Novisad Assembly Pays Tribute to Ratko Mladić, Opposition Walks Out

The Novi Sad city assembly began its session by paying tribute to Ratko Mladić, the former commander of the Army of Republika Srpska who was convicted of war crimes. Opposition councillors responded by leaving the chamber and refusing to take part in the session.

SNS councillor Nedeljko Klisurić proposed the tribute. Forty-six members of the majority backed it, including councillors from the Serbian Progressive Party, the Socialist Party of Serbia, the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, the Serbian Radical Party, the Movement of Socialists and the Social Democratic Party of Serbia. Novi Sad Mayor Žarko Mićin and members of the city council also supported the motion.

The assembly was due to consider around 30 agenda items. They included a proposal to transfer publicly owned apartments on Stanoja Stanojevića Street without compensation to war-disabled veterans and families of fallen soldiers. Councillors were also set to discuss a committee for implementing a decision to erect a monument to Patriarch Pavle in Sremska Kamenica, as well as changes to the city’s public parking regulations.

Mladić was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The article says he died on Aug. 27 at the age of 84 in a prison hospital in The Hague and was due to be buried that day.