From call to battle to media expert: CANU chose a problematic "selector" for the Encyclopedia of Montenegro?

"Maybe I shouldn't have written all this to you because you know it, but I can't shake the impression that we forget and forgive just as quickly. So let's knock ourselves on the head once again and start a decisive battle. We won't allow, with all this that the Croats have cooked up for us with the Germans, for the Albanians to raid our yard, and the Sandzaks to threaten us with long knives..."

Thus, on April 16, 1992, during the bloody collapse of the former SFRY, the then editor-in-chief of "Nikšićke novine" Milan Stojović, today a member of the team that, under the auspices of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (CANU), will present the work of generations of Montenegrin journalists and media in the Encyclopedia of Montenegro, addressed the readers.

For days, CANU has not responded to questions from "Vijesti" about what criteria led them to hire Stojović, whose media contributions from the early 1990s have been publicly characterized by a part of the media sector as "warmongering", to work on part of the Encyclopedia of Montenegro. They also did not respond to the question of whether they would possibly revise that decision.

"Vijesti" was unable to contact Stojović either. He was unavailable on the numbers known to the editorial staff, and, apart from letting the journalist know that he had read the message on the Viber application, by the time the article was published, he had not provided a valid contact or responded regarding his involvement in CANU, which has been causing problems for some of the civil society and media for days.

"Why should we be surprised that a certain Stojović represents CANU and writes on our behalf, when at the head of our institutions, such as the President of the Parliament of Montenegro, are people who absolutely share his ideological views and standpoints," the long-time journalist and author of the show "Načisto" said in a statement for "Vijesti". Petar Komnenic.

"They boast about their time spent on the battlefield, instead of being ashamed of that period. And the only thing they hold against the fallen Democratic Party of Socialists, which they never sent into political retirement, is that it is not on the same page as the nineties and that it does not share the ideological views that they had in common at that time. Why should we be surprised when today the Serbian Orthodox Church and its dignitaries loudly glorify the murderer of women and children and the war criminal and the ideology that led us into the wars of the nineties," Komnenić emphasizes.

When the only criterion is the state treasury

Only a short news item was published on the CANU website, according to which the editorial board of the Encyclopedia "adopted the proposal of the editor of the Media and Journalism section, Bud Simonović, and adopted the Decision on the appointment of the editorial board of the Media and Journalism section."

"The appointed members of the editorial board of this profession are Budo Simonović, editor of the profession; Milan Stojović, journalist and Adem Ado Softić,” it says on the CANU website, without additional information about the criteria for selecting the editorial board of the profession.

Editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine "Monitor" Milena Perović points out that "Stojović is not the only media or warmonger from the 1990s who has received an institutional position or award in Montenegro today."

"It is no accident that the editorial board of the Encyclopedia of Montenegro, a project of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Montenegro, appointed Stojović, director of RTV Nikšić and 'Nikšićke novine', to the editorial board of the Media and Journalism section during the warmongering propaganda of the 1990s. Although it should be examined on the basis of what decision and what criteria Stojović was chosen for that position, it is more than obvious that warmongering biographies are precisely the reference for entering institutions or receiving state awards," says Perović.

Even Komnenić is not surprised by the way the editorial board of the profession was appointed.

"It is not surprising that CANU hired such a person because CANU, an institution that has not taken into account the public interest for years, has long been staffed by academics of various profiles, who are exclusively dedicated to preserving their own interests. CANU functions in an identical way to the current Montenegrin government. The focus is not on public interest, the focus is not on selecting candidates who know certain fields, the only goal is 'peace at home' and jointly taking money from our budget. All ideologies are there, all sides are satisfied, and that is what their whole story boils down to," says Komnenić.

According to him, it is also "a consequence of the fact that we, as a society, have not dealt with such people for decades."

"So it's completely normal for these people - 'underground' people,' to emerge from time to time. I think this is the right time for Stojović, since everything that is happening today absolutely fits into his ideological foundations from the early nineties, when he propagated war, hatred, when he used our money to promote hate speech on the pages of 'Nikšićke novine' and through Radio-Television Nikšić. Some even link him to the spreading of Tereza Kesovija's underwear in her burgled house on the battlefield," says Komnenić.

The standard is that there is no standard.

Perović recalls that, at the time when Stojović was running RTV Nikšić and "Nikšićke novine", in those media outlets "you could read headlines like 'The Zeta flows through Montenegro, soon the Neretva will too'".

"'Monitor' has written about this many times. Unfortunately, these are the references that are nominating Stojović and others like him, on the wave of strengthening historical revisionism, glorification of Chetnik ideology by part of the government and the Serbian Orthodox Church, and the obvious intention of a part of the structures to block the country's European path," says the editor of "Monitor".

Komnenić also raises the issue of the fact that the newspapers, led by Stojović, "featured soldiers' poems on their front pages that served to mobilize, dumb down and incite Montenegrin citizens to go to war with the justification that a non-existent danger was threatening them, as it turned out, which was eventually admitted by former Prime Minister Milo Đukanović, explaining that he had been 'deceived' by a general of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA)."

"I think the main problem is that no one has ever used the lustration mechanism and never will," Komnenić specified.

Perović says that "the fact that, 34 years after the attack on Dubrovnik, a warmonger is speaking at the opening of the Nikšić public service and joining the editorial board of the CANU project is not only not a recommendation for Europe, but also speaks of a serious internal problem in the country."

"Someone who simultaneously violated the Code of Ethics and professional standards in the most brutal way possible will now be subject to measures for that standard within CANU," concludes Perović.