The funeral of Ratko Mladić, who was convicted as a war criminal by a final judgment of the Hague tribunal, will be held on Monday, September 7, at Topčider Cemetery, while a memorial service will be held at the Army House on September 5, starting at noon. Despite statements by Justice Minister Nenad Vujić that Mladić would be buried with the highest state and military honors, it was later stated that the family would be responsible for making the decision about the funeral. The way in which the authorities are instrumentalizing Mladić’s death is explained to Mašina by Dragan Popović, director of the Center for Practical Politics (CPP), and Nusreta Brunčević, editor of the Takt info portal from Novi Pazar.

From claims that Mladić would be buried with the highest military honors to statements that the family alone would decide on the funeral, the death and the issue of Ratko Mladić’s funeral have provoked conflicting reactions.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said yesterday that, although he would not attend the funeral due to a previously scheduled visit by the President of Uzbekistan, he had done everything to ensure that everything proceeded in a dignified manner and that the state acted seriously and responsibly.

According to Dragan Popović, director of the Center for Practical Politics (CPP), the events surrounding Mladić’s funeral that have been unfolding in recent days are merely part of a broader narrative serving the authorities.

“That narrative serves the Serbian Progressive Party and consists not so much of what exactly Ratko Mladić did, but rather of the idea that the West, above all, harmed him, and consequently harmed Serbia and the Serbian people as well.”

He believes that this situation and Mladić himself are being turned into a kind of symbol of the sacrifice Serbia is supposedly enduring and for which the international community is primarily responsible.

“Vučić and the regime will not use the words state funeral or anything like that, but everything else points in that direction. This government and the institutions under its control have chosen to turn Ratko Mladić into a kind of symbol of Serbia’s resistance to the West and of the sacrifice that Serbia allegedly suffered,” Popović says, adding that they will try to use this funeral to further mobilize their electoral base.

Popović believes that most citizens of Serbia do not have any particularly strong position on this issue, and states that many surveys showing that the majority of Serbian citizens believe Ratko Mladić was a hero are not accurate.

According to Nusreta Brunčević, the state’s involvement in the farewell for a war criminal convicted by a final judgment represents a moment in which years of rhetoric are being transformed into concrete state policy.

“We are no longer talking here about some group, but about an entire system that is turning all of this into its policy of shaping the legacy and public consciousness at the international, public and legal levels. Ratko Mladić’s legacy has literally been preserved, cemented by a final conviction for genocide,” she says, adding that in Serbia this legacy has been systematically moved from the sphere of criminal responsibility into the realm of national myth.

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“This approach to the funeral, which involves state institutions, facilities and honors, directly shapes the consciousness of new generations. In other words, young people born decades after the war, who perhaps never had the opportunity to properly learn about everything that happened, are being sent the message that verdicts and facts are secondary, that the institutional glorification of convicted war criminals is an accepted state value, and that is what literally remains after all of this,” Brunčević explains.

According to Popović, Serbia will only be able to confront who Ratko Mladić was, who his victims were and what the attitude toward him means for a society once space for a public debate opens up, but at this moment it is “an election issue solely for SNS and Aleksandar Vučić, and he will use it.”

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Source: Mašina Foto: TANJUG/ ATA Images

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