EU warns Serbia over public commemorations for war criminal Ratko Mladić

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,” with the EU’s enlargement commissioner canceling a planned visit to the country.

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 glorification of war criminals has no place; it goes really, really strong against European values and has no space, not in the EU member states, but also in our candidates,” she said.

“We are observing the situation very carefully … and we will see what will happen in [the] next days and we also see the actions of the government,” Kos added. “There is for sure a place for Serbia in the EU, but [the EU] demands not just doing the reforms. The strategic alliances or strategic orientation on the field of common security and foreign policy is getting even more and more important.”

“The values that underpin our common future are not negotiable,” Kos said in a social media post on Friday, after the POLITICO interview. “In this context, I have decided not to proceed with my planned visit to Serbia at this time.”

A Serbian government official, granted anonymity to speak frankly, insisted the state was not directly involved in Monday’s proceedings. “⁠The commemorative gathering is being organized not by the Ministry of Defense or the General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces, but by the Association of Retired Generals,” they said, adding that Mladić will not receive the honor of being buried in either the Alley of the Greats or the Alley of Distinguished Citizens.

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. “What’s happening there, I think, continues to hurt people, particularly in the region, but also in some member states of the European Union in particular.”

Mladić will be buried at Topčider Cemetery in Belgrade on Monday.