Croat suspected of WWII war crimes dies in Argentina

European Jewish Press ^ | December 5, 2007

[joan]

ZAGREB (AFP)---A former official of Croatia’s World War II pro-Nazi regime suspected of war crimes has died in Argentina, the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre said.

"Ivo Rojnica passed away last week in Argentina without being processed" for war crimes, the Centre’s Israel director Efraim Zuroff told AFP in a telephone interview.

"This is the failure primarily by the Croatian judicial system," Zuroff said adding that Zagreb had been following up on the Centre’s demands to investigate Rojnica for the past two years without taking any action.

He said they had never submitted an indictment or asked for his extradition.

"The Argentine government was willing to send him to Croatia. The problem was that that (extradition) request never came."

He expressed regret that the death of Rojnica, 92, was particularly disturbing since the former official of Croatia’s World War II Ustasha regime was an "unrepentant war criminal."

The Wiesenthal Centre, which repeatedly warned Croatia over its failure to prosecute Rojnica, charged that he had played an active role in the persecution of Serbs, Jews and Roma in the area of the southern Adriatic town of Dubrovnik.

After World War II, Rojnica fled to Argentina, where he obtained citizenship and became a leader in the local Croatian community.

Following Zagreb’s proclamation of independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, the late nationalist president Franjo Tudjman named Rojnica to the post of Croatian ambassador to Argentina.

However Tudjman later gave up the idea under pressure from the international community.

The Ustasha regime killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, anti-fascist Croatians, Roma and others in Croatian concentration camps.

[joan]

Clinton made 1995 Ethnic Cleansing in Krajina Possible

Tudjman presented a medal to a former Ustasha commander living in Argentina, Ivo Rojnica. After Rojnica was quoted as saying, "Everything I did in 1941 I would do again," international pressure prevented Tudjman from appointing him to the post of ambassador to Argentina. When former Ustasha official Vinko Nikolic returned to Croatia, Tudjman appointed him to a seat in parliament. Upon former Ustasha officer Mate Sarlija's return to Croatia, he was personally welcomed at the airport by Defense Minister Gojko Susak, and subsequently given the post of general in the Croatian Army. On November 4, 1996, thirteen former Ustasha officers were presented with medals and ranks in the Croatian Army.

[joan]

This blantantly shows Tudjman was reviving the Ustasha and what they stood for. When WWII war criminals are invited into a government 45 years after the Nazi’s were defeated, it shows a nostalgia and revivalism of WWII mentality by the Croatian leadership in the early 1990’s.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Prayers for this misguided soul.

[pachanga]

i say let the ustashe scum rot and burn in hell.

[F-117A]

Diocletian is saddened!