The Serbian Minister of Justice Nenad Vujić said that Mladić will receive all military and state honors to which the Serbian state believes he is entitled. The European Commission emphasized that glorifying war criminals has no place in the European Union or candidate countries.
Accession
Serbia is a candidate for EU membership. This fall, the EU must decide on the admission of Serbia and several other countries. The current president Vučić is rather anti-EU; the Netherlands has already declared its opposition to Belgrade’s accession. Brussels leaves it to the Serbian authorities to determine what official role they will play at the funeral.
President Aleksandar Vučić used different wording than his minister. He did not speak of military or state honors but said that Serbia will ensure the funeral can proceed in a dignified and appropriate manner. The final decision on where Mladić will be buried rests with his family.
Promotion
Life sentence
During the Bosnian war, Mladić was the military leader of the Bosnian Serbs. He died last Thursday, August 27, at the age of 84 in the UN prison in The Hague, where he was serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
President Vučić also sharply criticized the UN court in The Hague. According to him, the court wanted Mladić to die behind bars and should have allowed him to go to Serbia. He called Mladić’s treatment uncivilized and unjust.
Srebrenica
Mladić was convicted by the (now defunct) UN Yugoslavia tribunal, among other things, for genocide due to his role in the Srebrenica massacre. A Dutch UN battalion was unable to prevent Mladić’s army from capturing the UN enclave, where several thousand Bosnian Muslim boys and men were taken away and executed by Mladić’s troops.
Opposite the criticism and tributes from Serbian and other political circles is now the warning from Brussels. The European Commission explicitly ties the matter to the values expected of candidate countries: there is no place for glorifying convicted war criminals, according to the Commission.