in Srebrenica<\/a> \u2014 the only post-World War II case of genocide in Europe.<\/p>\nBut Mladic himself and his admirers among the Serbs have never repented. He was seen by many as a patriot fighting for the first pan-Serbian state. Defiant, Mladic acted bullishly during his trial and yelled at the judges when sentenced to life in prison.<\/p>\n
Munira Subasic, from the Mothers of Srebrenica group, said she had mixed feelings about Mladic\u2019s death and deplored that Mladic\u2019s crimes are still being denied among many Bosnian Serbs.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, a major war criminal died, the criminal of the Balkans,\u201d Subasic said. But while mothers of victims \u201care still carrying the pain in our souls” 31 years later, \u201cwe are still listening to denials, we are still listening to how Ratko Mladic was a hero for the Serbs,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am sorry that he died and that he did not suffer for a little while longer, that he didn\u2019t wait for more and dream about the eyes of our children,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Mladic was born March 12, 1942, in the tiny Bosnian village of Bozinovici, in the hills 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Sarajevo. Like other protagonists in the Yugoslav conflict, he imbibed nationalism from his family\u2019s fate in World War II \u2014 his own father was killed by Croats.<\/p>\n
A communist-era officer, Mladic sided with the Serbs as Yugoslavia disintegrated in the war. Mladic first led a Serb insurgency in Croatia before taking over the Bosnian Serb army that was backed by Serbia and then-President Slobodan Milosevic, who also died in the custody of the Hague court in 2006 while on trial for genocide.<\/p>\n
Mladic was known for his obsession with his nation\u2019s history. He saw Bosnia\u2019s war as a chance for revenge against the onetime 500-year-long Ottoman occupation of Serbia. He often referred to Bosnia\u2019s Muslims as Turks and boasted of revenge when his troops overran the protected U.N. enclave of Srebrenica in 1995.<\/p>\n
Carried away by Serb dominance in firepower and international ignorance, Mladic was convinced of his final victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe time has come … for revenge against Turks in these regions,\u201d Mladic said after taking over Srebrenica.<\/p>\n
A U.N. \u201csafe haven\u201d for Muslims, Srebrenica ended up overrun by Serbs who separated the men and boys, forced them to strip, killed them and bulldozed their bodies into mass graves in a brutal rampage that lasted for over a week.<\/p>\n
The Srebrenica survivors said one image forever will be imprinted in their minds: Mladic handing out candy to Muslim children who had been rounded up on the town\u2019s square and reassuring them that everything would be all right \u2014 even patting one child on the head.<\/p>\n
Convinced of the power of his army, he used to tell his soldiers: \u201cWhen I give you guarantees, it\u2019s as if they are given by God.\u201d To clear the way for his helicopter to land, he would tell air traffic controllers: \u201cHere speaks Ratko Mladic \u2014 The Serbian God.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sarajevans still remember his commands to the Serb gunmen pounding the Bosnian capital in early 1992. He issued his orders through a military radio system, not bothering to scramble the signal, which was picked up and taped by the Sarajevo police.<\/p>\n
\u201cTurn toward Velesici, there are no Serbs there,\u201d Sarajevans could hear Mladic ordering his artillery to pound the Sarajevo suburb.<\/p>\n
\u201cScorch their brains,\u201d he told his gunmen.<\/p>\n
Faced with the U.N. tribunal\u2019s genocide indictment, Mladic in 1996 began his fugitive years in Han Pijesak, a military compound in eastern Bosnia built for former Yugoslav communist leader Josip Broz Tito and designed to withstand a nuclear attack.<\/p>\n
With his wife, Bosa, Mladic settled down to imposed domesticity, passing the time caring for bees and goats. His 23 goats reputedly bore the names of foreign dignitaries he despised, such as Madeleine Albright, the former U.S. secretary of state.<\/p>\n
Surrounded by security guards, he occasionally ventured out of the dense pine forest to mark events such as the anniversary of the Bosnian Serb army and St. Vitus Day, a religious festival marking the 1389 Serb defeat by the Turks at Kosovo.<\/p>\n
When in the late 1990s his trail grew too hot in Bosnia, Mladic moved with family into a suburban villa in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.<\/p>\n
In Belgrade, he was seen attending his son\u2019s wedding. He showed up at soccer games, dined in plush restaurants and frequented elite cafes, refusing to give interviews and smiling quizzically when photographed.<\/p>\n
When Milosevic was ousted from power in October 2000, and Yugoslavia\u2019s new pro-democracy authorities signaled they might hand Mladic over to the tribunal, tabloids reported that he had left Belgrade for Bosnia.<\/p>\n
But true to his style, Mladic countered those rumors and others that said he was terminally ill in Belgrade. Before going underground in 2002, he was repeatedly seen in public, sometimes with his guards and sometimes alone, driving a boxy Yugo car on the streets of the capital.<\/p>\n
He completely disappeared from public view in 2008 and was finally arrested in May 2011 in a village near Belgrade where he was hiding in a relative\u2019s modest house.<\/p>\n
In court in The Hague, a frail-looking old man was far from an image of Mladic from the war days. But his unrepentant nature and defiance were intact.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything you said is pure lies. Shame on you!\u201d he yelled at the U.N. judges when they handed down the conviction.<\/p>\n
Already in poor health upon arrest in 2011, Mladic is believed to have suffered multiple strokes during his years on the run and was hospitalized on several occasions while in custody.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch said Mladic\u2019s death was \u201ca reminder of the ongoing need for justice, truth, and reparations in the Western Balkans.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFull accountability for such terrible crimes, in Bosnia and elsewhere, demands commitment by governments to justice, even decades after the events themselves,\u201d she said in a statement. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
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