ŠOBIĆ: FASCIST MESSAGES SHOW ATTITUDE TOWARD SERBS IN MOSTAR

BANJA LUKA, SEPTEMBER 8 /SRNA/ – The Head of the Union of the People's Liberation War Veterans /SUBNOR/ of Republika Srpska Slobodan Šobić stated that the graffiti with fascist messages and the Ustasha slogan "For the homeland – ready!" on the monument to the fallen soldiers of the National Liberation War /WWII/ and civilian victims in the Serb returnee village of Baćevići near Mostar clearly shows the attitude of Croats in that city toward Serbs.

He said that such fascist messages aimed at Serb returnees in Mostar are utterly condemnable, emphasizing that even 80 years after the end of World War II, the fascist ideology has not been abandoned. "Fascism and its ideology were defeated in World War II, but their descendants remain and continue to follow the same ideology, especially when we look at what's happening in Europe today," Šobić said. The monument to the fallen soldiers of the National Liberation War and civilian victims of World War II in Baćevići, a Serb returnee village near Mostar, was found this morning defaced with fascist symbols and the Ustasha slogan "For homeland-ready!", disturbing the local population. The same monument was also covered with Ustasha symbols in August last year, and children were attacked. "This is a message that keeps being sent. Every month in Baćevići, some kind of incident occurs, but people don’t report them. It happens that, in the middle of the night, people drive by shouting from cars, ‘No sleep tonight, Chetniks!’ People are afraid to report it and don’t want to create tension, but the terror doesn’t stop," Dušan Golo, the head of the Coordination of Serbs in Mostar and a resident of Baćevići, stated in SRNA statement. The monument had been destroyed during the past war but was rebuilt in 2022. It is located near the community centre and a playground in the center of the village, where children and young people regularly gather.