In Montenegro, the resistance of the shepherds to the NATO camp

SINJAJEVINA. Five o’clock in the morning and the dim light of the bulb is already turning on in the ancient room. Gara arranges the wood logs in the cavern of the stove and, with a sulfur-smelling gesture, creates the flame that will warm up the day. On the table a cup of hot coffee and a glass of rakja; outside the pungent air of an October morning. In the barn, the cattle are ready for milking: the hands squeeze the udders at alternating rhythms and the milk, still hot, falls squirting into the tin pail. Meanwhile, the sun slowly rises from the windows of the barn and even today Gara is ready to fight her battle: she will not leave Sinjajevina and will not let her land be sprinkled with gunpowder.

In 2018, the Montenegrin government, chaired by the Democratic Party of Socialists, declared its intention to transform Sinjajevina into an artillery range for the Montenegrin armed forces and the NATO army. Sinjajevina is the main mountain massif in Montenegro that hosts the largest pastures in all the Balkans and those among the largest in Europe. The plateau extends 15 kilometers wide and 40 kilometers long, between the town of Kolasin and the village of Njegovuda, not far from the border between Serbia and Bosnia. A perfect morphology for a shooting area.

The River Tara winds around it – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – whose strength has created the second deepest canyon in the world. In this boundless plateau live small and widespread communities of shepherds and shepherds, who have practiced transhumance for centuries and, in the spring and summer months, gather with the flocks in the traditional villages called Katun. Here there is no private property and the use of resources is regulated by laws passed down orally, from generation to generation. Shepherds know that land and water must be used in a sustainable and thrifty way, without waste and in a shared and supportive way. The strong connection between man and nature can be read on the faces reddened by the sun and on the rough and strong hands, accustomed to hard work with animals, from which the primary source of subsistence derives: milk. This white gold, after the boiling and curdling phase, is transformed into tvrdi sirthe typical aged cheese, first left to rest in the kazewooden crates, and subsequently in sheep skins previously dried in the sun.

In this idyllic place, the announcement of the polygon arrived like a disaster. The communities of the plateau immediately took action to challenge this decision and to protect their living territories, which are necessary for their subsistence. They collected 6 thousand signatures against the construction of the military polygon, proposing the establishment of a regional natural park on the plateau, also in accordance with what was suggested by a study by the National Agency for the protection of the environment of Montenegro.

The government, by law, is not obliged to respect the petition, but it must still consider it and express a judgment for or against it. From what was declared by the pastoral communities, however, without warning or prior consultation, on 27 September 2019 the Montenegrin army blocked road access to the south-eastern part of the Sinjajevina plateau and started the first military exercise of Montenegrin troops , American, Austrian, Slovenian and Italian NATO members, with the local population still present in the area. In that end of September, the first mortar shots interrupted the silence of the mountain and the quiet life of the shepherds. Some animals, frightened, stopped producing milk for days, others ran away and never came back. So in July 2020 the Save Sinjajevina movement was born with the aim of protecting the culture and traditions that have been handed down on the plateau for centuries, but also to protect the biodiversity and ecosystems that have co-evolved over time together with the practice of pastoralism.

In October 2020, the government announces another major military exercise. The response of the citizens was not long in coming and a protest camp was immediately set up in the heart of the plateau, aimed at blocking the access of soldiers until December of the same year. The concern of possible displacement is great, but the determination not to abandon those lands far outweighs the fear and today the prostest continues.

“Life in the mountains is difficult and working with animals is hard, but here I am free. Here I was born and here I want to stay, this place is everything for me” – Those pronounced by Mileva Jovanovic are clear and concise words. Gara, which in Serbian means black. She is black for the color of her hair and the depth of her dark eyes. Gara spent her life between the village of Bjelo Polje and the Sinjajevina plateau, raising cattle and raising her children among the readings of great philosophers and writers, such as Kant, Dostoevsky and Shakespeare. “It is not possible to explain the importance this land has for us, we have to come here and experience it.”

In April 2022, with the rise to prime minister of Dritan Abazovic, of the liberal-ecologist party Ura, the inhabitants saw the end of the threats. Abazovic, in fact, in October 2020 gave his support to the Save Sinjajevina group, joining in one day the garrison that the shepherds were holding on the plateau and assuring them that he would block the construction of the military polygon. Furthermore, the minister of ecology, Ana Novakovic Durovic, had confirmed the intention to create a regional park in the Sinjajevina area, in accordance with the proposals made by the European Union to take urgent measures to identify new protected areas and potential Natura 2000 sites. But in 2022 the British and American embassies reiterated their plans to create a military polygon on the plateau, in the name of improving national defense as a key to the security of the state and its citizens. Thus in October 2022 the pastoral communities, wary of a real position taken by the government, gathered again to discuss and organize the garrison of their places of life.

Montenegro, like other Balkan states, is a country close to the West, but which also has important economic, historical, religious and cultural ties with Russia. NATO and the EU have been and remain a guarantee of stability and security for this state of “border” between the two influences, especially in a delicate moment like this, in which the whole world is facing a crisis not only of ecological and climatic nature, but also political and social. If on the one hand the creation of a training center is one of the obligations that the country assumed at the time of joining NATO, on 5 June 2017; on the other hand, what is contested is the unilateral decision of the government, a decision taken from above, which does not take into consideration the needs and demands of the population living in a democratic state. Citizens still live today with the fear of being displaced from their homes overnight, thus losing their traditions and sources of subsistence: livestock and land. Milan, president of the Save Sinjajevina initiative, is fighting his battle together with all the communities of the plateau and wants a future for them: “To ensure that the next generations remain to populate the plateau, we need a vision for the future, a vision that is sustainable and in line with the policies of the European Union, to which Montenegro aspires to be part. And we have this vision. We would like Sinjajevina to remain a center of dairy production linked to the tradition of our people, which have always known how to use resources, such as water and land, in a lasting way, without damaging or polluting them. The battle we are waging now has nothing political. We are not against NATO or the army . We ask for the protection of nature and the traditional practices that have kept the Sinjajevina plateau alive for centuries. “