Speaking on behalf of the survived members of the First Partisan Unit and fighters in the national liberation struggle, the leader of the Alliance of Antifascist Fighters of Croatia (SABH), Vesna Culinovic Konstantinovic, recalled that on 22 June 1941 a group of 77 patriots had formed the First Partisan Unit, headed by commander Vlado Janjic Capo, in the Brezovica forest.
She went on to say that most partisans "were not communists, but they were antifascists who wanted peace and were against the killing of people of different religion, ethnicity and beliefs". She also recalled that only two members of the First Partisan Unit were alive today.
Culinovic Konstantinovic said that untruths were still being said about antifascist fighters by people who wanted "to make the symbols of Nazism and Fascism victorious and promote the notion of ethnic and religious purity."
"It is sad that this is being encouraged by the structures that should work to promote friendship and love of people," she said, adding that she believed that like in Europe, forces advocating equality and peace would prevail in Croatia as well.
The SABH leader said that antifascist fighters were particularly pleased that the Brezovica event was also being attended by members of the Croatian Army.
Prime Minister Ivo Sanader's envoy, Defence Minister Berislav Roncevic, said that 66 years after joining the antifascist coalition and 12 years after the victory in the Homeland War, "Croatia was based on the principles of fairness, respect for human and minority rights, social market economy and tolerance, denouncing extremism and following anti-fascism as a value built into the foundations of its independence and democracy".
Parliament Deputy Speaker Mato Arlovic, President Stjepan Mesic's advisor Sinisa Tatalovic, and Sisak-Moslavina County Prefect Marina Lovric spoke at the commemoration as well.
State, party and other delegations laid wreaths at the monument to the First Partisan Unit.