Milorad Dodik’s Claims are Unacceptable, Untrue, and an Attempt to Impose Collective Guilt on the Croatian People
The President of the Republic of Croatia Zoran Milanović finds the remarks made by Milorad Dodik, the leader of the Serb people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Donja Gradina, during the commemoration for the victims of the Ustasha concentration camp Jasenovac, to be unacceptable and above all untrue. In addition to the repeated falsehood about the number of victims in Jasenovac, Milorad Dodik stated that “very few members of the Croatian people did not sympathise with the crimes of the Ustasha regime,” which absolutely does not correspond to the truth and constitutes an insult to all Croatian anti-fascists and the Croatian people. Such categorizations only harm the interests of Croats and Serbs in both Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Croatian people emerged from the Second World War on the right side of history, on the winning side. Any other interpretation of history, including Dodik’s mentioned above, constitutes a gross distortion of the truth, motivated by the aim of making some people like him for one day. Such claims, besides being completely untrue, also represent an unacceptable attempt to impose collective guilt on the Croatian people.
As a man who took pride in his anti-fascist roots, Milorad Dodik knows well that Croats were among the first in Europe to establish an anti-fascist partisan unit and that Croatian anti-fascists fought not only for liberation from German and Italian occupation but also against the terror perpetrated by the Ustasha regime.
The fact that the first partisan anti-fascist unit was established so soon after the establishment of the so-called Independent State of Croatia and that it was mostly composed of Croats clearly indicates that Croats did not accept the Ustasha regime. The course of the Second World War showed that Croats made a great contribution to the anti-fascist struggle not only in Croatia, but also in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The partisan army in Croatia was the people’s army in which Serbs and all others who recognized a common enemy in fascism took part, in addition to the Croats. Not only did the vast majority of the Croatian people reject the Ustasha regime, but at a critical juncture, they actively resisted it by engaging in the anti-fascist struggle, for which they made immense sacrifices.
When discussing history, it is essential to engage with reasoned arguments. While debate about historical events should be encouraged, it should be conducted with far greater rationality than demonstrated by Milorad Dodik’s current approach. Croatia has nothing to be ashamed of. Quite the contrary, it is proud, because by participating in the anti-fascist struggle, the majority of the people chose a just and victorious path.