Journalist and editor in the daily newspaper “Danas” Safeta Biševac told N1, speaking about the honors for Ratko Mladić, that “this kind of reception and glorification of a war criminal is a great shame for Serbia and Serbs”.
Ratko Mladić, former commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, who died in The Hague while serving a life sentence for genocide and war crimes, will be buried today at Belgrade’s Topčider Cemetery, and his body will be in the Church of St. Luke in Vidikovac from 7 a.m. to 12 p.m., when the funeral service will begin.
According to Biševac, “unfortunately, these last days since the death of the convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić represent the most shameful days in the recent history of Serbia and unfortunately of the majority of the Serbian people”.
“This kind of welcoming and glorification of a war criminal is a great shame for Serbia and the Serbs, but also a clear message to us Bosniaks, our neighbors from other parts of the former Yugoslavia, Europe and the world that unfortunately we can hardly count on the largest state of the former Yugoslavia in an attempt to build a better future, which would also mean healing the wounds of the tragic past,” she says.
All nations, she says, have had difficult historical moments.
“Crimes were committed against members of different nations, many celebrated, unfortunately, war criminals. We will see how on September 16, if the KLA commanders are released, they will be welcomed in Pristina, but if they are welcomed as heroes, celebrants, Serbia will not have the right to complain after these scenes that we are seeing from Belgrade these days,” she says.
“The authorities managed to impose responsibility for war crimes on the Serbs”
Today, there is no funeral of Ratko Mladić on the front pages of the pro-regime media as the main news, and Biševac says that “it doesn’t mean anything, because we had so much glorification and complete neglect of the crimes he was accused of in the media.”
“On the public service, he was presented only as a general of the Republika Srpska Army, there was no mention of genocide and that he was convicted of war crimes. Everyone who watched the footage of what happened in Srebrenica, knows very well what happened. After all, if the Serbs don’t want to call it genocide, if they say it’s a big crime, fine, but it’s one thing to disagree, and another to celebrate. Criminals are responsible for crimes, and by welcoming Mladic like this, the Serbs are putting the burden of those crimes on themselves completely unnecessarily,” she says.
She adds, “I am afraid of what this country is turning into after celebrating Ratko Mladić like this.”
“I’m a Bosniak, but I’m a citizen of this country, I live in Belgrade, I want to live here in peace, I don’t touch anyone, I don’t want anyone to touch me, but when I look at this, this affects me very much. I would use the expression that Mladic used in his command – come to your senses. I’m sorry, but Serbia is a completely sane country today. First of all, because of the government that managed to impose responsibility for war crimes on the Serbs. This country has been sane by the politics of Aleksandar Vučić,” she says.
“The absence of Vučić will be an alibi in front of the world that it is not a state funeral”
Speaking about the funeral, he says that “the state is somehow trying to get out of this”.
“This is according to the ‘nothing stinks, no smelling’ system. This is not a state funeral, but in fact it is. As soon as the body was met by soldiers, the coffin covered with a flag, as soon as the official Minister of Justice appeared, a commemoration was held in the House of the Army, everything looks like a state funeral. But as soon as Aleksandar Vučić is not there, I hope there will be no ministers, the government wants to use that as an assertion, it will be their alibi in front of the world that it is not a state funeral, even though it is,” she says and adds that “there will certainly be a reaction from the EU and various officials of European countries”.
According to her words, “the EU will definitely not accept Serbia like this”.
“And it should not accept a country like this, because that country does not meet any conditions for membership. Serbia is in a completely crazy situation, institutions have been destroyed, everything alive has been destroyed by this government, and then it tries to convince us that they are the only smartest, that they live in the best of the best worlds,” she says.
“It turns out that Đilas is a bigger problem for the opposition than Vučić”
As she says, she said from the beginning that it would be good if the students and the opposition came to an agreement on their participation in the elections.
“There should be a non-aggression pact. Now it turns out that the opposition is arguing so much that it turns out that Đilas is a bigger problem for them than Vučić, it turns out that everyone is now running away from Đilas. I don’t like what is happening on the opposition scene at all, I’m afraid that it will discourage voters and drive them into abstinence,” she says.
“We have to keep some optimism”
Speaking about the situation with the show “24 minutes with Zoran Kesić”, she says that she regrets that the new owners have decided not to be on television anymore.
“I will certainly watch it on YouTube, I hope we all will, and that it will soon return to one of the televisions. I think we still have to preserve a little optimism even in these circumstances,” she says.
As he says, Danas had contacts with the new owners.
“They told us to continue working as we have been doing so far and we are doing it. We, several independent media
Source, N1, 07.09.2026, https://n1info.rs/vesti/bisevac-o-pocastima-za-mladica-najsramniji-dani-u-novijoj-istoriji-srbije/