For over a decade, Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic was one of the world’s most wanted men. This Tuesday evening, as the metal doors of the Dutch prison in Scheveningen closed behind him, their clang heralded an overdue victory for international justice and possibly a new beginning for Serbia, where the general spent most of his fugitive years. Mladic, who was indicted almost 16 years ago for the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica and other war crimes, will be tried before the International Tribunal in the Hague, along with Bosnian Serb top civilian leader Radovan Karadzic, who was arrested three years ago in Belgrade.
But many in Serbia still see Mladic as a hero and a champion of Serb nationalism. The country is still deeply divided over its role in the 1992-1995 war that began as the multi-ethnic state of Bosnia-Herzegovina attempted to carve out its independence from the remains of Yugoslavia. Serbia, which retained the name Yugoslavia until 2003, was often accused of harboring Mladic and other indicted war criminals. Last Sunday, more than 100 people were arrested, and about a dozen injured, during violent protests against Mladic’s arrest. (See pictures of Mladic’s arrest.)
T-shirts with the general’s image and the word “Hero” have always sold well in Serbia – and were still being bought up after his arrest. During the six days he spent waiting for extradition, the general became the celebrity object of a media frenzy, with countless camera crews lined up in front of the Special War Crimes Court, where he was detained in a 10-square meter cell. Every detail was eagerly devoured by the press: his request for strawberries, his favorite books (by Russian authors Tolstoy and Turgenev), and a television set; his insistence on visiting the grave of his daughter Ana, who committed suicide in 1994 with her father’s favorite gun. All of these wishes were granted, although the visit to the cemetery posed a major security risk. When Serbian officials at first said that the last request might not be fulfilled, Mladic reportedly asked for his daughter’s coffin to be brought to his cell. “How about bringing him 8,000 coffins from Srebrenica,” huffs Jelena Milic, the director of Belgrade’s Center for Euroatlantic Studies, a think-tank.
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