Survivors\u2019 groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina have\u00a0condemned\u00a0the announcement that the Serbian government plans to bury the convicted genocidaire Ratko Mladi\u0107 with \u201chighest military and state honors.\u201d Mladi\u0107, the Bosnian Serb army chief during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s,\u00a0died on August 27 in custody in The Hague following his 2017\u00a0conviction by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. His body was met by Serbian officials in Belgrade on September 3.
Mladi\u0107 \u2018s apprehension in 2011, after his 16 years on the run, remains a highlight of international cooperation to deliver justice. The European Union, in particular, played a critical role in\u00a0securing Serbia\u2019s cooperation with the ICTY as part of the country\u2019s bid to join the EU. \u00a0
The ICTY judgment, upheld on appeal, makes clear\u00a0Mladi\u0107's responsibility for widespread atrocities, including the Bosnian Serb army\u2019s mass execution of at least 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the Srebrenica genocide. Mladi\u0107 was among the highest-level individuals tried before the ICTY and his trial was its last before it closed in 2017. \u00a0
The ICTY was established for a\u00a0simple purpose:\u00a0\u201cprosecuting persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.\u201d By that measure it was a great success. All of the 161 people indicted \u2014 including many top wartime political leaders and military commanders \u2014 faced justice before it for horrific crimes or have died.\u00a0
But as the Serbian government\u2019s announcement to treat Mladi\u0107 as a war hero shows, the court\u2019s success has not translated into a shared recognition of the crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war. In Serbia and in the Republika Srpska, the predominantly Serb entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, political leaders and others deny crimes by Serbian, Yugoslav, and Bosnian Serb forces and often lionize those that the ICTY convicted. The United Nations special adviser on prevention of genocide has\u00a0warned of increasing genocide denial in the Balkans.\u00a0
Continued international support for\u00a0national trials of lower-level suspects is important but is unlikely to end the polarization around historical memory. The EU and the region\u2019s other international partners need to make clear to Serbia and other Western Balkan governments that denying the historical record or inciting ethnic hatred will carry a cost. And they should press these governments to endorse\u00a0long-standing efforts by civil society to create a regional truth and reconciliation process. \u00a0
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