Veljko Milatović

Who was Veljko Milatović?

Veljko Milatović was a Montenegrin Communist partisan, politician, statesman serving once as the Speaker and the other time as President.

He was born in 1921 in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He got the surname Milatović from his mother's side, rather than the surname from his father's side, which was Čakmak. This was due to the fact that Veljko's father took his wife's surname for aesthetic reasons.

In 1941 when the Axis forces invaded his country, 20-year-old Veljko joined the Communist Partisans during the Anti-Fascist Struggle. He was appointed in fighting and rooting out the Nazi collaborators in the Civil War. He was a fierce opponent of the Chetniks. In 1947 he ambushed with his unit Krsto Zrnov Popović in his hideout and killed him.

In 1967 he was introduced into major political life by getting elected President of the People's Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Montenegro, with the significant structural changes in Montenegrin leadership of the pro-Serbian elements. In 1968 he headed the 25th anniversary of the Montenegrin partisan parliament, in Kolašin. A special guest on the celebration was his acquiesce Jakov Blažević, the Speaker of the Croatian Socialist Parliament. In the speech that Veljko held, he claimed that Montenegro "capitulated twice in its history - in 1916 and in 1918", causing quite a quarrel in the festivity, as the war-time MPs spoke against considering the 1918 unification with Serbia as occupation. Milatović was personally for favoring the Latin script, rather than the Cyrillic, the dominant script in Montenegro. He held his post until 1969.