24/5/2014 22 years of the unpunished crime “Deportation of refugees”
25 May marks 22 years since the Montenegrin police illegally arrested at least 66 civilians – refugees who escaped to Montenegro from the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and delivered them as hostages to the Bosnian Serbs Army who used them for exchange of war prisoners. One group of refugees was directly transported from city of Herceg Novi to a concentration camp in Foča. Although this war crime can be traced in official documents and directly resulted in death of nearly all the deported refugees, the Montenegrin State Prosecutor’s Office indicted a limited group of people for “the illegal resettlement” or “deportation” – as this crime is euphemistically referred to by laypersons and the wider public.
All persons indicted by the State Prosecutor’s Office for this crime have been acquitted. Human Rights Action (HRA) analysis showed that the cause for this were unprofessional indictments that the court did not subsequently improve, in addition to misinterpreting the international humanitarian law. In August 2013, HRA helped mothers of victims to file a constitutional appeal for inefficient prosecution of these crimes on which the Constitutional Court has not yet decided. We have also submitted an initiative to the acting Supreme State Prosecutor, Veselin Vučković, to file a request for the protection of legality against the decision of the Appellate Court, on which he did not make a decision for over six months.
In 2008, after a four-year trial, the Government of Montenegro paid compensation to the survivors and families of victims. Although the sum paid is unprecedentedly high in the region – the fact that no individual was judged to be responsible for this crime gives the impression that the purpose of the compensation was to redeem responsibility. This is not only unacceptable for the families of victims, but also not possible, according to the international law.
The initiatives of Montenegrin NGOs (HRA, CCE and Anima) to declare the Day of Remembrance of this crime and its victims, and to erect a special memorial dedicated to these victims, remained without a response of the president of the Parliament of Montenegro, Ranko Krivokapić, and president of municipality of Herceg Novi, Dejan Mandić, who never provided that members of local and national parliament discuss the the initiative. In spite of announcements from the cabinet of former Minister of the Interior, Ivan Brajović, and the Minister of Culture, Branislav Mićunović, they also did nothing to provide a memorial for indisputable victims of this crime.
Readiness to deal with this and other war crimes in terms of criminal law should be, in our opinion, one of the criteria for the election of the Supreme State Prosecutor. Otherwise, Montenegro will remain opposed, both to the victims of war crimes and the rule of law, as has been the case for the last 22 years.
