Spasojevic: On March 17, my completely innocent father was killed by a sniper; I don't hate anyone, but I don't forget

Dragan Spasojevic from North Mitrovica lost his father in the March Pogrom. At the age of 63, Borivoje was killed by a sniper's bullet, and on March 17, 2004, he was on the street quite by chance, neither did he participate in the riots nor did he give any reason for the Albanian sniper from South Mitrovica to take his life.

Today, Dragan lives with his family in North Mitrovica, and it was this tragedy that awakened in him the defiance to stay there.

"That March 17 is the day when I firmly decided to stay here, live and start a family, precisely because of the memory of the villainous intentions and urges that happened that day against the Serbs without any provocation - because of one false news, that the Serbs were to blame because children drowned in the Ibar. That was the trigger, even though it is a lie, for the organized attack on the northern part of Mitrovica, but also on other Serbian areas in Kosovo. On that day in Mitrovica, Jana Tucev was killed on the terrace, killed by automatic weapons, but so was my father with a sniper's bullet from the direction of the three solitaires. A man who was on the street, who didn't do anything to anyone, but he was a Serb and it was enough for him to be in that place for criminal intentions," Spasojevic begins his story.

For him, there is no doubt as to who could have done something like this, but he points out that everything was prepared and organized by the Albanians, and everything is even more tragic, as he says, because these things happened before the eyes of those who came to Kosovo under the name "peace mission", and they only watched the persecution of the Serbs.

"That was done by a non-human, someone who is bothered by everything that is Orthodox and Serbian, with who knows what motives. It was not a fight or some skirmish, but these non-humans were prepared because there was a hospital vehicle parked in the middle of the park from which they took automatic weapons and distributed them to those present who shot at the people, and from the three solitaires there were sniper weapons. Such weapons cannot be easily obtained, so it was organized. If something was organized, then the security services must know what was happening and who organized it. I mean KFOR, the International Community, and everyone present. Nineteen years have passed since then, two decades, no one has called me, and they are calling me for various nonsense such as unpaid fines. They are putting pressure as if it were a legal state and no one remembered that so many people who suffered, so many churches and homes that were set on fire should be called to account, and that someone should be arrested. There are also videos, like that madman who tore down the cross from our church in Mitrovica. The video shows the face and today there are ways to find out, but no one answered," Spasojevic recalls.

Despite the painful fact that he lost his father at a young age, Dragan says that he forgave because it is Christian to forgive, but also that he has not and will never forget.

"I forgave because we are Orthodox Christians. We cannot say that we live with hatred, nor can we hate someone because of his blackness and how that person views the world, whether someone is guilty or not and therefore deprives him of his life. I have not forgotten, and I never will. Although it is painful, it is a precious memory for me of who we are and why we are victims; through my father, through public fights, through the people who died that day as well as in 1999 and before. We can find out what mark we carry and why we are guilty in someone’s eyes. We are guilty because this is ours, this is our country, these are our areas where our ancestors lived, and someone decided to change that structure, to adapt it to someone else’s order, and for that reason, the question of the problem of the Serbs arises, as was once the problem of the Jews in Germany," Spasjoevic concluded.