Ratko Mladic

By Barnaby Phillips in Europe on June 1st, 2011
[Reuters]

In war, Ratko Mladic was a feared general; despised and feared by his enemies and revered by his own men.

That is how he was preserved in our memory during all those years he was in hiding; a swaggering, confident, brutal man.

But the Ratko Mladic whom we eventually got a glimpse of this week was much changed.

Impoverished and in bad health, he is a pathetic, sunken figure.

The circle of powerful friends who had protected him had gradually melted away over the years, leaving him with little logistical support outside his immediate family. That is what made his arrest possible, both in practical and political terms.

By Barnaby Phillips in Europe on January 18th, 2010
Photo by Getty Images

Serbia aspires to join the EU, but has it really faced up to its war-guilt?

This article reports on a recent survey which shows that most Serbians do not think Ratko Mladic is guilty of war crimes, or that he should even be handed over to the UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague.

Anyone who knows Serbia well will not be surprised by these findings, nor by the fact that the majority of Serbs have a negative opinion of the Hague.  Many Serbs have told me they believe the UN tribunal is biased against them.

The Serb leaders in the Bosnian civil war, Ratko Mladic, and Radovan Karadzic, are widely lionised, especially, in the Serbian part of Bosnia, known as Republika Srpska.

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