In the long reckoning that follows mass atrocity, nations are asked not only to pursue justice but to live by its conclusions. When Serbia received the body of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic with full military honors this week, the European Union's enlargement chief Marta Kos cancelled her planned visit to Belgrade, declaring the glorification incompatible with the values underpinning European membership. The gesture — quiet, firm, and deliberate — placed a question before Serbia that no negotiating chapter can resolve: whether a country can face its past honestly enough to build a shared
EU Enlargement Chief Cancels Serbia Visit Over Mladic Military Honors
Mladic's forces killed over 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide; the Bosnian War overall killed more than 100,000 people.