DODIK: UNPRECEDENTED CRIME IN DRAKULIĆ MUST SERVE AS A WARNING TO SERBS

BANJA LUKA, FEBRUARY 1 /SRNA/ – SNSD Leader Milorad Dodik says the unprecedented crime against more than 2,000 Serb civilians, including more than 550 children, in the villages of Drakulić, Šargovac, and Motike, as well as at the Rakovac mine near Banja Luka on February 7, 1942, must never be forgotten and should serve as a warning to Serbs that without their own state, they have no freedom.

Dodik says it is impossible to comprehend that such a horrific crime could have been committed – to kill so many people with axes and knives. "If you have no emotion, this means almost nothing to you; if you do, then it truly weighs heavily," added Dodik, who attended today’s commemoration in Drakulić marking 84 years since the Ustasha crime against Serbs. He noted that the innocent children who perished were guilty of nothing and were killed solely because they were members of the Serb people. "We must not forget this. I cannot forgive it. I have no intention of taking revenge on anyone, but there is no explanation that would allow someone to say that one day some darkness entered people’s minds that led them to do this," Dodik emphasized. He says the crime was committed consciously, deliberately, deliberately targeted, by surprise and deception, and that the Serb people were slaughtered in an attempt to destroy their genetic structure. "If we were to add up all the suffering in villages like this one, the figure of 500,000 victims at Jasenovac would seem almost harmless; it could certainly be far higher. No one has done that yet," Dodik said. According to him, not a single village in Kozara, Potkozarje, present-day Republika Srpska, or Posavina was spared mass killings. Dodik cited the example of his own village, Mrčajevci, where in a single day in June 1941, 147 residents were taken to the edge of the cemetery and executed without any verdict or guilt. He said that the present time can only be an era of warning and gathering. "We do not feel comfortable in BiH. BiH is shaped by foreigners who, together with Muslims, devised a criminal enterprise that has trapped the Serbs here, hoping that Republika Srpska would disappear very quickly," Dodik said. Dodik agreed with the view that such a crime would not have occurred had Republika Srpska existed. "Let them try now - they can’t. Of course. Nothing has changed. Ustasha remain Ustasha; even today they roam parts of Croatia, and Muslims - if the Ustasha were to appear here tomorrow, there would be a Handschar Division formed with Bakir Izetbegović, Elmedin Konaković, and all the others who are now sending us some kind of message," Dodik said. Dodik says it is the task of his generation to do everything possible for Republika Srpska to activate its right to self-determination and to separate from the Federation of BiH peacefully in state and legal terms. The Banja Luka village of Drakulić is currently commemorating 84th anniversary of the NDH’s crime against Serb civilians in this village, as well as in Šargovac and Motike, and at the Rakovac mine near Banja Luka, committed on February 7, 1942, when 2,315 Serbs were brutally killed in a single day, including 551 children.