DUBLIN — Serbia’s public commemorations for convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić risk undermining the country’s relationship with the EU, the bloc has warned ahead of the funeral of the man dubbed the “Butcher of Bosnia.” The former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War died behind bars in The Hague last week, where he was serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity. His coffin was draped in a Serbian flag and flown to Belgrade in a government plane on Thursday, and is due to be buried after a service at the House of the Army on Monday, with thousands expected to attend. The EU’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, told POLITICO that public support for Mladić was incompatible with Serbia’s application to join the EU.
The strategic alliances or strategic orientation on the field of common security and foreign policy is getting even more and more important.” A Serbian government official, granted anonymity to speak frankly, insisted the state was not directly involved in Monday’s proceedings. Under Mladić’s command, the Bosnian Serb Army laid siege to Sarajevo for almost four years, cutting off supplies to the civilian population and turning its streets into sniper lanes in which thousands of civilians were shot. Mladić was found to be responsible by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for the massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, as well as atrocities committed by his troops across the country.
The 2011 capture of Mladić, who had been in hiding for almost a decade, came months before Serbia was awarded EU candidate status, paving the way for significant financial and administrative support from the bloc. The decision to extradite him to face justice in The Hague was controversial in Serbia, with polling at the time showing as many as 40 percent of Serbs viewed him as a hero. Tributes were held in majority-Serb towns and cities across Bosnia following his death.
Prominent Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik said “Mladić was respected by the Serbian people. As a commander he stood to defend Serbs.” Ireland’s Europe Minister Thomas Byrne, who is chairing a meeting of EU candidate countries in Dublin on Friday, said that while “there’s not actually a state funeral taking place … there may well be senior figures from government memorializing that man, so that’s not acceptable.” “It is certainly time to bury the past and to work and continue reconciliation in that region,” Byrne added.
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