Eurasia Press & News
On the 21st anniversary of the attack on the Croatian town of Dubrovnik, a Montenegrin NGO has urged the authorities to prosecute Montenegrins who took part in the attack.The Montenegrin NGO, Human Rights Actions, HRA, stated on Sunday that the prosecution of those responsible for the crimes committed during the attack on Dubrovnik was long overdue.
They reminded the authorities that there has never been a conviction in Montenegro relating to the battle for Dubrovnik.
The attack on Dubrovnik, the ancient Croatian port close to the Montenegro’s border, and on the Konavle region that surrounds it, began on October 1, 1991.
The Yugoslav People’s Army, JNA, including a large number of Montenegrin soldiers and reservists, besieged the town for nine months.
In addition to the destruction caused by missiles and shelling, the attacks also resulted in looting on a massive scale of the nearby villages.
Tea Gorjanc Prelevic, the head of the HRA, told the media that they had been informed by the State Prosecution that only one case had been investigated. The case concerns a group of unnamed JNA reservists from Montenegro, who were suspected of killing civilians in the village Zekovica, close to the Dubrovnik airport.
The 1991 -1992 military campaign against Dubrovnik was met with severe international criticism, due to the tremendous historical and cultural significance of the town and region.
Dubrovnik’s old town, which is a UNESCO world heritage site, suffered considerable damage in the attacks.
In 2008, Pavle Strugar, who commanded the JNA forces during the attack on Dubrovnik, was sentenced to seven and half years in prison by the Hague Tribunal, ICTY.
He was granted early release in 2009, having served two thirds of the sentence.
In 2000, Milo Djukanovic, the then prime minister of Montenegro, formally apologized to Croatia for the suffering and losses that Montenegrin soldiers had inflicted, especially in the area of Dubrovnik.
