Jure Francetić, had 19 hostages shot (one escaped). On 12 June, the gendarmerie in Ravno shot four people on the orders of the Ustaše commissioner for Ljubinje. Such actions led to Serb peasants leaving their villages to seek safety in more remote areas, and Muslim villagers became increasingly nervous about their Serb neighbours. In mid-June, the commander of the 2nd Company of the 7th Battalion at Bileća wrote to Adriatic Command complaining about the activities of the Ustaše, referring to them as "armed scum and animals" who were dishonouring "honest Croats". When the Italians heard that the Ustaše had burned two villages across the border in Montenegro, they sent an intelligence officer to Gacko to investigate the unrest. He did not accept the explanation of the gendarmerie commander in Gacko, who claimed that the violence was caused by "personal hatred and revenge", and met with rebels. The rebels did not attack him or his security escort, and told him that the reason behind the rebellion was that "Croats and Turks are beating us and throwing us into a pit". He concluded that the cause of the unrest was the attempt to disarm the Serb community. On 17 and 18 June, Tonogal and Lieutenant Colonel Aganović, gendarmerie commander for eastern Herzegovina, made an attempt to calm the situation by visiting villages east of the Gacko–Avtovac road to re-establish peace in the area. They received a written message from four villages that they did not acknowledge the NDH authorities, and wanted the message to be passed on to the Italians. The residents of the villages of Jasenik and Lipnik were willing to talk and return to work, but they asked that the gendarmerie not visit their villages, as this would tempt the Montenegrins to attack. Aganović assessed that while this was probably true, their request was insincere. The gendarmerie commander in Bileća believed that the reason for the rebellion was that the local Serbs were wedded to the idea of Greater Serbia, and did not accept that their villages were part of the NDH. This approach essentially meant that local Serbs wanted the NDH authorities to leave them alone and not impose on their lives. According to the historian Davor Marijan, this was a poor choice that gave the Ustaše an excuse to take radical action. The response of the NDH authorities to resistance had been to burn down the villages where