Several Serbian officials, led by Minister of Justice Nenad Vujić, have used the deteriorating health of Ratko Mladić as an opportunity to continue the practice of downplaying or denying the crimes for which Mladić was convicted. By visiting Mladić in The Hague, Minister Vujić effectively became his megaphone, relaying messages to the “Serbs and Serbia,” while Belgrade Mayor Šapić replicated on social media what once existed as a mural dedicated to Mladić in Njegoševa Street in Belgrade.
Earlier this year, on April 1, Minister of the Interior Ivica Dačić referred to three war criminals – Mladić, Jovica Stanišić, and Franko Simatović – as his “friends and associates who were important for our people and our state.”
Mayor Šapić has previously promoted war criminals such as Veselin Šljivančanin. The majority in the Belgrade City Assembly, led by Šapić, had earlier appointed Svetozar Andrić, a former officer in Mladić’s Drina Corps against whom criminal complaints for war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been filed, as a member of the City Council. Although most members of the Commission for Monuments and the Names of Squares and Streets of the City of Belgrade rejected last year Šapić’s proposal to erect a monument dedicated to war criminal and collaborator Dragoljub Mihailović near Terazije Square, Šapić soon after proposed a new location for the same monument, at Ušće in Belgrade.
In response to the Youth Initiative for Human Rights’ 2022 request to remove the mural of Mladić in Njegoševa Street, Šapić described the initiative as “fulfilling The Hague’s wishes,” claiming he did not know whether Mladić had committed crimes, but was certain that he had “defended the Serbian people.” For three years, Belgrade’s municipal authorities have failed to inform us whether they will remove more than 250 murals and graffiti glorifying Ratko Mladić as a hero.
Over the past several years, there is hardly a part of the city where graffiti featuring the name, image, and legacy of Ratko Mladić has not appeared, while citizens who took it upon themselves to clean facades and walls in their local communities have become targets of hooligan groups. These attacks have intensified, alongside the illegal defacement of streets, parks, facades, and public institutions. The current Mayor of Belgrade has not once publicly condemned this practice or the intimidation of citizens by hooligan groups engaged in the organized destruction and defacement of public space. On the contrary, his statements have contributed to such lawlessness.
The full text of the complaint in BHS you can read it: here.
