Maltene, you are in the camp... movement is restricted, and you hear people being killed... beaten... fear... constant patrols... people couldn't stand the terror anymore and they moved and some went to Pljevlja and some further away ...
Thus, the story of the suffering of the Muslim population in the 90s in the villages of Bukovice, near Pljevlje in the north of Montenegro, along the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), begins with a victim whose identity is known to the editorial staff of Radio Free Europe (RSE).
He was 18 years old, and today he is 50 years old. He was born in Bukovica, which was inhabited by a majority Muslim population.
"I don't know how long it lasted... but I know that they cut the bar twice and broke it twice on me, demanding an admission where my rifle is... and when you don't have it, you can't admit it," he said in his testimony for RSE.
It was at the time of the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, when a large number of reservists of the Yugoslav Army, members of paramilitary formations and the Montenegrin police stayed in the area of Pljevlja.
From 1992 to 1995, according to available data, six people were killed in Bukovica, two committed suicide due to torture, 11 were kidnapped, 70 were tortured, and around 270 were deported.
To date, no one has been convicted of those crimes in Montenegro. Neither the perpetrators nor the perpetrators have been discovered.
The Special State Prosecutor's Office of Montenegro is investigating the "Bukovic case" again.
It is a new case that was formed based on files submitted to Montenegrin prosecutors by colleagues from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"On May 6, 2021, the criminal war crime case related to the events in the town of Bukovica was handed over to the Special State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica," confirmed RSE from the Prosecutor's Office in Trebinje.
At the time of the events in Bukovica, the president of Montenegro, which was part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, was Momir Bulatović, and the prime minister was Milo Đukanović.
The chief of police in Pljevlja was Veselin Veljović, who was later the director of the Montenegrin police.
What did Montenegro do in the 'Bukovica case'?
The investigation opened in 2007 was declared an official secret. It lasted 2,5 years, and included seven former members of the reserve forces of the police and the Yugoslav Army.
The indictment was filed in March 2010, when, according to court records, the defendants were charged with the crime of crime against humanity.
"They systematically abused the Muslim population in Bukovica, forcing them to leave their homes," the indictment reads.
Representatives of the non-governmental sector, the victims' association and the Bosniak Party, assessed that the indictment did not cover the perpetrators.
More than 40 witnesses were heard before the High Court in Bijelo Polje.
By the final judgment of that court in 2011, and a year later by the Appellate Court, they were all acquitted.
Victim's testimony for RSE
The victim from Bukovica says that in the summer of 1992, he "came home from Sarajevo for Eid to visit his parents" because he was already working in Sarajevo and had a Bosnian identity card.
According to him, due to the war in Bosnia, there were already many refugees in the villages of Bukovica.
He will remember, he says, the day when he went from his village to the neighboring one, to pick up a local hodge.
"I went with a guy who, I don't think, was even 18 years old at the time. He was a refugee in the village of Guničići. His last name is Glušac. I can't remember his name. When we got to the village, the hodja had already left," he says. he.
According to him, they tried to reach him in order to go to the funeral together, when a police and army patrol met them in the town of Paklina.
"The leader of the patrol and the chief was policeman Soković. He interrogated me and beat me. I can't remember his exact name. There was also Simo Barac as a reserve member of the police. Soković, I found out later, was active in the police and he had some rank in Pljevlja then."
He clearly remembers that a comrade who was on patrol tried unsuccessfully to protect him.
"I knew a lot of them, my schoolmates, one of whom said: 'Don't beat him, I know who he is, what he is.' And then they jumped on him and said: 'Do you want us to beat you?' They silenced him... No one was allowed to do anything more...", the RSE interlocutor said.
Neither then, nor today, does he know how long the interrogation and beating lasted.
"They cut off a wooden bar, one after the other and it went on... they beat us... demanding recognition of where my rifle is. Am I in the SDA (Democratic Action Party). 'Where did you throw it, where did you hide it. ..' And when you don't have it, you can't confess... They didn't believe... They really beat us, especially me... 'Give me the documents'... And when they saw the Bosnian identity card... 'From where? How? What do you do...?", he says.
He recalls that, upon arriving home, he did not say anything to anyone, but went to sleep.
"And in the morning, my mother called me to get up. And I couldn't move, I was all blue. And then, in that shock when she saw me, she went to the guardhouse in Kovačevići and complained, kind of angry. However, you know how was it... a donkey was eaten by a wolf. Like - it went well. That's how she was told," said the RFE interlocutor.
And later, according to his words, they came to his house several times, as did other patrols, but they did not beat them, they only asked about his brother, who had already left Bukovica.
"I would regularly hear - this one was beaten, that one was beaten. They broke in, beat up houses, raided. Honestly, the Muslims were not allowed to do anything... They regularly shot when people were passing over their heads. That shrieking was in the air over people, that they were afraid of each other. It happened every day while I was there. I was afraid. I was neither guilty nor obligated for 18 years, and they would do something like that to me."
He says that among the people killed in Bukovica, he knew Jafer Dzog. He claims that he was killed innocently.
"I also know about kidnappings. The three who had defected from Čajniče and tried to get to Pljevlje. And exactly somewhere around Bojanić they were kidnapped by a patrol on the way to Pljevlje... picked them up. They took them to Čajniče and since then loses every trace. It's Pita Ramo, his son-in-law and his neighbor, middle-aged people," says the interviewee of RSE.
He also knows about the suffering of other compatriots from Bukovica.
"I have information about Omer Hodžić, what we communicated between us... that he was interrogated in the house... that he was beaten, he didn't speak. But they frightened and interrogated him so much that the man fell ill and later died in the hospital in Chaff."
RSE's interlocutor left Bukovica a month later, after the beating.
In order to get out, he had to pay a Serb who took him to Prijepolje, and then he went to Skopje.
Since then, he has been living abroad with his family.
"Everything I know, I am ready to tell in front of the Montenegrin courts," he told RSE, explaining that the police and the army carried out the terror together.
Other testimonies
Numerous testimonies, collected by individuals, non-governmental associations and the Humanitarian Law Fund (HHL), speak about the events in Bukovica.
The testimony of Ljubica Bebe Džaković from Pljevlja, a former deputy of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists at the time, is also remembered.
"In the Assembly, I asked today's businessman, who was a boy at the time, to pay the people for setting the cottage on fire. They paid. We can't pay for their patience and wisdom to suffer, not to cause a massacre. I think that in their place they were Orthodox, they would cause it, because we have such a mentality," said Ljubice Bebe Džaković.
And Jakub Durgut, the former president of the Association of Expelled from Bukovica, testified about the suffering for the Humanitarian Law Fund.
"In addition to physical abuse in their houses, the reservists forced them to beat each other. So Ashref beats his brother Hasan and vice versa. They had to do this under the threat of wooden sticks. After this incident, the abused fled on foot, leaving the immobile and mobile property, which was later looted. All of them later moved to Turkey," says Durgut.
Murić crimes were carried out by police and army patrols
Lawyer Velija Murić, who has been active in war crimes cases for more than 30 years, speaking about Bukovica and the crimes, says that they were committed by members of the Yugoslav Army and the reserve police force.
They committed severe abuses, which go beyond the way of abuse that happened in Guantanamo (the American prison in Cuba). I think that the abusers there would be ashamed if they knew what was done in Bukovica, Pljevlja," Murić told RSE.
He reminds that special prosecutor Lidija Vukčević, who worked on war crimes cases, previously stated that until now there was no political will in Montenegro to investigate war crimes and prosecute the perpetrators.
For Murić, Bukovica is a heavy historical stain on Montenegro and its people.
"Because Bukovica, according to all the peculiarities of how it happened, following the intention and everything else, can be qualified as genocide. However, at the time of that event, the war years of the 90s of the last century, genocide was not defined in the way that we have it today in international law," Murić said.
Murić points out that he is convinced that the Montenegrin prosecutor's office, if nothing else due to the fulfillment of what is prescribed by chapter 23 and 24 in the negotiations with the European Union, will deal with this case more seriously.
"If the prosecution decides to tackle it more seriously, Montenegro is small and practically everything is known, what was done by whom and where it was done. And not only with Bukovica, but also with the case of "Deportation" and the case of "Kaludjerski laz" and more some that happened on the territory of Montenegro, which has turned into an endemic oasis where war criminals can move freely," Murić believes.
What does the prosecution say?
The special prosecutor, in charge of war crimes cases, Tanja Čolan Deretić, answered Murić's question at the end of February - whether what happened in Bukovica constitutes genocide, said: "As long as the investigation is ongoing, I cannot speak about the legal qualification in Bukovica." .
"I can't say right now if it's genocide," said Čolan Deretic.
She also explained that the work of the Special Prosecutor's Office is hampered "because they cannot use evidence from The Hague", which is why they requested that changes to the Criminal Procedure Act be adopted as soon as possible.
"The evidence is mostly on the territory of other states," said Deretic.
Data from the Human Rights Action show that in the old cases of war crimes in Montenegro, 36 of the 26 accused were acquitted, and that some who were convicted did not even spend a day in prison.
Suljo Mustafić, president of the Bosniak Council in Montenegro, considers it devastating that even after more than three decades, the confrontation with the wartime past of the nineties has not been achieved.
"The most important thing is to judicially determine who and why planned, encouraged and participated in the crimes. Almost no crime has been prosecuted to the end," Mustafić points out.
According to him, some criminals are still walking around freely.
"And command responsibility is almost completely excluded. The remains of the victims are hidden, now the families' right to memory is taken away, and there is not even a word about war crimes in the textbooks," said Mustafić.
The state built houses in Bukovica
The Government of Montenegro tried to influence the return of displaced persons to Bukovica with the house construction project.
The Government announced in November 2016 that almost five million euros were spent on houses.
"In addition to the construction of 113 residential and 71 auxiliary buildings for the needs of displaced persons, all the necessary electrical and road infrastructure was built, and better conditions were created for the life of all residents in the Municipal Municipality of Bukovica," the Government stated.
The victim from the beginning of the story says that in this way the state tried to "cover the eyes" of those who were displaced.
He does not believe that the prosecution will reveal the perpetrators of the crime in the new proceedings.
"I doubt that it will ever be discovered. It has not been discovered and done so far, and I don't know why now. I would like to see who deserved it be condemned," said the RSE interlocutor.
He regularly comes to Bukovica, where, as he says, few people have returned to their homes.
"I buried my parents there... I come regularly and I don't want to think about it at all. It's mine," he concluded in his testimony for RSE.
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