BELGRADE, Oct 25 (Hina) - The Serb people never aspired for the creation of a "Greater Serbia" but instead their opponents used this to charge them with alleged greater Serbian hegemony in their endeavours to reach their objectives at
the expense of Serbs, said participants of a three-day international gathering on "Greater Serbia - the truth, delusion and misuse" being held in the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences (SANU).
BELGRADE, Oct 25 (Hina) - The Serb people never aspired for the
creation of a "Greater Serbia" but instead their opponents used
this to charge them with alleged greater Serbian hegemony in their
endeavours to reach their objectives at the expense of Serbs, said
participants of a three-day international gathering on "Greater
Serbia - the truth, delusion and misuse" being held in the Serbian
Academy of Arts and Sciences (SANU). #L#
Amongst those attending the gathering are the SANU president Dejan
Medakovic, as well as academicians Vasilije Krestic, Milorad
Ekmecic, Kosta Mihajlovic, Mihajlo Markovic and Dobrica Cosic. All
have been charged in public for supporting the idea of a greater
Serbia and for their loyalty to Slobodan Milosevic's regime.
Only extreme nationalists who had no significance in Serbian
politics spoke about a Greater Serbia. The Yugoslav Peoples' Army
(JNA) did not fight for a Greater Serbia but unsuccessfully tried to
defend Yugoslavia, said writer and former president of the
Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, Dobrica Cosic, accusing
Croatian, Slovenian and Albanian chauvinism for the disintegration
of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Radio B92 reported
on Friday.
The hypothesis of Greater Serbian hegemony was created by Austro-
Hungaria and the Slovenes and Croats in the first and second
Yugoslavia inspired by the Cominterna, the Communist Party and the
Communist Alliance of Yugoslavia, so that they could realise their
own ambitions at the expense of the Serb people, Academician
Vasilije Krestic said. He added that the trend of demonisation in
the past year had reached its climax in the form of the Hague
Tribunal with indictments which were unargumented and falsified.
Academician Kosta Mihajlovic said that Greater Serbian policies
did not exist in the field of economy, but rather Serbia had always
been in a subordinate position compared to the other former
Yugoslav republics and struggled for equality and not hegemony.
The Yugoslav Tanjug press agency reported that SANU invited 55
local and 47 foreign scientists to the gathering and the official
opening was attended by Patriarch Serb Pavle and the republic
Commissioner for Refugees, Sanda Raskovic-Ivic.
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