NOSOVIĆ: KOZARA IS A PRICELESS SYMBOL OF SERB SUFFERING AND IS NOT FOR SALE

BANJA LUKA, JULY 22 /SRNA/ - The President of the Republika Srpska Association of Former Camp Inmates, Anđelko Nosović, stressed that Kozara is a symbol of Serb suffering, survival, defiance and victory over extermination, and that this symbol has no price and is not for sale.

"Those of us who went through the hell of camps know best what it means when a foreigner determines your fate on your own land. Something like that must never happen again at Kozara, and it will not. We will not allow dubious 'investors' to come to Kozara tomorrow and relativise our suffering and our past, or impose a narrative that insults Serb camp survivors and every Serb," Nosović told SRNA, commenting on a letter of intent from a company whose name is reminiscent of a well-known business group from Arab countries, expressing interest in purchasing the Monument Hotel at Mrakovica. He pointed out that every stone on this mountain remembers the cries and suffering of the Serb people, and that the Association of Former Camp Inmates will not allow traces of that truth to be covered up by dubious capital. "The purchase of a hotel in the heart of Kozara by dubious companies from the Federation of BiH is a direct attack on our history and an attempt at the silent occupation of our sacred sites. The institutions of Republika Srpska must be an impenetrable barrier against any attempt to use money to gain control over places that were defended with blood. Experience teaches us that wherever a Serb sells land, they soon lose the right to their past, present and future, their name and their identity," Nosović stressed. He said that the issue of the Monument Hotel was a matter of preserving the truth about Serb suffering in the 20th century, and that is why Kozara must not become a platform for revisionism and the promotion of false histories created in the Federation of BiH. "We do not need the capital of those who are erasing the traces of Serb existence in Sarajevo every day and taking away our property and the property of the Serbian Orthodox Church. We need our state on our mountain. The Government must use all legal possibilities to make the Monument Hotel the property of Republika Srpska, without delay," Nosović said, adding that Serb camp survivors defended Republika Srpska behind barbed wire and in shackles, and that today they will defend every inch of the legendary Kozara mountain.