Butcher Of The Balkans’ Ratko Mladic Dies At 84 (Worthy News In-Depth)

by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief

SARAJEVO/BELGRADE/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Ratko Mladic, the bullish Bosnian Serb general who became feared as the “Butcher of the Balkans” after his forces besieged the Bosnian capital in the 1990s and carried out Europe’s worst massacre since World War II, has died. He was 84.

Mladic passed away Thursday while serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, United Nations officials confirmed.

He died at a hospital in The Hague, Netherlands, where he had been receiving treatment after years of declining health.

A Mladic relative also confirmed his death, saying the former general’s son, Darko Mladic, was on his way to the Dutch city.

The U.N. tribunal investigating war crimes in the former Yugoslavia sentenced Mladic to life imprisonment in 2017 for atrocities committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. His conviction and sentence were upheld on appeal in 2021.

SREBRENICA GENOCIDE

The ruthless, blue-eyed former communist officer-turned-nationalist commander became one of the most notorious figures of the Bosnian War, which killed more than 100,000 people and displaced well over 1 million.

When war erupted in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, Mladic became commander of the Bosnian Serb army, whose forces seized large areas of the country as Bosnian Serb leaders sought to establish a separate Serb-controlled entity.

His forces laid siege to Sarajevo, detained non-Serb civilians in camps and conducted campaigns of killing, forced displacement and persecution as they sought to consolidate Serb-held territory.

Mladic’s name became most closely associated with Srebrenica, where Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995 separated Bosniak Muslim men and boys from women and children after overrunning the U.N.-declared “safe area.”

More than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were subsequently killed, many of their bodies dumped in mass graves and later moved to secondary burial sites in attempts to conceal evidence.

MASSACRE RULED GENOCIDE

International courts determined that the Srebrenica killings constituted genocide, making the massacre the worst mass killing in Europe since World War II.

The repercussions reached far beyond Bosnia. In April 2002, the entire Dutch government of Prime Minister Wim Kok resigned following publication of a major investigation into Srebrenica and the failure of Dutch U.N. peacekeepers, known as Dutchbat, to protect the enclave.

Kok’s government accepted political responsibility for the circumstances in which the massacre could occur, while responsibility for the mass killings themselves remained with Mladic’s Bosnian Serb forces.

Mladic was also held responsible for the years-long siege of Sarajevo, where Bosnian Serb forces used artillery, tanks and snipers against a city whose residents endured shelling, shortages and death on an almost daily basis.

A young Worthy News reporter covering the conflict at the time established that Serbian tanks had been positioned in the mountains surrounding Sarajevo as forces prepared to attack the city.

SARAJEVO UNDER SIEGE

During one night of attacks, the reporter and other residents took shelter in a Jewish cultural center as Serbian forces targeted the city. Outside, a body lay on a bridge exposed to Serbian sniper fire, underscoring the dangers civilians faced while attempting to move through Sarajevo.

Recorded wartime communications captured Mladic directing artillery attacks. In one notorious command, he ordered his forces to “scorch their brains” while discussing the bombardment of Sarajevo.

The international tribunal concluded that Mladic participated in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at permanently removing Bosnian Muslims and Croats from territory claimed by Bosnian Serbs.

His forces also established detention facilities where prisoners were subjected to killings, beatings, sexual violence and other abuses, according to findings presented during his lengthy trial.

Yet Mladic remained a hero to many Serbian nationalists and Bosnian Serbs, who viewed him as a military commander defending Serb communities during Yugoslavia’s violent disintegration.

SURVIVORS REACT

For survivors and relatives of those killed at Srebrenica, his death revived memories of a massacre whose victims are still being identified more than three decades later.

Munira Subasic of the Mothers of Srebrenica expressed mixed feelings about his death while lamenting continued denial of the crimes among sections of the Bosnian Serb population.

“Today, a major war criminal died, the criminal of the Balkans,” Subasic said.

She stressed that mothers of those killed were “still carrying the pain in our souls” 31 years later while continuing to hear Mladic portrayed as a hero by some Serbs.

In Pale, a Bosnian Serb stronghold outside Sarajevo, however, some residents mourned the former commander, underscoring the sharply divided views of Mladic that persist across the Balkans.

FROM OFFICER TO WARLORD

Mladic was born March 12, 1942, in the region of Kalinovik in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina. His father was killed during World War II, an event that formed part of the family history surrounding his later nationalism.

Mladic joined the Yugoslav People’s Army and rose through its ranks during communist leader Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia before siding with Serb forces as the multinational federation collapsed.

He first commanded Yugoslav and Serb forces during fighting in Croatia before becoming commander of the newly formed Bosnian Serb army in May 1992.

Mladic repeatedly portrayed the conflict through the lens of Serbian history, at times referring to Bosnian Muslims as “Turks” and invoking centuries-old battles against the Ottoman Empire.

That rhetoric reached a chilling climax when his troops entered Srebrenica in July 1995.

SREBRENICA MASS KILLINGS

Television footage showed Mladic walking through the captured enclave and handing sweets to frightened Muslim children while assuring civilians they were safe.

Behind the scenes, however, thousands of Muslim men and boys were being separated from their families.

Prisoners were transported to schools, warehouses, fields and other locations before being shot in mass executions during a killing operation lasting several days.

Mladic openly spoke of revenge as his troops seized Srebrenica, while prosecutors later argued that he played a central role in the organized operation that murdered thousands.

The massacre came to define Mladic internationally, but he avoided justice for years after being indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 1995.

MLADIC ON THE RUN

Mladic remained a fugitive for 16 years, for a time living relatively openly despite being one of the world’s most wanted war-crimes suspects and benefiting from protection among elements of Serbia’s military and security establishment.

As political conditions changed in Serbia and international pressure increased, he eventually disappeared from public view.

Authorities finally arrested him in May 2011 in Lazarevo, a village in northern Serbia, where he had been staying at a relative’s home.

The once physically imposing commander appeared frail when transferred to The Hague, but his combative demeanor remained.

His trial began in 2012 and heard extensive evidence about mass executions, detention camps, forced expulsions and the terror campaign against Sarajevo.

LIFE SENTENCE

In November 2017, judges convicted Mladic of genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity and four violations of the laws or customs of war.

The court found him responsible for the Srebrenica genocide and for crimes involving persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, forcible transfer, terror and unlawful attacks on civilians.

Mladic reacted angrily to the proceedings and was removed from the courtroom shortly before judges completed reading the verdict.

“Everything you said is pure lies. Shame on you!” he yelled at the U.N. judges.

The tribunal sentenced him to life imprisonment, and in June 2021 U.N. appeals judges rejected his challenge and confirmed the sentence.

HEALTH DETERIORATING

Mladic’s health deteriorated significantly during his imprisonment. He was believed to have suffered several strokes and was hospitalized repeatedly while in custody.

His lawyers and family sought his release on health grounds, including permission for him to return to Serbia, but international judges rejected the requests.

Last year, a U.N. war crimes court again rejected an urgent request for his release, concluding that although his medical condition remained uncertain, his treatment in The Hague was adequate.

He ultimately died there Thursday, still serving the life sentence imposed for crimes that helped make the Bosnian War synonymous with ethnic cleansing, siege warfare and genocide.

For survivors of Srebrenica and Sarajevo, Mladic remained the commander responsible for some of Europe’s darkest atrocities since World War II. For some Serb nationalists, he remained a wartime hero—a divide showing that more than three decades after the Bosnian War ended, its wounds have yet to fully heal.

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