DODIK: CRIME IN STARI BROD WAS HIDDEN FOR 40 YEARS; HOW DO DESCENDANTS OF NAZIS, WHO LABEL US, CALL THE PLANNED KILLING OF MORE THAN 6,000 SERBS!?

BANJA LUKA, MAY 25 /SRNA/ - Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik emphasized that Stari Brod is a place of horror, mass death, and immense suffering of more than 6,000 innocent Serbs. Unfortunately, it is also the most vivid example of how the communist authorities deliberately and systematically concealed the sites of Serbian suffering, to bury the crime in oblivion, all under the pretext of maintaining interethnic relations in the former Yugoslavia.

"In the spring of 1942, Ustashas under Jure Francetić, together with Muslims, who at the time were called 'Croatian flowers,' monstrously and brutally killed, massacred, tortured, slaughtered, and raped more than 6,000 innocent children, girls, women, and elderly people in just two months, from March 22 to early May," Dodik told SRNA on the occasion of the 82nd anniversary of the suffering of Serbs in Stari Brod near Višegrad. He reminded that in mid-March 1942, the Ustashas from Sarajevo launched a large-scale offensive with the clear intention of realizing their and the Muslims' dream of expelling all Serbs to the border on the Drina. "In the group trying to escape the bloodthirsty Ustashas, there were Serbs from Olovo, Sarajevo, Kladanj, Han Pijesak, Goražde, from Romanija, Sokolac, Rogatica... who wanted to escape the butchers by fleeing towards Višegrad and further towards Serbia. They reached the Drina, hoping to board a raft or boat and escape Francetić's Ustahas. Unfortunately, most of those who entered the canyon never returned and met their end in the cold river," Dodik recalled. Dodik emphasized that, according to the testimonies of a small number of survivors who were not allowed to talk about this crime for decades, innocent people, seeing that they were surrounded and that armed Muslims and Ustashas were aiming at them from the surrounding cliffs, jumped into the Drina and the canyon echoed with cries, wailing, and calls for help. According to him, chroniclers have recorded that on one day alone, 318 girls jumped from the cliff into the Drina, not wanting to fall into the hands of the Ustahas and Muslims, as they knew what awaited them. "It is enough to recall the testimony of Miloš Bašović from Borik near Rogatica, whose three-year-old sister was thrown into the air by one of the Ustashas, caught on a bayonet, and then thrown into the Drina. And this was only because the innocent girl was of Serbian nationality. Therefore, today I cannot help but ask the descendants of the Nazis, the grandchild of a Nazi leader, advocate of the rehabilitation of Nazi pilots, how they label this crime when they call us, and more than 6,000 victims whose grave is the Drina, 'genocidal'? Is this genocide considering there was a clear intent to wholly or partially destroy a people in the area from Sarajevo to the border on the Drina !?" Dodik asked. He emphasized that the Yugoslav communist authorities after World War II prohibited speaking about the crimes and the criminals, especially about the nationality of the victims and perpetrators, explaining that it would disturb brotherhood and unity. In reality, they wanted to let the passage of time, the death of witnesses and perpetrators, and the changing of generations cover up the crimes against Serbs, who suffered the most in the 20th century and were the biggest victims of the Nazi-Ustasha ideology. "Stari Brod should serve as a warning and a lesson to us all, as it took 40 years for the truth about this horrific crime to come to light after 40 years of silence and concealment of the suffering of more than 6,000 Serbs, mostly civilians. Therefore, nurturing the culture of remembrance of the suffering of the Serbian people is our sacred duty, which we must pass on to future generations, so they do not naively believe, as we did, that such crimes cannot happen again. They can, and we see that even today," President Dodik told SRNA. He pointed out that a large number of supposed global powers, along with Muslims from the neighboring Federation of BiH, are trying to demonize and label Serbs with a shameful resolution, to force us through blackmail, sanctions, and pressure to live in a Muslim-dominated, unitary BiH. "They can blackmail us as much as they want, just as they shamelessly blackmailed certain countries into voting for the resolution on Srebrenica, but we will never succumb to the pressure for the sake of our ancestors, martyrs, and victims who found their peace in the cold Drina or in numerous pits, some of which we might not even know about because the communists cemented them over to ensure the truth about Serbian suffering would never come to light. Therefore, we must preserve Republika Srpska because it is our homeland, our security, and our freedom, which we must not betray at any cost. Republika Srpska has no price!" concluded Dodik.