Serbian plan to honor Mladic undermines genocide accountability

Serbian officials announced that convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic will receive a state funeral with military honors. Mladic was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the Bosnian War, including the Srebrenica massacre. The author criticizes continued denial of the genocide by Bosnian Serb and Serbian leaders.

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The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia documented the scale of atrocities during the 1990s Bosnian conflict, estimating nearly 90,000 deaths, with Bosnian Muslims comprising the majority of civilian casualties. Mladic evaded capture for sixteen years before his 2011 arrest in Serbia, following the earlier convictions of Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic and the indictment of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

Serbian and Bosnian Serb political figures, including President Aleksandar Vucic and former Bosnian Serb Republic President Milorad Dodik, have persistently disputed the tribunal's findings. Dodik has characterized the Srebrenica genocide as a fabricated narrative, while Vucic has argued that atrocities committed by all sides negate individual culpability, a position echoed at a 2024 rally in Ban