Djukanovic Filmed in Podgorica Bar as 'Sude Mi' Plays
Footage from a Podgorica bar showing Montenegro's former president listening to a song linked to Ustasha imagery has drawn criticism from the opposition, while the DPS and institutions stay silent.
A video that began circulating on social media shows Milo Djukanovic, Montenegro’s former president, enjoying himself at a bar in Podgorica while a performer sings a song that Serbian and regional audiences recognize as part of a repertoire tied to Ustasha iconography. For Serbia, the story is not merely a Montenegrin domestic matter: the song is linked in public memory to the expulsion of more than 200,000 Serbs from Croatia during the 1990s, so every public performance of it anywhere in the region reopens questions about how Balkan societies have actually come to terms with that legacy.
According to the outlets that reported it, the song heard in the footage is “Sude Mi” by Miroslav Skoro, released in 2003 and best known for its duet version with Marko Perkovic Thompson. The song has been linked in public discourse, and partly in academic literature, to the trials of Croatian generals before the Hague Tribunal, above all the case of Ante Gotovina. According to Niksic Radio Television, Gotovina is not named anywhere in the lyrics, nor do they explicitly mention “Oluja” or Ustasha symbols; the wartime and political context stems mainly from the circumstances in which the song was written and its later association with that case.
Kurir, which picked up the story from the outlet Borba.me, does not name the bar, give a date for the recording, or identify the performer. The outlet reports that the footage triggered sharp public reactions, while Montenegro’s relevant institutions, as well as the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), which Djukanovic has led for decades, had not commented on the video as of the morning of September 14.
Opposition Reaction
The first official comment came from the Democratic People’s Party (DNP). The party’s deputy leader, Milun Zogovic, posted on Facebook and told Niksic Radio Television that the song performed in Djukanovic’s presence was one of “the worst Ustasha songs” and that it evokes the expulsion of Serbs from Croatia.
“Everyone who sings such songs does not deserve better music, but they hope in vain that there will be an ‘Oluja’ in Montenegro. They will not see that film,” Zogovic said.
With that, he made clear he was comparing any repeat of the 1990s, when the Croatian military operation Oluja in August 1995 led to the mass exodus of the Serb population from Croatia, to the situation in present day Montenegro. Zogovic added that “Montenegro’s biggest problem is that Djukanovic is only ‘tried’ in songs, in a tavern trance,” suggesting that the former president’s political accountability, unlike what the song implies, remains unresolved within the country’s institutions.
Why the Silence Stands Out
What makes the case significant for Montenegrin and regional audiences is precisely the absence of any reaction. Montenegro has spent years building an image of itself as a pillar of regional reconciliation and European integration, and the DPS publicly presents itself as an antifascist party. The party’s silence, at a moment when its longtime leader has been linked, even indirectly, to a song whose roots are read through the Ustasha legacy, raises the question of whether the relevant authorities, the prosecution and the police, will respond at all, and whether the institutional response would look different if someone less influential were involved.
For Belgrade and for the Serb community across the region, this is not an abstract question. Every public performance of songs linked to Ustasha symbolism in neighboring countries is watched as a gauge of how genuinely the 1990s legacy has been addressed by institutions, rather than just in declarative statements about reconciliation. Experience with similar cases in the region shows that an institutional response, or the lack of one, often takes days, sometimes longer, before the relevant authorities even confirm whether they are looking into a case at all.
As of this morning, September 14, neither the Democratic Party of Socialists nor Montenegro’s relevant authorities have issued any official word on the footage, nor have they announced that they will look into it. Milun Zogovic and the Democratic People’s Party remain, for now, the only ones who have publicly reacted to the incident.
