'Butcher of Bosnia' dies, but legacy lives on in Serbia
A few months ago while in The Hague, I remembered General Ratko Mladic, the gruff Serbian general who I thought might still be alive and serving his life sentence in a nearby UN prison for what is legally called “crimes against humanity.” The old UN court International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) handed down a tough but deserving verdict and threw away the key for Mladic,…
Ratko Mladic, the former commander-in-chief of the Bosnian Serb Army, passed away at the age of 84 in a prison in The Hague. Once known as the "Butcher of Bosnia" during the Yugoslav wars, Mladic was convicted of genocide for the Srebrenica massacre and various other atrocities in Bosnia and Croatia. Mladic emerged as a controversial Serbian folk hero, his brash and bold persona becoming a defining trait of the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia.
Despite his conviction and life sentence in a UN prison, Mladic's legacy continues to have a presence in Serbia. In fact, his upcoming funeral will receive all the military and state honors, as reported by Belgrade's media. Mladic frequently claimed that his hardline Serbian nationalism was a means to avenge centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule in the Balkans.
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- 'Butcher of Bosnia' dies, but legacy lives on in Serbia koreatimes.co.kr
