Stanivuković unveiled plaque to JNA Major Tepić, reaction from Bjelovar: The idea of Greater Serbia still lives

(Patria) - After the Mayor of Banja Luka, Draško Stanivuković, unveiled a plaque yesterday to Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) Major Milan Tepić, who in 1991 near Bjelovar blew up the local barracks because he refused to surrender to the members of the National Guard (ZNG), resulting in the deaths of 11 soldiers and wounding over 100, besides Tepić, reactions from Bjelovar followed.

During the unveiling of the plaque, the Mayor of Banja Luka, Draško Stanivuković, stated that Tepić, with his "timeless feat," taught everyone a lesson on how to keep one's word and how to "defend freedom, homeland, and people," adding that this "true hero" will be remembered for his words and deeds. Namely, Tepić allegedly said before his death that people "give their word once, and it is either kept or broken, I gave my word that I would defend this country," referring to the SFRY.

Stanivuković emphasized that Tepić's last day "will be talked about as long as the Serbian people exist" and that all soldiers can be proud of his "heroic decision," and the entire Serbian people can be proud of "his courage."

"They say that on September 29, 1991, he told the soldiers: 'I know what I have to do.' And he knew, he was a man who gave the most valuable thing he had for the defense of his country - his life, he went to his death, and then to legend. With this memorial plaque, Banja Luka shows that it respects his sacrifice and struggle for his people, we show that we are grateful and that his decision to remain in the weapons depot that day, saving soldiers and his people, was not in vain," said Stanivuković.

In the Bjelovar-Bilogora County, they are appalled by such an action by the mayor of Banja Luka, and they immediately issued a sharp press release.

"The celebration of the criminal, JNA Major Milan Tepić, and the erection of a memorial plaque in Banja Luka in his honor is a slap in the face and salt in the wound to all victims of the aggression against Croatia, especially to us in Bjelovar.

Major Tepić will be permanently remembered as a fanatic who in 1991 blew himself up and a warehouse with 170 tons of explosives at the Bjelovar Barutana. With this "timeless feat," as the Mayor of Banja Luka, Draško Stanivuković, deliriously calls it, Major Tepić plunged 11 Bjelovar families into mourning, who lost their sons and husbands at that time. Had the detonation of other warehouses not been prevented, Tepić would have blown up the entire Bjelovar.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that a man who has nothing to do with heroism is called a hero. He is a coward and a criminal. After Belgrade, where Milan Tepić already has a street named after him, Banja Luka has joined the glorification of the criminal, clearly not coincidentally showing a misunderstanding of the events of the defensive and liberation Homeland War in which Croatia was attacked.

It is scandalous that the Mayor of Banja Luka, who was not even born at the time of the terrible crime, has joined the cultivation of a personality cult that will not be remembered for anything good in recent history. This only shows that the idea of "Greater Serbia" still lives," the reaction of the Prefect of Bjelovar-Bilogora, Marko Marušić, states.