“For years, we have been waiting for this central monument, but every year we commemorated the suffering, and every year we did it with special emotions and special efforts and a desire for this moment to come,” said the President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik.
“The monument is and should be an embodiment of our attitude towards those who suffered in the past war for our freedom and it should be a place of our gathering,” Dodik said at the ceremony in Banja Luka, where officials of Srpska and citizens will visit the location where the central memorial is being built for the fallen fighters of the Defense-Homeland War.
He emphasized that he will request from the Ministry of Interior of Republika Srpska to provide a permanent guard that must be placed and that there should be a special ceremony at the handover of shifts.
Dodik stressed that this should be a place of continuous innovations, especially digital technology to read the names of all the victims.
“This is a monument that this generation, regardless of political affiliation, will leave behind as evidence of our ability to do this,” Dodik said in his address.
He noted that the highest price was paid by the fallen fighters, but he emphasized that together with the Veterans’ Organization they solved the difficult problems of their families, such as housing care.
“We are putting a finger in the eye of others, they don’t want to see, they don’t listen to us,” Dodik said and added that among Serbs there is no family where someone is missing, whether they suffered in this or some past war.
“We are the ones who say you won’t eliminate us,” Dodik concluded.
He said that the names of Bosniaks and Croats who were members of the VRS will also be on the pillars of the memorial.
He called on Serbs to gather around the idea called Serbian national interest, citing how the whole world is failing which has eliminated national identities.
He also mentioned that the Government of Srpska will allocate a serious amount of money for the Memorial Center in Donja Gradina, which will be built with Serbia.
“It will cost more than 100 million euros and it will be a monument that will have an important place. Don’t let them trick you into comparing Srebrenica and Jasenovac, that’s exactly what they want, and that’s incomparable,” Dodik said.
Source: RTRS
