Serbs Would Not Hand Over Mladic Even for EUR1Mln

As many as 65 percent of Serbs would not hand over war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic to the authorities. They think of him as a hero.

Most citizens of Serbia would not hand over war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic to the authorities not even for a million euros. Only about 14.29 percent of Serbs would notify the police about his whereabouts, Serbia’s Press Online reported.  

According to a poll conducted by a Serbian agency, 65.14 percent of those questioned would not report Mladic, 20.57 percent did not have an opinion, while 14.29 percent would collect the reward money for Mladic. But special war crimes prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic, said the real situation is not so favourable for Mladic.

- Another survey by the same agency, which was also conducted recently, indicated that 47 percent of Serbian citizens were for Mladic being extradited to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. But when we formulate the question so that citizens have to reply whether they would report Mladic’s whereabouts for a reward, we come to the number of 65 percent of those who would not do so. This is so  because people see something like this as immoral, which is the only reason for such a result of the survey. People would not like it to be said for them that they handed over Mladic for money – Vukcevic said.

The Serbs think The Hague tribunal is not biased and that Serbs did not commit war crimes 

The president of the National Council for Cooperation with the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia), Rasim Ljajic, thinks that pointing out the crimes Mladic has been accised of  would not change the opinion of the citizens.

- We have lost the battle in presenting Mladic whichever way in advance because the people have formed their own opinions. I think that a wider relationship towards the Hague Tribunal is crucial here, that is, that the tribunal is not principled – Ljajic said.

The director of the agency that conducted the survey, “Strategic Marketing”, Srdjan Bogoslavljevic, said he was not surprised with the results of the poll, stressing that Ratko Mladic is one of the most popular people in the country.

- People do not see just a personality in him, but primarily a symbol of a policy. At least half of the population think positively about Mladic and another part of the population thinks that turning somebody in is exceptionally bad, which is why the results are what they are. Also, this is also the result of our long-term policy of avoiding passing the blame on anybody. Some of our earlier surveys showed that the people remembered the crimes against Serbs, but not the crimes Serbs committed – Bogoslavljevic explained.