ZAGREB, April 15, 2019 – GLAS president Anka Mrak Taritaš said on Sunday “it’s necessary to deal with the past so that we can have a future,” while Croatian Peasants Party leader Krešo Beljak called out the government, saying it “tolerates flirting with fascism.”
Both opposition officials supported Ognjen Kraus, president of the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Communities in Croatia, who said on Friday that historical revisionism in Croatia was continuing and that, because of the inaction of state institutions, the extreme right was becoming increasingly aggressive, calling on the government to stop that and respect Croatian laws.
Speaking in Rijeka, Mrak Taritaš said “the prime minister wants to find favour with everyone” and that it was “unacceptable” to have two commemorations for the victims of the WWII Jasenovac concentration camp. There will be two commemorations as long as the government doesn’t ban the Ustasha salute “For the homeland ready,” she added.
She said President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović visited the Jasenovac Memorial Site alone on Saturday “because she evidently doesn’t want to go with either side because she wants the votes of both.”
Beljak said that Kraus’s appeal to Prime Minister Andrej Plenković “to respect Croatian laws in the way he will respect Austrian laws” was frightening and that “for this to pass without consequences is a disgrace for the Croatian prime minister.”
Beljak said today’s state commemoration for the Jasenovac victims was “ridiculous when open flirting with fascism is tolerated more and more every day.” The government is doing nothing and it’s sad that minorities, people who were killed in WWII, have to ask the government to respect Croatian laws, he added.
He said the constitution cited antifascism and that “allowing such rampant revisionism of WWII, the Ustasha etc shows what kind of people are at the helm of the state.”
Mrak Taritaš and Beljak were in Rijeka to present their Amsterdam Coalition’s platform for the European Parliament elections, which highlights tolerance, freedom, equality, EU enlargement and Croatia’s joining the euro area.
Commenting on the questioning of parliament deputy speaker and HDZ vice president Milijan Brkić in connection with the fake text messages case, Beljak said that “in any normal state, such a party would be banned and everyone participating in such scandals would be eliminated from any public activity.”
Mrak Taritaš said it was unacceptable that the ruling party “is using state institutions to settle scores within its ranks.” Plenković should run the country and not settle scores with opponents in his ranks via institutions, she added.
More news about historical revisionism can be found in the Politics section.
