December 13, 2005
Croatia's president, Stipe Mesic, has said that young people should be taught the truth about the country's World War II pro-Nazi regime. This statement followed student protests against the recent arrest of the general Ante Godovina, wanted for war crimes in the Yugoslav war of the 1990s. The protesters used the insignia of the fascist Ustasha (NDH) regime of World War II. "Croatia was not founded by the NDH, but on anti-fascism. Our youths should know that and the only way they will know is once they learn it in school," President Stipe Mesic told journalists. On Friday, about 200 high school students had carried insignia of Croatia's Ustasha regime during a protest march in the coastal town of Zadar. They also sang Ustasha songs and used the Nazi salute. "We have falsified history and teachings which differed from historic facts," Mesic said. In the 1990s, late nationalist Croatian president Franjo Tudjman glossed over atrocities committed by the Ustasha regime. The international community reproached Tudjman for not condemning the Ustasha, playing down the number of people killed in its concentration camps and including anti-Semitic comments in one of his books.
