DODIK: CRIME IN STARI BROD AND MILOŠEVIĆI - EVIL THE WORLD HAS NEVER SEEN

BANJA LUKA, MAY 30 /SRNA/ - Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik said that the world has never witnessed such evil in a single day as the massacre committed in 1942 on the banks of the Drina River, in the villages of Stari Brod and Miloševići, by the Ustaše forces of Jure Francetić and members of the Muslim Handschar Division against the innocent and unarmed Serb people of the Sarajevo-Romanija region.

On the occasion of tomorrow’s commemoration of the 83rd anniversary of the crime against Serbs from the Sarajevo-Romanija region in Stari Brod, President Dodik, in a statement for SRNA, recalled that during this Ustaše offensive, more than 6,000 Serbs, exclusively civilians, from Sarajevo, Sokolac, Olovo, Kladanj, Rogatica, Han Pijesak, and Višegrad were brutally killed as they tried to cross the Drina River and seek refuge in Serbia.

"The intention of the Ustaše and members of the Handschar Division was clear – to expel and kill the Serb population from the eastern part of BiH to achieve their goal, which was the NDH border on the Drina River and an ethnically cleansed area free of Serbs. Of course, Josip Broz and the communist authorities concealed this atrocity and the brutal killing of 6,000 civilians – women, children, the elderly, young girls – many of whom, according to the testimonies of those who managed to survive, jumped into the swollen Drina River to escape abuse, torture, and rape," said Dodik.

Had the communists allowed the truth to be spoken, and had we been able to learn the truth in history textbooks about the suffering of Serbs in all the wars on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and not falsified information, said Dodik, we would surely have known who we were living with and what we could expect. We wouldn't have been the only ones naively believing in brotherhood and unity, while others were preparing for a new, even bloodier civil war, again with the same goal – the expulsion of Serbs from these areas.

“It has long been said that joy and happiness divide people, while pain unites them. But when it comes to the Serbs, that does not hold true. Serbian pain touches no one. No one looks back at the Serbian victims. No one sheds a tear for the black headscarves of Serbian mothers. That sorrow is ours alone — our pain, our grief, and our Serbian tear — while the hatred of the perpetrators is so deep that not even murdered children, impaled on bayonets, can awaken their compassion or sense of guilt.

"Just as it was then, even today we cannot expect justice for our fallen compatriots. I will remind you that only seven days ago we marked 33 years since the horrific crime against Serb civilians in Bradina, committed by members of Muslim forces," said Dodik.

Speaking about this crime, as well as the murder of the Golubović couple and their two sons, seven-year-old Petar and five-year-old Pavle, in Konjic, Dodik said that Sena Uzunović, who during the war was assistant commander of a brigade of the so-called Army of the Republic of BiH in Konjic, knew everything, and that it was precisely this brigade that massacred the Serbs in Bradina.

Later, he added, Uzunović was appointed as a judge of the unconstitutional Court of BiH and, without a shred of remorse, acquitted Muslims accused of crimes against Serbs.

“This all shows us how Serbian victims are treated today, just as they were treated after the Second World War, when it was not spoken that Serbs suffered, but rather ‘Yugoslav peoples and nationalities,' just to conceal the number of Serbs who perished,” Dodik emphasized.

He emphasized that expecting justice from those who name streets after the killers of the Serb people is naive, reminding that today, one enters so-called multiethnic Sarajevo, which in reality is Muslim Sarajevo, through the "Road of Young Muslims" or the "Street of the Green Berets," whose members committed crimes against the Serb people and carried out ethnic cleansing.

"And that is why we no longer have the right to be naive, because our graves forever remind us of this — Stari Brod, Miloševići, Drina, Jasenovac, Prebilovci, Kozara, Bradina, Dobrovoljačka, Tuzla, Sarajevo, Podrinje... We must be aware that the descendants of the murderers will not judge the murderers, but we do have the right to judge them. Yet, we do not have the right to forget our murdered children, our ancestors, and our compatriots," President Dodik said.

He said that it is our obligation and duty to remember and not forget, because if we forget, we will be equated with the murderers, and certainly none of us wants that.

The 83rd anniversary of the massacre of more than 6,000 Serbs from the Sarajevo-Romanija region, whom the Ustaše killed under Jure Francetić, will be marked tomorrow in Stari Brod near Višegrad.