Jasenovak / Croatia (RNN Corresspondent) 02.05.1998

Serbs, Jews and Roma gathered at the site of a World War two concentration camp on Sunday to pay respect to the thousands killed there by Croatia's 1941-45 fascist regime.

Jasenovac, run by the Nazi-backed Ustasha regime, came to be known as the "Auschwitz of the Balkans." But its death toll remains a matter of dispute, varying from 85,000 according to independent Croatian estimates to 700,000 by Serbian writers.

"The number of victims is unknown but for us who survived the camp these are not figures, these are eyes, voices and cries of people who were here with us," survivor Mara Cvetko told the gathering in an emotional speech.

The ceremony marked the 53rd anniversary of the camp's dissolution as fascist rule collapsed in April 1945, allowing 50 inmates to escape.

"It is our duty to guarantee that we shall never again allow the creation of such a system which will deprive innocent people of their lives," said retired General Janko Bobetko, head of the state delegation and a member of parliament who served in th e anti-fascist Partisan movement in World War Two.

The crowd, comprising mostly war veterans and a handful of camp survivors, laid wreaths at the towering, flower-shaped monument to the victims built by communist Yugoslav authorities in a broad field near the Sava River border with Bosnia.

The commemoration came at a particularly sensitive time of Western pressure on Croatia's present-day nationalist authorities to seek the extradition of former Jasenovac commandant Dinko Sakic, who has lived in Argentina since 1945.

Croatian prosecutors are now gathering evidence to support a formal request for Sakic's extradition, likely to be filed next week, state officials say.

Zagreb has expressed its readiness to try Sakic, 76, for war crimes after he discussed his role as commander of the camp from 1942 to 1944 on Argentine television.

"Croatia will these days demand Sakic's extradition and we expect he will be sentenced appropriately," said Ognjen Kraus, leader of Croatia's small Jewish community. It also has a Roma community in addition to a larger Serb minority.

Diplomats have often cited Croatia's ambivalent stance towards its fascist past under the conservative nationalist government that has ruled since the country won independence from federal Yugoslavia in 1991.

President Franjo Tudjman was criticised by Jews and others for a 1996 proposal, which was later shelved, to build a new memorial centre at Jasenovac "reuniting" the remains of victims and perpetrators.

The idea resurfaced again in a recent parliamentary commission debate, Kraus said.

"The Jewish community expresses its shock at the idea, which is insulting for both the living and the dead," he told the gathering. "We shall fight for Jasenovac to remain an exclusive monument to the victims of fascism."

Slavko Goldstein, another prominent Croatian Jew, publicly invited Tudjman to attend and said he was disappointed at the low-key government delegation that came.