Hunt for Turkish citizens in Montenegro: Unanswered questions, security scandal, and national shame

By: Nevena Kovačević

Xenophobic outbursts directed against Turkish citizens residing in Montenegro have been widely reported. From the moment it was established that the rotten security sector had failed again, and that the perpetrators of the knife attack on a young man from Podgorica were actually Azerbaijani citizens, street neo-fascist protests are being presented as an anti-immigrant crisis. However, this is not the case, at least from a political science perspective.

The genie was let out of the bottle when Belgrade autocrat Aleksandar Vučić promoted a propaganda narrative about Turkey arming Kosovo and the concept of neo-Ottomanism, with the clear aim of igniting simmering Balkan political passions. With the help of proxy technologies, he did this virtually unnoticed.

Therefore, the claim that the man who knows so much, as the weak Montenegrin president told him at the Wine Fair, is not aware of what is happening in Montenegro is a deliberate untruth.

The possibility that the radical pioneer who controls the authorities here missed the practical implementation of an idea he himself launched to echo through the public space like a real political bomb is equivalent to claiming that the Earth is flat. Especially if we know that the difficult week behind us is a product of precisely these malignant and coordinated disinformation influences.

And how do we know this? Well, because, first of all, a former leader of the former DF, Nebojša Medojević, announced the untrue information that Montenegro has been flooded with Turkish citizens, numbering one hundred thousand, and that neo-Ottomanization of the Balkan space is imminent. You have already read this in a cellophane form above.

Medojević's spin becomes a tabloid sensation, ideal for a media lynching, by both proxy portals and media in the service of Serbian and Montenegrin authorities. The essence of the lynching is identical – to alert the public and awaken, it seemed, the dormant frustrations of the nineties.

Incendiary writings followed, and then it was the turn of Vučić's main emissary

- Milan Knežević. On Saturday evening, the evening before the escalation of xenophobic rampage in the Podgorica neighborhood of Zabjelo, Knežević repeated in a TV guest appearance that Turkey is building a munition factory in Kosovo, stating that Erdogan promised that one hundred million Turks would defend Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina from Serbia, implying that this is the reason for the immigration of between one hundred and ten and one hundred and twenty thousand Turkish citizens to Montenegro.

The next evening, a mob, largely led by football hooligans, began to sow fear among Turkish citizens. I wrote somewhere that I believe, and I stand by it, that the reason was not the wounding of the young man from Podgorica, or the incident that happened the evening before in Zabjelo – an incident that the police remained silent about, giving wings to the ambitious fascists and media imagination that there was an attempted murder.

The Minister of Internal Affairs, Danilo Šaranović, in the manner of the Democrats, appeared in Zabjelo to stage a marketing photo session. Only then did we hear what the Ministry of Internal Affairs had apparently been deliberately silent about for weeks – that there are only 13.5 thousand Turkish citizens in Montenegro. Although the minister, allegedly, tried to calm the tensions, the photo of Turks pressed against the wall, as in the worst war times, which was published and then deleted by a member of the same party, Boris Bogdanović, indicates that the leaders of the security sector, which is run by the Democrats, have indeed played around a bit, and it seems they have played with war.

The police hunted Turks, encouraging further radicalization of an already dangerous atmosphere of persecution and religious and national intolerance. Instead of objective reporting, the same media that, with imported narratives and incitement from political addresses, brought hooligans to the streets, became centers of hate speech and, without a doubt, PR hubs for carrying out malignant actions.

Thus, an anti-Turkish public discourse was shaped, which resulted in protest rallies, from which the mob with balaclavas, torches, and clubs chanted the most horrific slogans: “Kill the Turk, Turks won’t walk the streets, Turks out, We don’t want migrants.” A clear indicator that the hooligan group was politically instructed is the presence of officials from ruling parties at fascist rallies. Although these are politicians less known to the public, the parties have not distanced themselves from their association with the hooded individuals. According to RSE, these are officials of Andrija Mandić's New Serbian Democracy, Goran Milić and Zoran Ušćumlić, and an official of United Montenegro, which is not part of the state, but is part of the Podgorica government, Milivoje Brković, known as Brdža.

And we best remember Brdža for begging from the local parliament's podium to erect a monument to the Chetnik Blagoje Jovović in Podgorica, so that he wouldn't have to go to Belgrade to bow to Uncle Draža. Enough for the wise.

For days, in several cities, facilities owned by Turkish citizens were demolished and property was set on fire. Only fanfares were missing to officially announce the horror.

And the fact that this is not an anti-immigrant crisis, but an Islamophobic policy tacitly supported by the government, was shown by the threats to the life of Mr. Rifat Fejzić, which were reported by the Islamic Community in Montenegro.

The right-wing and extremist government has expressed its ideological impulses on the streets, which do not personify the civic, but the xenophobic and fascist face of Montenegro – the one from the beginning of the darkest period of the nineties. The one that decent Montenegro is still ashamed of today. As a citizen, an intellectual, and a representative of decent Montenegro, and I want to believe that there are many of us, I feel shame and contempt for the xenophobic and neo-fascist scenes and all those who participated in this lynching directly or indirectly.

We witness the complete collapse of the security sector day after day. However, the detention of two foreign citizens, solely on the basis of eyewitness statements, and their subsequent release because security camera footage confirmed what they categorically maintained in their defense – that they were at home that evening – is a security scandal, to say the least, for which, in democratic countries, the entire government would have to fall, at least for moral reasons.

But – I repeat what I have already written somewhere, we are neither Slovenia, nor is our government democratic but clerical-right-wing, and therefore cannot show even a minimum of moral, let alone state responsibility. Only on Saturday morning were the Azerbaijani citizens, who, according to the police, participated in the incident, caught trying to flee. The other actors have not yet been located, nor has the public been informed of all the details of the incident in Zabjelo.

Prime Minister Milojko Spajić, in an express move, abolished the visa-free regime for Turkish citizens and, as confirmed last night by the Turkish ambassador to Montenegro, provoked a potential reciprocal response. Although at the parliamentary session dedicated to prime minister's questions, he called his own move economic suicide, like a truly politically divided personality, he did not condemn the violence and extremism, the spillover of which onto the streets, in relation to members of different nations, is constantly provoked by the ruling clique.

The recent interruption of the screening of the film “Rod” by an Albanian director, also in Zabjelo, is just one of many such examples. The peak of Spajić's cynicism is the sentence that the security sector has protected members of all religions, nations, and identities in recent days. Do the events described above not tell you otherwise, or does the prime minister refuse to leave his parallel economic universe, but he has even managed to disrupt it, because the enormous damage caused by the cancellation of arrivals from Turkey for Montenegro's economy and tourism is already evident, and we should also mention the investment consequences, as Turkey is the investor with the largest investments in Montenegro.

We know that the prime minister does not like rural – identity topics, but he has quickly resolved this, apparently urban problem, in favor of the architects of the Serbian world and boss Mandić. However, he constantly forgets the key thing, which stems from the Constitution, a document that, like his own exposé, he has clearly not dealt with much. Because the man simply doesn't like to read – there is no other explanation. He nicely told us to let him work and that he doesn't speak with condemnations, but with results. Well, when it comes to those very tangible results – to paraphrase the Constitution – the Government conducts the foreign and domestic policy of Montenegro.

In translation, the prime minister is responsible for the work of all departments, including the security sector, whose humiliating treatment of Turkish citizens he himself has promoted. The crypto gambler is, in fact, most responsible for this anti-civilizational and security collapse.

And of course, it will never occur to anyone to consider resignations. On the contrary. The Speaker of the Parliament, Andrija Mandić, said yesterday that similar unrest had occurred on the streets of European cities, and that such events or the actions of the perpetrators cannot destabilize Montenegro. And now, by Mandić's logic, we should follow the famous proverb “Peace, peace, peace, nobody is guilty.” The drill was successful, and the police will, as only they can, skillfully cover everything up, and in a few days, we will remember nothing. True, the Montenegrin public has a short memory, but I am not sure that Mandić's wishes will come true.

Besides, the leader of the Bosniak Party and the Minister of Foreign Affairs announced that through all institutional mechanisms, it will be revealed who tried to destabilize Montenegro and slow down its path to the EU. Perhaps Mandić, as he does with PES, tried to discipline BS with a maneuver aimed at refuting Ibrahimović's hasty claim, for which there is no need, because nothing can make them leave their seats.

Ibrahimović only confirmed what we all know – the propaganda hunt was ordered from abroad. He just didn't say the name and surname of the commander, which we all know too, because he doesn't possess that level of courage, but he wrote this with the aim of anesthetizing voters, or regaining lost political support. Therefore, the disagreement between Ibrahimović's and Mandić's claims is quite transparent, because everyone with a bit of common sense understands perfectly well who is not interested in Montenegro's entry into the EU, and at the same time, who is interested in worsening relations with NATO allies, of which Turkey is one of the most important.

In the end – we are left with unanswered questions, which we will probably never get.

Why did the police remain silent about the incident in Zabjelo? How is it possible that the real perpetrators are still unknown? Why didn't the police, instead of lining up and arresting innocent people, focus on locating the culprits? Why did the Director of the Police Administration only after the last xenophobic rally state that the young man suffered minor injuries? Will anyone be held accountable for the security scandal, and why not? Will we, and when, receive information on whether the hooligans who chanted xenophobic slogans have been identified and prosecuted? I fear not, because their torches and clubs are a reflection of the force that the government would gladly resort to, but their seats are dearer to them.

Conclusion – until we confront our own past, from which we are, unfortunately, far, there is no way forward for us. This should be clear to Europe as well, which wants to make us part of that community at all costs. Insisting on the entry of a state led by a right-wing government is a deeply flawed policy, because Europe, no matter how much it wants to, cannot turn extremists into Westerners. The European community needs a dignified, civic, and anti-fascist Montenegro, not a value and civilizationally decapitated country.

Turkey recently warned us about a lax immigration policy and the potential harboring of individuals with criminal records in Montenegro, whose citizens survived a lynching, for which they have not, and apparently will not, receive even an apology from the key actors of the government to this day. The Prime Minister and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, along with the scandalous actions of the security sector, have deeply compromised the state's reputation, undermined its credibility and reputation. And with such a government, which, if it had any shame and without a public trial, should have suffered consequences and admitted responsibility for suspicious actions and the shame it caused, there can be no democratic maturation.

Final lesson – if the causes did not lie largely within ourselves, no government, whoever composed it, could play with our lives or the lives of guests who were victims of persecution simply because they belong to a nation, and they should have equal treatment, because with their lives and work they contribute to the progress of this country. We have not confronted the past, and we will not soon. The nineties, unfortunately, are more alive than ever, which is fertile ground for provoking precisely such crises, through manipulative and disinformation channels.