This was the first monument erected under the law on the research, arrangement and maintenance of military cemeteries and cemeteries of World War II and post-WWII victims.
The monument was unveiled by Homeland War Veterans Minister Predrag Matic, who chairs the government's commission for the research, arrangement and maintenance of those cemeteries.
Matic and Parliament Speaker Josip Leko said this was the first of many such monuments to be erected. It was erected where 15 people were killed in September 1946, whose bones were exhumed this year and buried at the local cemetery in Otocac.
Leko said the unveiling was an expression of "the human, genuine and deep respect for each innocent victim" and that it "condemns all crimes against humanity."
"I believe that paying respects to innocent victims is our civilisational and moral obligation and human gesture," he said, adding that he wanted to "clearly and unequivocally stress the intention to build our society on the promotion of democratic values, anti-fascism, tolerance and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Matic said this was a humanitarian and civilisational issue and that the government's position was that every victim deserved a resting place.
The minister said he was proud of the government commission's members, who recognised the government's determination to mark every site where victims of totalitarian regimes were killed.
"Just as black obelisks mark the places where victims were killed in the (1991-95) Homeland War, in the future squares with an entrance creating the impression of a claustrophobic dead-end will represent on more than 100 sites a condemnation of totalitarian regimes, both the communist and the Ustasha regime," said Matic.
The president of the Croatian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights, Ivan Zvonimir Cicak, thanked the government for the political courage to erect the first monument to the victims of the communist regime, and criticised priests for not attending the commemoration.
Representatives of the state, county, municipal and local authorities laid wreaths at the monument and lit candles. The monument is a 13-tonne concrete square with a narrow interior which will contain the victims' names.
This year, the commission for the research, arrangement and maintenance of military cemeteries and cemeteries of World War II and post-WWII victims, which held a session in Otoac after the monument unveiling, researched 15 sites in six counties and Zagreb from which the remains of 273 victims were exhumed.