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Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic criticized Serbia at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday for according official honors to the late convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic, calling the move an affront to justice.
“The military and official honors accorded to Mladic in Serbia were an affront to his victims and to the judgments of international courts,” Plenkovic told world leaders during the 81st U.N. General Debate in New York.
Plenkovic said authentic reconciliation across Europe requires confronting historical crimes directly, insisting that states must respect victims and reject the institutional glorification of perpetrators.
State participation in events praising Mladic remains “totally incompatible with the values of a union Serbia seeks to join,” he added.
Plenkovic recalled that while Mladic’s atrocities culminated in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, his actions began earlier with the bombardment of Croatian cities, civilian murders and the destruction of cultural and industrial infrastructure.
Mladic, widely known as the “Butcher of Bosnia,” was sentenced to life in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2017 for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-1995 conflict.
He died in custody in The Hague in August.
Turning to the Middle East, Plenkovic said the international community must apply the same legal standards to protect civilians and secure unhindered humanitarian access in Gaza.
He reaffirmed Croatia’s support for a negotiated two-state solution that would allow Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security.
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