BELGRADE, April 28 (Hina) - An association of Bosnian Serbs, based in Yugoslavia, gathered for a conference in Belgrade on Saturday to mark its tenth anniversary and adopt a declaration in which it bemoans the fate of the Serb people
and expresses "readiness to protect national interests together." "The borders which have been set up to divide us through fraud, legal and political manipulation and with the use of weapons by big powers cannot be an obstacle and must not discourage us," reads the declaration. Participants in the meeting agreed that they "have not won the right to a united Serb state," but announced "a patient and dedicated struggle for cultural space" and emphasised that they "will be morally and institutionally ready for the joint protection of national interests." An envoy of the Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, Ljiljana Colic, said she represented "a quiet and modest man, who heads the state and
BELGRADE, April 28 (Hina) - An association of Bosnian Serbs, based
in Yugoslavia, gathered for a conference in Belgrade on Saturday to
mark its tenth anniversary and adopt a declaration in which it
bemoans the fate of the Serb people and expresses "readiness to
protect national interests together."
"The borders which have been set up to divide us through fraud,
legal and political manipulation and with the use of weapons by big
powers cannot be an obstacle and must not discourage us," reads the
declaration.
Participants in the meeting agreed that they "have not won the right
to a united Serb state," but announced "a patient and dedicated
struggle for cultural space" and emphasised that they "will be
morally and institutionally ready for the joint protection of
national interests."
An envoy of the Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, Ljiljana
Colic, said she represented "a quiet and modest man, who heads the
state and knows that wise statesmen's actions are much more
important than big and loud words." Colic believes that over the
past decade the Serbs "uttered big and loud words while the people
got killed, their houses got burnt, the state destroyed and their
right to the future as well as to the past denied."
The president of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU),
Dejan Medakovic, said it was a "painful fact" that the Serbs today
lived in different states and were "almost left to the mercy of
arrogant governors."
The conference was attended, among else, by Bosnian Metropolitan
Nikolaj, Serbian Commissioner for Refugees Sanda Raskovic, the
daughter of a former Croatian Serb leader, late Jovan Raskovic,
writers Dobrica Cosic and Momo Kapor, academicians Mihajlo
Markovic, Vladimir Strugar and Milorad Ekmecic, who actively
supported the Serbs' war against other peoples on the territory of
former Yugoslavia and advocated the establishment of Greater
Serbia. Present were also representatives of Croatian Serbs living
in Yugoslavia. The prime minister of the Bosnian Serb entity of
Republika Srpska, Mladen Ivanic, sent a letter of support.
(hina) sb rml