DODIK: LIFE IN BRADINA WAS EXTINGUISHED IN MAY 1992

BANJA LUKA, May 25 /SRNA/ – Life in Bradina was extinguished in May 1992, along with the lives of dozens of innocent children, women, and men who were brutally killed by members of Muslim and Croat units solely because of their Serb identity and Orthodox patron-saint tradition, stresses president Milorad Dodik.

"Years pass, yet the silence that descended over Bradina 34 years ago still echoes today with the same force and pain. Bradina is one of many symbols of burned Serb-owned homes, extinguished patron-saint candles, a desecrated local church, and lives violently cut short," Dodik told SRNA on the occasion of commemorating 34 years since the killing of 48 residents of this Serb village, while several hundred others were taken to prison camps and abused.

Dodik stated that those gathered around the then Muslim leaders, the creators and instigators of the war in BiH, carried out an attack on centuries-old Serb homes and property in Bradina, killing and imprisoning everyone with Serb identity they encountered.

"Three thousand armed members of paramilitary Muslim and Croat formations, former neighbours, turned against innocent Serb residents, both young and old, in Bradina, killing them in the most brutal ways on their own doorsteps.

In just two days, between May 25 and 27, 1992, 48 civilians were killed, while 330 civilians were detained in the Čelebići and Musala prison camps, where they were subjected to severe torture, 22 of whom died under extremely harsh conditions," Dodik said.

He added that only several dozen poorly armed men were unable to resist and defend Bradina during such brutal attack, after which the village was completely burned and destroyed, while the Church of the Ascension of the Lord, built in 1938, was set on fire and demolished.

"Evidence of the brutality of the Bradina crime and the cruelty of its perpetrators includes accounts that the attackers paid Roma individuals to tie ropes around the legs of killed Serbs and drag their bodies with horses to a dug-out pit in the yard of the destroyed church, where they were thrown. Over three days, 26 bodies of innocent Serbs were thrown into that pit. There are also testimonies describing cruel and inhumane treatment of Serb daughters, sisters, and mothers, who were subjected to repeated rape and severe abuse," Dodik emphasized.

He added that, no one has yet been held accountable for the crime in Bradina, as well as for many other crimes against Serbs, as the proceedings before the Court of BiH involving Serb victims are prolonged, waiting for perpetrators and witnesses to "biologically disappear".

"While we remember with sorrow and deep respect all the innocent victims from Bradina, our duty is not only to mourn, but also to remember - to keep their names from oblivion, to speak about their sacrifice loudly and with dignity, and never to allow the passage of time to erode the truth about their suffering.

Many Serbs suffered, many Serb-owned homes were extinguished, and many houses and churches destroyed during the past civil war in BiH for us to allow oblivion to cover the truth about our suffering. Republika Srpska and the freedom we have today were dearly paid for, therefore we must not allow ourselves to forget. As long as we and our memory endure, they too will live, because forgetting is a repeated crime against one’s own victims," Dodik said.