NON-PAPER (Embassy
of the Republic of Serbia in the Netherlands)
- A number of steps taken by the official
authorities of the Republic of Croatia, mirroring the revisionist
policy aiming at rehabilitating the fascist entity called the "Independent
State of Croatia" (NDH) and crimes committed against the Serbian
population during the conflict of the 1990s, give rise to grave concern
in the Republic of Serbia. The policy pursued by modern-day Croatia
has also led to an increased number of ethnically motivated incidents
targeting members of the Serbian people, and aiming to create an atmosphere
that it is permissible to commit crimes against the Serbs and go unpunished.
- The Independent State of Croatia
was a Quisling state entity, which came into being in a part of the
occupied Kingdom of Yugoslavia's territory and which existed, with
the help of Hitler's Germany, under the leadership of the Ustasha
regime, between 1941 and 1945. It is remembered in history for the
atrocities perpetrated against the Serbs, Jews, Roma and the politically
non-likeminded people opposing the implementation of the ideology
aimed at creating an ethnically cleansed Croatian state. The NDH manifesto,
drawn up by Mile Budak, the selfsame person after whom many streets
across today's Croatia have been named, called to cleanse Croatia
of Serbs, by killing one third, expelling the other third, and converting
and assimilating the remaining third. Concentration camps were set
up in the NDH territory, the most notorious among them being Jasenovac,
whose monstrosities were even witnessed by Hitler's envoy to Zagreb,
who described Ustasha-run concentration camps as the "gist of
horror". The Yugoslav State Committee estimated in 1946 that
the Jasenovac death figures varied from 500,000 to 600,000 people
mostly Serbs.
- There are many instances of improper
acts done by Croatian authorities, acts unprecedented in the history
of modern Europe that have inspired distress among both the citizens
of the Republic of Serbia and the members of the Serbian people who
are citizens of the Republic of Croatia:
* The verdict of guilty, passed on
Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac, was abolished of 22nd July 2016. Stepinac
was sentenced, by the Supreme Court of Croatia, to sixteen years
in prison in 1946, on charges of collaboration with the Utasha pro-fascist
regime and forced religious conversion of the Serbian population.
This decision, deemed "morally outrageous and an insult to
Ustasha victims" by the Director of the Jerusalem-based "Simon
Wiesenthal Centre" Efraim Zuroff, as well as the public appearances
and statements by the Government of the Republic of Croatia and
Croatian state authorities, are evidently not in favour of reconciliation
and do not help the stabilization of regional situation, and they
contravene the fundamental achievements of our civilization, on
which the UN and the EU are founded;
* The ruling pronounced by the Supreme Court of Croatia on July
2016, abolishing the first-instance decision whereby Branimir Glavas
and others had been found guilty of the war crime against the civilian
population, specifically against the Serbian civilians in Osijek,
including the case's referral back to the first-instance court for
a retrial, are inexplicable from both the legal and the moral point
of view. Incidentally, that was one of the few verdicts of guilty
passed by the Croatian judiciary on an individual among the Croatian
public officials, finding them guilty of war crimes against the
Serbs;
* At a time when humanity is uniting efforts in combating terrorism,
the major scourge of the modern-day world, its glorification is
epitomized by the unveiling of a monument to Miro Barisic (Drage,
30 July 2016), a terrorist who had been finally convicted of a perfidious
murder of the Yugoslav Ambassador to Sweden Vladimir Rolovic, in
1971. The monument was unveiled in the presence of two Ministers
of the Croatian Government which failed to distance itself from
this undignified gesture unworthy of the 21st century Europe and
thus make clear that it does not support terrorism whoever its instigators
or victims may be;
* Numerous cases of the Croatian authorities failing to act on or
the Croatian officials' lack of response to and public condemnation
of ethnically motivated incidents occurring throughout the territory
of the Republic of Croatia have considerably contributed to the
escalation of hate speech and anti-Serb sentiment as well as to
an increased frequency of incidents against Serbs as the most numerous
national minority in the Republic of Croatia. The atmosphere of
impunity for crimes against Serbs and violation of their rights
can only be overcome through Croatian authorities' prompt reactions.
This also implies an adequate prosecution of the perpetrators behind
the incidents. Particular concern is raised over the tolerance of
persons continuously promoting in public the Ustasha salute "For
homeland ready" ("Za dom spremni"), as a result of
which graffiti and writings featuring swastikas and Ustasha symbols
are being drawn, including even on Serbian Orthodox temples and
monuments dedicated to antifascists killed in the Second World War.
Furthermore, another source of concern are incidents on the occasion
of marking the "Operation Storm" of August 1995 glorifying
the ethnic cleansing of over 200,000 Serbs, accompanied by Ustasha
slogans and songs of Croatian singer Marko Perkovic Tompson, which
glorify Ustashism and issue threats to Serbs. Sadly, there are many
similar examples of chauvinist outbursts that the governing structures
in Croatia fail to prevent or condemn, but actively contribute to
instead. These include the lining up of persons in black uniforms
saluting Nazi-style, thus glorifying the NDH, at the central square
in Zagreb, on 28 February 2016, as well as allowing the rampage
of NDH supporters on 27 July, during the event marking the 75th
anniversary of the anti-fascist uprising in the town of Srb, in
a manner reminiscent to the one seen on every 21st June over the
past three years during the Jadovno Remembrance Days commemorations
- the site where tens of thousands Serbs and Jews were thrown into
pits in early 1941.
- The Republic of Serbia remains truly
committed to a common future in Europe, the promotion of regional
cooperation and to good-neighbourly relations with Croatia, based
on the respect for the anti-fascist heritage built into the foundations
underlying both the EU project and the modern-day civilization. The
Republic of Serbia expects the international community to strongly
condemn the activities and phenomena leading to the glorification
and rehabilitation of Nazism and Fascism in any part of the world,
with no exception to the current occurrences in the Republic of Croatia.
Furthermore, we expect the condemnation of the escalation of ethnically
motivated incidents against persons belonging to the Serbian Community
as well as of acts endangering the security and rights of Serbs being
committed with impunity, calling on the Croatian authorities to take
steps aiming to put an end to these worrying trends, fully adhering
to the principles of the rule of law and of legal state, in line with
values and standards of the EU, of which Croatia is a Member State.
Incompatibility of the values and principles, underlying the international
order established after the Second World War, with the occurrences
and practices celebrating terrorists, war criminals and fascists as
national heroes is more than obvious, which the international community
must not remain silent to.
This article may
be freely used and shared.
