LINTA CALLS ON EU TO PRESS CROATIA OVER TOLERATION OF ANTI-SERB SENTIMENT

BELGRADE, AUGUST 8 /SRNA/ – The President of the Association of Serbs from the Region Miodrag Linta, commenting on Croatia's commemoration in Knin of the 31st anniversary of the "Storm" military operation, said that Croatia was pursuing a policy of rehabilitating Ustasha ideology and called on the EU to urge official Zagreb to stop tolerating violations of European values - anti-fascism, democracy, the rule of law and human rights.

Linta said that Croatia was a country where Nazism and the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/, a criminal regime that committed genocide against Serbs, Jews and Roma during the Second World War, were openly and with impunity glorified. "In Croatia, patriotism has long been equated with Ustasha ideology and hatred, and for that reason it is becoming an increasingly significant factor of instability in the Western Balkans," Linta stressed. He added that one of the many consequences of the policy of rehabilitating Ustasha ideology pursued by the Croatian Government, headed by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, was a procession of several thousand supporters of Ante Pavelić's Nazi regime which, he said, marched through the streets of Knin with the aim of celebrating the "Storm" military operation and the killing and expulsion of the Serb people. According to Linta, the participants included Croatian war veterans, football supporters and other citizens who wore black shirts and raised their right arms in the Nazi salute "Za dom spremni". Linta said that during the commemoration, chants could be heard including "We Croats don't drink wine, but the blood of the Chetniks from Knin," "O Croatia, independent state," and "Kill, slaughter, so that no Serb exists," as well as derogatory messages directed at Saint Sava. "This year, a Ustasha song, 'Here Comes the Dawn, Here Comes the Day,' which glorifies Ustasha criminals and commanders of the notorious Black Legion, Jure Francetić and Rafael Boban, was played in a cafe in Knin," Linta added. He pointed out that Croatian police provided security for a procession of several thousand supporters of Nazi NDH who, according to him, spread hatred and violence against Serbs, thereby sending a message that the Constitution and European values were "dead letters on paper." "The Croatian prosecution did not react this time either, just as it failed to react to many other manifestations of the rehabilitation of Ustasha ideology in the past, which is one of many indications that it is a pro-Ustasha institution. The conduct of the Croatian Government, police and judiciary confirms once again that Croatia remains deeply trapped in its dark past and that its true foundation is not anti-fascism, as formally stated in the Constitution, but Ustashism and the NDH," Linta concluded, according to a statement from the Association of Serbs from the Region.