Ratko Mladić, the Bosnian Serb commander convicted by a UN court of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, was buried in Belgrade on Monday before a crowd of thousands, despite renewed warnings from Brussels against glorifying him — warnings Serbia’s government continues to reject.
Prior to the funeral, Mladić’s body lay in state since Monday morning at the Serb Orthodox Church of St Luke in Belgrade, where thousands arrived early to honour him, despite being found guilty of the worst bloodbath on European soil since World War II.
His military officer’s cap and sabre rested on the coffin, which was flanked by men in fatigues, with his medals also on display.
The crowd gathered included his former soldiers in military garb and young men carrying banners with his image and flags of Serbia and the Bosnian Serb-majority entity of the Republika Srpska, as hundreds of football fans joined the procession to the Košutnjak graveyard.
The crowd clapped as soldiers carried Mladić’s coffin, a gun salute rang out and a military orchestra played.
The head of the Serb Orthodox Church Patriarch Porfirije, who led the funeral service, said Mladić’s name would “remain deeply etched in the memory and prayers” of Serb Orthodox people who “feel and nurture a deep sense of gratitude towards him.”
Although it was earlier announced that no serving officials would be in attendance, Serbian justice, culture, defence and public investments ministers came to pay their respects, along with Russian ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko and President Aleksandar Vučić’s son Danilo. Political representatives of Bosnian Serbs were also present.
While the funeral arrangements were formally made by Mladić’s family, the Serbian government sent a plane last week to bring his remains to Belgrade, accompanied by Justice Minister Nenad Vujić — who initially announced that Serbia would give Mladić “all the military and state honours,” a decision Vučić later tempered.
Soldiers carried Mladić’s coffin wrapped in the national flag on arrival to an unmarked maroon van, which was then given a police escort down Belgrade’s main motorway.
A military commemoration was held Saturday at an official Serbian army venue, which the government said was organised by an association of retired generals.
Honours or no honours?
Authorities earlier said Mladić would not be buried with military or state honours. There would be no artillery salutes or ceremonial military presence, and he would not be buried in the Alley of the Greats or the Alley of Distinguished Citizens despite requests to that effect.
Yet according to head of research and advocacy at the Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR Serbia) Marko Milosavljević, while Mladić’s funeral as such is private and organised by the family, the pomp around it and the involvement of state institutions and representatives amounts to state honours — which Milosavljević points out are contrary to Serbian law.
“After he was found guilty, he lost his rank in the army, and with that he lost the right to any state or military honours,” Milosavljević told Euronews. “But as we can see in practice, in Serbia the same rules don’t always apply.”
Milosavljević pointed out that one of the organisers of Mladić’s funeral is Svetozar Andrić, Mladić’s wartime associate suspected of war crimes who is wanted on several criminal indictments, including for ordering the expulsion of Bosniaks from eastern Bosnia in 1992.
“This wave of celebration of Ratko Mladić absolutely encourages people like him who are still at large that they will never be held accountable for war crimes despite existing evidence,” he explained.
Milosavljević believes that by de facto honouring Mladić, Belgrade has opened itself up to a potential lawsuit over breaking the UN Convention on Human Rights — which was successfully litigated in the past elsewhere.
“Survivors and families of victims of crimes Mladić was convicted for could sue Serbia in front of the European Court of Human Rights on non-discrimination grounds, and there are several cases of family members of victims in Vukovar and in Kosovo who sued for reparations in front of domestic courts in Serbia,” he said.
‘Emotional outpouring’
Serbia, a candidate country for European Union membership, has faced strong criticism for honouring Mladić after his death.
EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos cancelled an upcoming visit to Serbia in protest, arguing that “the glorification surrounding his death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built.”
“Any glorification of war criminals, genocide denial and revisionism contradict the most fundamental European values and have no place in the EU or in EU candidate countries,” a European Commission spokesperson said in a statement on Monday.
“Reconciliation and good neighbourly relations in Western Balkans remain central to building a shared future,” the statement added.
Vučić, who did not attend the funeral, described it as an “emotional outpouring” that “has nothing to do with whether Vučić allowed something or not.”
Belgrade, which backed Bosnian Serb forces during the war in the neighbouring country, has remained defiant over its wartime role and has repeatedly accused the West of anti-Serb bias.
“We have been persecuted and harassed for 30, 40 years … always guilty whatever happens,” Vučić said. “People just won’t take it any more.”
According to YIHR’s Milosavljević, the emotional outpouring Vučić described had not happened by accident.
“Over the past decades, especially while he was at large, a myth was forged of Mladić as a great military commander, but also as someone who embodies resistance against the hypocritical West which has also committed its own war crimes,” Milosavljević said.
“So Mladić became an exponent against NATO, against the EU … a useful symbol to represent the collective traumas.”
Vigils, murals and flares
The nearly four-year-long war in Bosnia, which broke out in 1992 after the former Yugoslav republic declared independence, left more than 100,000 people dead and some 2 million displaced and seeking refuge before it ended in 1995 in a US-brokered peace agreement.
Mladić was sentenced for orchestrating the genocide of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica in July 1995, and the years-long siege of Sarajevo, where his troops on the surrounding hills conducted a daily campaign of shelling and sniping at the Bosnian capital’s residents.
Since the announcement of his death in The Hague on 27 August, his admirers have held vigils, painted fresh murals of him in Belgrade and lit flares in his honour.
On Sunday evening, Red Star Belgrade fans displayed a large image of Mladić and a line referencing the summary execution of thousands in Srebrenica, and chanted his name at a football match in the Serbian capital.
Serbia has refused to recognise that genocide was committed in Srebrenica, calling the summary execution of thousands a “horrific crime” instead.
Last year, Belgrade buried another convicted war criminal, the former army chief of staff Nebojša Pavković, with full military honours at a cemetery for distinguished individuals.
The ICTY sentenced Pavković to 22 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war in Kosovo in 1998-1999.