STATEMENT OF THE NEW COMMUNIST PARTY OF YUGOSLAVIA

The New Communist Party of Yugoslavia expresses its deep concern over the increasingly visible and aggressive manifestations of neo-fascist, Ustasha, and other ideological successors of the defeated forces of the Second World War across the territory of the former SFR Yugoslavia.

In recent years, we have witnessed frequent attacks on monuments and memorial sites dedicated to fighters of the anti-fascist and partisan movement, both in Croatia and in Serbia. These attacks are not isolated incidents, but dangerous symptoms of a profound social and moral crisis that has persisted since the violent destruction of Yugoslavia during the 1990s.

We especially point to the latest act of vandalism at the Memorial Cemetery in Sloboština near Požega, where a memorial plaque was destroyed and Ustasha slogans were written. In this place, the Ustasha killed 1,368 people during the Second World War — refugees from Kozara, victims of the joint offensive against the people and partisans on that mountain, as well as the local inhabitants from the Požega area who accepted and helped them. The desecration of such a site represents not only an attack on the anti-fascist heritage, but also an attempt at historical revisionism and the rehabilitation of criminal ideologies.

The sad images of destroyed and desecrated monuments demonstrate that state institutions are failing to provide a clear, concrete, and systematic response, despite the fact that official authorities declaratively invoke anti-fascism. It is unacceptable that attacks on monuments dedicated to victims of fascism and the People’s Liberation Struggle are treated merely as ordinary acts of vandalism, without confronting the ideology that stands behind them.

Particularly alarming is the fact that in Croatia, such acts send a message that there is no place for diversity, for the memory of the common anti-fascist struggle of the peoples of Yugoslavia, nor for those who oppose historical revisionism and the rehabilitation of Ustasha ideology.

The New Communist Party of Yugoslavia believes that the response to such phenomena cannot consist solely of fines and formal condemnations that conceal the essence of the problem. What is necessary is systematic education based on historical truth, the development of an anti-fascist culture of remembrance, and a clear opposition to every form of chauvinism, national hatred, and the rehabilitation of fascist movements.

Anti-fascism is not merely a matter of the past, but the foundation of a civilized and free society. Silence in the face of neo-fascism means complicity.

The NKPJ will continue to consistently fight for the preservation of the anti-fascist heritage, the brotherhood of peoples, and the historical truth about the People’s Liberation Struggle.

DEATH TO FASCISM, FREEDOM TO THE PEOPLE!

New Communist Party of Yugoslavia,

Belgrade, May 10