The President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, stated at the commemoration of 30 years since the pogrom against Serbs in Croatia in Sremski Karlovci that Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) need “some kind of political offensive” because otherwise, they “won’t be able to defend themselves.”
At the ceremony for the Day of Remembrance of Serbs who died and were exiled in the Croatian operation “Storm” in August 1995, Dodik said that “only wreckage is left of the Dayton Agreement, which (Serbs) persistently defend,” and that Serbs “must finally say what they want.”
“They have destroyed the Dayton Agreement, Mr. President (Aleksandar) Vučić. We must launch some kind of political offensive; we cannot defend ourselves this way, because the same people who drove Serbs out of Krajina are now against Republika Srpska – those from Brussels, until recently those from America, I cannot say from the current America, and of course, Muslims from BiH,” Dodik said.
Dodik, who was definitively sentenced this week by the BiH Court to one year in prison and a six-year ban from holding office, stated that he “doesn’t hate Muslims, but their policies which are bad” towards Serbs and added that he “will not bow to their demands.”
“I will fight because I am a Serb, because I will not allow to lose even one more gram of Serbian land, and I will never again allow Serbian suffering to happen,” Dodik said at the “Storm is a Pogrom – We Remember Forever” ceremony.
Dodik said that Serbs “cannot live with those who want to eliminate and expel them from Republika Srpska.”
“They blame me and earlier (Radovan) Karadžić and (Ratko) Mladić for everything, and they save Naser Orić, who slit the throat and gouged out the eyes of Judge Slobodan Ilić. He walks freely today; he is a hero. And every Serb must be a criminal; that is their ideology,” he added.
He also said that the people of Serbia and Republika Srpska “must consolidate around policies that put the Serbian people first.”
“Go away, you and your rule of law, what rule of law? Leave us alone, the people of Serbia and Republika Srpska must consolidate around policies that put the Serbian people first. BiH is not my state; my state is Serbia and Republika Srpska, and I do not offend anyone for whom BiH is their state,” he stated.
Dodik also said that Republika Srpska “wants to see a strong and great Serbia,” clarifying that he doesn’t mean a great Serbia in the territorial sense.
“Why does the word ‘great’ bother some people? I don’t mean what is usual (for that term), but a humane and heroic Serbia, one that has strength, highways and hospitals, which has developed under the leadership of Aleksandar Vučić. If the Serbian people want a bright future, and if they want security, they must stand behind Aleksandar Vučić. This is a message that must be clear to everyone,” Dodik stated.
He criticized Serbian citizens who participated in months-long protests and blockades, reiterating his previously expressed view that Serbs from Republika Srpska “love Serbia more” than them.
“Where is that other Serbia that blocks, where is it here today? Why do you make us from Republika Srpska some boors and thugs? We love Serbia more than you who block Serbia. We truly love Serbia; we don’t play with Serbia,” Dodik said.
Dodik once again praised Vučić for Serbia beginning to commemorate the anniversaries of the suffering of the Serbian people.
“What we do year after year gives us that true human face, that face of the Serbian people who do not want to forget. And I don’t want to forgive, even though our faith teaches us to, for all the suffering that didn’t even have to happen outside of military ranks; they killed us just because we belong to the Serbian people,” Dodik said.
He stated that the 19th-century Croatian politician Ante Starčević “long ago wrote about Serbs as vermin that needed to be removed,” and that Croats “later, through the Ustaše state, promoted that one-third of Serbs should be killed, one-third expelled, and one-third converted.”
“The few of us who remained in Croatia, through Tito’s regime, were not allowed to commemorate the sufferings; instead, we were again labeled with tags we didn’t deserve,” he added.
Dodik said that the “Storm” operation in 1995 was “planned by the then-American authorities” – President Bill Clinton and others “who even formed an American center near Zadar to carry out that operation, which ended in ethnic cleansing.”
“It ended in such a way that there is no chance for the Serbian soul and Serbian life to return there. It ended the way the Americans wanted then. And they told us a story about how they were peacekeepers, both in Croatia and in BiH, only to eventually reduce us in Republika Srpska back to some one-third. That is the one-third that still remains to be dealt with,” Dodik said.
He added that Republika Srpska “is not some one-third” but is “dignified and great, loves Serbia, and is tied to Serbia.”
“We are tied to Serbia to such an extent that we do not want to see our future life without a close connection with Serbia and the entire Serbian people,” Dodik stated.
Source: N1 Photo: ATA Images