SELAK: WE WILL CONTINUE TO OPPOSE GLORIFICATION OF USTASHA IDEOLOGY

BANJA LUKA, AUGUST 23 /SRNA/ - Republika Srpska Justice Minister Goran Selak attended a memorial service in Trnopolje for innocent Serb victims of an Ustasha crime committed from July 31 to August 2, 1941, stressing that it was the lasting duty of the Serb people to preserve the memory of their innocent ancestors and the truth about the genocide committed against Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/.

"In Trnopolje, people were killed in the most brutal ways, without a single shot being fired, simply because they were Serbs and Orthodox Christians, because they lived on their own land and because they trusted neighbors who had until recently been their friends. Trnopolje, Kozara and numerous other sites of mass killings across Krajina bear witness to the intent to destroy the Serb people. We have no right to forget the Serb victims," Selak said. Selak stressed that the Serb people, having survived genocide and made enormous sacrifices in the fight against fascism and for the freedom of humanity, had a special obligation to oppose historical revisionism and any attempt to revive criminal ideologies. He reminded that the Republika Srpska National Assembly had adopted a resolution condemning and prohibiting the promotion and glorification of the ideology and symbols of the NDH, as well as Ustasha, Nazi and fascist ideology and symbols, along with legislation making the glorification of Ustasha ideology a criminal offence. "Republika Srpska will not allow the public glorification of ideologies under which hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Roma were killed. We owe this to the victims, their descendants and future generations," Selak emphasized. He stressed that Republika Srpska would continue to foster a culture of remembrance, preserve its sites of mass killings from being forgotten and firmly oppose every form of promotion of Ustasha, Nazi and fascist ideology.