Vucevic: Serbs must safeguard Serbia, Srpska

BOSANSKI PETROVAC - The Serbs must safeguard Serbia and Republika Srpska, which are under major attacks, Serbian Progressive Party leader Milos Vucevic said on Thursday at a commemoration for Krajina Serb civilian refugees killed by Croatian forces in Bosanski Petrovac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in August 1995.

Speaking to reporters after a memorial service for the victims, Vucevic - who attended the event as an envoy of the president of Serbia - said a decision by the Bosnia and Herzegovina central electoral commission to strip Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik of his mandate was not an attack on two people, two presidents or a group of people, but on a state.

He also said Serbia and Srpska would stand together and commemorate all that must be commemorated.

"Both when we were victorious and when we suffered - it must be written in textbooks to enable the children to study that, so that it never happens again," Vucevic said.

Speaking about the crimes committed by Croatia in the criminal "Operation Storm" in August 1995, Vucevic said 30 years of silence and turning a blind eye on Serb victims and a tragedy of the Serbs were unacceptable.

"To me, it is still unbelievable that someone can remain silent in the face of this crime or present it in some other context just because the victims were Serbs and the perpetrators were Croatian troops," Vucevic said.

"Had that happened to someone else, the whole world would know," the Republika Srpska news agency Srna quoted him as saying.