ATTEMPTS TO RELATIVIZE HANDSCHAR DIVISION ARE DANGEROUS REVISION OF HISTORY

BANJA LUKA, MARCH 10 /SRNA/ - SNSD president Milorad Dodik said that attempts to relativize the actions of Jerusalem Mufti Amin al-Husseini and efforts to portray the role of the notorious 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar as political or historical pragmatism represent a dangerous revision of history with a clear political agenda.

Dodik pointed out that such interpretations come from the intellectual and media scene in Sarajevo, citing the views and public appearances of Šaćir Filandra, his statements relativizing the actions of al-Husseini, as well as the support of Sarajevo media and the political elite. "This clearly shows that Republika Srpska is the only barrier against the realization of the true intentions of Amin al-Husseini and the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar in the modern era," Milorad Dodik wrote in a post on X. Dodik noted that the "Handschar Division" left behind a bloody trail against Serbian civilians in Eastern Bosnia, Posavina, and Semberija - burned villages, murdered civilians, and the persecution of the population. This division earned a reputation for brutality and savagery through crimes committed against Serbian and Jewish civilians. The relativization of the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar, Milorad Dodik said, represents an ideological and quasi-scientific legalization of pathological hatred toward Serbs, which, he added, is meant to be realized through the abolition of Republika Srpska. "Republika Srpska was created and endures as a political framework that protects the Serbian people from attempts to revise history and politically negate them. That is precisely why it is our obligation to preserve the truth and to insist on the values of antifascism, for which we have made enormous sacrifices," said Milorad Dodik. Dodik said that the promotion of Amin al-Husseini, as well as attempts to relativize Ustashas and Nazism in BiH, imposes on Republika Srpska the obligation to persist in its autonomy - clearly founded on the principles of antifascism, remembrance of the victims, and the determination never to allow the relativization of crimes committed against the Serbian people, to protect them from a repetition of historical horrors.