Bosnian butcher Ratko Mladić lived decades longer than his victims

Ratko Mladić died peacefully of old age in prison, decades after tens of thousands of his victims. That contrast drives Delo’s sharply critical response to the death of the former Bosnian Serb military commander.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said last week that Mladić had been denied the chance to die in Serbia, where he wanted to die. Vučić called that “an uncivilised act without precedent and unforgivable.” The article rebukes him for failing to mention that Mladić did not allow the victims of his forces to die where they wished.

Mladić, who was 84, led Bosnian Serb forces during the bloody 1992-1995 war that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia. He died in prison in The Hague, Netherlands, while serving a life sentence as a convicted war criminal.

The commentary argues that there is no reason for a reasonable person to mourn Mladić, unless, it says, that person is politically calculating like Vučić. It presents the former general as one of the main culprits in the conflict’s bloodiest crimes, while emphasising that his victims died decades before him and not peacefully in old age.

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He was not allowed to die in Serbia, where he wanted to die. This is an uncivilised act without precedent and unforgivable.