ZAGREB, Aug 9 (Hina) - The Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters andAnti-Fascist Supporters of Croatia (SABH) resolutely protests againstplans for the erection of a monument to Mile Budak, a senior officialof the Ustasha regime in
Croatia during the Second World War, in thevicinity of a Catholic church in the town of Sv. Rok, after some mediarecently reported about those plans.
ZAGREB, Aug 9 (Hina) - The Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters and
Anti-Fascist Supporters of Croatia (SABH) resolutely protests against plans for
the erection of a monument to Mile Budak, a senior official of the Ustasha
regime in Croatia during the Second World War, in the vicinity of a Catholic
church in the town of Sv. Rok, after some media recently reported about those
plans.
It is a thinly-veiled excuse to justify the intention of erecting the
monument (or a memorial plaque) to Mile Budak by saying that he was a writer
about whose values literary critics should judge, the SABH said in a press
release it issued on Monday in which it compared Budak to (Nazi official
Joseph) Goebels.
In the Ustasha movement Mile Budak incited hatred and drew up racial laws
for the annihilation of Jews, Serbs, Roma, as well of Croats and others who
did not embrace hatred and crimes after Ante Pavelic and his Ustasha followers
came to power in April 1941, the press release read.
The SABH association says that "Croatian extremists want to erect the
monument disgracing themselves and the Croatian people," adding that "a
disgrace was brought on with the erection of the monument to Jure Francetic,
which has not yet been removed".
The Anti-Fascists call on the leadership of the Croatian Catholic Church to
distance itself from this act, and ask the authorities to finally ban the
glorification of Ustasha and Fascist criminals.
According to the media, an association of Croats from Canada, Australia and
some other countries, represented by Josip Vidakovic, is planning to build the
monument in tribute to Budak in Sveti Rok.