Sunday marks 20 years since the start of the NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, of which Montenegro was then a part.
During the 78 days of bombing, more than two and a half thousand people died, of which 10 in Montenegro, numerous buildings, roads, bridges and other infrastructure were demolished.
The bombing ended when the Yugoslav leadership headed by Slobodan Milosevic agreed to allow foreign troops to come to Kosovo.
Although there were rumors about the NATO attack for days, in March 1999, Montenegro behaved in a strange way, as if nothing was happening, recalls Slavoljub Šćekić, at that time the deputy editor-in-chief of the "Vijesti" newspaper.
"The day before, for example, there was a promotional flight of Montenegroairlines to Frankfurt, I was on that plane. In the evening, on the way back, the then Deputy Prime Minister Jusuf Kalamperović told me that all the negotiations had failed, the bombing would start tomorrow. And the next day, people behaved as if nothing had happened. is not happening, and that's how it looked until around midday. Already in the afternoon, there was a commotion, news was coming from abroad that everything was being prepared for an attack," said Slavoljub Šćekić, longtime editor of the "Vijesti" newspaper.
Literally at the moment when the engines start and the first plane takes off from the Italian military base Aviano, the editorial staff of "Vijesti" makes a decision to make an extraordinary edition of the newspaper and take it to the streets.
"I remember the front page, planes from Avian had taken off, and it was known that the war had started. So, around 7:50, we went out to the square, about XNUMX meters from here. We went out together with the journalists, the journalists were selling a newspaper, an extraordinary edition, and people were grabbing, buying, and somewhere in the middle of that, the first detonations were heard, and it was creepy, we were all horrified, only then did we realize that the war had started," Šćekić said.
The first bombs fell on the barracks in Danilovgrad, and in that attack a young man, a conscript, was killed, who was left to guard the barracks as a punishment, says Šćekić.
"During all that time of war, I am convinced, and I had a lot of such information at the time, that the authorities knew what was designated as a military objective, and no casualties had to happen at least in those locations," Šćekić said.
Šćekić says that there was a very unpleasant situation in Montenegro during the bombing, because the Yugoslav Army, which was commanded by Milošević, and which did not look kindly on the Montenegrin government that refused to obey him, behaved to a large extent like an occupier.
"Here there was a constant tendency to take over, first of all the state television. At that time, both the state management and the management of the state television, and the editor-in-chief Velibor Čović, resolutely refused. , cordons of Montenegrin special forces were set up to guard, there was no one to guard us. Already in the first two days, due to the article in the Monitor, the journalist Nebojša Redžić and the founder of the Monitor, Vijesti i of this system, Professor Miodrag Perović, because the military police came to the Monitor editorial office and asked to arrest them," Šćekić said.
Šćekić says that much later, the then president of Serbia and Montenegro, Svetozar Marović, told him that he had received information that one evening, members of the special unit of the Yugoslav Army - "Cobra", planned to invade and occupy the Public Service.
"Television was normally full of police. They were waiting for the order to launch an attack, and simply kill the Montenegrin policemen, and take over the media. Somehow, before dawn, the command to withdraw came. I don't know what happened in the meantime," Šćekić said.
Šćekić states that in that period in "Vijesti" they made moves that they did not think much about, and which were very dangerous.
Thus, because of the front pages, the colonels of the Yugoslav Army came to them and accused them of working for the aggressor.
One of the things that is hard to believe now is that, for example, "Vijesti", which harshly criticized Milosevic at the time, and "Dan", which was on his side, were printed in the same printing house.
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