Croatia has officially voiced its opposition to the planned burial of former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladić with state honors. The general, nicknamed the "Butcher of Bosnia," died in the prison of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, where he was serving a life sentence for genocide and crimes against humanity. Serbia, through its Minister of Justice, has already declared its intention to hold military funerals and expressed readiness to immediately retrieve the body from the Netherlands. It was precisely this decision that prompted Zagreb's harsh reaction.
Zagreb's Position: "They Are Closing the Doors to the EU Themselves"
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković stated on live television that burying Mladić with state honors could negatively affect Serbia's European prospects. "It would be as if they were closing the doors to the European Union themselves," the Croatian leader emphasized. In his words, this concerns a person implicated in grave crimes during the wars on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and Zagreb reminds that Mladić is connected not only to the crimes for which he was convicted by the Hague tribunal, but also to episodes documented by Croatian justice.
Croatian Charges: From Kijevo to the Peruča Dam
It is important to note that the Hague tribunal did not convict Mladić for crimes committed specifically on Croatian territory. However, in July 1992, a court in the Croatian town of Šibenik sentenced him in absentia to 20 years in prison for war crimes against the civilian population. According to the Croatian prosecution, on 26 August 1991, Mladić, then chief of staff of the 9th Knin Corps, ordered an attack on the village of Kijevo, which was hit by around 1,600 artillery shells and cluster munitions. The settlement was almost completely destroyed. The same case also covered strikes on Sine, Vrliče, Maljkove, Potravlj, Šatrica and Dabar, as well as attacks on civilian objects in Šibenik.
One of the most serious episodes of the Croatian proceedings was the investigation into the planning of the destruction of the Peruča dam on the Cetina River. According to the prosecution, Mladić and other commanders intended to blow up the dam to flood the downstream settlements of Sinj, Trilj and Omiš, home to more than 50,000 people. Around 30 tons of explosives were placed in the structure; the blast caused extensive damage to the dam, but failed to destroy it completely. Separately, Plenković mentioned Škabrnja in his statement: on 18 November 1991, on the day Vukovar fell, Serb forces captured the village, where civilians and defenders were killed. The Croatian prosecution also handled proceedings over rocket strikes on Požega and areas of Slavonia in 1995, which killed one civilian and wounded three others.
The Hague Verdict and Death in Prison
In 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced Mladić to life imprisonment. The court found him guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war committed during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Among the established crimes were the genocide in Srebrenica, persecution, extermination, killings, deportation and forcible transfer of Bosnian Muslims, a multi-year campaign of artillery terror against the civilian population of Sarajevo, and the taking of UN staff as hostages. Mladić died in the tribunal's penitentiary facility in The Hague, not living to see a possible review of his sentence.
Contradictory Data
Around the figure of Mladić and his funeral, there are a number of inconsistencies in the positions of various parties. On the one hand, the Serbian Minister of Justice publicly announced state funerals, and some Serbian politicians and far-right circles openly call the general a national hero. On the other hand, the progressive, liberal and human-rights part of Serbian society recognizes Mladić as a war criminal and condemns his actions. The Serbian authorities, led by Aleksandar Vučić, reportedly take a restrained and ambiguous position, giving no clear public signal either in favor of or against the honors.
An additional contradiction is created by Russia's position: the Kremlin expressed condolences to the deceased's family, while officially not recognizing the jurisdiction and verdict of the Hague tribunal. Thus, in the public space, three incompatible assessments coexist simultaneously: the international-legal one (a war criminal sentenced to life), the nationalist one (a national hero) and the political-diplomatic one (a figure whose honorary burial could block Serbia's Euro-integration). The Croatian side, for its part, emphasizes that The Hague did not examine episodes on Croatian territory, and insists on its own jurisdiction over these cases, which makes the funeral issue not only moral but also legally sensitive for bilateral relations.
Impact on Serbia's Euro-integration
Plenković's statement came against the backdrop of Serbia's ongoing Euro-integration process, where the question of the attitude toward the legacy of the 1990s wars and the recognition of the ICTY's jurisdiction remains one of the key criteria. Zagreb, itself a member of the EU since 2013, consistently uses the theme of accountability for war crimes as a tool of pressure on Belgrade. If Serbia holds Mladić's funeral with state honors, this, by the logic of the Croatian prime minister, would be perceived by Brussels as a signal that Belgrade is not ready to finally distance itself from the militarist legacy, which could slow down or even halt the accession negotiation process.
