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Croatia: praises of pro-Nazi diaspora, critics on President

Zuroff also condemned her speech in Argentina

15 March, 18:52
(ANSA) - ZAGREB - The statements made in recent days in Argentina by president Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, who has called ''patriots'' the pro-Nazi Croats who fled to South America in 1945 , sparked row in Croatia. During a meeting with the Croatian community in Buenos Aires, Kitarovic said ''that many Croats after the Second World War found a place of freedom in Argentina where they were able to witness their patriotism''. This statement has aroused widespread condemnation in a large part of Croatian public opinion, since it is well known that after the victory in Yugoslavia of the antifascist and communist movement led by Marshal Tito, under the protection of the pro-fascist and authoritarian regime led by Juan Peron in Argentina, the Croat 'Duce', the Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic, ally of Hitler and Mussolini, many other collaborationists, both politicians and officers, and thousands of Ustasha and fascist sympathizers found a refuge. Kitarovic also claimed to ''be proud of all generations of Croats who went to Argentina and who shared the fate of the Croatian people under the Yugoslav communist regime''. Effraim Zuroff, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem and famous 'Nazi-hunter', also reacted with an open letter. Zuroff asked Kitarovic if she was also proud of the many war criminals, first of all the Croatian leader Pavelic.

Through a press release, Kitarovic rejected criticisms, calling them ''mischievous'', and underlining that she personally condemned Pavelic's Ustasha regime several times. (ANSA).

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