OMM Redaksiyası
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has condemned Serbia at the United Nations for according official military and state honors to the late convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic, calling the move an affront to his victims and international justice.
Speaking to world leaders during the 81st UN General Debate in New York on Tuesday, Plenkovic said the honors given to Mladic were incompatible with the values of a union Serbia seeks to join.
Plenkovic calls for recognition of war crimes
“The military and official honors accorded to Mladic in Serbia were an affront to his victims and to the judgments of international courts,” Plenkovic said.
He argued that genuine reconciliation in Europe required states to confront historical crimes, respect victims and reject the institutional glorification of perpetrators. According to the Croatian prime minister, Serbia’s participation in events praising Mladic was “totally incompatible” with those principles.
Plenkovic said Mladic’s crimes culminated in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide but began earlier with the bombardment of Croatian cities, the killing of civilians and the destruction of cultural and industrial infrastructure.
Mladic, who was widely known as the “Butcher of Bosnia”, was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2017 for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-1995 conflict. He died in custody in The Hague in August this year.
Croatia backs two-state solution for Gaza
Addressing the Middle East, Plenkovic said the international community should apply the same legal standards to protect civilians and ensure unhindered humanitarian access in Gaza.
He reaffirmed Croatia’s support for a negotiated two-state solution that would allow Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security.
