BANJALUKA – Throughout history, the Serbian people in Podrinje have experienced unprecedented suffering, but they never agreed, even at the cost of death, to give up their identity and their religion, which were the only reasons for their suffering in the crimes committed by the Ustasha in the Second World War and their descendants in the past civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, President Milorad Dodik told Srna.
On the occasion of the 83rd anniversary of the crimes against Serbs in Srebrenica and the surrounding villages on Trojčindan in 1943, Dodik emphasized for Srna that the history of the Serbian people is written with the blood of innocent victims who were killed just because they were Serbs, and Srebrenica and the surrounding villages remain one of the eternal witnesses of that suffering.
“On the great Orthodox holiday Trojčindan in 1943, more than 250 men, women, children and the elderly were killed in one of the many crimes with which the NDH tried to erase the Serbian name from these areas. It was not a ‘clash of two enemy armies’, nor a ‘tragedy of war’, but a planned crime against innocent Serbian civilians, driven by hatred and the ideology of exterminating everything Serbian in those areas,” Dodik pointed out.
He said that 250 innocent Serbian souls, householders, mothers, old people and children, were brutally killed just because they were protecting their name, baptismal glory and Orthodox faith.
“That was their only sin for the Ustasha executioners, yesterday’s neighbors, who thought that they would exterminate the Serbian roots and existence in these areas with a dagger. However, they were mistaken, they can extinguish earthly life, but you cannot kill the soul of a nation that remembers and does not forget. Today, each of these sacrifices is our eternal debt and a beacon that reminds us never to forget who we are, where we are from and how much we paid for freedom and survival on our own land. hearth,” emphasized Dodik.
He said that the crimes that the Ustasha started in 1943 were intended to be completed by their descendants in the 90s, all with one goal – to completely destroy and exterminate a people, their existence, to carry out ethnic cleansing.
“Religious holidays are the days of Serbian suffering, and it was on the days of family gathering at the Slavic table that all the cruelty of the criminals came to the fore. Nothing was sacred to them, neither the Slavic candle, nor the Slavic bread, they only saw the blood and murder of the weak, the elderly, women, and the bare-handed people. The most terrible chapters of Serbian history were written precisely on Trinity Day, Petrov’s Day, Ilindan, Nicholas Day, Christmas… both in the Second World War and the last one Defensive-patriotic war”, reminded Dodik.
Dodik pointed out that Srebrenica and the surrounding villages are not just a place of one suffering and one dark time, but a place of Serbian suffering that was hushed up and suppressed for decades, but also of Serbian pride.
And about this crime against Serbian civilians in 1943, he added, the communist government was silent, or even worse – lied and falsified history, presenting the Serbian victims as, as they said, members of the anti-fascist resistance, without specifying their nationality. He emphasized that it was one in a series of attempts to disparage the Serbian people and hide their sacrifice.
“Serbian victims deserve the same respect as all others, piety and truth, without selective memory and political calculations. That is why today, when we remember the martyrs of Srebrenica, we have an obligation to speak the truth loudly and without fear. The pain of other mothers, fathers, and sisters is no greater than the pain of Serbian mothers, fathers, and sisters. It is our duty to preserve the memory of the innocent victims, that their names do not fall into oblivion and that they serve as a warning to generations to come of the evil that wanted to destroy our entire nation,” Dodik pointed out.
He emphasized that the Republika Srpska was also created as a vow to never repeat the pits, massacres, killing fields, extermination attempts and refugee columns for the Serbian people.
“The Republika Srpska is our home, and its institutions are our security. That’s why we will always stand by the truth, by the memory of our ancestors and by the right of the Serbian people to live freely and with dignity on their age-old hearths,” said Dodik.
