Serbia calls on UK and other governments to condemn Ustasha resurgence

Institutions within Serbia start a campaign of intergovernmental lobbying targeting the rise in neo-Nazi ideology in modern Croatia.

Materials describe describe what effectively amounts to a rehabilitation of the Ustasha movement, fuelling “anxiety and fear” among minority Serbs, Jews and Roma in Croatia.

The despatch to various capitals refer to damning examples which have thus far remained unanswered by UK and EU authorities. These started in 2012 and have only accelerated since.

The unofficial “non paper” paints a historical picture for foreign officials describing the “Independent State of Croatia” (NDH) as a Quisling state. With Hitler’s help, the Ustasha became Croatia’s Nazis perpetrating genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity on its territory between 1941-45.

Today, Croatia is seeing a tide of apologists, appeasers and approvers as the nation seeks to find its identity amid fascist fanatics who murdered hundreds of thousands of innocents. Worst of all, the many of the examples happen as Zagreb turns a blind eye or worse, actively participates.

As the Vatican declares Mother Teresa a saint for her selfless sacrifices to help the poor, many worry that Croatia’s rehabilitation of Archbishop Stepinac will lead to the very real prospect of the “vicar of the Ustashe movement” being canonized. One third of Croatian Catholic priests under his watch led and actively engaged in genocide squads to exterminate Serbs, Jews and Roma. The decision to annul his conviction as a fascist collaborator is described as “morally outrageous and an insult to Ustasha victims” by the Director of the Jerusalem-based “Simon Wiesenthal Centre” Efraim Zuroff.

This year a statue was built to honour terrorist Miro Barisic, who murdered the Yugoslav ambassador of Sweden. The monument to this fascist sympathiser was actually unveiled in the presence of two Ministers of the Croatian Government.

The equivalent to “Heil Hitler” in fascist Croatia was “Za dom spremni” (loosely translated as “We’re ready for the homeland”). The phrase is becoming more accepted in Croatia in the past few years. It has been daubed on Serbian Church walls, hailed by thousands at rock concerts by Croatian Ustasha sympathiser Thompson and defacing anti-fascist monuments often accompanied by a swastika. Thousands of academics including the president of the Croatian Ethics Court signed a petition to urge that “Za dom spremni” be included as the salute in the Croatian armed forces.

One of the few Croatian public officials found by Zagreb of being guilty of numerous war crimes committed against the Serbian civilians in the 90s had his sentence annulled. Croatia’s Independence Day is being turned by many into a glorification of Operation Storm, the greatest act of ethnic cleansing in the 90s wars with some 200,000 Serbs being forcibly removed from their ancestral homes.

We understand these materials are being distributed through various networks of state apparatus into governments. It ends with an appeal that the “international community must not remain silent”

Britic  – THE BRITISH SERB MAGAZINE