Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, through the Permanent Mission of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United Nations, sent a letter to all member states of the United Nations to draw attention to upsetting events in Serbia – the institutional glorification of a convicted war criminal, Ratko Mladić, which requires a clear, public, and consistent response from every Member State of the United Nations.
The letter outlines concrete steps that all member states should undertake, because a state for which the International Court of Justice determined that it failed to prevent genocide cannot pay tribute to the criminal who committed it without consequences, the letter states.
Three Requests to the Member States
Excellency,
I am writing to draw your urgent attention to deeply disturbing developments in the Republic of Serbia which demand a clear, public, and consequential response from every Member State of the United Nations.
The remains of Ratko Mladić, convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment, were returned to Serbia aboard an aircraft of the Government of the Republic of Serbia. His coffin, covered with the Serbian national flag, was carried by members of the Serbian Armed Forces. A commemoration was held at the House of the Serbian Armed Forces, and his burial in Belgrade was accompanied by full military honors and ceremonial gunfire.
The commemorative and funeral events were attended by senior Serbian officials, including Minister of Defence Bratislav Gašić, Minister of Justice Nenad Vujić, Minister of Culture Nikola Selaković and Minister without Portfolio Nenad Popović, as well as other senior officials. Senior representatives of the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina were also present, including its President, Prime Minister and the Serb member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. President Aleksandar Vučić, although not personally present at the funeral, publicly defended the State’s handling of Mladić’s return and funeral and rejected international criticism.
The international community should ask itself a simple question: what would our reaction be if a European State accorded Hermann Goring or Wilhelm Keitel – senior Nazi leaders convicted by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg-the honors now accorded to Ratko Mladić? Would we accept Government aircraft, national flags, serving soldiers, Government ministers and military honors being used to celebrate them?
Goring and Keitel were convicted at Nuremberg. Ratko Mladić was convicted by the ICTY, established by the United Nations Security Council, and his convictions were affirmed by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. There cannot be one standard for Goring and Keitel and another for Ratko Mladić, “Never again” cannot be selective.
When State resources, armed forces, military institutions and Government ministers are used to honor a person convicted of genocide, glorification becomes institutional and political. The crimes for which Ratko Mladić was convicted are not allegations by Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are final judicial findings of international courts. The international record concerning Serbia’s role is equally clear. In resolution A/RES/47/121, the United Nations General Assembly condemned violations of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Serbia. The International Court of Justice subsequently established that Serbia provided considerable military and financial support to the paramilitary forces commanded by Ratko Mladić.
Moreover, in its Judgment of 26 February 2007, the International Court of Justice found that Serbia violated its obligation under the Genocide Convention to prevent the genocide in Srebrenica and violated its obligations by failing to transfer Ratko Mladić to the ICTY.
The contradiction is stark: the State found by the principal judicial organ of the United Nations to have failed to prevent the Srebrenica genocide and to transfer Mladić to international justice is now according State and military honors to that same individual after his final conviction for genocide. The General Assembly addressed precisely this danger in resolution A/RES/78/282 of 23 May 2024, “International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica,” which:
“Also condemns without reservation actions that glorify those convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by international courts, including those responsible for the Srebrenica genocide.”
Recent actions by the Serbian state authorities fall directly within the conduct condemned by the General Assembly.
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Article 1 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide obliges States Parties to prevent and punish genocide. The Charter of the United Nations commits us to international peace and security, justice and respect for international law. These commitments are fundamentally undermined when a person finally convicted of genocide is transformed, through State institutions, into a national hero.
This is not an attribution of collective guilt to the Serbian people. International Criminal responsibility is individual. Our concern is with political authorities and public institutions that glorify a convicted perpetrator, humiliate victims and threaten reconciliation and regional stability.
Bosnia and Herzegovina therefore calls upon each Member State of the United Nations to take the following steps:
First, to publicly condemn official and institutional glorification of Ratko Mladić, including the use of State resources, military structures and honors, and the display of his image alongside the words “Pravac Potočari” as a direct invocation of genocidal violence and an alarming threat of its repetition;
Second, to impose, in accordance with international law and their respective legal framework, targeted sanctions and other restrictive measures against public officials and other persons who directly organize, participate in, promote, or facilitate the official and institutional glorification of persons finally convicted of genocide and other grave international crimes;
Third, to publicly reaffirm the finality and authority of the judgments of the ICTY, the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunal and the International Court of Justice concerning the genocide in Srebrenica, and to reject any attempt to deny, revise, or politically reinterpret the judicially established facts contained in those judgments.
Those who glorify genocide perpetrators must face sanctions and other concrete consequences. The victims deserve no less. International justice requires no less.
A person convicted of genocide by a United Nations tribunal cannot be transformed into a State-sponsored hero without response, and a State found by the International Court of Justice to have failed to prevent that genocide cannot honor the person convicted of committing it without consequences.
Silence is not neutrality. Silence risks becoming normalization.
Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.
