The anniversary of the tribulations of fleeing Ustasha soldiers and civilians, who were handed over by allied forces to Tito's Partisans in Austria at the end of the World War Two, was marked at Bleiburg field in Austria on Saturday.
"The Ustasha criminal regime committed heinous crimes from Jasenovac onwards, it cannot be promoted and nobody is allowed to smear Croatia's reputation in such a way," the HDZ President, Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, said during a break of his party's session in Zagreb on Monday.
He stressed that victims at Bleiburg also deserved to have crimes against them be condemned.
Sanader added that the HDZ and the current Croatian government advocated that crimes committed in the wake of the Second World War by the Communist regime should be addressed by the judiciary.
If somebody committed a war crime during the Homeland Defence War (in the first half of the 1990s), they should be put on trial. The same principle should be applied to the anti-fascist movement, he said.
Those who perpetrated crimes during the anti-fascist struggle must face proceedings and cannot evade justice by claiming that they are now too old or because this suits somebody for political purposes, Sanader said.
Thousands of fleeing Croatian soldiers and civilians were killed by Partisans without a trial at Bleiburg and during death marches back to Yugoslavia known as Way of the Cross marches in May 1945.
Saturday's commemoration was attended by some 10,000 pilgrims, including survivors. Mass was said by Mostar Bishop Ratko Peric. The event was organised by the Honorary Bleiburg Platoon and the Croatian Bishops' Conference, under the auspices of the Croatian Parliament.