The government was quick to respond by dissociating the state from the massacre. Overnight, the police arrested five men and then declared them a criminal group, denying any connection the unit may have had with state institutions. At the trial, the Serbian court rejected the testimonies of the mothers and children of the six executed Muslims. There was no evidence, the court concluded, that the men were detainees from Srebrenica. That ruling was a mark of shame on all of us. And we can’t wash it off by sending Mr. Mladic to the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Mr. Mladic’s arrest brought relief to the families of victims. It offered the Hague tribunal recognition that it is a successful agent of international justice. And it granted Serbia the long-coveted prospect of membership in the European Union. The Serbian government has managed to persuade the world that it values a European future more highly than the criminal heroes of the past.
But I am not so sure that Serbia has given up on Mr. Mladic and his fellow generals, who prosecuted a genocidal war in Bosnia. The sympathy that state officials and the news media expressed for Mr. Mladic last week is yet another mark of shame on all of us. The deputy prosecutor offered him strawberries. His wish to be visited by the health minister and the president of Parliament was granted, as was his request to visit his daughter’s grave. The Serbian public was constantly updated on his diet in jail, and we all learned that Mr. Mladic flew to The Hague in the suit he’d worn at his son’s wedding. He was treated as a star."
By Natasha Kandic/ NYTimes.com/read more
1 comment:
Thank you for posting this article. It is indeed shameful.
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