Ratko Mladić
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Ratko Mladić [ˈmlaːditɕ] (Cyrillic: Ратко Младић) (born March 12, 1943 in Božinovići, Independent State of Croatia) was the Chief of Staff of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) (the Bosnian Serb Army) during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia. In 1996 Mladić, along with some other Serbian leaders, is accused of war crimes and genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague in connection with the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of around 7,500 Bosniak men and boys on July 11, 1995 during the Srebrenica massacre—Europe's worst atrocity since World War II. There is currently an outstanding international arrest warrant against Mladić following the Rule 61 of ICTY which concluded that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accused has committed the crimes in question including genocide. The United States government has since offered a $5 million reward for his and Radovan Karadžić's arrests.
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[edit] Early life
Mladić was born in Božinovići, Bosnia-Herzegovina, then a part of the short-lived Independent State of Croatia, a satellite state created after the Nazi German and Italian Fascist invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia in 1941. His father, Neđo, was a Partisan guerilla fighter and was killed by the ustashe in the spring of 1945 during a charge on the birthplace of Croatian Nazi leader Ante Pavelić. To this day his family does not know where he was buried.
Mladić's family describes his childhood as very active. He is reputed to have been a very diligent pupil in school, as well as taking care of household chores without being pressured to do so. Popular with the girls of the village, he was a very active and brave youth. "You know how the old people would say," his uncle remembers, "if you threw him out of an airplane he'd land on his feet. He wouldn't fall on his head, you could always expect him to land on his feet."
His ambitions changed as he grew up. He wanted to be a school teacher when he was very young, then at age eleven he decided he wanted to be a surgeon, sometime later he decided that soldiering was what he was made for.
In 1960 Mladić remembers describing himself as a Yugoslav. After his rebirth as a Serb nationalist, he remembers, "I'm not proud of that decision. My only justification is that I was young."
[edit] Early military career
Mladić entered the Military Industry School in Zemun in 1961, then went on to the KOV Military Academy, and then Officers Academy, graduating at the top of his class with a grade of 9.57. Upon his graduation in 1965, his first post as an officer was in Skopje, where he was the youngest soldier in the unit which he commanded. Beginning as a second lieutenant, he proved himself to be a capable officer, first commanding a platoon, then a battalion, then a brigade, and in 1989 was promoted to Training Section Head for the Third Army District.
[edit] Role in the Yugoslav wars
In June 1991, Mladić was promoted to Assistant Commandant of the Pristina Corps in the tense Kosovo province, dominated by separatist ethnic Albanians. As the situation in Croatia rapidly devolved, he was almost immediately re-posted to Knin as a Commander of the 9th Corps of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), during fighting between the JNA and Croatian forces. On October 4, 1991, he was promoted to General Major. The JNA forces under his command participated in the war in Croatia. Among other things, Mladić helped Martić's paramilitary take over the control of the village of Kijevo.
On April 24, 1992, Mladić was promoted to the rank of General Lieutenant-Colonel . On May 2, 1992, one month after the Bosnian Republic's declaration of independence, Mladić and his generals, acting under orders from Belgrade, blockaded the city of Sarajevo, shutting off all traffic in and out of the city, as well as water and electricity. This began the four-year Siege of Sarajevo, the longest siege in the history of modern warfare. The city was bombarded with shells and random shooting from the guns of snipers. On May 9, 1992, he assumed the post of Chief of Staff/Deputy Commander of the Second Military District Headquarters of the JNA in Sarajevo. On 10 May 1992, Mladić assumed the command of the Second Military District Headquarters of the JNA.
On May 12, 1992, the Bosnian Serb Parliament voted to create the VRS, or Army of the Serb Republic. At the same time, Mladić was appointed Commander of the Main Staff of the VRS, a position he held until December 1996. (In May 1992, after the withdrawal of JNA forces from Bosnia, the JNA Second Military District became the nucleus of the Main Staff of the VRS.) On June 24, 1994, he was promoted to the rank of General Colonel over the approximately 80,000 troops stationed in the area.
By 1994 relations between Mladić and Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadžić had gradually cooled. Karadžić thought Mladić pretentious, arrogant, and overly-pious, Mladić thought his President to be a corrupt, manipulative war profiteer. There were occasional public outbursts of animosity, such as when Mladić, upon being told that NATO would bomb Serbian positions, retorted "then I'll bomb London!" The horrified Karadžić announced to the press that Mladić was "A fool, making idiotic and irresponsible statements." The break came on August 1, when Slobodan Milošević sent a peace proposal to the Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks. The letter to the Bosniaks was addressed to Alija Izetbegović, the president of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The letter to the Bosnian Serbs was addressed to Mladić, an open snub of Karadžić. When Karadžić refused to sign, the openly pro-Milošević Mladić calmly made it known to Karadžić that there would thenceforth be a division of labour: he would run the war while Karadzic dominated the Bosnian Serb politicians in Pale and in the Bosnian Serb towns. There was a clear undertone that Karadžić would be well-advised to stay out of Mladić's way. Wild rumors of a Belgrade-supported coup against Karadžić and his allies in Pale likely cemented the arrangement.
In July of 1995 troops commanded by Mladić, harried by NATO air strikes intended to force compliance with a UN ultimatum to remove heavy weapons from the Sarajevo area, overran and occupied the UN "safe areas" of Srebrenica and Žepa. At Srebrenica over 40,000 Bosniaks who had sought safety there were expelled. An estimated 8,000+ were executed, allegedly on Mladić's order[1].
On Friday, August 4, 1995, with a massive Croatian military force poised attack the Serb held Krajina region in central Croatia, Karadžić announced that he was removing Mladić from his commandant post and assuming personal command of the VRS himself. Karadžić blamed Mladić for the loss of two key Serb towns in western Bosnia that had recently fallen to the Croats, and he used the loss of the towns as the excuse to announce his surprise command structure changes. General Mladić was demoted to an "adviser." Mladić refused to go quietly, claiming the support of both the Bosnian Serb military as well as the people. Karadžić countered by attempting to pull political rank as well as denouncing Mladić as a "madman," but Mladić's obvious popular support forced Karadžić to rescind his order on August 11.
On November 8, 1996, the President of the Bosnian Serb Republic Biljana Plavšić dismissed Mladić from his post. He continued to receive a pension until November 2005.
[edit] Indictment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
On July 24, 1995, Mladić was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, and numerous war crimes (including crimes relating to the alleged sniping campaign against civilians in Sarajevo). On November 16, 1995, the charges were expanded to include charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes for the attack on the United Nations-declared safe area of Srebrenica in July 1995. Mladić is also responsible for the taking of hostages amongst UN peace-keeping personnel.
A fugitive from the ICTY, he is suspected to be hiding either in Serbia or the Republika Srpska. Mladić was reportedly seen attending a football match between China and Yugoslavia in Belgrade in March 2000. He entered through a VIP entrance and sat in a private box surrounded by eight armed bodyguards. Some claim that he has been seen in a suburb of Moscow, and that he is "regularly" in Thessalonica and Athens, which has raised suspicions that numerous fake reports are sent to cover his trail. Some reports say he took refuge in his wartime bunker in Han Pijesak, not far from Sarajevo, or in Montenegro.[2] In early February of 2006 portions of a Serbian military intelligence report were leaked to the Serbian Newspaper Politika which stated that Mladić had been hidden in Army of Republika Srpska and Yugoslav People's Army facilities up until June 1, 2002, when the National Assembly of Serbia passed a law mandating cooperation with The ICTY in The Hague. The then- Chief General of the Yugoslav Army Nebojša Pavković requested that Mladić vacate the facility where he was staying on the mountain Povlen, near Valjeva, after which the Serb military agencies claim to have lost all trace of the fugitive.
His security is undoubtedly well assured[3]. In November 2004 British defence officials conceded that military action was unlikely to be successful in bringing Mladić and other suspects to trial. Putting political pressure on Balkan governments would be more likely to succeed.
In June 2005 The Times newspaper alleged that Mladić had demanded $5m (£2.75m) “compensation” to be given to his family and bodyguards if he gave himself up to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague.
The Serbian government continues to tread carefully when it comes to rounding up domestically popular fugitives-on-the-run. On the one hand, the government wishes to maintain support of right-leaning voters. However, Serbia and Montenegro also wish to comply with The Hague with a view to future accession to the European Union.
On February 21, 2006, Mladić was supposedly arrested in the Serbian capital Belgrade and was being transferred via the northeast Bosnian city of Tuzla to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. [4]. The arrest was denied by the Serbian government. The government did not deny rumours of a planned negotiated surrender between Mladić and Serbian Special Forces.
On February 22, 2006, Chief U.N. Prosecutor Carla del Ponte denied the rumours that Mladić had been arrested, claiming the rumours had "absolutely no basis whatsoever". She urged the Serbian government to find him without further delay, saying that Mladić was in reach of the Serbian authorities and had been in Serbia since 1998. She said that failure to capture him would harm Serbia's bid to join the European Union.
Romanian government [1] and Serbian [2] sources claimed on 22 February 2006 that Mladić was arrested in Romania, near Drobeta-Turnu Severin, close to the Serbian border by a joint Romanian-British special operation carried out by troops of those respective countries. The failure to arrest Mladić is proving to be a major factor in Serbia's and Montenegro's efforts to become EU member states.
The May 1st 2006 deadline established by Carla del Ponte for Serbia to hand over Mladić passed, resulting in suspended talks between Serbia and the EU. Mladić is presently believed to be in Belgrade and shuttled between different apartments by a single bodyguard. He reportedly has gained weight, and passes time by playing chess and reading news reports about himself.
In June 2006 there have been reports that Mladić recently suffered a third stroke and that he has low chances to survive. At the same time PR of Democratic Party of Serbia, Andrija Mladenović, raised a question who will be responsible for EU negotiation halt if Mladić died. Some sources say that Mladić changed his appearance due to age and bad health. [5]
[edit] Family
Mladić is married to Bosa Mladić, who has borne him two children; a son named Darko Mladić and a daughter named Ana Mladić. Darko married Aida, who gave birth on March 2, 2006 to a boy, the first grandchild of Mladić. The child has been named after the saint St. Stefan, the protector of Republika Srpska.
In March 1994 Mladić's 23-year-old daughter committed suicide by shooting herself in the head with her father's favorite pistol during her senior year studying medicine at the University of Belgrade. It has been speculated that the reason for her suicide lay in intense criticism of Mladić in the Serbian media at the time. It has also been speculated that she was murdered in order to send a very clear signal to Mladic that his enemies, both domestic and foreign, would resort to the most brutal and cowardly actions in their fight against him, symbolically, and against the Serb people in reality. She is buried in Topčider; it is believed that for some time Mladić came regularly to see the grave.
[edit] Quotes
- "People and peoples are not pawns, nor are they keys in one's pocket that can be shifted from here and there. It is something easily said but difficult to achieve. We cannot cleanse, nor can we have a sieve to sift so that the only Serbs would stay, or that the Serbs would fall through and the rest leave. I do not know how Mr. Krajisnik and Mr. Karadzic would explain this to the world. People, that would be genocide. That does not mean that Muslims have to be expelled or drowned. We cannot wage war on all fronts nor against peoples. I would like to suggest that we adopt such a wisdom that we will not go to war but that if we are attacked, we will defend ourselves, and we don't want a war against the Muslims as a people or against the Croats as a people but against those who started that war and who pitted these people against us.” - Mladić speaking at the 16th Bosnian Serb assembly, May 12, 1992, on the occasion of his appointment as Commander of the Main Staff of the VRS. (The term "Muslim people" refers to the Muslims of Bosnia & Herzegovina, today renamed into Bosniaks)
[edit] References
- ^ "Mladici, prins in Romania?", Evenimentul Zilei, 23 February 2006
- ^ Serbia and Montenegro International Security Institute Director Claims Mladić Was Arrested in Romania
[edit] External links
- Interpol Warrant
- BBC News Profile: Ratko Mladić
- Serbia police search Mladic's home
- EU halts Serbia talks over Mladic
- Will General Mladic face kangaroo court?
- EU's catch 22
- Serbia claims Mladic network comprises 130 people
- Mladic puts price on his own head June 19, 2005
- Mladić, Karadžić, and the hunt for ICTY fugitives
