Serbia Defies EU Warnings as Mladic Funeral Draws Nationalist Mourners

Hundreds of mourners boarded buses in Bijeljina, Bosnia, early Monday to travel to Belgrade for the funeral of Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military commander who died last month while serving a life sentence for genocide and other war crimes.

Mladic, who died at the age of 84 in The Hague on August 27, was convicted in 2017 for orchestrating the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, as well as for the siege of Sarajevo and other atrocities during the Bosnian war of 1992-95.

His body lay in state in Belgrade on Monday, with pro-government media reporting that he would receive full military honours and that the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije, would lead the funeral service. The Serbian government sent a plane to bring his remains from the Netherlands and held a military commemoration on Saturday at an official army venue.

Among those travelling from Bijeljina was Zvezdan Miskovic, a local resident who described Mladic as "our hero, our general, my commander." He said, "We Serbian people are proud we had someone like Ratko Mladic... It was an honor to serve under his command."

The funeral arrangements have drawn sharp criticism from the European Union, of which Serbia is a candidate member. EU enlargement commissioner Marta Kos cancelled a planned visit to Serbia, saying that "the glorification surrounding his death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built."

Serbia, which backed Bosnian Serb forces during the war, has remained defiant over its wartime role and accuses the West of anti-Serb bias. Since Mladic's death, nationalist admirers have held vigils, painted murals with his image in Belgrade, and lit flares in his honour.