Three years after his death in prison, the commemoration of Ratko Mladić in Belgrade has laid bare a wound that thirty years of uneasy peace have not closed. Serbia's government kept its formal distance from a man convicted of orchestrating genocide, yet the gathering of supporters was itself a statement — one heard clearly enough that an EU official canceled her visit in response. The episode asks an old and unresolved question: what does a nation owe the truth about what was done in its name?
Mladić Commemorated in Belgrade Amid Divisions Over War Crimes Legacy
Mladić was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity during the Bosnian War, resulting in thousands of deaths and displacement.