Ratko Mladić, former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army and perhaps the only man capable of starting an argument in the Balkans merely by having his photograph placed on a wall, has died at the age of 83.
The Guardian reported his death while he was serving a life sentence after his convictions for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
To much of the outside world, that description settles the biography.
To Mladić's remaining admirers, naturally, it merely starts the argument.
That is because Balkan history operates under different conversational rules. In America, when someone says, "My grandfather fought in the war," everyone nods respectfully. In the Balkans, someone asks: "Which war?" Then somebody moves the chairs.
To understand why Mladić retained admirers despite his convictions, one has to understand the mythology surrounding him.
Supporters did not primarily see a Hague defendant. They saw the hard military commander who emerged during the violent collapse of Yugoslavia and promised that Bosnian Serbs would not be abandoned.
That distinction matters if you want to understand the politics, even when you emphatically reject the conclusions people drew from it.
The heroic version of Mladić goes roughly like this: Yugoslavia disintegrated. Nationalist movements exploded. Old ethnic fears returned. Everybody suddenly possessed flags they had apparently been saving in cupboards since 1945. Politicians began giving speeches about historical grievances. And shortly afterward every village discovered that it had belonged to somebody else in 1389.
Into this atmosphere walked Mladić. Uniform. Cap. Binoculars. Military confidence. The demeanor of a man who appeared to have been born pointing at terrain.
For Serbs frightened by the destruction of Yugoslavia and memories of earlier persecution, that image was potent. A frightened population rarely asks for an assistant professor of conflict mediation. They ask for somebody who looks comfortable standing near a tank. Human history would have been considerably less bloody if frightened populations occasionally demanded accountants.
The heroic narrative encounters a rather substantial difficulty.
The international tribunal found Mladić responsible for genocide at Srebrenica and convicted him of persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, forcible transfer, terror, unlawful attacks on civilians and hostage-taking. His appeal was dismissed and his life sentence affirmed.
That is not a minor footnote. That is the footnote eating the book.
The court found that Mladić played a leading role in criminal enterprises involving the removal of Bosnian Muslims and Croats from Serb-claimed territory, terror against civilians in Sarajevo and the elimination of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica.
His defenders have spent decades attempting to fit this mountain of judicial findings inside the phrase: "Yes, but…"
This remains one of mankind's most versatile political constructions. "Yes, but NATO." "Yes, but the Croats." "Yes, but the Muslims." "Yes, but history." "Yes, but Tito." "Yes, but 1389." At a certain point a Balkan political argument can travel backward through time so rapidly that everyone eventually ends up blaming the Roman Empire.
Mladić was indicted in 1995. He was not arrested until 2011. That is sixteen years.
Sixteen years is an extraordinary amount of time to hide from anybody, especially an institution funded by governments. Most married men cannot hide a packet of biscuits for sixteen minutes.
For years, Mladić became one of Europe's most famous fugitives. Then he was captured. And thus began perhaps the least romantic stage in any warrior legend: procedural hearings.
Nothing dismantles martial mythology quite like legal stationery. Here is the fearsome commander. Here are his armies. Here are the maps. Here are the speeches. And here is a docket number. Please initial page 47.
The Hague's genius is that it takes men who imagined themselves historical giants and gives them case files. Napoleon got St Helena. Mladić got document pagination.
For devoted supporters, international justice was itself political. They viewed the tribunal as selective, Western-directed or insufficiently attentive to crimes committed against Serbs. Those arguments helped sustain Mladić's domestic mythology.
But there is a difference between saying international justice should be scrutinized and pretending the judicial record does not exist.
The appeals judgment does exist. It affirmed his conviction for genocide at Srebrenica and numerous crimes against humanity and war crimes. That means the "Mladić as simple Serbian national hero" narrative requires carrying around so many qualifications that it should come with airport luggage wheels.
"He was a great commander." Subject to findings of genocide. "He defended the Serbs." Subject to crimes against humanity. "He stood up to NATO." Also convicted of hostage-taking. At some point the commemorative plaque needs a second plaque.
Still, it is easy to understand why the archetype survives. The strongman offers emotional simplicity. He says: I know who you are. I know who the enemy is. I will defend you. Nothing is your fault. History agrees with us. And anybody who disagrees is probably being paid by Brussels.
That is an immensely attractive package. Especially the last part.
Mladić embodied that style before social media turned it into a subscription service. There was no need for hashtags. He had artillery. Modern politicians spend enormous sums developing "authenticity." Mladić had the opposite problem — nobody ever accused him of lacking intensity. He could probably order breakfast in a manner that caused three neighboring countries to mobilize. "Coffee." "Yes, General." "Black." "Inform NATO."
Here is the uncomfortable reality behind Mladić's legacy. A person can genuinely become a hero to one community while being responsible for terrible crimes against another. Those facts can coexist psychologically. They cannot coexist comfortably. That is why arguments about Mladić never disappear.
His admirers remember the protector. Victims remember the commander whose forces brought catastrophe. International law remembers the defendant. Politicians remember the constituency. Historians remember everything, which is why nobody invites historians to relaxed family lunches.
A historian hears: "He defended us." And immediately answers: "From whom, when, under which operational command structure, according to which archival source?" Nobody finishes dessert.
There was also something almost archetypally Balkan about Mladić's posture toward international opinion. He did not seem particularly interested in being liked abroad. This was not a politician commissioning polling to discover whether voters preferred the word "initiative" to "programme."
Mladić's political communications strategy could essentially be summarized: if Europe is angry, Europe can become angrier.
For supporters, that defiance became part of his appeal. Many societies produce heroes from men who tell foreigners where to go. The problem arises when "standing up to foreigners" becomes a universal moral coupon redeemable against everything else. It isn't. A man does not receive unlimited ethical credit because Brussels dislikes him. If that were the standard, half the French agricultural sector would qualify for sainthood.
Mladić therefore leaves behind two legacies that will continue colliding.
The first is the legal legacy. He was convicted by an international tribunal of genocide at Srebrenica, crimes against humanity and war crimes. That judgment is final.
The second is the political mythology. To some Serbs, he remains a symbol of resistance, military strength and national survival. Those supporters may continue placing his face on banners. They may continue insisting history has been unfair. They may continue declaring that foreigners never understood.
History, inconveniently, is under no obligation to choose the version printed on the banner. That is the great frustration of all national mythology. Eventually the marching music stops. The uniforms go into museums. The generals become photographs. The slogans become footnotes. And historians arrive carrying boxes.
Ratko Mladić spent much of his life trying to determine how the story would be told. He commanded armies. He defied governments. He avoided capture for sixteen years. He fought prosecutors. He appealed his conviction. He retained admirers. But eventually every general loses command of one final territory: the next paragraph. And now that paragraph belongs to everybody else.
Disclaimer
This is satire about the mythology surrounding Ratko Mladić, Serbian nationalism, international justice and the extraordinary human tendency to turn complicated historical figures into uncomplicated posters. It does not deny or minimize the Srebrenica genocide or other crimes established by international courts, nor does it make victims of those crimes the object of the humor.
This story is entirely a human collaboration between two sentient beings: the world's oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer. The dairy farmer attempted to explain Balkan nationalism to the cows, but they immediately divided the pasture into three autonomous republics and demanded UN observers.
Ratko Mladić has died at 83, finally reaching the one jurisdiction where The Hague cannot request extradition.
He spent the last decades insisting history would vindicate him, which is the Balkan equivalent of saying, "My cousin knows what really happened."
Mladić's admirers regarded him as a defender of the Serbs, while international judges regarded him as a convicted genocidaire. There has rarely been a performance review with a wider disagreement between management and staff.
Sixteen years as a fugitive gave Mladić more time avoiding arrest than most European governments spend building an airport.
The Hague produced thousands of pages of legal findings. Balkan nationalism countered with a man at a café saying, "You weren't there."
Mladić was the sort of general who could point at a map and instantly cause five historians, seven diplomats and an uncle in Belgrade to begin screaming.
His admirers called him a patriot. His prosecutors called him a criminal. His lawyers called for an extension.
He was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment, proving the international justice system occasionally produces a sentence with a remarkably literal warranty.
Mladić never acquired the modern politician's instinct for apologizing by saying, "Mistakes were made." He preferred the considerably more ambitious position that approximately everyone else was mistaken.
Serbia has spent decades trying to move toward Europe while portions of society keep checking the rear-view mirror to make sure the 1990s are still following.
Mladić became a symbol because the Balkans have historically suffered from an insufficient supply of symbols and an excessive supply of mountains.
His courtroom appearances frequently resembled a dispute between international criminal law and one exceptionally angry grandfather who wanted to speak to the manager.
The UN spent years trying him, years hearing appeals and years explaining the verdict, confirming that Europe can turn even geopolitical catastrophe into an administrative procedure.
Mladić's supporters have often argued that outsiders cannot understand Serbian history. Outsiders responded by hiring judges, translators, investigators and enough archivists to constitute a small Scandinavian country.
Mladić wanted to be remembered as the man who defended his people. Instead, even his admirers must now conduct every celebration with an enormous legal asterisk hovering above the buffet.
SOURCE: THE LONDON PRAT