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The Knight Rafael Boban unit of the Croatian Defence Forces. Photo: BIRN/Sven Milekic.

Former members of the Knight Rafael Boban battalion of the paramilitary Croatian Defence Forces, HOS on Tuesday commemorated the 27th anniversary of its foundation at the beginning of the war in 1991.

The HOS first served as the party militia of the Croatian far-right Croatian Party of Rights, HSP, and was later integrated into the Croatian Army.

In the presence of representatives of the city of Split, the county and the War Veterans’ Ministry, battalion members celebrated by finishing their speeches with the salute “Za dom spremni” (“Read for the Home(land)”), which was first used by the WWII-era fascist Ustasa.

“To all those who hate our Croatia, who wish to belittle our heroic ventures and who deceive the public by distorting the past, I am stating from this spot: even today, we’re ready to die for our land, we’re ready to defend the truth and stand on the forefront of our homeland,” the unit’s commander Marko Skejo said at the event.

Skejo finished his speech with a salute to 46 fallen unit members, shouting “Za dom”, while the attendees at the ceremony responded by chanting “spremni”.

Marko Skejo, the unit’s commander (holding candle). Photo: BIRN/Sven Milekic.

“Za dom spremni” is a part of the unit’s official coat of arms, which the association representing its former fighters first registered in the late 1990s.

At the commemoration, one of the former members carried a flag from a HOS unit from Jasenovac, a village where a Ustasa concentration camp once stood. The flag had the “Za dom spremni” slogan written outside the official coat of arms.

A plaque with the slogan within the coat of arms caused controversy after it was installed in Jasenovac to commemorate fallen HOS fighters, before it was moved after nine months to the nearby town of Novska in September last year, following protests by politicians and the public.

At Tuesday’s commemoration, a letter from 1990s war veteran and independent MP Zeljko Glasnovic was read out, calling on the unit’s members to attend an upcoming protest against the ratification of the so-called Istanbul Convention in Split on Thursday.

The Istanbul Convention, aimed at countering violence against women and domestic violence, has sparked opposition from right-wing and conservative groups and parties.

All the former HOS units and some right-wing parties still cherish the legacy of the short-lived Ustasa state, Nazi-aligned Independent State of Croatia, NDH, which committed widespread atrocities against Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascists.

The HOS’s Knight Rafael Boban unit was formed on April 10, 1991, the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of the NDH. It was named after well-known Ustasa commander Rafael Boban, who fought alongside the German-allied Axis states on the eastern front during WWII.

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