Written by Petrit Latifi.
The following is a quote from an Italian publication stating that Plevlje was ruled by an Albanian official named Süleyman Hakki Paşa (Alb. Sulejman Hakki Pasha).
“They even maintained the civil administration and their own troops alongside the royal imperial ones. Both the civil and military administration were entrusted to a skilled and sophisticated official Süleyman Hakki Paşa.
The new mutasarrıf of Pljevlja was an Albanian born in Monastir Bitola. He was a career soldier. He had served as a brigadier general during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 and at the end of the conflict he had negotiated the exchange of prisoners in Romania.
Süleyman Paşa would hold his post for almost thirty years until the summer of 1908 when he was removed by the new Ottoman government. In the first years of his service Süleyman Paşa seized every opportunity offered by the Austro-Hungarian environment and indecisions to recover pieces of lost or endangered sovereignty.
The brigandage that was endemic in that mountain and frontier region served Süleyman Paşa to move the his troops and to limit the movements of the imperial and royal troops for their own safety as he claimed also served him to impose Ottoman penal jurisdiction on crimes committed against Austro-Hungarian persons or property against the claim of the imperial and royal commanders to have those crimes judged by their own martial courts.
Again, the discontent of the local Orthodox Christian population towards their Greek bishop who resided in Mostar in the Herzegovinian territory under Austro-Hungarian administration served Süleyman to sponsor petitions demanding that the ecclesiastical district of Pljevlja be detached from the archdiocese of Mostar and placed under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Prizren in Ottoman territory.
The canonical procedure lasted a few years and finally the Holy Synod in Istanbul authorized the transfer. The policy of keeping the flock of subjects under control through their shepherd had a long tradition in Ottoman government practices and its effectiveness should not be be underestimated.
From an economic point of view, Süleyman Paşa finally succeeded in converting the insult represented by those five thousand foreigners in arms on Ottoman soil into a blessing. The cutting of the wood for the construction of the barracks was made to be paid to the imperial royal command five times more than was foreseen by local custom. At the two border posts with Bosnia a customs barrier was erected and all incoming goods were subjected to the general Ottoman import tariff of 8.
The majority of these goods were intended for the supply of the imperial royal garrisons. The suppliers were forbidden to accept payment in shillings from the imperial royal command. In order to keep the prices of the supplies high, the imperial royal command was forced to pay the customs.”
Reference
Balkan Academia 