KOJIĆ: ZALAZJE CRIME WAS PART OF PLANNED CAMPAIGN AGAINST SERBS

SREBRENICA, JULY 12 /SRNA/ – The crime committed against Serbs 34 years ago today in Zalazje near Srebrenica was part of a continuous, planned campaign of persecution of the Serb population from that area, Branimir Kojić, president of the Organization of Families of Captured and Fallen Soldiers and Missing Civilians of Srebrenica, told SRNA.

Kojić reminded that those killed that day also included Serbs who had escaped death on St. George's Day from the village of Gniona and believed that Zalazje would be a safer place. "The crime was committed by the descendants of those who also plunged Zalazje into mourning during the Second World War. In May, the villages of Gniona and Blječeva suffered, followed day after day by Krnjići, Brežani, Ratkovići, Zagoni and many others, which shows that everything was well organized and planned down to the smallest detail," Kojić said. He stressed that those who burned Serb villages and killed Serbs presented themselves as victims after the war. "They have never shown empathy for our victims. They have never revealed where those they captured on this day were buried. There were 22 of them in total, and 10 were found only by chance," Kojić said. Kojić stated that Naser Orić is a free man today, despite what is known about what Orić did to Judge Slobodan Ilić in Zalazje. "He bought his freedom, and that is well known. It is also known from whom and Republika Srpska must make it a priority to adequately punish all those who changed their testimony and demonstrate that they committed a crime no less serious than Orić and his hordes," Kojić said. Today, a commemoration will be held in Zalazje near Srebrenica marking 34 years since the deaths of 69 Serb civilians and soldiers who, on St. Peter's Day in 1992, were killed in the Srebrenica villages of Sase and Zalazje and the Bratunac villages of Biljača and Zagoni by members of Muslim forces.