Avram Cemović

On 8 October 1912 Cemović was promoted to the rank of brigadier.[9] On 16 October 1912 the Montenegrin army captured Berane from the Ottomans and established Berane brigade with 3,200 volunteers commanded by Cemović.[10]

According to some contemporary reports, Cemović and his forces during cleansing and disarming operation of the Rožaje region (nahia) shot five people in five villages for refusing to surrender to new authorities and had Usein Škrijel hanged for murder of the kaymakam Popović. Cemović also put houses, factories and mill of Alidragić beys to fire and captured their 100 cattle and 200 sheep and handed them to regional command. The superior command condemned Cemović for burning of the property of Alidragić and ordered him not to shoot captured enemies but to hand them over to the court and to continue to chase and to shoot only to those who refuse to surrender.[11][12]

In the First Balkan War, the six battalions of Lower Vasojevići which formed a single brigade (Gornjovаsojevićkа brigаdа) with a total force of 3,200 were tasked with capturing the Plav-Gusinje region. It was first under the command of Rаdomir Vešović and in the beginning of the war passed under the command of Avro Cemović who was promoted to brigadier-general by King Nicholas I of Montenegro.[13] Soon, a forced conversion campaign of Albanians (Muslims and Catholic) and also Slavic Muslims to Serbian Orthodoxy began by the Montenegrin state. The conversion campaign was implemented since January and intensified in March under when Brigadier Avro Cemović became head of the military administration of Plav-Gusinje. On March 23, Cemović in a report noted that until then about 3,000 Muslims had been converted. The total number of the forced conversions by the end of the campaign may have reached more than 10,000 people without including figures from villages north of Plav and those of refugees.[14] Mulla Šaban Musić (Shaban Musiqi/Musaj) in order to help the locals to convert without renouncing their true beliefs, issued a fatwa which absolved those who converted from any sins.[15]

Avro Cemović established the extraordinary military court of the region under Vukota Pantović. The order for its establishment was given by the Minister of War of Montenegro, Dušan Vuković.[16] Its three members were Montenegrin military commanders, Vuksan Dragović and Milan Vešović, and Hajro Basić/Bashiqi who was a local Muslim hodja.[16] The total number of those forced to convert reached 12,000 and 800 who refused to do so were executed in the town of Plav and Gusinje by February 1913.[17] The first death sentence by the extraordinary military court was carried out on March 5 in Racina, Plav. It involved some of the most prominent citizens of the town of Plav.[16] In Plav, a total of about 500 who refused to convert were executed.[18] Modern Bosniak organizations maintain that more than 1,800 were killed in the course of the massacres and 12,000 were forced to convert.[19] The international uproar against the events in Plav-Gusinje forced the Montenegrin government to open an investigation about them. The commission which investigated crimes in Plav, Gusinje and parts of the Sandzak was headed by Mato Katurić and Andrija Rađenović. In June 1913, the commission published its report which concluded that Muslims in the region were violently converted.[20] Some top-level officers - including Hajro Basić - were indicted with the exception of Avro Cemović. Those convicted only remained in prison for a very brief period. Avro Cemović was removed from his position on April and replaced by brigadier Mašan Božović.[14]

Božović in his report to general Janko Vukotić noted that the people of Plav and Gusinje only converted under the threat of a violent campaign of executions and harassment. The stance of Austria-Hungary forced the Montenegrin king to proclaim freedom of religion for all subjects in Plav-Gusinje.[17] After freedom of religion was proclaimed again on May 5, all the newly converted, returned to their previous religion. Estimates of those who remained Orthodox vary from one person to two or three families in Plav.[14][16] The President of Montenegro Filip Vujanović made one of the first direct acknowledgments of the events by a Montenegrin politician during a ceremony in Berane in 2013 when he declared that "the crimes performed in Plav and Gusinje are the dark side of the Montenegrin history".[2]