Like Milošević, Mladić Saw Himself as a Giant of Serbian History

Ratko Mladić committed crimes while holding the mistaken belief that NATO was about to collapse and Russia was prepared to help him. That may sound familiar, but the article argues that the question of how Mladić’s funeral will look remains important.

Whether it takes place with state honors or without them, some people will use the funeral to create a new version of nationalist mythmaking, the article says. It places that warning against the background of Mladić’s conviction for genocide, war crimes and other crimes against humanity against Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

About an hour after the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced Mladić to life in prison at first instance on Nov. 22, 2017, his son Darko held a news conference at a hotel opposite the court. A journalist asked whether Ratko Mladić, or his son speaking as a family member and representative, felt remorse or regret for the lives destroyed in crimes the tribunal attributed personally to him.

Darko Mladić looked surprised and accused the journalist, or Croats as a group, of being “NATO infantry.” The article presents the exchange as evidence of a worldview in which Mladić, like Slobodan Milošević, saw himself as a giant of Serbian history. It also suggests that the funeral could become another stage for that narrative rather than an occasion for reckoning.

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NATO infantry