An official state commemorative gathering was held Monday to honor the victims of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia at the Colonel Pilot Milenko Pavlovic airport in Belgrade’s Batajnica neighborhood.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that the events of 1999 were not a defeat, despite the heavy losses suffered. We have nothing to be ashamed of, he said during the state ceremony marking the Day of Remembrance and the 26th anniversary of the NATO campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
In the presence of Serbia’s state leadership and officials from Republika Srpska, Vucic said that “after all the bombs and the puppets who later seized power to loot and serve someone else,” Serbia has become a country “strengthened even by those misfortunes.”
He emphasized that “as a Serbian and as the President of Serbia,” he feels nothing but boundless pride. Despite the sorrow and grief for those lost, for everything we have endured, and regardless of all we’ve lost – they did not defeat us, Vucic said.
He noted that today he stands as “the president of a free country that makes its own decisions, a sovereign and independent nation, one that has dignity and can assert that it is not governed by anyone else but its own people.”
The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), Patriarch Porfirije, addressed Serbia’s “painful history of suffering.” He remarked that anyone could have been in the place of the innocent victims who sacrificed themselves for the freedom and peace of the Serbian people.
“The criminal act of NATO aggression has brought us back to ourselves, and to the values that must not be called into question, namely Christ’s commandment to ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’ even your enemy. We know, unfortunately, that few among us are capable of loving their enemy, but I urge all of us to keep Christ’s words in mind and to act accordingly, rather than succumb to hatred, for hatred breeds hatred and creates a spiral of evil,” the Patriarch said.
Following the Patriarch’s address, the sound of a siren – used as an air raid warning during the 78 days of bombing – was played, following which a minute of silence was held in honor of the victims of the bombing.
The president of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Republika Srpska (RS) entity, Milorad Dodik, told those present that Serbia needs to reclaim its strength after it was stripped away through aimless protests, emphasizing that President Vucic is the only one capable of ensuring that.
Also present at the gathering were family members of the deceased, ministers from the Serbian caretaker government, Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic and representatives from the Serbian military and police.
