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Politicians and Media of Serbia and Republika Srpska #wingnut portalnovosti.com

{Translated by Vman. A couple explanatory links to Wikipedia were added in case they’re needed.}

The final verdict against [Serb wartime general and war criminal] Ratko Mladić did not move the position of Serbia, or of the Bosnian entity of Republika Srpska, by even a millimeter. The narrative goes that the Hague tribunal is unfair, it judges only Serbs, it's under the influence of the West, and so on. […] The overture was given five days before the verdict was pronounced, during a press conference by the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, and Milorad Dodik, a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. While Dodik nervously denied genocide, Vučić did it in a more refined way. He condemned the crime without saying "genocide". No more could be expected even after the first-instance verdict sentencing Mladić to life in prison was confirmed on June 8, primarily for the genocide committed in Srebrenica. […]

[…]

Both the junior partner in the ruling coalition in Serbia, the SPS party, and Aleksandar Vulin, the Minister of Police, condemned the verdict, saying that it was a matter of “revenge” and a “verdict against justice”. It was interesting how the verdict divided the opposition. The leader of [far-right wing party] Dveri, Boško Obradović, announced on social networks the mantra about Mladić and [Republika Srpska wartime president] Radovan Karadžić being heroes rather than criminals, while the Democratic Party announced that the verdict against Mladić shows that justice “although slow, was still achievable”. Its former leader, Boris Tadić, has received threats these days, given that he was president at the time Mladić was arrested.

After the verdict, Dodik paraphrased his Belgrade performance.

“An attempt is being made to create a genocide myth in Srebrenica, but there was no genocide. General Mladić became a living legend, the Serb people would have suffered even more if it were not for him. Serbs are a suffering people, they suffered everywhere,” he added, concluding that in the 1990s Serbs tried to “give everyone freedom,” but today they are demonized because of that. The thesis that there was no genocide was confirmed by the Commission formed by the Republika Srpska Government, an institution favoring Dodik, as well as by former RS president Biljana Plavšić — also convicted of war crimes — who believes in Mladić's innocence, claiming that he was not in Srebrenica during those days.

The verdict was also rejected as anti-Serb by the tabloids, which are generally considered to be under the control of Vučić's government. Informer said on the cover that “Mladić is forever a Serbian hero,” Srpski Telegraf writes about the “shameful verdict,” Kurir writes about the “Hague injustice” with the title “Don't touch our open wound,” and Objektiv bears the title “Courage and Defiance” next to a photo of Mladić.

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