Written by Đorđe Šćepović
With the ongoing parliamentary hearings on the security sector – now under Democratic control, as if we were living in a Stephen King novel – yet another opportunity arises for this bland political clique to publicly unload a fresh wave of lies and excuses for everything they’ve failed to do over the past five years in power. Or rather, for everything they’ve done wrong during those five years.
As always, the Democrats are talking about the DPS. And as always, Police Director Lazar Šćepanović – a political appointee – praises the police force’s stellar work and harps on the infamous “legacy”. Why Mr. Šćepanović agreed to be a puppet for the ruthless Danilo Šaranović isn’t something we’ll try to unravel. That’s a question for him.
What is clear, however, is that Lazar Šćepanović is fully committed to serving a minister who, even after the tragedy in Cetinje and months of student protests demanding Šaranović’s resignation, never once considered stepping down. Instead, in a style worthy of the tabloid press – Informer and the rest of Belgrade’s media garbage included – he tried to criminalize the students and the citizens who supported them.
Šćepanović doesn’t just fiercely defend those who handed him his position – he’s also fully adopted their rhetoric. Listening to him, you’d think you were hearing Boris Bogdanović or one of those other clones and clowns in red ties.
And what does the police director talk about? Naturally – “the legacy”. Šćepanović does stray a bit from the original script: instead of citing 30 years, he talks about 20. So, he does try not to look like he’s outright copying.
This is the same Director Šćepanović who, in the immediate aftermath of the Cetinje tragedy, was repeatedly caught contradicting himself – if not outright lying. And now, everything that’s happening in terms of public safety in Montenegro is excused with a slightly revised version of the Democrats’ favorite mantra: “20 years of legacy!”
Lawyers might say everyone has a right to a defense. But clearly, our rulers and their appointees have plenty to answer for – judging by how desperately they’re trying to defend themselves. They justify, distort, and rewrite the past – ad infinitum.
Director Šćepanović says, “For 20 years, the system did nothing to improve preparedness and security against modern security threats”.
But if what Director Šćepanović says is true, we must ask him: why did he, as someone who has been part of that very system since 2004, remain silent all this time, up until the fall of the previous regime? Why?
Wouldn’t it have been both helpful and appropriate for Lazar Šćepanović, who has spent 21 years within the security apparatus, to speak up earlier about the very issues he now describes as a “legacy” of “20 years of negligence”?
If the system was truly as he now portrays it – and we take Director Šćepanović at his word – might some of the damage have been prevented if he had spoken out then instead of now, after decades of holding senior positions under the previous regime?
Let’s not forget: during those same 20 years of what he calls a “flawed and harmful” system, Lazar Šćepanović served – from 2013 to 2015 – as head of the division for violent and sexual crimes and PEH-related offenses within the General Crime Suppression Unit at that Center. From April 2015 to May 2019, he was head of the General Crime Suppression Unit in the Criminal Police Station at the Nikšić Security Center. Then in May 2019, he became head of the Group for Combating Violent and Sexual Crimes and PEH-related offenses...
If I’m reading Lazar Šćepanović’s biography correctly, during those “20 years of legacy” – a legacy he now describes as disastrous and absurd – he spent most of his time in leadership roles.
How is that possible? And, more importantly, why? How did someone like him rise and remain in power in a system he now condemns, under a regime that ruled until 2020?
So we must ask: when were you not being honest, Mr. Šćepanović – then or now?
And why are you only now, as a senior police official who served under the DPS-led government, speaking publicly to the people of Montenegro about this supposedly broken system and its harmful legacy?
The very least you could do is resign – because you, too, helped build the very legacy you're now disavowing.
In the end, I must agree with Director Šćepanović on one point: when he says “defending the truth isn’t difficult”.
But, dear Director, you must also realize: defending this kind of government is far more difficult.
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