A memorial service for 14 Serbs, killed in the field while
harvesting wheat on July 23, 1999, was served in Staro
Gracko, in the presence of families, friends, villagers and
numerous political representatives. The Mayor of Gračanica
municipality, Srđan Popović, also paid homage to the killed.
The memorial service, which marked 20 years since the murder of
the Serbian reapers, was served by the Bishop of Raška and
Prizren, Teodosije, in front of the memorial plaque placed on the
building of the Elementary School in the center of the village.
The letter by Patriarch Irinej, who for justified reasons was not
able to serve the requiem, was read at the gathering today.
Mayor of Gračanica municipality, Srđan Popović, who in his
addressing pointed out that “we have been waiting for justice for
the past twenty years from the terrible crime, and that we will
never and will not give up on it”, paid homage to the murdered
harvesters by lighting candles and placing a wreath.
"It's the most important message, it's a strong feeling, and it’s a
look in the more normal future for all of us. It seems that twenty
years have passed as a moment, and this is true, because time
and human existence here on earth is marked by justice and the
need to apply, to show and experience it. Janićijevićs, Živićs,
Odalovićs, Cvejićs, Tepšićs, Jovanovićs, Đekićs, Markovićs,
Jankovićs, Dimićs, Stojisavljevićs have not yet received justice.
The injustice and impunity of the crime have brought insecurity to
our lives, the sense of non-freedom, the need to escape from this
village, from the cities of Kosovo and Metohija. When criminals
carried out a massacre of villagers in the fields twenty years ago,
they thought that this was the end of this village and that
everyone would run away, that it would make no sense to live
here and that migration was a way out. But they were wrong
because love for this field and this land cannot be killed. It is
understandable, and we see that some did not endure that they
left, but the majority did not leave their hearths and homes.
Because of this majority, because of these children in Staro
Gracko, because of justice and the future, and in the first place,
because of all the innocent victims, we have the right to say: do
not leave this land, do not leave your home, do not move from
here!", Popović said.
Popović sent a message to the international community and
institutions.
"Another message is dramatically important and we refer it to the
international community and local institutions: do this step and
help justice to come to us and innocent victims. How is it possible
that conspiracy of silence is more important than conscience?
How is it possible that, in addition to all the evidence, no one was
charged? Many will say – in vain, you have been repeating the
same story, one and the same request for twenty years! We have
to answer them that it is not in vain, because everything that
breathes and lives in this village is repeating: we are waiting for
justice and truth!", Popović pointed out.
"Regardless of the time and the consequences, that justice and
truth will set us free. It will also set the Albanian society, which, in
our complex relations, awaits truth and justice, free from the
burden of terrible crime. Without it, all our stories of reconciliation
and coexistence will be just a waste of time. At the end, dear
families, everything starts and ends here with your pain and
tragedy, and we are here to be together in all this. We can
experience and feel this because, among us here, there are few
of those who had not been seriously and sometimes fatally hit by
evil, injustice and misfortune. Mostly for that reason, we have the
right to say: we understand your pain, we know the face of your
misfortune, and we feel your sadness and misfortune as our own.
Because of all this, we can and we have to help each other. We
are a community that knows what is evil. We are people able to
forgive, not forgetting justice", said Srđan Popović, Mayor of
Gračanica municipality, at the requiem to the killed harvesters in
Staro Gracko.
Apart from Popović, numerous politicians, including
representatives of the Serb List, President Goran Rakić and Vice
President Igor Simić, as well as the Assistant Director Petar
Petković on behalf of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija paid
homage to the killed harvesters.
"There are 20 years of immense sorrow and pain for the fourteen
Serb martyrs who were massacred in the field in the middle of the
harvest. They were terribly killed because they were Serbs and
were determined to stay in their homes. Since this terrible crime,
the golden ears in Staro Gracko yield the wheat of blood color,
and so it will be until all those who committed this crime are
brought to justice. This crime represents an indelible stain on the
face of the international community that has done nothing to make
this crime clear", Petković said.
Milovan Jovanović, Jovica and Radovan Živić, Andrija Odalović,
Slobodan, Mile, Novica and Momčilo Janićijević, Stanimir and
Boško Đekić, Saša and Ljubiša Cvejić, Nikola Stojanović and
Miodrag Tepšić were killed twenty years ago in Staro Gracko near
Lipljan in the fields while reaping the grain.
Nobody was charged for the murder.
A memorable tournament in five-a-side football is played in
memory of the killed harvesters in Staro Gracko.
