17.07.2022.
Minister Stefanović: Vučić defends the greatest value of civilization today
Statement by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, Nebojša Stefanović, PhD:
"The decision of the Croatian government in Zagreb to ban the President of Serbia from paying homage to the victims of the genocide committed in Jasenovac is the greatest disgrace in Europe after the Second World War. It is the most brutal post-war rehabilitation of Nazi ideas, which Europe must not keep silent about. It was not some extremist group that stood in the way of the President of Serbia laying flowers in Jasenovac, but the government of an EU country.
This Croatian government considered that Aleksandar Vučić should not come to Jasenovac. They should spare themselves the effort of trying to justify themselves saying that it was a matter of protocol, because that way they are mocking the victims of Jasenovac even more ruthlessly. President Vučić was not allowed to pass so as not to break off the shameful 80-year-long period during which no Serbian leader has visited Jasenovac or lit a candle for the victims of the Independent State of Croatia’s Ustaše. Croatia and Europe should ask themselves why no president of Serbia has ever been to Jasenovac, and particularly why President Vučić, who wants to break the shameful historical silence about innocent Serbian, Jewish, Roma and all other victims of the genocidal Ustaše regime, is prohibited from visiting it now.Zagreb's message is very clear – by forbidding Serbia’s head of state from visiting Jasenovac, we forbid it for every citizen of Serbia. Serbia will not remain silent about this total disrespect for its victims, or about the prohibition against remembering them and paying tribute to them. Serbia and President Vučić defend the greatest value of civilization today - the memory of the victims of Nazism. They also strive to prevent those forces, which left behind Jasenovac as their tragic monument, from ever returning."
