MASTILOVIĆ: GENERAL MLADIĆ PREVENTED NEW GENOCIDE AGAINST SERBS WEST OF DRINA

BELGRADE, SEPTEMBER 7 /SRNA/ - Republika Srpska Minister for Scientific and Technological Development and Higher Education Draga Mastilović told SRNA in Belgrade that General Ratko Mladić prevented a new genocide against Serbs west of the Drina River, stressing that "Hague judges are not judges of history."

"It is my duty, as a former soldier of General Mladić, to be here today and pay tribute to my wartime commander, and also to thank him once again for preventing a new genocide against the Serb people in the territory west of the Drina River, together with the Serbian political leadership of the 1990s," Mastilović said after paying his respects to the former commander of the Main Staff of the Army of Republika Srpska at the Church of St. Luke in Vidikovac. In his words, had it not been for the political leadership at the time and General Mladić, who organized the Army of Republika Srpska and the defense of the Serb people, there would be no Serbs west of the Drina River today. "For this reason, all of Serb people are obliged to pay tribute to General Mladić, who selflessly made his sacrifice both during the war and after it," Mastilović stressed. He said that the streams of people who had arrived in Belgrade today from all parts of the Serbian lands were proof of the immense love of the Serb people, who understand the importance and role of General Mladić during the war, but also understand his sacrifice after the war. "From this place, we can say that Hague judges are not judges of history, that history will only deliver its final verdict, and when General Mladić appears on the covers of Serbian history textbooks, we will finally know that we defeated Nazism," said Mastilović, who is also a historian. Ratko Mladić died at a detention hospital in The Hague on August 27, after the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague repeatedly rejected requests for him to be released for medical treatment in Serbia. He will be buried today at Topčider Cemetery in Belgrade.