Following the 13 August incident at the memorial site, the HDZ branch in the city of Zagreb issued a press release on Sunday condemning this barbarous act and urging a quick and effective investigation into the matter and the punishment of perpetrators.
"Systematic negligence and the marginalisation of the Homeland Altar in general diminish the real value of the monument and facilitate various forms of its degradation and destruction," the press release issued by the HDZ read.
The HDZ branch in the city of Zagreb pledged to do all it can to reinstate the importance of the Homeland Altar which it deserves.
On 30 May 1994, the then Croatian President Franjo Tudjman lit the Eternal Flame by the Homeland Altar, erected in tribute to the country's freedom, within the reconstructed Medvedgrad Fort.
The HIP party issued a press release on Monday deploring the vandal act of damaging the monument and extinguishing the Eternal Flame.
The HIP believes that this act of vandalism was a consequence of the policy conducted over the past five years with the aim of undermining the importance of and distorting the facts about the Homeland Defence War and people who were at the helm of Croatia at the war time.
Responsibility for such treatment of the Homeland Altar lies with " the former (coalition) government as well as with the incumbent (HDZ-led) government, which refused to support 'An Appeal for the Truth About the Homeland War' signed by Croatian public figures and cultural workers, and a national programme of scientific research in contemporary history and the Homeland War," read the press release issued by the HIP public relations office on Monday.
The Croatian Television (HTV) reported on Sunday that the External Flame was re-ignited that afternoon. According to a police report, an unknown perpetrator put out the flame by coins, pebbles and pieces of glass he threw on it in the night between last Thursday and Friday.