Croats denounce criticism of flag

Croatia's success in the World Cup was the biggest surprise of the tournament, focusing international attention on a previously…

Croatia's success in the World Cup was the biggest surprise of the tournament, focusing international attention on a previously little-known country making its first bid for world soccer stardom.

But the Croatian government yesterday denounced a British journalist for an article it described as factually incorrect and written from a standpoint of ignorance about the country.

The London Evening Standard on Tuesday said Croatia was "one of the nastiest little nations in Europe" and described the government as a "vicious and racist regime".

Referring to the checked flag, the article said it "recalls, quite deliberately, the flag of the first independent republic of Croatia, which existed between 1941 and 1945. A fascist regime allied to Nazi Germany."

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The Guardian said "the colourful chequered board, the sahovnica, has an especially troubled history, much of it in living memory", in an article, written in Israel by a correspondent who covered the war in former Yugoslavia.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the tone of the Evening Standard article was wrong and "the author doesn't know the facts".

The red and white chequer-board coat of arms seen in the middle of the striped Croatian flag is an ancient Croatian symbol which dates back to the ninth century. From 1941 to 1945 when the fascist Ustashe regime controlled the Independent State of Croatia, it adopted the colours as its own.

Yet, after the war, when Croatia became a republic of the socialist Yugoslav federation, the coat of arms remained as the republic's symbol, and it can be seen in monuments and documents dating back hundreds of years.