Zagreb--Croatia's newly-elected President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic has kept a campaign vow to remove a bust of Tito and more than 100 artworks and aretfacts linked to the former Yugoslav leader from her official residence.
The artefacts have been given to museums in Tito's native region of Zagorje, near Zagreb, a presidency statement said on Wednesday.
The best-known item was a marble bust by prominent Croatian sculptor Antun Augustincic.
Grabar-Kitarovic, a Conservative, took power last month after winning a run-off vote in January.
During the campaign she pledged to remove Tito's bust from the residence, labelling the late communist leader a "dictator."
Her announcement sparked a vivid public debate in Croatia as Tito remains a controversial figure, adored by some but seen as a dictator by others.
Former centre-left president Stipe Mesic, who headed Croatia from 2000 to 2010, strongly criticised Grabar-Kitarovic's actions, labelling them a "concession to rightist and neo-fascist forces in Croatia" and an "attempt to remove from the memory the anti-fascist fight, one of the brightest pages in Croatia's history."
Known as Villa Zagorje or Tito's Villa, the vast complex in an upmarket Zagreb neighbourhood was completed for the late leader in the 1960s.
A year after Croatia proclaimed independence in 1991, it became an official presidential residence, but the head of state does not live there.
Tito ruled the former Yugoslav federation, of which Croatia was a part, for 35 years until his death in 1980.
Under Tito, Yugoslavia remained independent of the then Soviet Union and became one of the most prosperous communist countries.
Prisoners' associations estimate that more than 100,000 Croatians were jailed on political grounds by the Yugoslav communist regime.
A decade after his death Yugoslavia collapsed in a series of wars which claimed more than 100,000 lives.
Yugoslavia consisted of six republics -- Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. All of them are now separate countries.
AFP
