There is a lump in our throats for both our Serbian compatriots and our Croatian fellow citizens, for all those who did not commit crimes. If the nationalised politics of memory were really as pure as tears or if they were true and real tears, then those would also include tears of mothers from Petrovac Road and the tears of those here in Deringaj, Kijani, and Tomingaj, or those from Škabrnja and Široka Kula, said, among other things, Milorad Pupovac, the President of the Serb National Council (SNV) in Deringaj, at the commemoration for the victims of the “Operation Storm.”
BY: Novosti
PHOTO: HINA/Zvonko KUCELIN/ zk
Those of you who have gathered here, all of us who gathered here today next to this old church of the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin Mary, under these long-lived linden trees and next to the timeless Otuća River, we know that there was a time before us and that there will be a time after us, but we also know that our time and our place are the only instances of those that we will have and that is why we should live through them on the dignity of our finest ancestors and on the progress of our finest successors, as well as with the dignified memory of those whose lives were ended violently, for reasons of crime, as was the case with over a hundred Serbs during and after the “Operation Storm” in the territory of the Gračac municipality, and the memory of more than a hundred Serbs who went missing from the territory of this municipality, and who no one here would have remembered – just like the competent authorities did not remember and today do not remember their legal responsibility for determining the circumstances of their suffering in 1995 – if we, together with our friends from the Anti-fascist League (AFL) and Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past, did not remember them here – said the President of the Serb National Council (SNV) Milorad Pupovac at the commemoration held today in Deringaj, where participants gathered to remember the residents of these and other villages around Gračac who lost their lives, their loved ones, their homes, and their homeland during and after the “Operation Storm,” in the summer and autumn of 1995.
– We gathered here and today to remember the general suffering – persecution, destruction, and murder – as well as the particular suffering of everyone, regardless of their religion and nation, and especially that of our fellow Croats from this region and from other parts of Croatia and other countries which they were forced to leave and settle here, because these sufferings are equally worthy of our empathy and our compassion. That is why, right here and right now, today, it should be said that some say that “Operation Storm” is as clear and pure as a tear, while others shed tears for the destiny of those whose fate was determined by tearless people from both sides – continued Pupovac.
– The story of those who stayed and those who returned is unique and still relatively unknown to many. It is also unrecognized by many people as well. You and all of us gathered here, we are that story in which they can be reflected. However, they avoid reflecting in the institutionalized, nationalised stories, both Croatian and Serbian ones; they avoid that because they know, but do not want to admit, that these stories are, if nothing else, incomplete without your story, without our story; they are incomplete both factually and morally. If they reflected in it or had an open ear for it, then they would hear that this story is neither a source for renewing and resurrecting permanent nationalism, hatred, and hostility, nor is it a means for further victimization of all those who have already been victimized – Pupovac pointed out.
– If the nationalised politics of memory were really as pure as tears or if they were true and real tears, then those would also include tears of mothers from Petrovac Road and tears of those here in Deringaj, Kijani, and Tomingaj, or those from Škabrnja and Široka Kula, who did not have the time to shed any tears before they were killed in their homes, their homeland, and their country – said Pupovac.
– In those of us who gathered here once again this year in order to remember, there is empathy, there is a lump in our throats for all those who perished, for both our Serbian compatriots and for our Croatian fellow citizens, for all those who did not commit crimes. We do not invite anyone who does not feel this as a moral obligation to do so themselves, but we invite everyone to remember so as to preserve the dignity of the memory of those who were victims of nationalism, hatred, and hostility, to remember them by not creating a situation of permanent nationalism, hatred, and hostility both here and there, as well as between here and there, because that is how they create conditions for new victims. Eternal memory to them! May they rest in peace! – those were the words with which the president of the SNV ended his speech in Deringaj.