On this day in 1946, a criminal who commanded an army whose hands were deeply immersed in the blood of the innocent was executed. Draža Mihailović, the leader of the Chetnik movement, was not only a quisling, a murderer of his own people, he was also the architect of genocidal campaigns against the Muslim population of Sandžak, eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, and beyond.
His “Instructions” of 20 December 1941 are a key document that exposes the ideological and operational goals of the Chetnik movement during World War II. The instructions were addressed to Đorđe Lašić and Pavle Đurišić, commanders of Chetnik detachments in Montenegro and Sandžak, and contain explicit guidelines for ethnic cleansing and the creation of the so-called “Greater Serbia”.
This document was not a military strategy, it was a plan for genocide. Its implementation led to mass massacres of Bosniaks in Sandžak, eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, including crimes in Pljevlja, Priboj, Foča and Čajniče. The rehabilitation of the executioner of his own people, Draža Mihailović, in 2015, casts a dark shadow over all the victims who died under his orders.
The “Instructions” are not just a historical document, they are an indictment against an ideology that tried to wipe out entire peoples. Draža Mihailović is a criminal, just like Maks Luburić, a monster who had his bloody “instructions”, Draža Mihailović is a criminal, just like Bećir Lokmić, the first commander of the infamous Black Legion, a unit of the NDH known for its brutality, crimes against civilians, and a bloody legacy that still burdens our memory today. The three monsters are one people. Their people are not ethnic, but a people of crime, a people without remorse.
