Nestorovic Movement: Serbia Must Not Stay Silent on Mladic

The Mi snaga naroda parliamentary group, led by Professor Branimir Nestorovic, sent newsrooms a statement at 9.12 a.m. on Tuesday on the death of Ratko Mladic, asking explicitly that it be carried in full. A photograph came with it, showing four people in the National Assembly chamber wearing shirts with Mladic’s face and the words Serbian hero.

The statement is headlined “Serbia must not stay silent any longer, dignity is not sought from The Hague but defended in Serbia”. We carry it in full.

What the statement says

The movement opens by expressing what it calls deep sorrow over the death of General Ratko Mladic and offers condolences to his family, friends, fellow soldiers and everyone who saw him as a man who defended the Serbian people in one of the hardest periods of its history.

It then claims Mladic’s death has once again exposed what it calls the hypocrisy of the domestic political scene and the media system.

“While other countries nurture national symbols without the slightest hesitation, pay tribute to their own military commanders and build myths about national history, in Serbia Serbs are expected, even in the face of the death of a man who is for a great many of them a symbol of defence, to stay quiet, lower their eyes and apologise to others in advance,” the movement concludes.

A separate passage deals with what, according to the statement, happened in the National Assembly when the news arrived.

“What is particularly damning is that at the moment of General Ratko Mladic’s death, while a session was under way in the National Assembly, it was the Mi snaga naroda member of parliament Slobodan Ilic who spoke and publicly offered condolences to the family. And that, as far as the public knows, remained an almost solitary political testimony to the elementary human need to pay a dignified last respect to a man, regardless of political and historical divisions,” the statement says.

The sharpest passage follows, on how institutions behaved.

“There was no minute of silence. There was no break in the session. There was no state institution to show that the death of a Serbian general is not just another piece of news to be passed over in silence so that nobody in Brussels, Washington or Sarajevo would take offence.”

Calling out the president

On the response of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to Mladic’s death, the movement concludes that this too is what it calls a familiar politics of calculation and manoeuvring out of fear of condemnation.

“When it was time to speak about Serbia’s attitude towards General Mladic and towards the feelings of its own people, we again got the familiar politics of calculation, caution and fear of how others would react.”

The movement then puts a series of questions to the president.

“If he takes such care not to hurt Bosniak feelings, who will take care of Serb feelings? Who looks after Serb victims? Who looks after the families of Serb soldiers and civilians? Who looks after the fact that a great many citizens of Serbia do not see General Ratko Mladic the way he is presented by politicians and media who have turned the Hague tribunal verdict into a final and unquestionable truth?” the party asks.

The statement closes with a message about the movement’s stance towards other peoples in the region.

“We do not ask Bosniaks to change their attitude towards their own history. We do not ask Croats to give up their national symbols. But nor do we accept that Serbs be stripped of the right to their own memory, their own history and a dignified farewell to people they regard as their heroes. Our principle is simple: do not give up what is yours, respect what belongs to others,” the movement says.

Who sent the statement

The statement reached the newsroom from the parliamentary group’s official National Assembly address, pg.mi@parlament.rs, the same address the group has used before, most recently on 27 August, for a parliamentary question on wildfires in Serbia and the safety of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija.

Two attachments came with the text, a document containing the statement and a photograph from the parliamentary chamber. Four people are in the frame, three of them in shirts carrying the same motif, Ratko Mladic in uniform and the words Serbian hero written in Cyrillic.

Mi snaga naroda was founded by the paediatrician Branimir Nestorovic. Its parliamentary group in the current convocation includes members who, according to the statement itself, were in the chamber when the news of the death arrived.