HRA: 22 years of unpunished crime of refugee deportation

Action for human rights HRA expects that the question of readiness for the final legal criminal-legal confrontation with the deportation of refugees in 1992 and other war crimes will be one of the basic criteria for the selection of the new Supreme State Prosecutor. Otherwise, HRA points out, Montenegro will remain opposed to the victims of war crimes and the rule of law, "as it has been for the last 22 years".

HRA reminds that tomorrow it will be 22 years since the Montenegrin police, as they pointed out in that organization, illegally arrested at least 66 civilians who fled to Montenegro from the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and handed them over as hostages to the Bosnian Serb army to serve them for the exchange of prisoners of war.

One group of refugees was directly extradited from Herceg Novi to the concentration camp in Foča. Even though this war crime was confirmed by official documents and even though it directly led to the death of almost all delivered refugees, the Prosecutor's Office of Montenegro, HRA emphasizes, blamed a limited circle of people only for "illegal resettlement" or deportation.

"All those who have been accused of this crime by the state prosecutor's office have been legally acquitted. The analysis of this case published by the HRA showed that it was contributed to by an unprofessional prosecution, which the court did not correct to the extent it could, but also joined in with a wrong interpretation of international humanitarian law. In August 2013, HRA helped the mothers of the victims to file a constitutional complaint due to the ineffective prosecution of this crime, which the Constitutional Court has not yet decided on. "We submitted an initiative to Acting Supreme State Prosecutor Veselin Vučković to raise a request for the protection of legality against the judgment of the Appellate Court, which he did not comment on for more than half a year," HRA announced.

After a four-year trial, in 2008, the Government of Montenegro paid compensation to the survivors and the families of the victims.

"Although this act is unheard of in the region in terms of the amount of compensation, viewed in the context of the criminal proceedings, which showed that no one was individually responsible for that crime in Montenegro, one gets the impression that compensation was an attempt to buy off responsibility, which they did not agree to and could not for the victims' families to agree, this is not even possible according to international law," the announcement states.

The initiatives of the Montenegrin non-governmental organizations HRA, the Center for Civic Education CGO and Anima, to declare a day of remembrance for this crime and its victims, as well as to erect a special monument to the victims, which they deserve, remained, they state in the Action for Human Rights, without an echo. with the President of the Assembly Ranko Krivokapić and the President of the Municipality of Herceg Novi Dejan Mandić, "who never allowed the national or local Assembly to discuss them".

"Despite the announcements from the cabinet of the former Minister of the Interior, Ivan Brajović, and the Minister of Culture, Branislav Mićunović, they have not done anything to provide a memorial to the undisputed victims of this crime," the announcement concludes.