Mladic 'the face' of ethnic cleansing

the hague - General Ratko Mladic still feels like a natural winner and savior. He was not present at the notorious massacres around Srebrenica in July 1995 and, in his own words, he did not give a commission. He states that he did what he had to do as a commander in the fight against the enemy, who had attacked surrounding Serbian villages from the UN enclave.

'The offensive is my calling,' said the narcissistic, but militarily gifted officer. At the time he was indeed the protector of the Serb population of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It threatened to be swallowed up by a hostile and artificial state of Muslims and Croats who wanted to stamp western powers from the ruins of Yugoslavia. The dismembered state of that Bosnia-Herzegovina is currently still no advertising for that Western politics.

But Mladic's attempts to upset the West, 'NATO, Germany, and the Vatican,' as he himself said, drowned in thousands of innocents in 1995. After the massacres around Srebrenica, the case of Mladic and his political chief Radovan Karadzic was lost militarily and politically. According to the prosecutors of the Yugoslavia Tribunal in The Hague, the blood had been shed at his command and under his direction. It has even been labeled genocide by the tribunal. And Mladic, the conqueror of the 'protected' Srebrenica, became the face of ethnic cleansing from the war worldwide (1992-1995).

Thanks to connections with Serbian military personnel and thanks to his family, he managed to hold out as a fleeing fugitive until 2011. He was arrested in the home of a cousin in the Serbian countryside in May 2011. His state of health was very bad, but he has been refurbished for his trial before the Yugoslavia Tribunal that began in May 2012 and lasted until the end of last year.

Mladic was born in 1942 in Herzegovina. His father was killed in the fight against fascists in Croatia. Mladic opted for a military career and shone at defense in Yugoslavia. When that land collapsed in 1991, Colonel Mladic became general as boss of the army of the Bosnian Serbs over time. He not only proved to be a brilliant commander, but was also able to surf with the wave of nationalism in the region.

For example, he dressed in uniforms of Serbian officers from the First World War. That was also a war with ethnic cleansing, but the investigation of the perpetrators has always remained a problem. This is different for Mladic's 'achievement' in Srebrenica, according to the piles of material from his accusers. The slaughter that Mladic is held responsible for is one of the most intensively researched and mapped genocide ever.