The Croatian government has urged officials in a village to remove a monument honoring a member of Croatia's Nazi regime during World War II. The plaque commemorating Mile Budak, a writer who served as education
minister in the German-backed government in office from 1941 to 1945, was discovered Sunday morning in the village of Lovinac. It is a plaque made of black marble and engraved with Budak's name and profile. It was not immediately clear who had put it up, but a group of emigrants from Lovinac living in Canada and Australia had recently said they were considering erecting such a monument. Budak was responsible for racial laws imposed during the Nazi-backed regime of Ante Pavelic, and he was executed after the war. He was also an author of poems and other literary works, and the emigrants' group contended it meant to celebrate those works and not his political deeds.
The ruling party of prime minister Ivo Sanader urged local officials to remove the plaque, saying "it damages the region, Croatia and its national interests." The Catholic church and human rights groups also condemned the monument. President Stipe Mesic had earlier warned that such projects were particularly unacceptable in regions struggling to rebuild ethnic relations strained by civil war.
