The main cultural organisation of ethnic Serbs in Croatia, the Serb National Council (SNV), will not take part in the official annual remembrance ceremony at the site of the Jasenovac World War II concentration camp in central Croatia, SNV said on Wednesday.
In refusing to attend the official state-sponsored ceremony, they will join several Croatian Jewish and antifascist organisations, who also said they would boycott the official event, scheduled for April 22.
Instead, the SNV and the largest antifascist association SABA said they would hold their own separate remembrance ceremony at Jasenovac, on April 21. Jewish groups had already held their own ceremony earlier this month.
This will be the third year in a row that associations of antifascists and ethnic minorities would boycott the official ceremony, in protest against what they say is the government’s tacit approval of the use of World War II-era fascist slogans in public by some Croatian right wing groups, including a controversial plaque that had been installed in nearby Jasenovac town and dedicated to paramilitary veterans of the 1991-95 independence war.
Although the plaque has since been relocated to another town, and a government-appointed experts commission charged with investigating the use of totalitarian symbols said the slogan was unconstitutional, it added in its ruling that the use of the slogan could be acceptable in exceptional circumstances, a stance vehemently opposed by minority and antifascist groups.
