Soundproof Room, Soundless Institutions

After the closed-door session of the Parliamentary Committee on Security, the citizens of Cetinje, who protest daily at Kruševo ždrijelo, issued the following statement, which we share in full:

“We, who protest every day by blocking the road at the Belveder intersection, are deeply disappointed and outraged to learn that the Parliamentary Committee on Security held its session in what they call a ‘Soundproof Room’, far from public view, especially after two bloodbaths in Cetinje that claimed twenty-three lives, including four children.

Why, after nearly three years, is the truth still being withheld from the people of Montenegro? Why are we still in the dark about what really happened?

The Committee’s chair, Miodrag Lakić, requested information from the security services regarding the tragedies in Cetinje – on January 1st this year and August 12th, 2022. In both cases, innocent lives were lost, yet no answers have been provided.

Why are these discussions held behind closed doors, in a ‘Soundproof Room’, instead of openly before the public? How can our calls for truth, justice, and accountability be so shamelessly ignored?

Do our state institutions hear us? Because we hear only their silence. And that silence echoes in our hearts, especially in the hearts of the victims’ families.

How is it possible that, nearly three years later, we still don’t know the truth about the massacre in Medovina, a neighborhood of Cetinje? Would the Committee have even met without public pressure? Or would everything have simply been declared ‘another successfully resolved case’?

Senseless violence. Twenty-three lives lost. Children, mothers, fathers, brothers, godparents, friends… Citizens watched silently as their neighborhoods turned into war zones. They watched as everyday life became a nightmare.

That’s why we ask: Is someone behind these mass killings? A hidden hand? An organization? Someone who incited them? Because these crimes increasingly resemble acts of terrorism. If not in form, then in their consequences, the terror that has left unimaginable scars on Cetinje and across Montenegro”.

Unfortunately, everything we’ve heard and experienced since these tragedies only reinforces our belief that someone is being protected, that the truth is being deliberately hidden, and that the crime is being covered up through willful silence.

The institutions’ actions have achieved only one thing – they have deepened our distrust in the security sector and the state as a whole. How else can you explain such silence from the system? How do you justify the silence of those who are supposed to protect us?

Where was the state before the shots were fired? Where were the institutions to recognize the signs of madness, threats, danger? How is it possible that no one knew anything — or maybe they did, but stayed silent? Knew and encouraged it?

These two mass killings are not just tragedies for the families and friends. They are wounds in the entire society. Wounds that still hurt just as much as on day one, because we feel betrayed. Our distrust in institutions has never been deeper. If we can’t feel safe in our own homes, in our own towns – then what do we have left?

These people have never been taught to stay silent or bow their heads in the face of injustice. We’ve learned to endure, to carry our burdens. But for how long? Until the next senseless act? Until the next tragedy?

Cetinje does not deserve to be forgotten.

We cannot let these two dates become mere footnotes in some report, just numbers in cold statistics. Because behind every number is a life, a story, a love, a child.

Cetinje cries out for justice.

For the truth. For accountability. And, above all, for the safety and trust that have been taken from us. For the dignity we deserve as human beings, as parents, as a community.

That’s why we send this message to the state of Montenegro and to the entire public:

We will not give up.

We have no right to forget. We have no right to stay silent.

We cannot forget Marko, Mašan, Jovan, and Vukan – our four little angels whose smiles were taken from us too soon.

We will remember them, not to live in the past, but to secure the future – for those who remain, and for those yet to come into this world.

This is our duty. This is the heart of these protests. This is our mission.