23.07.2019.
Minister Vulin: The international community should repeat the investigation into the massacre of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija
In memory of 14 Serbian reapers from Staro Gracko, who had been bestially killed and massacred in the village of Bujance near Lipljan, on this date back in 1999, Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin toured Memorial room dedicated to Victims of Kosmet in “Beograđanka” building.
On behalf of the Government of the Republic of Serbia Minister Vulin extended condolences to the families of the killed reapers, saying that the loss which they had suffered was not the loss of a village or several families, but the loss of one people and entire human civilisation.
- On behalf of the President of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić, who did not make a single move without always thinking first about the Serbs in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, who never forgot to remind the international community of their great responsibility and obligations to ensure the rights and justice for the Serbs, I once again extend deepest condolences to all the families and all the Serbs as well. This is not a loss for one village and several families; this is the loss for the entire nation and entire human civilisation, since if it is possible for these 15 people to be killed, and once dead to be massacred, and that no one has ever answered for that, then this planet as well has no right to rejoice at its existence - Minister Vulin stated.According to Minister Vulin, if there were justice, we would remain quiet today, and pray for the killed ones with our heads bowed, sending them a message that they can rest in peace, because their killers were punished and because the human justice had caught up with them.
- Twenty years have passed, and the killers of the reapers in Staro Gracko are alive and well, they have families, they enjoy their lives. Their crime is rewarded by the very fact that they exist and that they are free. The international community has irrevocably compromised itself and showed that where the Serbian people do not have their policemen, judges or legislators, there cannot be justice for them. Where else could 14 reapers be killed, a seventeen-year-old child massacred, without anyone answering for that - Minister Vulin asked, reminding that the crimes did not happen some place far from the civilisation so that they could not have been prevented.
According to Minister Vulin, the responsibility for the fact that the criminals have not been punished until this very day rests with Shiptar terrorists and KFOR as well and the international community.
- If KFOR had done its job on that day and monitored the reapers, perhaps they would be older today, certainly happier just like all of us would be. If KFOR had done its job, just like the international community did not do its job, we would not speak about that tragedy today, but we would rejoice at their lives and the things they left for posterity. Certainly, the entire responsibility for this rests with Shiptar terrorists, but even more so with the international community which had enabled them to commit the crime and to go unpunished.
Minister Vulin appealed to the new tribunal in the Hague saying: “If it truly intends to fight for justice, it should reopen this case and inspect again everything that can be found out, and do everything humanly possible to restore the investigation on the massacre of the reapers”. According to him, the case of executed Serbian children on the river of Bistrica in the village of Goraždevac should be reopened as well, and the case of massacre in Livadice when two-year-old Danilo Cokić was killed in the lap of his pregnant mother, and all other unsolved crimes that took place in Kosovo and Metohija in which more than 1000 Serbs were killed, since the arrival of the international community until today.
- Since the international community does not feel the need to solve any of the crimes that were committed against the Serbs, we are reminding it now of what it committed itself to do upon the arrival in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, which is to establish the rule of law and justice in line with Resolution 1244 for everyone who lives in Kosovo and Metohija. We ask them to do what they came for, and to stop being such hypocrites and ask from the Serbs to refrain themselves and even condemn us, while they do not ask from the Shiptars to single out those with blood on their hands. The international community is the most responsible for everything that occurs in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija and the newly established tribunal has the chance to reopen the investigation of this and all other massacres - Minister Vulin sent the message.
According to Director of Governmental Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Marko Đurić, on this day we bow to the shadows of innocent victims, who were killed while doing their daily chores, trying to put food on the table for their families that have been mourning them still, after two decades.
- When you see the faces of family members of the people that were killed twenty years ago, you see that their suffering has been lasting for two decades, and that it is as great today as it was then - Đurić stressed adding that it was something that caused pain not only to their families, but it was a wound on the soul and body of the entire Serbian people.
Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija sent the word that it was our obligation to preserve the memory of those people, the entire golgotha of the Serbian people and the suffering in Kosovo and Metohija, but that we should also restlessly pursue the criminals who had committed those horrible crimes. A war crime can never become obsolete - he added - just like the will and resolve of the state of Serbia to find and punish those criminals will never cease.
On behalf of the victims’ families from Kosovo and Metohija, the gathered were addressed by President of Association of Families of the Kidnapped and Killed in Kosovo and Metohija, Sima Spasić, who stated that the criminal Ramush Haradinaj would not have been in the situation in which he was if the statesman of DOS had had a little bit of understanding and compassion towards Serbian victims, and victims from Kosmet in particular.- We will never forgive those statesmen who released 2,108 Shiptar terrorists and criminals from Serbian jails. No country in the world would do that - Sima Spasić emphasised.
Representative of the Association of Families of the Kidnapped and Killed in Kosovo and Metohija Snežana Marković Dragović reminded that on the ominous 23rd July 1999, families Janićijević, Živić, Dekić, Cvejić, Jovanović, Odalović, Stojanović and Tepšić were shroud in mourning and that so called KLA had transformed Kosovo and Metohija into bloody scene of murders, where the suffering of Serbian and non-Albanian population increased to apocalyptic scale.
According to Slavica Janićijević Popović, who in the massacre of 14 reapers lost her father, brother and two uncles, the families of the killed in Kosovo and Metohija hope for justice for their dead even twenty years later.
All who attended today’s commemoration to the killed reapers, toured the exhibition in the Memorial room - Victims from Kosmet, which consists of 2,500 photographs of the kidnapped and killed Serbs, Roma, Gorani, Albanians and other in Kosovo and Metohija.
