State ceremony held at site of NATO's attack on train

State ceremony held at site of NATO's attack on train

The families of the victims, Vucic and Dodik laid wreaths at the memorial today.

Vucic, who paid his respects to all victims of NATO's aggression, told the gathering, "We are still here, we are alive, we have turned 18."

According to Vucic, Serbia is today "free, and becoming ever stronger and bigger - and will never again suffer the way it did in 1999."

This country will also not seek to become a part of an alliance that was killing our children, nor of any other alliance, he said, describing the war 18 years ago as "a most brutal aggression."

"Our choice is to cooperate with everyone, for our relations with NATO to be decent," Vucic said.

"18 years ago NATO's aggression commenced - a tragic war where 19 countries had the need to demonstrate they were richer and better armed than little Serbia," the prime minister said. "18 years ago, on that April 12, I was working, along with my colleague," Boban Krstic, the driver of the no. 393 train that came under attack, said as he addressed the commemoration today.

"The train was full of passengers. We were transporting people who treated their obligations as if there were no NATO planes in the sky. Everyone was serious, worried, waiting to arrive at their stations. Here, on this bridge, we were struck with the first, and later with another missile. My colleague and I jumped out of the engine, and behind us, the train was burning," Krstic recounted the attack.

"18 years ago, I could not understand what we were to NATO's pilots. Even today I can't understand that someone would send missiles on our train, full of people - women, children. Glory eternal to all the victims from the train 393," he said. Milorad Dodik also addressed the commemoration, to say that another instance of suffering of the Serbian people was being marked today, and that he would not allow a NATO border to be established on the Drina River, i.e., between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia.

He said the Serb entity (RS) "does not accept to be a part of that military alliance."

"The RS knows it is located in Bosnia but that's not our choice, it's a compulsion. Everyone knows we love Serbia, that is today being built and developed and that wishes to take its rightful place in the region. The RS does not accept to be a part of NATO in spite of Serbia, we will not and cannot accept a NATO border on the Drina," he said.

The goal of the RS, Dodik continued, "has always been a powerful and strong Serbia."

"We are proud of Serbia. For years they forbade us to say we love Serbia. We are not Bosnian Serbs, we are Serbs, that is why today we remember the victims together, in many places," he said.

The Serb people suffered to the point of biological extermination in the 20th century, the RS leader said, "while NATO's complicity in this process was visible both in Serbia and in the Serb Republic."

"They would always find false excuses for their interventions, from Markale to Rambouillet. Today we must remember the suffering of many innocent people, weep for our victims in many places, from Jasenovac, Pag, to Prebilovci, where those with whom we lived committed mass murder against us," Dodik said.

NATO started its attacks on Serbia on March 24, 1999, without UN approval, and continued with the bombing for 78 days, during which at least 2,500 people died, according to the official data of Serbia's state institutions.