ENOUGH OF SULJAGIĆ OF FUELLING TENSIONS AND INSULTING SERBS

SREBRENICA, OCTOBER 1 /SRNA/ - The Srebrenica Veterans' Organization, the Organization of Families of Captured and Fallen Soldiers and Missing Civilians, and the Veterans' Organization have told Potočari Memorial Center director Emir Suljagić that attacks on Serb institutions and efforts to raise tensions must stop, saying Serbs will not forget their victims, humiliate their fighters or renounce what they regard as the truth.

In an open letter, the three organizations strongly condemned Suljagić’s public statements in which, they said, he insulted Republika Srpska organizations and their representatives, Serb institutions and representatives of the Serb people in the institutions of Republika Srpska and BiH. They said Srebrenica and the Podrinje region do not need renewed wartime rhetoric, threats, allegations and constant efforts to raise tensions. "Suljagić's latest public appearances, including claims of an alleged arrest and a police raid on the Memorial Center, which the Republika Srpska Ministry of Internal Affairs explicitly denied, are merely a continuation of a policy of raising tensions. Instead of calming the situation, we are hearing increasingly harsh rhetoric that is being perceived by the public as invoking conflict and a wartime atmosphere," the organizations warned. They said they did not need someone who, in their view, was using victims to gain political capital and attempting to portray Republika Srpska institutions as illegitimate. "The highest representatives of Republika Srpska have already reacted publicly to this, describing such statements as an attack on the constitutional order. If Suljagić thinks he can silence Serbian families, fighters and veterans with insults, he is seriously mistaken!" the open letter said. The organizations said that referring to organizations established by participants in the Defensive-Patriotic War as "so-called" amounted to directly belittling the people whose suffering and losses led to their creation. They reminded that these organizations were not created in offices, but emerged from the suffering endured during the Defensive-Patriotic War. The Veterans' Organization, the letter said, was founded by demobilized fighters from the Defensive-Patriotic War, while the organizations of families and veterans were established by people who lost loved ones or themselves went through the war. "We are not Bosnian Serbs. We are Serbs, and no one has the right to define us as it suits them, nor to tell us who we are or how we will refer to our victims and our war. Especially not someone who has himself used far worse terms for the Serb people and has never even been fined for such statements. Suljagić is therefore not insulting seals and offices," the open letter said. They particularly condemned his personal insults directed at Branimir Kojić, whom, they said, he had publicly called a "clown" and dismissed as "some guy." "Kojić is not 'some guy'. He represents an organization bringing together families of Serb victims and is someone who speaks publicly about their suffering. You may challenge his views, but you have no right to humiliate him," the open letter said. "And remember one thing - the more you try to silence us, the louder we will speak! The more you insult our representatives, the more strongly we will defend them. And the more you try to erase Serb victims from the public space, the more we will speak about them," the three organizations established from the Defensive-Patriotic War said.