Funeral of Ratko Mladić in Belgrade: thousands pay tribute to Serbian general convicted of genocide

T-shirts bearing his glory on their backs, thousands of people attended the funeral of Ratko Mladić in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, on Monday September 7. “Welcome, General, thank you to your mother for giving birth to a hero, so that the glory of Greater Serbia can return,” proclaimed a huge banner displayed near the small Orthodox church of Saint-Luka.

For this last tribute, officially organized by his son Darko, many kissed his closed coffin, on which were his photo, military medals, a saber, as well as a rigid officer's cap with a visor that had become inseparable from his person.

Several Serbian ministers took their places on the benches, as did the Russian ambassador in Belgrade and the former president of the Republic of Serbia, the Bosnian Serb entity, Milorad Dodik. “We know that his name will remain deeply engraved in the memory and prayers of the majority of our Serbian Orthodox people, who feel and cultivate deep gratitude towards him,” said Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Porfirije.

As the coffin was carried outside by soldiers, the crowd lining the street waved flags bearing the image of Ratko Mladić, alongside large tricolor flags of Serbia. The crowd still numbered in the thousands as the procession moved slowly toward the nearby Topcider cemetery, according to AFP journalists and aerial images.

“A glorification incompatible with EU values”

Since the announcement of the death of the mastermind of the Srebrenica massacre on August 27, many Serbian nationalists have paid tribute to him. The European Union has several times deplored the apology of a man sentenced to life in prison for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. "The glorification of war criminals, the denial of genocide and revisionism (...) have no place in the EU or in the candidate countries", as is the case for Serbia, a spokesperson for the EU diplomatic service declared on Monday.

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The European Commissioner, Marta Kos, in charge of EU enlargement, even canceled a planned visit to Serbia on Friday, explaining that "the glorification surrounding his death" was "incompatible with the values on which the EU was built".

Nicknamed by the international media the "Butcher of the Balkans", Ratko Mladić was the military face of a sinister trio – alongside former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic (also dead in prison in The Hague) and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic (also convicted by international justice and still serving his sentence) – at the time when the former Yugoslavia sank into conflict. carnage after the fall of communism. The 1992-1995 war in Bosnia left around 100,000 people dead and 2.2 million displaced.