Ulcinj: Taci Still Honorary Citizen, Djeka Silent

The same day the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague delivered a first instance verdict against Hashim Taci, Montenegro is barely discussing it, and no official wants to comment on a question that should be a natural one for the Serb and Montenegrin victims of Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) crimes: whether a man convicted of war crimes should still hold the title of honorary citizen of Ulcinj.

The former president of self-proclaimed Kosovo was sentenced at first instance to 25 years in prison for murder, torture, cruel treatment, and unlawful arrest and detention during the war in Kosovo and Metohija. As Srpske Novine previously reported, the same verdict also sentenced Jakup Krasniqi to 25 years, Kadri Veseli to 18 and Rexhep Selimi to 13, bringing the combined sentences for the four former KLA leaders to 81 years in prison.

A 2015 Title, With State Honors From Two Countries

Taci has been an honorary citizen of Ulcinj since April 4, 2015, when he received the recognition at a ceremonial session marking Municipality Day, alongside Albania’s then prime minister Edi Rama. The decision was made, and the honor personally presented, by Fatmir Djeka, then president of the Ulcinj Municipality and now Montenegro’s minister for human and minority rights. According to United Montenegro official Vladimir Dobricanin, the ceremony was also attended by then prime minister Milo Djukanovic and then president Filip Vujanovic.

Djeka gave the reasoning behind the decision that same day, and it remains the only official explanation to date:

“Rama and Taci have contributed to Montenegro’s comprehensive relations with Albania and Kosovo, to regional cooperation and to improving the position of Albanians in Montenegro.”

A decade and a half later, the verdict in The Hague casts that same ceremony in an entirely different light, and the very man who was behind the proposal at the time now heads the ministry in charge of human rights.

Djeka, Nimanbegu and DPS Stay Silent

The RTCG portal asked Minister Djeka whether he would propose stripping Taci of the title, given that he was the one who proposed granting it back in 2015. No answer has arrived so far. The same question went unanswered by the current president of the Ulcinj Municipality, Genci Nimanbegu, and by the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), whose leaders were in direct contact with Taci during the ceremony at the time.

That silence from the key actors is the very reason the question of the title is being raised publicly at all, since neither the Government of Montenegro nor the Ulcinj Municipal Assembly has launched any procedure so far.

Dobricanin Demands Urgent Withdrawal

The silence of officials was broken most sharply by United Montenegro official Vladimir Dobricanin, who publicly called on the Government to overturn the decision. Recalling the circumstances under which the title was awarded, he asked how the photographs from that ceremony should be viewed today:

“How are we to interpret this today, these photographs, after this verdict? Are these our political leaders embracing a man who killed not only Serbs but also ethnic Montenegrins, of whom there were no small number in Kosovo and Metohija.”

Dobricanin noted that the very period Taci referred to in 2015, 1998 and 1999, is the period linked to crimes committed by KLA members against Serb civilians, as well as cases connected to human organ trafficking. He also asked the Bosniak Party to consider a criminal complaint against the officials who, as he put it, had promoted “convicted Hague prisoners.”

He told the Government the title should be withdrawn “as a matter of urgency,” and called on Prime Minister Milojko Spajic and President Jakov Milatovic to speak out:

“Your citizens expect you to remove this disgrace from Montenegro’s face. They have stained it unbearably. Today you have a chance to begin cleansing it morally.”

An Open Question, No Deadline

Neither the Government of Montenegro, nor the Ulcinj Municipal Assembly, nor the responsible ministry has said when, or whether, the question of the title would be put on the agenda at all. For a region where the verdict against Taci is still only a first instance ruling subject to appeal, the question of whether Ulcinj should keep his name on its list of honorary citizens remains open, and it remains in the hands of the very same people, Djeka, Nimanbegu and the DPS, who put it there in 2015.