Residents of Brezna wrote to Radunović: You promised to extend the public debate, but now you remain silent — do we “not exist” for you either?

Although representatives of the Ministry of Urbanism, Spatial Planning, and State Property promised during the public presentation of the amendments to the Spatial Urban Plan (PUP) of Plužine—which was attended by nearly 50 residents of Gornja Brezna (and no one else)—that they would extend the public consultation “as long as necessary” in order to provide detailed explanations regarding the construction of energy facilities in our village, Minister Slaven Radunović and his team are now ignoring that request.

“The following is an open letter to Minister Slaven Radunović, calling on him to keep his promise and extend the public debate, as well as to schedule additional public forums and consultations with the local community whose future depends on this document,” say the residents of Brezna.

We bring you the full content of the open letter:

Dear Mr. Radunović,

As you already know, since we have sent you two official letters, we, the residents of Gornja Brezna, are requesting the extension of the public debate on the amendments to the PUP Plužine, which, in our view, intends to hammer the final nail in the coffin of Gornja Brezna—a coffin that has been in the making for over a decade—without informing us, the people who live here, own land and houses.

We only recently discovered the plans of our government and our municipality to build a 400kV substation in the heart of our village, and later an international energy hub, with multiple transmission lines, whose pylons are to be erected in our yards and wires stretched over our homes.

This would mean the end of life in Gornja Brezna—a silent genocide—as we would all be forced to abandon our homes and land in order to preserve our health and lives.

Tourists would avoid us completely, and our property, along with everything we have invested in, would become entirely worthless.

Gornja Brezna is currently the only village in the Piva region, and perhaps in all of Montenegro, where people are moving in—young families with children are building homes and tourist facilities, engaging in eco-tourism, agriculture, and beekeeping. We are doing what our officials have only been preaching for decades—returning to the countryside and investing in sustainable development.

And what are our government and municipality doing? Planning to drive us away, devalue and undermine everything we have been building for years.

At the public presentation of the amendments to the PUP Plužine, there were nearly 50 of us. In response to our fears and objections, the representatives of your Ministry stated that they would, if we wished, extend the public debate “as long as necessary,” to enable us to participate in the process and receive answers to all our questions and concerns.

Neither you nor your colleagues are responding to our written requests to extend the public debate and organize additional forums and consultations with the planners. You have minimized the duration of the public debate for this crucial document, and we did not receive answers to many questions during the presentation. We demand that this be enabled. This is our right, guaranteed by law, the Constitution, international conventions, and the Aarhus Convention.

Mr. Radunović, you are in your position because we made it possible. You sit in that chair not for your comfort, but to serve our interests—the interests of citizens, not privileged investors. We are the ones who pay your salary—not them. Are we right?

You are ignoring us. As if we don’t exist. Perhaps you, too, “don’t see us,” just like the state energy company CGES didn’t “see us” in the project documentation based on which it obtained a €28 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for the construction of the 400kV substation in the center of Gornja Brezna. In that documentation—available on the EBRD website—it is written, and we quote: “There are no residential or commercial properties within 2 km of the planned substation location.” That there are no living people.

Our more than 100 houses, our land, all of us—our children, our parents, our sheep, our bees—do not exist for you, for this state, for CGES.

It appears we “don’t exist” for the arrogant private investors like Alcasar Energy either—who are sending surveyors onto our land without our knowledge, measuring and marking what they plan to take from us, erecting power lines over our heads and collecting hundreds of millions in profit. This investor—or rather those hiding behind them in Montenegro—comes to you so you can help them trample us. Because, apparently, “we don’t exist.” They ask you to declare public interest in their private businesses and millions in profit, and to expel us from our ancestral lands.

Mr. Radunović, this will not pass?

You are in office because we, the citizens, enabled it. And we pay you to serve our interest—not theirs. Are we right?