Everything passes, everything changes, only Vučić's dream of Greater Serbia remains

By Haris Ljevo

Yesterday in Veternik near Novi Sad, the Day of Remembrance for the suffering and persecution of Serbs from Croatia after Operation Storm in 1995 was marked, reports the Patria agency. 

The highest political representatives from Serbia and Republika Srpska, Aleksandar Vučić and Milorad Dodik, spoke to several thousand attendees. 

Although the gathering was supposed to be in support of thousands of displaced Serbs from Croatia, who still live in collective refugee centers in Serbia, Vučić and Dodik used the gathering to send inflammatory messages, the same kind that preceded the wars of the nineties in these regions, and which culminated in columns of tractors with Serbian refugees from Krajina. 

- Today we remember our children who were killed, we remember all our victims, we think of the parents whose children were killed and all their happiness taken away. All this happened in just a few days in August 1995, on a sunny day, leaving behind desolation and fear. They had direct military and logistical support from Western powers and NATO, and in that month the crime that does not expire continued - Vučić told the crowd. 

However, he did not try to explain his wartime role to those present in a single sentence, let alone apologize to those people who naively believed in the story of Greater Serbia at the beginning of the nineties, which Vučić actively advocated for then. Today, he has slightly polished his nationalist face, so that today they live scattered around the world without any hope of returning to their homes. 

And while he presents himself daily as a leader of the region, a man who advocates for peace and stability, Vučić, whenever a favorable opportunity arises, shows that he has not moved an inch from the policy he advocated twenty years ago. Last night, he showed his true face once again. 

- May eternal glory be to all Serbs killed just for being Serbs, long live Republika Srpska, long live Serbia - said the Serbian president, who had the opportunity in Veternik to enjoy promoting the policy he never gave up, instead of fake smiles and handshakes with Western diplomats. 

How low a politician can fall in an attempt to gain cheap political points is best shown by his message to the refugees from Krajina. 

- Tonight, as always, you are welcome in Serbia. Serbia is not as good and beautiful for anyone in the world as it is for the heroic Krajisniks - said Vučić. 

How good a host Serbia is to the Krajisniks is best shown by the fact that 22 years after Operation Storm, according to official data, 19,000 refugees from Krajina still live in collective refugee centers without any hope for a better future. Several tens of thousands have already left Serbia in search of a better life in the countries of the "hated" West, thousands of the oldest have long since died, and those who have found a better place to live in Serbia can be counted on the fingers. 

Dodik said nothing new, he just took the opportunity to once again say that "all Serbs will live in one state in this century". 

Vučić and Dodik do not understand, or do not want to understand, that it was precisely the dreams of all Serbs living in one state that contributed to gatherings like last night's being held in Veternik. It is only bad that a large number of people still believe them.