Several thousand people lined the streets of Belgrade on Monday to witness the funeral procession and burial of former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic, who died while serving a life sentence at The Hague for genocide and war crimes committed during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Serbian Patriarch Porfirije personally officiated at the funeral service earlier in the day. In accordance with his wishes, Mladic was laid to rest at Topcider Cemetery beside his daughter, who died by suicide in 1994.
Mladic had been convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, including the massacre of roughly 8,000 Bosniak civilians and prisoners by his Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica in July 1995.
At the Belgrade derby between Red Star and Partizan, fans unveiled a tifo honoring Mladic, who was widely known as the "Butcher of Bosnia."
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic did not attend the funeral, citing a previously scheduled visit by his counterpart from Uzbekistan. Mladic was not buried with state honors but with military honors, with Vucic insisting that the state was merely respecting the wishes of the family and ensuring a dignified burial.
"Were we supposed to forbid people from attending, forbid the funeral itself and create dog cemeteries?" Vucic said in response to criticism from the European Union. In Serbia, the phrase "dog cemeteries" refers to the unmarked graves of so-called "enemies of the people" executed by Yugoslav partisans during and immediately after World War II.
Vucic also dismissed the decision by EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos to cancel a planned visit to Belgrade, calling her reaction "stupid."
The EU issued a formal statement in response to the events. "Any glorification of war criminals, genocide denial and revisionism contradict the most fundamental European values and have no place in the EU or in EU candidate countries," an EU spokesman said.
A staunchly pro-government broadcaster carried live coverage of what it described as a "magnificent farewell," without mentioning the Srebrenica massacre.
The funeral comes at a politically sensitive moment for Vucic, who has long sought to balance Serbia between the European Union and Russia. He is expected to call a snap parliamentary election as early as this week, with the poll likely to take place on October 25.
For the first time in years, there is a credible possibility that his ruling bloc could be defeated by the student movement, which has led anti-government protests in Serbia for nearly two years. Vucic is expected to head the list of his Serbian Progressive Party as its candidate for prime minister.
Dejan Bursac, a political scientist at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory in Belgrade, said the funeral is being used to generate nationalist sentiment ahead of the vote. "Vucic is grasping at every available lifeline," Bursac said. "One of those lifelines is Mladic's funeral and the nationalism it can help generate, allowing Vucic to present himself as a patriot while portraying his political opponents as traitors."
Bursac added that many Serbs still feel deep resentment over the outcome of the Yugoslav wars and believe that crimes committed against Serbs largely went unpunished. "That sentiment is now being deliberately inflamed and politically exploited," he said.
Tanja Topic, a political analyst from Banja Luka in the predominantly Serb entity of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Srebrenica is located, described a similar dynamic. "Politics here rests heavily on emotion," she said. "This is an issue around which citizens are mobilized. They forget how difficult their lives are because patriotic fervor takes over."
Bosnia and Herzegovina is also heading to the polls, with elections there scheduled for October 4, ahead of Serbia's expected vote.
In Serbia, the student movement — a coalition of faculty assemblies and protest groups operating without formal leaders or public representatives — has largely avoided commenting on Mladic, the funeral, or wartime crimes.
