Transfer of Ratko Mladić's coffin to Belgrade sparks controversy in the EU

An official plane of the Republic of Serbia transported the coffin of Ratko Mladic, the person responsible for the Srebrenica massacre and convicted of genocide, from The Hague to Belgrade on Thursday. The coffin was wrapped with the national flag. On the trip, the Minister of Justice, Nenad Vujic, the same one who confirmed after his death that he would receive a state funeral, accompanied the relatives. It was soldiers who were in charge of transferring him to the van that was going to take him to the military hospital, while people stationed along the route glorified the general with banners and flares.

"Ratko Mladic was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The return of his mortal remains to Belgrade reminds Europe of the darkest pages of our recent history," Marta Kos, EU Commissioner for Enlargement, wrote on her "The glorification surrounding his death is incompatible with the values ​​on which the EU path is built. That path requires facing the past, genuine reconciliation and respect for the victims of war crimes. The values ​​that underpin our common future are non-negotiable," Kos added.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called Kos' accusations "stupid", according to AFP. "Were we supposed to ban the funeral? Ban people from attending? Not regulate traffic?" he said. "Marta Kos is not going to give me lessons about who is a criminal and who is not," added the president.

The commissioner published the message just after Mladic's son, Darko, gave the details of the farewell of the Butcher of Bosnia: this Saturday a military ceremony was held at noon, in which veterans, commanders in the reserve of the Army of the Republika Srpska and representatives of Serbian military associations participated in the Army House in Belgrade, in addition to their families. There were about 300 people inside, according to Afp, and dozens of supporters who had to stay outside. In addition, the Serbian Minister of Justice, Nenad Vujic, and the president of the Bosnian Serb entity - the Republika Srpska -, Sinisa Karan, among others, attended.

Afterwards, the funeral chapel is scheduled to be installed in the Church of Saint Luke in the Serbian capital, which is expected to be attended by many people. From there the funeral procession will leave early Monday morning for the Topider cemetery. There she will be buried next to her daughter Ana, who committed suicide in 1994 at the age of 23, with her father's gun, while the Bosnian war was being fought.

"Commissioner Kos is right not to travel to Belgrade," Bosnian Adnan Cerimagic, an analyst in Berlin at the European Stability Initiative think tank, tells EL MUNDO. Although he believes that the EU needs to do "an examination of conscience about the way in which it manages its relationship with Serbia and with this Government." "Appeasement has only made Serbia increasingly less democratic, weaker in terms of the rule of law and more aggressive towards its neighbors," he continues.

"The truly decisive thing would be if Kaja Kallas and, above all, Ursula von der Leyen supported this same message unequivocally," highlights Serbian Naim Leo Besiri, director of the Institute for European Affairs in Belgrade.

Vucic will not attend the funeral

President Vucic has not confirmed that Monday is a state funeral, although as he assured yesterday, he has done "everything possible to ensure that it takes place as it should." After excusing his presence due to previous commitments on his agenda, he explained that he had spoken with the Mladlic family, that they had chosen how they wanted the farewell to be and that they wanted everything to happen "in a dignified manner."

"For me it is a serious mistake by the Serbian Government, even if it tries to cover it up," says Mira Milosevich, principal researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute and a native of Belgrade, from the Sarajevo Security Conference, who sees how actions like this "certainly do not contribute to regional stability." "We see that the wounds of the war are still current and that a large part of the population has not changed," says this expert. According to his point of view, "paying tribute to a war criminal will further slow down Serbia's path towards the European Union and, above all, will further deteriorate the country's image."

Goran Simic, professor of Criminal Law in Sarajevo, believes that the honors for the war criminal show that "we have thrown away 30 years of the so-called peace in the former Yugoslavia" and that "the ideologies of evil that were at the forefront of all the crimes and catastrophes that we experienced in the 90s are not only still alive but are in full health and are waiting to rear their heads again." "These events," Simic continues, "show us that the war is not over and that the conflict simply stopped because those who had enough power to prevent us from continuing did so."