Trbić responds to Petrović: Which citizens are you addressing, Bosniaks are residents of Bijeljina, so drop the Greater Serbian slogans

(Patria) - In three towns in the RS entity, May 10 was marked with a ceremony for the Day of the Third Infantry Regiment and the Day of the VRS, accompanied by the usual verbal artillery and obligatory rewriting of history, which today forms the foundation of all Balkan-style nationalism, wrote publicist and president of BZK Preporod Jusuf Trbić in response to Ljubiša Petrović, mayor of Bijeljina.

"Instead of highlighting the unity on which the Armed Forces of our state are based, the celebration, as expected, served as yet another glorification of Greater Serbian ideology and the eternal themes of Serbian heroism and sacrifice. This was clearly shown by the memorial service for fallen VRS soldiers in Banja Luka, which, in itself, would not be controversial, had it not simultaneously been a memorial service, as stated, for 'civilian victims of the Defensive-Patriotic War,' held in the chapel of the Holy New Martyrs of Jasenovac by priests of the Orthodox Pastoral Care. So, the victims are exclusively Serbian, and only they are commemorated. And the fact that in the RS entity, the civilian victims are Bosniaks and Croats is of no interest to anyone here. Bloody ethnic cleansing, mass crimes against non-Serb civilians, dozens of mass graves, concentration camps, persecution, looting, rape, humiliation of all kinds, destruction of mosques, genocide in Srebrenica – all of this happened on territory absolutely controlled by Karadžić's and Mladić's forces and which no one attacked until the end of the war," Trbić states.

As he says, at the ceremony in Bijeljina, the commander of the barracks, Colonel Miroslav Baljak, who, by the nature of things, should represent the Armed Forces of BiH, stated that 'the Republika Srpska was created in peace and heroically defended in war.'

"A colonel should know that the RS entity was not created in peace, but was unconstitutionally and unilaterally proclaimed, and on territories where Serbs were mostly a minority. Then this unconstitutional creation was 'defended' by killing and expelling the vast majority of the non-Serb population. And retired VRS General Pero Mlađenović was even more direct. He said that for the Serbian people, the past war was self-defense, and that the RS is the first state of the Serbian people created west of the Drina, which is the greatest success of the Serbian people in the 20th century. Entirely in the spirit of the undying Dobrica Ćosić. And to enhance the effect of these propaganda slogans, the general called for unity in preserving the achievements of the 'Defensive-Patriotic War,' without explaining who they were defending against and for which homeland they were fighting. 'Let us preserve the truth and not allow the rewriting of history,' he exclaimed at the end. It is not hard to guess which truth he meant, certainly not the one established by numerous court verdicts or the truth we, the surviving victims of the Greater Serbian aggression, bear witness to," Trbić states.

He emphasizes that all this would be part of the usual nationalist folklore, were it not for the address by the mayor of Bijeljina, Ljubiša Petrović, who should, at least publicly, represent all citizens of his local community.

"It did not occur to him, nor to the others, that Bijeljina was never attacked by anyone (the last time this happened was in World War II, when partisans liberated the city from Germans, Chetniks, and their collaborators). It did not occur to the mayor that in Bijeljina and Janja, where no one threw even a stone at any Serb, hundreds of Bosniak civilians were killed, 35,000 Bosniaks were expelled, thousands went through camps, forced labor, torture, rape, persecution, all mosques were destroyed, far from the front line and war conflicts. Children aged two and four were also killed, and there is no evil that was not committed. Is that defense, is that heroism to be celebrated? Does Ljubiša Petrović not know that the victims were exclusively Bosniaks, citizens of his city?
In the speech the mayor published, he says: 'That is why today we only demand to be equal with all other peoples in the region and to, like all other people, build the future on our own land.' So, he speaks only of one people, in an entity which, as the Constitution states, consists of three constituent peoples: Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats, as well as citizens and Others. Is Ljubiša Petrović mayor only for Serbs, or do some other people live here too?" Trbić asks.

He adds that Petrović also calls the RS entity a homeland, meaning that for him too, the RS is a state.

"And couldn't he have read the Dayton Agreement, or at least its Annex 4, and convinced himself that entities are not states, but parts, regions, provinces of the state of BiH. Politicians of that level should respect the Constitution of their state and entity, not provoke citizens with nationalist slogans. At the end of his speech, he concluded: 'Long live our Semberija, long live the Republika Srpska and our mother Serbia'! Whose mother is Serbia, Mr. Mayor? If it is yours, it is not mine, and I am also a citizen of Bijeljina, with much deeper civic roots than yours. Neither are many others who live here. Will you ever remember that you are (you should be) the mayor of all citizens of this city, including Serbs who disagree with you, but also those who are victims of the aggression of your 'mother Serbia' against BiH - which is proven by a series of court verdicts - that you are the mayor of those who disagree with Chetnik ideology and do not want a monument to Draža Mihajlović and Chetnik butchers in their city, and especially not an Arkan's Guard Street, that you are the mayor of those people who barely survived your 'defense' of other people's hearths, and those who voted for you in elections, and those who hope that you, Serbian politicians, will one day understand that we also live here, on our own land. And that we will never again leave a single inch of our homeland, Bosnia and Herzegovina," Trbić concluded.