President Milanović in Baćin: Culture of remembrance for victims that we desire calls for reciprocity
The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović attended a commemoration on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the killing of civilians in Baćin, a community in the Municipality of Hrvatska Dubica. President Milanović laid a wreath and lit a candle at the mass grave memorial. Opening his address, the President asked: “Who are these people, until recently neighbours, and what was going on in their heads and hearts that prompted them to execute, to take the lives of so many helpless and elderly people in a cowardly way?”
“Not every victim is the same. There are those who are stronger, those who are weaker, men of age, women and the sick. And to say that every victim is the same is a sort of moral and philosophical escape from reality. These were particularly vulnerable people. I often think to myself, if heaven and hell exist, what does that special place in hell that is reserved for these characters look like. Do they ever think about that … That is the banality of human evil. People who until yesterday were neighbours, policemen, meat merchants and shopkeepers suddenly become brutal killers and have no issue with killing dozens and dozens of old helpless people. This took place before Ovčara and in a way it is worse than Ovčara,” said President Milanović.
President Milanović continued his address, recalling that the Una River is also Croatia’s border: “It was also a historical frontier in the Turkish wars and this land is soaked in blood from all kinds of wars, it is a land of insecurity and migration. This is an area of movements and constant tension, which is continuously in search of the human right to seek happiness, though it might not have been found. Thanks to Croatia’s defenders and warriors, I believe that that time has passed and that a more normal, happier time of human kindness has arrived.”
“Of course, the culture of remembrance that we desire, that we live, that I try to propagate as a politician, as a human being, as a Croat and as the President of the Republic of Croatia includes reciprocity. And I repeat since there is no response: that means if I have reverence for victims of another ethnic group that is close to us, and I’d like to believe it is a fraternal group, if I go to Jasenovac, to the execution sites where people were killed after Operation Storm, to Varivode in the Knin region, then I have some human expectation that someone who represents a part of that ethnic group will come here from the other side, to shake hands. That link is missing; it’s the whole chain that’s missing – the chain of normalcy and happiness. This is an invitation and an outstretched hand. Without reciprocity, without understanding, without some kind of recognition, there is no normal life. This is my oral and physical invitation to those who in some way represent or are in some way successors to those who have disgraced and tarnished the Serbian name here – because the people as a whole cannot be responsible – to sit down, talk and respect each other,” said President Zoran Milanović, emphasizing that from our neighbours he expects reciprocity, acceptance, coexistence and understanding, and that the time has come for a new era in which one’s neighbour will be just that and people will just be people and nothing more than that.
The community of Baćin is the location of the second largest mass grave in Croatia. The victims of the mass grave were the inhabitants of the Municipality of Hrvatska Dubica and the village of Cerovljani. From 1991 to the end of 1995, 137 people were killed or went missing in the Municipality of Hrvatska Dubica, including 35 Croatian defenders.
After the commemoration, President Milanović visited the Homeland War Memorial Room located in the Baćin Memorial Area.
Special Adviser to the President of the Republic for Homeland War Veterans Marijan Mareković was at the commemoration alongside President Milanović.
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Dario Andrišek