BELGRADE TO PREPARE REPORT ON DESTRUCTION OF SERBIAN HERITAGE IN FBiH

BELGRADE, 20 MAY /SRNA/ - Serbia should prepare a report on the destruction of Serbian cultural and religious heritage in the Federation of BiH /FBiH/, that is, to document all attacks on churches, chapels, parish homes, and cemeteries belonging to the Serbian Orthodox Church and people, and send it to all significant addresses within the international community, said the president of the Alliance of Serbs from the Region Miodrag Linta.

Linta stated that Serbia must insist on the restoration of Serbian cultural and religious heritage in FBiH, i.e., that destroyed and damaged monuments and memorials, erected for killed Serbian civilians, fallen fighters, important figures, and events from Serbian history, be restored. He emphasized that there should also be insistence on the renovation of Orthodox chapels, parish homes, churches, monasteries, as well as Orthodox cemeteries. Linta assessed that the recent desecration of two Orthodox cemeteries in the villages of Danci near Kakanj and Mošćanica near Zenica represents a decades-long continuation of the destruction of Serbian traces in FBiH, the Alliance of Serbs from the Region announced. "Numerous facts confirm that chauvinistic forces among the Bosniak people aim to erase every trace and presence of Serbs in these areas. Once again, competent authorities will not identify the perpetrators of these Serbophobic attacks, nor will they be punished," Linta said. He reminded that, according to data from the Committee for the Protection of Serb Rights in FBiH, four cross-shaped monuments were broken in the Orthodox cemetery in Danci, with the left and right sides of the crosses broken off to make them appear as monuments of another religion. Linta added that the cemetery in the village of Mošćanica was almost completely demolished, and that in the municipality of Kakanj, according to the Committee’s data, more than 20 chapels and parish homes were destroyed from 1992 to 1995, even though there were no combat operations in that area.