Bosnia Presidency Head Slams Serbia at UN Over Mladic Glorification

Bosnian Presidency Chairman Denis Becirovic at the UN. Photo: Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The chair of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s three-member state presidency, Denis Becirovic, accused Serbia’s leaders on Tuesday of violating international standards by systematically glorifying convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic on the global stage. Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, the Bosnian leader issued a stark warning that persistent ethno-nationalist ideologies threaten stability in the Western Balkans. He argued that the honours paid to the former Bosnian Serb general at his Belgrade funeral this month prove that Serbian leaders have not abandoned their expansionist wartime ideology. Becirovic – the Bosniak member of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s presidency – noted that international judicial bodies have firmly established that genocide occurred on Bosnian soil in the 1990s, making the attempted rehabilitation of its perpetrators an unacceptable assault on international law. “The convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic is not a hero, but a judicially proven war criminal,” Becirovic stated from the UN podium. “The institutional glorification of this criminal is an anti-civilisational act. It represents a direct alignment of Serbia’s state leadership with one of the worst executioners in European history, proving they have not abandoned the ideology that leads to aggression,” he added. The address made political waves back home, where Bosnian Serb political officials condemned the speech. The Serb member of the state presidency, Zeljka Cvijanovic, accused Becirovic of presenting his own personal opinions rather than those of the state. “Becirovic’s address at the UN General Assembly was a unilateral, private performance that completely bypassed constitutional procedures,” Cvijanovic told media. “By using this international platform to spread hate and manipulate facts about regional relationships, he has further damaged internal trust and demonstrated that he does not speak on behalf of the entire state,” she added. Bosnian Serb leaders reject international courts’ definition of the Srebrenica massacres as genocide and see Mladic as a war hero. Concluding his remarks, Becirovic urged the UN and international organisations to take concrete measures against political figures in the Balkans who systematically honour war criminals at official levels. He said ensuring legal accountability and defending the historical truth established by international tribunals remains the only path to long-term regional peace. Mladic, who commanded Bosnian Serb forces in Bosnia’s 1992-5 war, was convicted by a UN tribunal of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war. He died in the UN Detention Unit in The Netherlands aged 84 while serving a life sentence.