Dear all,
We, as generations of peace activists of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights from Serbia, who have been coming to Tuzla for years to commemorate the May 25 crime at the Gate, as well as for the new relationships we have made, have a duty to wholeheartedly support the efforts of the Tuzla City Council to loudly and clearly oppose the denial of the crime at the Gate, due to new attempts by the Serbian Ministry of Defence to protect Novak Đukić by promoting the book of Ilija Branković and presenting a convicted war criminal as a tragic figure, while portraying the victims as suicide bombers.
The bonds we have made in the exchange programmes between young people from BiH and Serbia, friendships and love relationships in Tuzla, prove that criminals and warmongers have not succeeded in completely separating the societies and nations of former Yugoslavia.
Since its establishment until today, the Initiative has been fighting for the same values. We are fighting for peace in the region, not only as an absence of war, but as a permanent process that involves dealing with the past and the ongoing co-operation of the countries and people of the region. We do not consent to warmonger politics and war criminals in public space. We insist on respect for established facts, such as legal or moral convictions of those responsible. We educate and introduce young people from the region with the wartime heritage, by conducting a dialogue on the perspectives of democratic development of our societies. Aware that without civic activism there is no democracy, we protect human rights and refuse to give away the freedoms we fought for.
Therefore, we say to the youth of Tuzla – you are not alone in your fight for the same values and you can count on yet another vote coming from the young people of Serbia.
