Josipovic's envoy, military Chief Of Staff Lt. Col Drago Lovric, said Gata and the neighbouring villages were exposed to "terror, murder, arson and an extermination attempt" 70 years ago and that innocents were killed, mainly women, children and the elderly.
"They were victims of a hate directed at those who wanted freedom and only wanted to be their own people in their own home," Lovric said, adding that "virtually the same scenario" happened in the 1991-95 Homeland War, "when many Croatian villages and towns were destroyed and thousands of innocent civilians were killed only because they wanted democracy and freedom."
"Our response to the repetition of such scenarios was the establishment of a free state and the defence and liberation of occupied territories," Lovric said, adding that Croatia's NATO membership guaranteed that the bloody events from October 1942 and the Homeland War would not happen ever again.
Commemorating all World War Two and Homeland War victims, marking their execution sites and graves, and spreading the truth about those events is the best response to attempts to rewrite the truth, Lovric said.