SRNA news agency, Bosnian Serb News Agency
May 25 2011
Croatia urged to accept blame for WWII genocide against Serbs, Jews, Roma
Banja Luka, 25 May: Croatia must accept historical responsibility for
the genocide committed against Serbs, Jews and Roma by the Independent
State of Croatia (NDH) in WWII, says a declaration passed today in
Banja Luka at the 5th International Conference on Jasenovac.
The declaration demands that a day be set in Croatia, B-H
[Bosnia-Hercegovina], [B-H entity] Republika Srpska [Serb Republic]
and Serbia to remember the victims of genocide in the Independent
State of Croatia and that the present Croatian authorities determine
and pay within a reasonable time frame compensation to the victims and
their descendents.
The participants asked that the Jasenovac complex of concentration
camps be preserved as a whole, and that the Donja Gradina Memorial
Area be protected further to the relevant project of the 1980s.
The 5th International Conference on Jasenovac concluded that the
crimes committed by the [pro-Nazi] Croatian Ustashas against Serbs,
Jews and Roma in WWII in the Independent State of Croatia were
planned, as genocide is defined in the UN Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948.
“700,000 Serbs, 23,000 Jews and 80,000 Roma were tortured, looted,
raped and killed in the Jasenovac system of concentration camps only,”
says the declaration.
The declaration says that the NDH was the only state in WWII which had
concentration camps for the extermination of children, and according
to an incomplete investigation, 42,791 Serbian children, 5,737 Roma
children and 3,710 Jewish children were killed in Stara Gradiska,
Jasenovac, Ustica, Jablanac, Gornja Rijeka near Krizevac and Lobograd.
They stressed that in its scope, the genocide in the NDH was the
closest to the holocaust committed by the Nazi Germany against Jews.
Srboljub Zivanovic of the International Commission to Determine the
Truth about Jasenovac, said the declaration will be sent to the
parliaments of all countries, but first to the countries of the former
Yugoslavia.
“We don’t know if the parliaments of these countries will pass it
immediately, but if we take as an example a similar declaration
brought by the Armenians on genocide committed against them in 1915,
which was accepted by some only last year, then I believe we will not
have to wait so long,” Zivanovic said.
He added that the declaration is aimed at drawing the attention of not
only the parliaments of all countries but of the whole world to the
horrible and planned crime committed by the Independent State of
Croatia in these parts, which state declared Serbs, Jews and Gypsies
outside the law.
“Even though many countries had information of these crimes, they kept
silent, primarily because the former Yugoslavia did not speak of them.
By bringing this declaration, we are siding with the small number of
countries which raised their voices against the crime committed,”
Zivanovic said.
According to surviving Jasenovac inmate Dobrila Kukolj, the issue of
compensation for surviving inmates and families of victims is raised
today for the first time, which issue should be resolved by Croatia,
which has never admitted the crime that was committed.
“The Republic of Croatia does not admit to being the successor to the
NDH. We complained to the UN to review the issue of the people who
survived those horrors, even though money can not compensate them,”
she said.
She thanked RS President Milorad Dodik for his support for a film on
the truth about Jasenovac that should be made.
The participants of the Conference today will pay a visit to the Donja
Gradina Memorial Area and Jasenovac.