The crimes against Serb civilians in Brod, which Viktor Nuždić said were committed in 1992 by the Croatian Army and Croatian-Muslim paramilitary units, have still not been adequately punished. Serbs must continue to draw attention to them because a people who forget their victims risk having someone else write their history, said Nuždić, acting director of the Republic Center for Research of War, War Crimes and the Search for Missing Persons.
Nuždić said that the suffering of Serbs in Brod in 1992 represents one of the darkest chapters in the history of the Serb people in Posavina.
“We must not allow Brod to be discussed merely as a single wartime event. We are talking about people, families and civilians who suffered, about persecution, imprisonment, torture and killings,” Nuždić said ahead of the commemoration of Municipality Day and the 34th anniversary of the liberation of Brod during the Defensive-Patriotic War.
Nuždić emphasized that Sijekovac is particularly significant because it represents one of the first mass crimes against Serb civilians in BiH in 1992.
“Sijekovac was a terrible indication of what would later happen across the wider area of Posavina and Brod. That is why Sijekovac symbolizes the beginning of the suffering of the Serb people in this region, while Brod bears witness to the scale of that suffering,” Nuždić said.
He noted that the events of the most recent war must also be viewed in a broader historical context, as the Serb people of Posavina also remember the suffering of the Second World War, Jasenovac and Donja Gradina, as well as numerous other places where, he said, Serbs were persecuted because of their Serb identity and Orthodox Christian faith.
Nuždić said these historical memories should not lead to hatred, but rather to a sense of responsibility to ensure that crimes are never silenced and victims are never forgotten.
“Brod and Sijekovac must remain part of our collective memory, not so that we can hate anyone, but so that we know what happened; not so that we can seek revenge, but so that we can seek justice,” Nuždić told Srna.
He said it was particularly concerning that, more than three decades after the crimes against Serbs in Posavina, full justice has still not been achieved for the victims and their families.
“For the families of the victims, time is no substitute for justice, and forgetting is not reconciliation,” Nuždić emphasized.
Brod will today mark Municipality Day and the 34th anniversary of its liberation during the Defensive-Patriotic War, when the Army of Republika Srpska ended the seven-month occupation by regular Croatian Army forces and Croatian-Muslim paramilitary units.
According to the account presented in the report, from May to October 1992, the municipality of Brod was under the control of regular Croatian Army forces and Croatian-Muslim paramilitary units, which detained 2,000 Serbs in 10 camps.
After the Army of Republika Srpska entered Brod, seven mass graves were discovered. One of them was located at the City Cemetery, where the bodies of 88 killed civilians and soldiers were found.
Units of the Army of Republika Srpska entered Brod on October 6, 1992, while General Slavko Lisica proclaimed October 7 as Liberation Day.
The liberation of Brod was part of Operation Corridor, one of the largest and most significant operations carried out by the Army of Republika Srpska together with members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the Defensive-Patriotic War.
More than 2,500 soldiers from the municipality of Brod took part in the Defensive-Patriotic War, of whom 244 were killed and more than 500 were wounded.
Source: RTRS
