ShortFormBlogSrebrenica Archives

During the Bosnian War, Mladic’s daughter committed suicide. The former general, who faces war crimes charges for his role in the war, got the chance to visit Ana today. Mladic lost his fight against extradition to The Hague — which his lawyer fought, claiming that Mladic wasn’t in good enough health for travel and is too frail to stand trial. Once the judge signs the extradition order, expected today, he’ll be headed on a plane to face tribunal. source

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He lived normally until 2002. Everybody came by to pay their respects… He was not the type of person to sit around and do nothing.
Ratko Mladic’s friend, Aleksandar Mihailovic • Revealing that his former neighbor, the suspected war criminal for whom he built a house, lived a fairly normal life in Belgrade between the end of the Bosnian war and 2002, when he disappeared without a trace for nearly nine years. Mihailovic (a real-estate magnate) paints a picture of a man engaged with his community — one who liked telling stories, eating at restaurants and playing soccer. He, however, spoke with the blessing of the Mladic family, emphasizing in no uncertain terms that he came out on the side of the former general. “Everything that happened followed the fall of Srebrenica,” he said. “Do you think a person of such capability, such professionalism, would allow what is undeniably a horrible crime?” source

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Whatever was done in Srebrenica, he has nothing to do with it. His orders were to evacuate the wounded, the women and the children and then the fighters. Whatever was done behind his back, he has nothing to do with that.
Darko Mladic • Defending his now-under custody father, Ratko Mladic, from allegations that he led a mass murder of thousands of Muslims — men and young boys — during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia. The massacre, one of the deadliest in Europe since WWII, has led to the elder Mladic to disappear from the public eye for nearly two decades before his capture last week. Investigators say that any denial of his involvement in the case is a delaying tactic to buy the notorious Serbian general more time. source

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A pariah of the Yugoslavian War: Missing from view since his 1995 indictment on war crimes, Mladic’s capture allows for the closure of a dark era of Europe’s post-World War II history. In leading a war that killed as many as 100,000, the Bosnian Serb saw it as a form of historic revenge against hundreds of years of Turkish-Ottoman rule. And he was something else, too. He used phrases like this one when talking to soldiers: “When I give you guarantees, it’s as if they are given by God.” Hours before leading a masacre of the town of Srebrenica, he went into the town and gave the children there candy, while reassuring them everything would be OK. Could you imagine? Mladic’s arrest finally offers the end of a dark chapter of modern history that needs closure. source

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31 May 2011 11:21