors, opposed the aggression against Dubrovnik, and then died under mysterious circumstances. Who was Krsto Đurović and how and why did he die?
The first thing you learn when you type in the name of Rear Admiral Krsto Đurović in Wikipedia, apart from the information that he was born in Cetinje in 1940 and died, as it says, somewhere in Konavle on October 5, 1991, is that he was a high-ranking Montenegrin naval officer who in the protection of Croatian citizens. Should we look for the reasons why his death is still one of the most mysterious events during the aggression against Dubrovnik?
The firing of cannons in Dubrovnik's old town was something that Krsto Đurović strongly opposed, who during the war in '91. held the position of garrison commander in Kumbor.
This is what the interlocutors of Radio Free Europe claim, among them Veseljko Koprivica, a journalist from the weekly Monitor, who was the only one who dealt with the mysterious circumstances under which Đurović died and was an unwilling, direct witness when the helicopter in which Đurović was in Konavle fell during the war.
Koprivica immediately suspected the official version of the tragic event, which was written by the then Federal Secretariat for National Defense - that the aircraft was shot down by the enemy Croatian side.
How was it possible for the helicopter to fall without anyone hearing the gunshot? How is it possible that the Croatian soldiers acted when days before that the area was under the complete control of Montenegrin reservists and members of the JNA, Koprivica wondered.
"To this day, the most interesting thing to me is why it was never announced what Jevrem Cokić, who was the pilot, and the co-pilot, whose name is known (both of them survived the crash, auto.) said about the case. By the way, there are three versions about the death of Krsto Đurović : The first - that he was killed by the Croatian army, the second - that he was killed in a helicopter, and the third - that he was beaten and thrown dead into a helicopter, and then that his fall was staged in the village of Popovići in Konavle," says Koprivica and adds: " I think it is closest to the truth that Đurović was killed in a helicopter."
According to the version of the Croatian side, Krsto Đurović was not killed in the helicopter but was allegedly killed earlier. The same was established by Dubrovnik wartime mayor Petar Poljanić, later the first Croatian consul in Montenegro. Referring to information from the Croatian intelligence services, and in the Hague courtroom, during the trial of Slobodan Milošević, he categorically denied that Krsto Đurović was killed by Croatian guards. He repeats this in an interview with Radio Free Europe.
"Nobody from the Croatian side shot at him, killed him, or shot down the helicopter - for the simple reason that none of our army was there that day. There is absolutely no doubt about who Krsto Đurović lost his life from. Absolutely certainly not from anyone from the Croatian side," says Poljanić.
Poljanić knew Đurović well and had several official contacts with him, as well as with the commander of the Boka Military and Naval District, on the basis of which he concluded that the rear admiral was not in favor of an attack on the Dubrovnik area. Đurović directly told him this on one occasion, in a friendly atmosphere.
"I remember it perfectly well. It was in Herceg Novi, when we last met. The conversation ended literally like this: 'Poljanić, don't worry about anything, while I'm here, most certainly, no shell will fall on Dubrovnik. I myself, you can be completely calm there.' Immediately after that, it happened that he was in some kind of... whether it was detention, I can't say, but he was certainly taken away for a few days," recalls Poljanić.
Eleven years later, Nikola Samardžić, the former director of Jugooceanija in Kotor, also testifying in the Hague trial against Slobodan Milošević, said that Krsto Đurović visited him ten days before the attack on Dubrovnik and, as he said, very bitterly complained that an attack was being prepared on Croatia, in which he does not want to participate even at the cost of his life.
It is also interesting that Montenegrin wartime prime minister Momir Bulatović, in his book "Rules of Silence", amnestied the Croatian side for Đurović's death:
"I never received the official results of the investigation, but in all probability it was so-called friendly fire. Someone, apparently, made a tragic mistake and fired, thinking it was an enemy helicopter," wrote Bulatović.
And while the real version of Đurović's death has been speculated for a quarter of a century, Veseljko Koprivica believes that it is high time for the veil of secrecy to be removed and the Montenegrin prosecutor's office to launch an official investigation, so that his tragic fate can be fully elucidated and the rear admiral gets the place in the recent Montenegrin historiography. it truly belongs to him.
"The military and the state prosecutor should have done it a long time ago, and I don't know who was in charge. It is unforgivable that even after 25 years the truth is still not known. There was, of course, no political will to reveal the truth, and if the time ever comes came, then it happened now," Koprivica points out.
Will we find out in due course: who was Krsto Đurović? A true patriot, an officer who was ready to defend military honor with his life, or was he just a victim of unfortunate wartime circumstances?
"Perhaps it is best to say that he was a victim of the unfortunate circumstances of war, but Krsto Đurović was in any case a patriot and an honorable officer who was against aggression against Croatia," says Veseljko Koprivica.
Petar Poljanić points out that he saw Đurović as an extremely virtuous man.
"I think that Montenegro should be proud that it had such a man and soldier as Krsto Đurović was," he adds.
Finally, in the search for answers to many questions, the right address is Krsto Đurović's widow, Irma Đurović. We found her living on the island of Mali Iž near Zadar. In an exclusive telephone interview with Radio Free Europe, the only one she gave to a media outlet, she pointed out that the only thing she wants for a quarter of a century is to find out the full truth.
"Well, the official truth was the truth, but if it was - that. The worst thing is when you doubt something. You live with it and then it bothers you. I would love the most if I knew the real truth," says Irma Đurović.
Bonus video:
