ZAGREB, January 30, 2018 – Serbia is not credible to talk about Jasenovac while at the same time it is rehabilitating its World War II criminals, Croatia’s Foreign Minister Marija Pejčinović Burić said on Monday.
A diplomatic war has erupted between Belgrade and Zagreb following an exhibition about the Jasenovac World War II Ustasha-run concentration camp in Croatia that Serbia organised on January 25 in UN headquarters in New York.
On the eve of the exhibition the Croatian government condemned Serbia’s attempts to make use of the UN premises for “manipulation and dissemination of false information,” while Serbia indirectly accused Croatia of rehabilitating Ustasha ideology, claiming that Croatia had obstructed the exhibition.
“It is highly hypocritical for accusations against Croatia to come from Serbia’s senior officials who recently rehabilitated or were in the process of rehabilitating the worst WWII criminals, Draža Mihailović and Milan Nedić,” Pejčinović Burić told reporters. Serbia’s officials have no credibility to speak about issues without first dealing with that on their own territory,” Croatia’s foreign minister added.
According to Pejčinović Burić, these manipulations and rhetoric have already been seen – they were the preparation in Slobodan Milošević’s time for the Great Serbia aggression against other countries in these regions. “We hope that Serbia will finally stop with this rhetoric and turn to its European future in which we can all help it if it wishes to take that path,” she said.
Pejčinović Burić said Croatia had not been consulted in any way about the Serbian exhibition. “It’s an absolute lie that Croatia was consulted in any way regarding the organisation of the exhibition in the United Nations. Just how credible the exhibition is can be seen from the fact that Yad Vashem or Israel did not participate in it, nor the UN itself, which later distanced itself from it,” Pejčinović Burić underscored.
She once again emphasised that it was important to express respect for all victims and condemn all repressive regimes and for that reason in fact that matter must not be used for daily political purposes and propaganda purposes and any form of manipulation of the victims is unacceptable.
Pejčinović Burić added that Croatia promotes and preserves the truth about the Jasenovac victims and that the memorial centre is the key for the historical and scientific determination of the truth about Jasenovac so that it may never be forgotten.
