Nikolić: We are not boycotting Parliament, but there will be no cooperation until a vote is allowed on the glorification of war criminals; Mandić: Those who enabled the crimes to happen are lecturing me

The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) is not boycotting Parliament, nor will it leave the country's most important political arena undefended, but there will be no cooperation within institutions or joint voting with the parliamentary majority until a vote is allowed on the glorification of war criminals, or until Andrija Mandić publicly and unequivocally states that Ratko Mladić is a war criminal and that genocide was committed in Srebrenica – said head of the DPS parliamentary caucus Andrija Nikolić.

DPS MPs walked out of today's extraordinary session, at which several pieces of legislation were due to be discussed.

At the beginning of the session, Nikolić said that the situation in the Parliament of Montenegro was not normal and that they would not agree to creating the appearance that it was.

- We are here to make it clear: by reducing the quorum, the parliamentary majority prevented MPs from voting on the accountability of the President of the Parliament of Montenegro. Parliament has been closed to the public; journalists and television crews were not allowed to enter, and it was also rejected that the presence or absence of MPs be publicly established. This is not merely an evasion of democratic voting; it is an attack on democracy and the constitutional order, because an extraordinary session requested by at least two-thirds of MPs is a constitutional category and cannot be rendered meaningless by withholding a quorum - Nikolić said.

According to him, Montenegro cannot speak about European integration while simultaneously closing the doors of Parliament to its own citizens.

- You will have to explain to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is coming to Montenegro on Thursday, why, faced with a choice between Montenegro's European path and protecting Andrija Mandić, you chose the latter. As far as we are concerned, we have drawn a line. With Andrija Mandić, there can be no substantive adoption of European values - Nikolić said.

For that reason, he said, they would not participate today in a „performance“ whose purpose was to create the appearance of normal parliamentary work after everything that had happened in Parliament.

- We will leave this session - Nikolić said, after which he and his colleagues left the chamber.

Mandić said that the largest opposition caucus had left the session.

- We have a little more than six months until the next elections, and certainly no one here will destabilise the parliamentary majority, which has done a great deal over the past three years on the path toward European integration. This Parliament has adopted around 500 laws that are aligned with European traditions and bring us closer to EU standards. It was precisely the parties in the parliamentary majority - starting with the one that voted most frequently for laws aligned with the EU acquis, the Europe Now Movement, the Democrats, the New Serbian Democracy, the Socialist People's Party, the Democratic People's Party and the Bosniak Party, while the Democratic Party of Socialists voted the least - Mandić said.

He added that they had „the loudest European rhetoric“.

- They voted for 26 percent of European laws, but lecture everyone as though they are the main Europeans in Parliament. They were removed from power precisely because they had rhetoric instead of reform - Mandić said.

He added that, when expressing his condolences to Darko Mladić, he had „not referred to his father with a single word“.

- Rather, I followed a tradition that existed in Montenegro - Mandić said.

According to him, they had also failed to say a single word when the Croatian Parliament observed a minute of silence in honour of Slobodan Praljak, or when Rasim Delić was buried in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

- At least in this part of Montenegro, there is a particular attitude toward those who have passed away. Those people no longer pose any danger, and we should not behave as they did in France at the end of the 18th century, when they beheaded their king and queen and buried them in mass graves. Today, almost 250 years later, millions of French people take to the streets to attend a Mass celebrated by the Pope, and the altar is located precisely where the guillotine once stood - Mandić said.

He said he would not accept any attempt to treat such people as though they „were not human“ or to establish standards that would prevent people from behaving like the civilised world, adding that neither he nor the New Serbian Democracy would accept such an approach.

- We do not want to be like Iraq, where they dragged their dynasty through the streets. We want to be normal. We do not want to protect anyone's crimes. The Serbian state handed Ratko Mladić over to the Hague Tribunal, which issued a ruling that everyone respects. But although he was convicted, his son is an honourable and decent man who has broken no law. What is being done today, and what those who were friends with Mladić are trying to portray, I have to comment on by saying that I never met Mladić, I was not a member of the Army of Republika Srpska, and I was never in a position to help Mladić or that army - Mandić said.

He added that the party that had left Parliament had done everything it could to help Mladić and the Army of the Republic of Srpska.

- They even arrested members of the former SDA who disagreed with that in Operation Lim and broke the backs of Bosniak politicians so that they, too, would support Mladić and the ARS. The sons of those who were DPS MPs at the time are here today - the DPS strongly supported the ARS and welcomed Mladić and Radovan Karadžić because that was the policy of that party - Mandić said.

He claimed that the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was prolonged because Milo Đukanović, the DPS and the Government of Montenegro supplied the ARS and the Bosnian Serb leadership with oil, volunteers, uniforms and ammunition.

- The war would have been over in 1994. Perhaps Srebrenica would not have happened, nor any of those crimes. Today, those who enabled those crimes to happen are lecturing Mandić, even though I had absolutely no influence over the events of that time - Mandić said.

He added that he had not wanted to talk about this, among other things, but that he would not accept attempts to portray him as an enemy of Bosniaks and Albanians.

Zoran Mikić, an MP from the Civic Movement URA, asked Mandić why, given his „monologue“, there had been no debate several days earlier.

- Obviously, the man wanted us to cross swords and exchange arguments. I am asking him whether one of the parties in the parliamentary majority explicitly demanded that this not happen - Mikić asked.

He said that last week, when there was no quorum to hold the session at which Mandić's dismissal was supposed to be discussed, disrespect had been shown toward MPs and citizens.

Mikić also said that URA MPs would not participate in today's session.

Mandić responded that the parliamentary majority would not back down on this issue.

Social Democrats MP Boris Mugoša said that Mandić had violated the Rules of Procedure today by delivering a monologue instead of allowing the session that had not been held the previous week to take place.

- You should have shown political courage, seriousness and responsibility then, rather than political cowardice, because you locked democracy away at that point - Mugoša said.

He added that Mandić was the only politician currently on the political scene who had begun his career in the 1990s, and that he therefore believed it would be fair for Mandić to make the decision himself to step down.

- And not burden Montenegro's European present and future with your name and legacy, because the consequences of your policies have been felt by tens and hundreds of thousands of citizens across the territory of the former Yugoslavia - Mugoša said.

He also argued that the fact that members of the parliamentary majority had voted for so many European laws without even reading them did not make them European politicians.

- The essence of EU integration is also about when and in what circumstances we will enter the EU. A country that shapes its youth and their value system around songs such as „Knife, wire, Podgorica“ („Nož, žica, Podgorica“, which is an adaptation of „Nož, žica, Srebrenica“, a slogan associated with the glorification or denial of the Srebrenica genocide and with anti-Bosniak/anti-Muslim sentiment) around stopping the screening of Albanian films, expelling Turkish citizens, and what we have seen on the coast in recent days cannot enter the European Union. That is not a European Montenegro, and such a Montenegro should not become an EU member. Montenegro must base its value system on Ljubo Čupić and Srđan Aleksić, not on those who killed them - Mugoša concluded.

After that, MPs adopted the agenda with 43 votes in favour, no votes against and no abstentions, and continued the session.

J. B.