The case against Ratko Mladic
In a recent series of blog posts entitled “Mladic in Srebrenica,” I examined the reported movements of the former Bosnian Serb military commander during the days immediately following the fall of the United Nations “safe area” in July 1995. Today, I will address the larger question of Mladic’s responsibility for the murders of around 8,000 Muslim men and boys dumped in mass graves, as shown on the map above.
Mladic’s defense lawyers have said they are planning to mount a two-tier defense. First, they will argue that the number of Bosnian Muslim victims has been wildly exaggerated. While they concede that there may have been some scattered “revenge killings” following the capture of the enclave, they claim that the overwhelming majority of the deaths were due to combat, or even Muslims fighting among themselves. Former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic has employed a similar defense in his own trial, which recently moved into the Srebrenica phase.
The second pillar of the Mladic defense will be the claim that he left the Srebrenica area by the time the mass executions began, and was not himself present at any of the execution sites. His attorneys will argue that he did not order the executions and cannot be held responsible for isolated acts of revenge by forces under his overall command.
Let us concede from the start that there is no “smoking gun” against Mladic, in the form of a written order or diary entry proving that he ordered the murders of 8,000 Muslims. Furthermore, claims by survivors of the massacres that Mladic personally supervised the executions have yet to be independently corroborated. As I indicated in a recent blog post, I have seen no evidence (other than disputed survivor testimony) showing that Mladic was in the Srebrenica\Zvornik area on July 14, prior to meeting international envoys in Belgrade. If anybody knows of such evidence, please let me know, and I will be happy to update the post.
While Mladic’s whereabouts on July 14-at the time of the Orahovac executions-remain in doubt, he appears to have solid alibis for July 15-17, during which period thousands of Muslim prisoners were killed in the Zvornik area, north of Srebrenica. The fact that he was not on the spot does not of course mean that he was not giving orders from afar, through his established chain of command.
Even if we give Mladic the benefit of the doubt about his physical presence at the mass execution sites, there remains a mountain of evidence suggesting that he was the primary initiator and organizer of Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II. To summarize the most important points:
Mladic’s public statements. From the moment he first set foot in Srebrenica, on the afternoon of July 11, Mladic made clear that he was out for “revenge against the Turks,” his derogatory term for Bosnian Muslims. He orchestrated an atmosphere of extreme intimidation around his meetings with Dutchbat commanders and Muslim representatives on July 11 and 12, telling the Muslims that they had a choice whether “to survive or disappear.” He ordered an information blackout on July 13, closing roads to all non-authorized traffic and barring journalists from entering the area.