A Kiss from Momir

"I am the first Chetnik leader to be kissed by the Montenegrin president", is the title of an exclusive interview given by Milika Ceko Dacevic to the Podgorica weekly POLIS. Answering the questions secretly delivered to him at the investigative prison, Mr.Dacevic wrote the following: "I will answer as shortly as possible because I do not have paper. Everything I will write is true, and I would like someone to deny it." Dacevic wrote out his war biography, giving details from battlefronts throughout former Yugoslavia, concluding that, out of 74 volunteers in his group, only 11 lived to see the liberation of Vukovar.

"As of March 1992", said Dacevic, "I was in Cajnice, Foca, Kalinovik, Gorazde. I wouldn't take anything out of that war because that is another state. I entered it and fought as a Serbian volunteer, and in it, many of my good men were killed. I was one of the first three people to enter Gorazde. I was wounded during the liberation of Zupcic. In mid August I was getting ready to go for Trnovo, but Yugoslav prime minister Milan Panic and Montenegrin president Momir Bulatovic stopped me. I was arrested on September 21st at 8 o'clock PM in Jabuka near Pljevlja. I knew what was being prepared for me eight days before the arrest. I got information from Nis and from Belgrade and even from the Montenegrin police. I was constantly followed and tapped. They made it possible for me to do anything I wanted as long as I didn't interfere in Montenegrin policy. I was arrested by people who pointed three guns at my head. One also had a sniper of domestic make. That was the professional police. That afternoon, at the Montenegrin Interior Ministry they discussed whether I should be liquidated instead of arrested. Some were against this. I can say that Djukanovic does not deny my war merits, but he accuses me of what I haven't done. I am not one of those great Montenegrins who handed over Prevlaka and betrayed the Serbian people in Herzegovina. I will fight for the Serbs no matter where they might be, even if I have to go to Australia.

In order to promote his party, president Bulatovic spoke on Radio Titograd about me. I believe, even now, that I was wrong to invite him to Pljevlja to become a member of the Serbian Radical Party. He bragged about me having insisted on kissing him. I am the first Chetnik leader to be kissed by the Montenegrin president. I reproach myself for this." "They don't dare release me", said Milika Ceko Dacevic explaining his stay in prison, "because I know a lot. I would like to say just one thing: They should not forget 'Celik' from Foca and the protection they gave him. They deceived the Yugoslav People's Army, and they could do that because they had Panic behind them. They wanted to proclaim us war criminals in order to get the votes of national minorities which would ensure their victory in the elections. They betrayed everything that is Serbian for the sake of their own positions and interests. Shoot, I tell them, while it's time, but at yourselves".