In the presence of Croatian army personnel and camp survivors, Mesic lay a wreath in the crypt of the monument in Jasenovac Memorial Park, and said that people had been killed in the Jasenovac camp exclusively because of their race, ethnic background, religion or world view.
"Tens of thousands of people were killed here. Jews, Serbs and Romanies were killed exclusively because of their race, ethnic background and religion, and Croatian antifascists because of their world view."
"It is regrettable that these facts have to be recalled ever anew. Just as it is regrettable that there are still people who use the victims and the tribulations of the Jasenovac detainees for their personal, daily political calculations, focused on keeping the area of the former Yugoslavia locked in the embrace of the past instead of opening the door to the future," Mesic said at the wreath-laying ceremony.
Noting that the past should neither be embellished nor falsified, the Croatian President said: "The crime committed here was horrible, and that should be said openly. The responsibility for that crime does not rest with the Croatian people, but with individuals and groups who abused the Croatian name and the idea of a Croatian state in order to achieve their criminal goals."
"Today, exactly 60 years after the desperate and heroic breakout of the camp inmates, I pay homage to them as President of the modern, democratic Croatian State, and deeply deplore the murder of even a single human being, ever or anywhere, by those who disguised their bloody dealings by patriotic commitment to Croatia."
After the ceremony, Mesic talked to the press.
Asked to comment on allegations that the genocidal nature of the Croats had not be eradicated, the President said that those were falsehoods "because there are no genocidal nations, but only policies that lead to war crimes."
"Such allegations are made by people who want to downplay other crimes, such as those committed at Ovcara or in Srebrenica, and to divert the attention of the world public from problems they have to deal with," he added.
Asked if he would visit Bleiburg, Austria, the site of execution of fleeing Croatian Ustasha forces and civilians, Mesic said that the visit was not part of his schedule, and that he did not like comparisons between Bleiburg and Jasenovac.
"None of the people who perished in Jasenovac were to blame for anyone who perished in 'foibe' (Istrian karst pits) or for anyone who perished at Bleiburg, but many of those killed at Bleiburg were to blame for somebody's death. They are victims, but we cannot say that all of them are innocent. They should not have been killed or ill-treated. Those considered responsible should have been put on trial," Mesic said.
"We cannot accept the allegation that the people killed there were defending the Croatian State, because they were defending a quisling creation which stood no chance of surviving after Yalta and Tehran," he added.
"The Croatian State was founded by a decision of the ZAVNOH (Antifascist Council of National Liberation of Croatia) during the antifascist struggle, and it should definitively be said that fascism and Nazism were criminal both as ideas and in their execution. Antifascism is positive both as an idea and in its execution, but were any crimes committed during its execution? There were, but those were excesses and should be prosecuted," the President said.
The main commemorative ceremony will take place in Jasenovac Memorial Park this Sunday and will be attended by Prime Minister Ivo Sanader. That day Mesic will be visiting the renovated Croatian cemetery at the site of a WWII refugee camp at El Shatt, Egypt.