http://www.jasenovac.org/JRI_files/pressreleases/release2.htm
For Immediate Release
4 February 1999
JRI STATEMENT ON THE RELEASE OF USTASHE WAR CRIMINAL NADA SAKIC
The Release of Nada Sakic by Croatia Demonstrates the Unrepentant Pro-Fascist
Character of the Current Tudjman Regime in Croatia
The Jasenovac Research Institute joins with the Simon Wiesenthal Center
and other anti-fascist institutions and activists around the world in
denouncing the release of the World War II war criminal Nada Sakic by the
government of Croatia on Monday. Mrs. Sakic, 72, was extradited from
Argentina last November to Croatia where she was held until her release on
Monday. Mrs. Sakic was never even indicted by the Croatian authorities. The
release and exoneration of this former concentration camp commander and mass
murderer at the World War II death camp known as Jasenovac is a dangerous
precedent that validates the resurgence of fascism in present day Croatia and
amounts to nothing less than a victory for the rebirth and resurgence of
fascism worldwide.
The Croatian government falsely claimed that no evidence or witnesses
exist to indict Mrs. Sakic. However, the JRI is in contact with Survivors
living in Yugoslavia who have given eyewitness testimony to Mrs. Sakic's
crimes at Stara Gradishka (part of the Jasenovac camps). At the First
International Conference on Jasenovac in New York City in 1997 one of these
Survivors, Mara Vejnovic, gave an eyewitness account of Nada Sakic's
activities as a death camp commander. The JRI possess a videotaped recording
of this testimony.
For Nada Sakic, genocide was a family profession. By birth she was the
sister of the first Commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp, Maks
Luburic. By marriage she was the wife of Luburic's successor at Jasenovac,
Dinko Sakic. Dinko Sakic, 76, still awaits his trial in Zagreb. By choice
Nada Sakic was herself one of the commanders of the women's camp at
Jasenovac' satellite camp of Stara Gradishka. The Jasenovac death camp
complex encompassed some 150 square miles and was the third largest death
camp during the Holocaust in terms of total victims. It is believed that
some 700,000 people died at the eight sites that comprised the Jasenovac
complex. The vast majority of the victims were Serbs, but at least 30,000
Romas and 25,000 Jews also are known to have been murdered there, as well as
tens of thousands of anti-fascists of different nationalities. The names of
some 20,000 children murdered there have been collected thus far by
historians. Nada Sakic was personally responsible for the deaths of many of
these children.
The action of the government of Croatia in the Nada Sakic case confirms
everyone's worst fears about the true nature of the current Tudjman regime in
Croatia which was established in an orgy of murder and anti-Semitic,
anti-Serbian and anti-Roma vandalism and racist aggression in 1991. Since
its rise to power, the Croatian regime has welcomed the return of former
fascist war criminals and the restoration of numerous symbols of Nazi power
such as the old fascist salute. Since 1991 Jewish cemeteries have been
desecrated. In 1995 more than a quarter of a million Croatian Serbs were
ethnically cleansed in a major military operations. The site of the
Jasenovac camps and its former museum have been vandalized. In the capital
Zagreb, the "Square of the Victims of Fascism" has been renamed the "Square
of Great Croatian People." Human Rights organizations have regularly
condemned Croatia for its treatment of minorities and dissidents.
Now that the government of Croatia has shamelessly and arrogantly
exonerated one of the worst examples of its own Nazi past and of its past
crimes of genocide, what can we possibly expect of it in the case of Mrs.
Sakic's husband, the former top Commandant of Jasenovac, Dinko Sakic? Mr.
Sakic has openly stated that he was proud of what he did at Jasenovac and
only wishes he could have killed more. Will the world allow one of the worst
Nazi war criminals escape justice as well?
The Jasenovac Research Center joins with other anti-fascist organizations
in calling for the retrial of Mrs. Sakic and her extradition to Yugoslavia
which previously requested her extradition immediately after World War II and
again in 1998. In both instances these requests were ignored by Argentina,
the United Sates and the world community. We urge anti-fascists around the
world to protest this miscarriage of justice to your governments and to human
rights institutions. We demand a serious prosecution of Dinko Sakic, a
monitoring of the trial, and justice for his victims.
Finally, we cannot ignore the roles of the governments of the United
States and Argentina for this entire travesty of justice. It was Argentina
which for years provided sanctuary for the Sakics, along with tens of
thousands of other Nazi war criminals. Argentina did so with the tacit
approval and knowledge of the governments of the United States and Great
Britain. We hold the United States and Argentine governments co-responsible
with the government of Croatia for the consequences and inappropriateness of
the extradition cases of both Dinko and Nada Sakic. In June 1998, Barry
Lituchy, the current Research Director of the JRI, met with officials from
the U.S. State Department's Office of Human Rights to protest the handling of
the extradition and trial of Dinko Sakic. As part of a larger group of
concerned activists Lituchy demanded guarantees for the prosecution of the
Sakics and for the handling of evidence and witnesses. It now appears that
these warnings went unheeded by the State Department.
We warned from the beginning that a fair trial of the Sakics could not be
held in Croatia. We protested the extradition of the Sakics to Croatia from
the outset and insisted on their trial being held in Yugoslavia where the
majority of the survivors of Jasenovac currently live, or at the very least
in a third country. Instead the trial has been used as political football by
the governments of the United States, Argentina and Croatia to advance their
own political agendas. We must seek real justice for the million who died at
the hands of the Croatian and German fascists in World War II Yugoslavia and
for whom justice has never come. The Survivors and the families of the
victims of Jasenovac have been excluded from the process. Shame on the
United States of America and the Clinton Administration for this indecency
and obscenity! Do not play games with the victims of the Holocaust! Do not
desecrate their memory in order that you may advance your political agenda of
posing as the world arbiters of human rights. With the release of Nada Sakic
you have proven yourselves unworthy of this task.