Serbia Honors Genocide Convict Mladic, Defying EU
Serbia Honors Genocide Convict Mladic, Defying EU
The News
The body of Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander who died while serving a life sentence for genocide, lay in state in Belgrade on Monday as Serbia defied European Union warnings against publicly honoring him.
Thousands of mourners arrived early at the small Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Luke, where Mladic's military cap and saber rested on his coffin, flanked by men in fatigues.
Pro-government Serbian media reported that Mladic will receive full military honors and that Patriarch Porfirije, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, will lead the funeral service.
Mladic was convicted of Europe's first case of genocide since World War II.
What He Was Convicted Of
Mladic was sentenced in 2017 for orchestrating the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995, the yearslong siege of Sarajevo, and other war crimes including setting up concentration camps for detained non-Serb civilians and enemy soldiers.
Srebrenica had been declared a U.N. "safe haven" for Bosniaks — Bosnian Muslims. It was overrun by Serb forces who stripped men and boys, killed them and bulldozed their bodies into mass graves.
Timeline
The Bosnian war kills more than 100,000 people and leaves over 1 million homeless, after ethnic Serbs in Bosnia seize swaths of territory following the breakup of Yugoslavia.
More than 8,000 Muslims are massacred at Srebrenica. The war ends later that year in a U.S.-brokered peace agreement.
Mladic is sentenced to life for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Mladic dies at 84 in The Hague, Netherlands, while serving his sentence. Nationalist admirers hold vigils, paint murals of him in Belgrade and light flares in his honor.
The Serbian government sends a plane to bring his remains to Belgrade. Soldiers carry his coffin wrapped in the national flag.
A military commemoration is held at an official Serbian army venue.
His body lies in state at the Church of St. Luke ahead of the funeral.
Reactions
Mladic "was a man who gave everything in his life for the Serbian people," said Milan Dobric, a mourner who traveled from Kosovo. "I am glad that this morning people are coming to pay special respect."
EU enlargement commissioner Marta Kos canceled an upcoming visit to Serbia in protest, saying "the glorification surrounding his death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built."
Other European officials, regional leaders and relatives of Mladic's victims in Bosnia joined the criticism.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic dismissed the EU's objections and accused Kos of "lying." Vucic, a former extreme nationalist who backed Serbia's expansionist policies during the war, is not attending the funeral and has sharpened his anti-Western rhetoric ahead of an early parliamentary election.
What's Next
The funeral follows the lying in state, with the Serbian Orthodox patriarch presiding and full military honors reported by pro-government media.
Serbia is heading into a high-stakes early parliamentary election expected next month, which Vucic has been campaigning for with escalating criticism of the West.
Serbia's EU membership bid — already stalled over democratic backsliding and Vucic's refusal to join international sanctions on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine — now carries the added strain of Brussels' objections to the state honors for Mladic.
More
Serbia has refused to recognize that genocide was committed at Srebrenica, calling the massacre a "horrific crime" instead. The country backed Bosnian Serb forces during the war and remains defiant about its wartime role, accusing the West of anti-Serb bias.
This is not the first such burial. Last year Serbia buried another convicted war criminal, former army chief of staff Nebojsa Pavkovic, with full military honors at a cemetery for distinguished individuals.
The American angle is the peace deal itself: the Bosnian war ended with a U.S.-brokered agreement, and Washington has spent three decades pressing the Balkans to reckon with the atrocities Mladic was convicted of ordering.
Poll
How should the EU respond to Serbia's state honors for Mladic?
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