DODIK: ONLY PEOPLE LOSING MEMORY CAN SUFFER AGAIN

GRADIŠKA, MAY 1 /SRNA/ - Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik has said today at the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the exodus of Serbs from Western Slavonia that only the nation who is losing the memory can suffer again.

"Today we are here to express our sadness and to learn something from this," said Dodik at the commemoration of 30 years since the Croatian pogrom of Serbs from Western Slavonia in the criminal military Flash operation that killed 283 Serbs and forced 15,000 to leave their homes.

The president of Srpska has stated that it was only Serb naivety, not Croat organisation led to the massacre of Serbs in Western Slavonia.

"Unarmed people who believed in justice remained in western Krajina, while the UN, which twas supposed o protect them, served as a platform for attack," said Dodik.

He pointed out that Serb national naivety follows Serbs throughout history.

"Serbs' naivety, belief in authorities, easy giving up of national goals follows us throughout history and always ending in suffering," said Dodik.

The commemoration of 30 years since the Croat pogrom of the Serbs from Western Slavonia in Flash operation is organised by the Republika Srpska Government's Committee Nurturing Tradition of Liberation Wars.

On May 1, 1995, the Croatian armed forces attacked the region of Western Slavonia under Serb command, which was part of Republika Srpska Krajina under UN protection.

More than 16,000 members of the Croatian armed forces went against the Serbs in Western Slavonia, i.e. against about 15,000 civilians and 4,000 soldiers.

According to the data of the Veritas Documentation and Information Centre, the aggression against Western Slavonia, the operation code-named "Flash" on May 1 and 2, 1995, 283 people were killed or went missing, including 114 civilians, 57 women and 12 children, and 15,000 Serbs were forced to leave.

Of the total number of victims, the fate of 174 has been clarified so far, while another 109 are still missing, including 46 civilians, 23 women.

About 1,450 members of the Serb Army of Krajina were captured, most of them fraudulently with the help of UN forces, many of whom later underwent severe mental and physical abuse in Bjelovar and Varaždin.

No one was held accountable for these crimes.