Slobodan Milošević's policies have a spring in Montenegro

By: Adrijan Vuksanović / AntenaM

These days, an intensive media and para-media campaign is underway against me, due to the congratulations I sent on Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day and Croatian Defenders' Day. Until now, I have always congratulated all national holidays of Montenegro and the Republic of Croatia. I will continue to do so in the future, regardless of the insults and threats I receive.

The war in Croatia did not start with the Storm, but ended with the Storm. The Storm was not the cause, but the consequence. Every war has innocent victims, and that is one of its tragedies, and the greatest culprit is the one who started it. Slobodan Milošević's policies, which are experiencing their spring in Montenegro, brought a huge number of victims from Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. It set back Serbia itself and its people the most.

It was not the Croatian Army that bombed Kruševac, Čačak, or Belgrade, it did not cross the Serbian border, but the other way around. Citizens of the Republic of Serbia sent off the tanks of the so-called JNA with flowers on their conquest campaigns against the internationally recognized Republic of Croatia. After four years of expulsions, killings, and mistreatment of non-Serb populations in the so-called Krajina region, and after the Serbian leadership rejected all peace offers (including the monstrous Z-4 plan), Croatia had a natural, legitimate, and legal right to liberate its territory and bring freedom to its citizens.

The 10,000 Serbs who defended their homeland Croatia from the aggressor from Belgrade deserve all respect. The success of the Military and Police Operation Storm prevented another Srebrenica and another genocide from happening in the protected zone of Bihać.

These days, as Croatia celebrates its liberation from the Greater Serbian aggression, we see a two-faced attitude of certain politicians from Montenegro towards the Republic of Croatia. They gladly express gratitude to Croatia in official meetings for its more than partner-like behavior and exceptional assistance in the integration process towards the European Union, emphasizing that they want to build the best neighborly relations, yet they deny it the right to defend its people and territorial integrity, calling liberation a crime.

This is not how one contributes to strengthening interstate relations, but rather demonstrates hypocrisy and insincerity.

To all those who say that I do not belong in the government because of the views I express, I point out that I am not prepared to sacrifice the values of the Croatian people for a ministerial position. Those who deny Croats the right to freedom and their own state are not my company. One does not enter into government with those who organize a concert in Srebrenica on the day when the mothers of Srebrenica are burying their children. With a clear conscience, I renounce such a government and do not need it.

The Croatian people understand Montenegro well, because it is currently facing the same policies that Croatia faced in the 1990s. HGI remains faithful to its national identity and its Montenegro. These are categories that are not up for negotiation.

*(The author is the president of HGI and a member of the Parliament of Montenegro)