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Serbian president urges greater effort against "evil and violent" ideologies

23 April 2010 00:41 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Commemorating the national day of remembrance of genocide victims of World War II, Serbian President Boris Tadic on Thursday said greater effort should be made to fight "ideologies that propagate evil and violence," reported the Serbian news agency Tanjug, APA reports quoting New.xinhuanet.com web-page.

Tadic attended ceremonies at the memorial in Janjinci, just outside Belgrade, which marks the site where mass executions of Serbs, Jews and Roma were carried out during Nazi occupation. The president warned of the renewal of such hateful ideologies in new forms.

"We are witnessing attempts of revision of World War II and endeavors to transform the ideology of fascism and Nazism into some new ideologies of evil and violence," Tadic stated.

The Jewish and Roma communities remain victims of "segregation and provocations in many countries in the world," he said, pledging that Serbia would assist its sizable Roma population to promote their culture and affirmation.

While the Serbian nation had historically been victimized by racist policies based on evil and violence, certain Serbs, acting on the behalf of the nation, were not immune to the influence of such policies, Tadic said.

"We have made an apology and expressed sympathy for all those mistakes, crimes and dreadful deeds," said Tadic. "We expect that everyone else will have the same approach, and that at the level of their top state institutions, they will have the courage to express their grief for the victims and misfortunes that took place not only in this or previous years, but also in the entire 20th century," Tadic said.

According to the findings of a Yugoslav commission established after World War II, the number of dead at the Jasenovac concentration camp, operated by the Nazi-backed Croatian state, numbered 500,000 Serbs, 80,000 Roma and 23,000 Jews. According to the Belgrade Museum of Genocide, a list of 98,252 victims has been compiled.