Victims Condemn Serbia's Honors for Ratko Mladić, Convicted Over 8,000 Srebrenica Killings
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Aug 29
Victims Condemn Serbia's Honors for Ratko Mladić, Convicted Over 8,000 Srebrenica Killings
3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Aug 29
Summary
Serbia said Ratko Mladić, who died in prison on Thursday aged 83 or 84, will be buried with full military and state honors despite his life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Victims and survivors said that decision glorifies a man they hold responsible for Bosnia's wartime atrocities, including the 1995 Srebrenica genocide in which at least 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed.
The UN urged leaders to avoid denying the gravity of those crimes or celebrating war criminals, while Srebrenica Memorial director Emir Suljagić said Mladić's death changes nothing about the historical record or the damage left behind.
Mladić commanded Bosnian Serb forces during a conflict that killed about 100,000 people, displaced 2.7 million and included the 1,425-day siege of Sarajevo, where more than 11,000 people were killed.
His death has again exposed the Balkans' unresolved divide, with Serbian nationalists and Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik praising him even as survivors warn that genocide denial and his ideology still endure.