While Europe celebrates victory over fascism in World War II, Chetniks at Ravna Gora in Serbia begin their multi-day gathering, where several hundred sympathizers of the Chetnik movements from Serbia and neighboring countries, on the very first day, alongside Russian flags and photos of Vladimir Putin, glorify domestic war criminals and boast about “erasing” the Fazlagica Kula settlement in an attack where more than a hundred Bosniak civilians from Gacko were killed in 1992.
In the late morning on Wednesday, May 8th, as the echoes of the most famous Chetnik song “Sprem’te se, sprem’te, cetnici, silna ce borba da bude” (eng. Get ready, get ready Chetniks, there’s difficult battle ahead) resonate on the plateau at Ravna Gora. In the cleared area between the church and the forest, hundreds gathered in black uniforms begin their multi-day commemoration of the defeated Chetnik army in World War II. In the uniforms of the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland led by Dragoljub Draza Mihailovic, the Chetnik leader sentenced to death in 1946 for high treason and collaboration with Nazi Germany, the assembled sing the Chetnik anthem, lined up before the president of the Ravna Gora movement and priests.
Stepping up to the microphone and speaker, set up in the middle of the fenced plateau next to the Church of St. George, into which unannounced visitors couldn’t enter, comes a man with a gray beard and hair, in a suit and tie. Ljubovije Nenadovic, president of the Ravna Gora movement, speaks enthusiastically about how the plateau where they stand is a place that “like a magnet attracts free-thinking Serbs” and he is proud that every year there are more young people at Ravna Gora, as well as people ready to defend Serbia. His speech, invoking the borders of “Greater Serbia” that include territories of neighboring countries, opens the official part of the program.
The gathering was not missed by the “Chetniks” from Gacko in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Milorad Sarovic is presented as a folk “gusle player“, while he explains how it is an honor for him to speak at Ravna Gora and how he brings “greetings from the Cetinje Gacko, where the infamous Fazlagica Kula stood for centuries.”
“By divine providence and will, God gave me the task, as a ‘Chetnik,’ to establish the ‘White Eagles’ movement, under the name Gacko Assault Battalion, and in 1992, after 527 years, to strike the dreadful Fazlagica Kula and erase it to the ground within 11 hours, so it never recovers,” says Sarovic.
Fazlagica Kula is the name by which the local community Kula near Gacko, which the “Chetniks” see as one of the last strongholds of the pro-Nazi Independent State of Croatia in BiH, is known. In June 1992, Kula was the target of infantry attacks by military and police formations. In the crime, qualified in one verdict as extermination, 130 Bosniak civilians were killed, but no one has yet been held accountable for this specific crime before the domestic or regional judiciary.
At Ravna Gora, the organizers of the gathering award charters to movements, associations, and prominent individuals for their contribution to the preservation and nurturing of the tradition, character, and deeds of Draza Mihailovic, the Chetnik and Ravna Gora movement. Names of movements from various cities in Serbia, Chicago, and Melbourne, as well as Ugljevik, Gradiska, Vlasenica, Istocno Sarajevo, and Lopare, echo from the loudspeakers. Members of the movements in these cities, in Chetnik uniforms, with fur hats or “sajkaca,” receive these awards in front of the formation.
Awards are also presented to representatives of the veterans’ associations “Garda Panteti” from Bijeljina and “Mandini Lavovi” from Ugljevik, as well as a member of the Movement of Serbian Chetniks in the homeland under the command of Slavko Aleksic, one of the three “Chetniks” who were sentenced to five months in prison for glorifying the Chetnik movement and Draza Mihailovic in Visegrad, or inciting national, racial, and religious hatred, discord, and intolerance. A posthumous recognition is awarded to Chetnik Rade Radovic, which is accepted by his son, Detektor writes.
E.Dz.
Photo: Detektor
