Demonstrators clash with police during a protest against the enthronement of the Serbian Orthodox metropolitan Joanikije in Cetinje, Montenegro. Photo: EPA-EFE/BORIS PEJOVIC
Montenegrin officials have accused the opposition Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS, of launching a coup attempt during violent protests at the weekend against the enthronement of a new Serbian Orthodox Church leader, claiming that some of the protesters were armed.
On Sunday, violence erupted in Cetinje, the old capital of Montenegro, after opposition supporters and self-declared patriotic groups clashed with police trying to stop the enthronement of a new Serbian Orthodox Church Metropolitan, Joanikije, in Cetinje.
Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic on Sunday claimed that former government and police officials incited the protests in order to destabilize and even destroy the country.
The DPS “initiators … were … in favour of a scenario that was supposed to have fatal consequences. It was an attempt to introduce Montenegro into permanent destabilization with elements of dissolution”, Abazovic told local television station Vijesti.
During the clashes in Cetinje on Sunday, police used tear gas, and several protesters and police officials were injured.
Police earlier broke down roadblocks erected near Cetinje, designed to stop clerics from reaching the town for the ceremony, while the Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Porfirije and the new Metropolitan of Montenegro were transported to Cetinje by army helicopters. They were escorted to the monastery protected by bulletproof shields, while police used tear gas to disperse protests nearby.
On Sunday, Serbian Church Patriarch Porfirije warned that church clerics’ lives had been in danger ahead of the ceremony. He was “horrified by the fact that some people intended to prevent this act of love for everyone with a sniper’s rifle”, he posted on Instagram.
The ceremony in Cetinje angered opponents of the Serbian Orthodox Church, who called it an insult to Montenegro’s struggle for sovereignty and independence from Serbia, to which it was united from the end of World War I until 2006.
As protests began, Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic and DPS MPs came to Cetinje to show support. On Sunday, the State Prosecutor ordered 72 hours detention for ex-head of the police Veselin Veljovic for leading the protesters into clashes with the police. Veljovic is also the Montenegrin President’s counsellor and a DPS official.
“In Cetinje, the DPS organised a projected threat to the security of citizens in order to advance its personal and political interests. Djukanovic has obviously become a factor of instability and that is clearly seen in the international community,” Stevo Muk, from the NGO Institute Alternativa, told the daily Vijesti on Monday.
As ruling parties accused Djukanovic and his party of a coup attempt, on Sunday, in a joint statement, US and EU members embassies in Montenegro called for political dialogue and noted that “Individuals will have to be responsible for their actions”.
Opposition parties, however, accused police of using excess force against protesters, and accused the government of acting in favour of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The Mayor of Cetinje and DPS official, Aleksandar Kascelan, said the police action against protesters violated the civic concept of the state.
“The [Serbian] Church is not a state body but one of the religious communities that are separated from the state according to the constitution. That is why the protest of citizens against the enthronement was not a coup d’etat but a constitutional right to assembly,” DPS MP Marta Scepanovic agreed on Sunday.
Tensions within ruling majority
The police action has also caused tensions within the ruling majority, as some pro-Serbian parties and officials accused the police of trying to prevent the Church enthronement in Cetinje.
A leader of the ruling pro-Serbian Democratic Front, Andrija Mandic, on Sunday claimed that some “people in the police do not want to prevent a coup attempt”.
PM “Krivokapic said there was a problem in the government and in the police management, where some did not want to do their job”, Mandic told a press conference.
While Krivokapic had insisted on Twitter that the government never planned to call off the enthronement ceremony, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Sunday claimed the Montenegrin government had “changed its decision and allowed the enthronement to take place in Cetinje”.
Citing unofficial sources, some Montenegrin media also claimed that Deputy PM Abazovic, Interior Minister Sergej Sekulic and head of the police Zoran Brdjanin were all against the police action in Cetinje.
“The Montenegrin public has to know who [tried to] persuade Metropolitan Jonakije to give up the enthronement and who was against the police intervention,” DPS MP Danilo Saranovic posted on Facebook.
Abazovic, however, maintained that he had been against canceling the enthronement ceremony, while the Interior Minister said that police had acted professionally and respected the constitutional rights of all citizens.
The outgoing Bishop of Budimlja-Niksic was elected Metropolitan of Montenegro at the Bishops’ Council of the Serbian Church in Belgrade on May 29, to succeed the late Metropolitan Amfilohije, who died of coronavirus infection last year.
Montenegro, which declared independence in 2006, is a multi-ethnic society split between those who consider themselves Montenegrins, those who identify as Serbs and various other smaller groups.
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