RAKOVIĆ: ANTI-SERB POLICY OF PODGORICA IS A SEED OF DIVISION AMONG THE SERBIAN PEOPLE

BELGRADE, AUGUST 4 /SRNA/ - Anti-Serb policy continues in Montenegro, driven by both external and internal sources, and its main focus will be to force Serbs in Montenegro to take steps against Serbia and Republika Srpska, historian Aleksandar Raković told SRNA.

Commenting on Podgorica`s decision to send a representative to the Croatian commemoration of the criminal Operation Storm, but not to the commemoration of Serbian victims in Mrkonjić Grad, Raković warned that forcing Serbs in Montenegro's government to take such steps sows the seeds of discord among the Serbian people and creates divisions with far-reaching consequences for Serbs. "Especially in the context of the great support that Serbs in Montenegro received in 2020 from both Serbia and Republika Srpska in bringing down the DPS, instead of showing great gratitude for that and taking steps in line with that support, we are seeing an even greater degree of ingratitude towards the well-intentioned policy that came from Serbia and Srpska," Raković stressed. He said that he was no longer sure what Serbs in power in Montenegro would do after this scandal and what capacity they had at all to do anything. Raković believes that they are extremely afraid of the DPS returning to power, and it is obvious that this fear has led them to accept moves that are directly aimed against Serbia, Republika Srpska and the entire Serbian people. "Someone from the West is ordering them to do this while at the same time threatening that the DPS will return to power and that things will again become difficult for Serbs if they do not do this or that. As we can see, these threats and orders are clearly producing results," Raković said. Noting that Montenegro's representative at the celebration in Knin was sent by Montenegrin Foreign Minister Ervin Ibrahimović, "who is Muslim and a Montenegrin separatist, and a Bosniak by nationality", Raković said that the Government of Montenegro could have prevented this if it had wanted to. "At the very least, one of the ministers of Serb nationality could have raised the issue, launched an initiative in the Government, and then if they had been outvoted, we would know what the matter was. However, there was not even an initiative here," Raković said. He believes that efforts to fragment only the Serbian national identity in the Balkans are being pursued because Serbs are a freedom-loving people and because, after all the pressures they have faced for decades since the 1990s, the sanctions and wars waged against them, they have preserved their self-confidence and embarked on a rise of their Serbian national idea. The peak of that rise of the Serbian national idea in recent years, he said, was the religious processions in Montenegro and the victory over Milo Đukanović's DPS. "Instead of that victory being properly recognised, the achievements of 2020 and these decisions that representatives of Serbs in Montenegro are deliberately being forced to make have been devalued — decisions that go against the interests of Serbia and Republika Srpska, whether it concerns Kosovo and Metohija, Srebrenica or Operation Storm," Raković said.