Eastern Sarajevo and Pale Residents Protest in Support of Mladic

“This is a shame. Is it enough? Boris Tadic is not Serbia,” said Dusan Djurovac, who attended the gathering in Eastern Sarajevo.

Those gathered protested the arrest of Mladic in Serbia on Thursday. The former Bosnian Serb military leader is expected to be extradited later this week to the UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague, where he faces charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war.

During their protest walk through Eastern Sarajevo on Friday, demonstrators sang: “General, General, your name shall not be forgotten for as long as the last Serb lives”.

“Mladic is an upright man, who was with the Yugoslav National Army, JNA. He is Tito’s man, who defended Yugoslavia,” Obren Subotic, a pensioner who attended the protest gathering, told BIRN – Justice Report.

A middle-aged woman at the protest, who did not want to introduce herself, said she loved Mladic, explaining that he was her idol.

At the protests, which were organised by war veterans associations from Eastern Ilidza and Eastern Novo Sarajevo, demonstrators carried Serbian flags and banners with Ratko Mladic’s name written on them.

Similar protests were organised on Friday in Pale, which served as the administrative centre for the Bosnian Serbs during the war in Bosnia.

One protester held a banner that read: “General, we stand with you! Thank you very much. Students from Pale stand with you”.

Police were present at both protests, and no incidents were reported.

A.J.