04.08.2023.

President Vučić: Serbia will never again block roads to stop its people

The Remembrance Day commemorating all the Serbs who were killed and exiled in Operation Storm, which was carried out by the Croatian armed forces on this day in 1995, was marked in Prijedor tonight.

The Remembrance Day commemoration was attended by the President of the Republic and Supreme Commander of the Serbian Armed Forces Aleksandar Vučić, National Assembly Speaker Vladimir Orlić, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Miloš Vučević and Chief of the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff, General Milan Mojsilović.

The Serbian member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Željka Cvijanović, President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik and Prime Minister of Republika Srpska Radovan Višković paid tribute to the victims of Operation Storm.

At the beginning of his address, President Vučić thanked the large number of people who had gathered on the Prijedor City Square. According to him, in recent days we have witnessed hypocrisy and double standards that the great powers employ towards the Serbs, and we are facing so many problems that sometimes "even we, who have to take care of the people and citizens we govern, must release pent-up thoughts and emotions".

- Today we were at the Petrovac Road where a column of Serbian refugees walked, the saddest refugee column on the soil of modern Europe since 1945, which nobody speaks about. No one in Europe will talk about it. They will use all possible expressions, such as exodus, pogrom, persecution, but they will never say that it was the biggest ethnic cleansing on European soil since 1945. There are also many genuine and fake intellectual circles in both Belgrade and Zagreb and in many other cities that will use all possible expressions, but will never say that it was a crime of ethnic cleansing. How is it that only 30 years ago there were 700,000 Serbs in Croatia, and today there are only 112,000 according to the census they advertise? What happened to those people? Why did they disappear? Is it because they were living a great life? Or because you committed a serious crime against a people - asked President Vučić.

In modern times we live day by day, he said, no one cares about the fact that we are here tonight, and that tomorrow is another day, everyone has their own problems, no one wants to listen to anyone, let alone seriously analyze someone's words, or see the future.

- A few years ago, when Dodik and I made the decision to jointly commemorate all the misfortunes and sufferings of the Serbian people, but also good things in our past, we also talked about the Petrovac Road. I said that Serbia would take it upon itself to build a memorial cross, a memorial chapel, that we would make every effort to help these four municipalities where Serbs are in the majority, but which belong to the Federation. For those who don't know, we have erected a small wooden cross to mark the terrible tragedy - said the President of Serbia, adding that for 28 years he had been wondering what that place looked like, what Petrovac Road was like.

- I had never taken that road. I knew all the places in the former Yugoslavia. There is no place, no village that I didn’t know, but I hadn’t been there. And for 28 years, I've been wondering - how is it possible that you target children and the elderly by mistake. Today, when you see the place, it is clear to you that it was no mistake. You can’t have made a mistake in a place like this. I know what the MiG-21 looks like, I know you can’t have made a mistake. You saw everything, everything was clear to you. You wanted to kill both the children and their grandparents. It was clear to you that there were no weapons, tools, or anything else there - said President Vučić and added that at that moment, a decision was made in Belgrade to begin legal proceedings and indict those who had participated in the murder of those children.

- That’s what we Serbs did, but look what everyone else was doing to us. No one in the entire world, no one in any Western country said: the War Crimes Prosecutor's Office has done an excellent job; children’s death must not go unpunished. They were silent as if stunned. A vicious campaign was launched against me in all Croatian and Sarajevo media and many others. The vicious campaign lasted for days, weeks. When I pointed that out to foreigners, they didn’t care because those were Serbian children, and for them Serbian children, as horrifying as it may sound, are not really children. And that is why you shouldn’t expect their empathy - emphasized President Vučić.

That is why, President Vučić said, it is important that Serbs are united, that we know what to do, that we do not give up and that we stick together, that we say what happened and that we always stick to it. The President of Serbia said that we had erected a small wooden cross that they had demolished.

- Then we made a slightly bigger aluminium cross to show that our innocent children died there. They demolished that one, too. Then I had a four times bigger cross made, which now stands there. If they demolish this one, we will build a ten times bigger one. And we will build it so that they can never tear it down. They will never be able to take those children from our hearts and souls - said the President of Serbia.

Answering the question about why Remembrance Day is being celebrated in Prijedor, President Vučić said that it had been the first, saddest stop for the refugee column that had been running away from the Petrovac Road and from all the roads where our people had died on their way to freedom, to a new life, knowing that there was no life, no salvation, no survival for them amidst those who killed their children.

- I was born in Belgrade. I came here to Prijedor to tell you that I feel proud to be with you and I know that good, honest and virtuous people live here, not criminals, but people who know what freedom is and who have always guarded their freedom - said the President of Serbia noting that Republika Srpska and other sanctioned countries are having a tough time.

- That is why I am here tonight, because I watched Serbia close its borders on the Drina River, not allowing its brothers from Republika Srpska and Serbian Krajina to cross. I watched people who were looking for food and a home not being allowed to turn off the motorway so as not to perturb someone before the elections. Serbia will never again block its roads to stop its brothers and its people. Serbia will be with its people. There are no more barriers for our people, no blockades. We will always be with our people in Republika Srpska, no matter what hardships befall us - said President Vučić and added that "it is Serbia's job, task, obligation, responsibility and sacred duty to be with the people of Republika Srpska in difficult times."

Many people think, he said, that only those "who are clapped on the back by certain embassies have the right to courage, whereas the others must be cowards".

- Every time August 4 approaches, all those who would like the Serbs to be gone from all social media, draw tractors for us, probably thinking that they are heroes and we are cowards, and that they managed, owing to their heroism, and not to American weapons and logistical support, to expel an unarmed people, while Serbia was shamefully silent at that moment - said the President of Serbia.

Speaking about today's press conference held following the session of the Serbia-Republika Srpska Cooperation Council, during which President Vučić said that he supported the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he pointed out that in his speech he had asked two questions - why Bosnia and Herzegovina did not support the territorial integrity of Serbia in accordance with the UN Charter and UNSCR 1244, and why it was not possible to open the Serbian consulate in Bijeljina.

- There is no answer, because there is no answer to any specific question I ask. Nobody has provided us with an answer, i.e. their answer was that Vučić is guilty, because he didn’t say something. I have now decided, since I am also guilty of something I haven’t said, in the future I will send them my speeches for approval and that will be the only solution. That's how absurd things have become - said the President of Serbia.

Being aware that difficult times are coming, he stresses that he has learned that the western countries are big and strong, and we are small, but he adds that "he has learned all the tricks and that they cannot scare him" and that we have to cooperate with them, to look to the future, "but we will not allow you to humiliate our people and we will not take part in that."

- That is why we will create as much as we can through our efforts, we will invest in all municipalities in Republika Srpska, we will help our people, and I am sure that Republika Srpska will always, whenever it can, help Serbia - said President Vučić.

Speaking about his origin, President Vučić said: "I was born in Belgrade by chance, but I have always felt like a Serb from the Drina region, because of my father's birthplace."

- I have been told that people in Serbia will never understand how much the people living on the other side of the Drina River love Serbia. I want to tell you here today, that now that we know what Jasenovac is, now that we are proud of our nation, of our origin, now that we are not ashamed but proud of our virtuous and glorious past, now that our children know what Operation Storm is, I want to tell you that you in Republika Srpska have no idea how much we love you, how much you mean to us and that we cannot do without you, and that is something that no one can take away from us - emphasized President Vučić, telling the people of Krajina that they are hardworking people who will never forget what happened and neither will we.

According to the President of Serbia, we must never fail to protect what we value the most "what we are known for, what we are admired for by those who say the worst things about us - our love of freedom".

- There is no more important word than freedom, there is nothing more important in the world than freedom. We will protect the freedom of our people and Serbia, I am convinced that you will also protect the freedom of Serbia and you will always have Serbia’s support. Serbia is not some distant country; it is in all your hearts, just as Republika Srpska is in our hearts and just as all Krajina people are in the hearts of all of us both in Serbia and in Srpska - said President Vučić at the end of his address.

His Holiness Porfirije, Serbian Patriarch, addressed the people gathered in Prijedor to pray for their brothers and sisters from Dalmatia, Lika, Banija and Kordun, for whom Prijedor was the first stop on the road to salvation in the summer of 1995, during the violent exodus of our people.

- We have gathered today, not only because we, too, have the right to feel the pain and preserve the memory of our loved ones, the innocent victims, but primarily because we have the need to pray to God for the salvation of their souls. The fact that we pray for the Serbian victims, does not mean that we do not remember the pain and victims of others - said Patriarch Porfirije in his sermon after the memorial service for the victims.

According to the President of Republika Srpska, the people gathered today are remembering a "criminal enterprise".

- We were taught and brought up to keep silent about our sufferings and it was a common reflex of the Serbian people not to talk about their suffering, so as not to offend the ones who committed the crime. But thanks to a persistent man, a Serb, Mr. Vučić, we are here for the ninth time to commemorate the suffering of our people, to say that we will not forget - said Dodik.

The Remembrance Day is being celebrated in Prijedor tonight, he said, because it is a "place of suffering".

- This is a city that has suffered a lot, and a hero city, and that is precisely why we are here tonight. Let us remember all our victims - said the President of Republika Srpska.

Jovana Đaković, who was an eight-year-old child in the refugee column in 1995, addressed the audience on behalf of those exiled in Operation Storm, describing the refugee column as "a column of endless agony and a place of silence".