Konjufca condemns honors for Mladic: A deep moral and political disgrace

Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora Glauk Konjufca has reacted to the state honors organized in Serbia for Ratko Mladic, who was convicted of genocide and war crimes.

In a post on X, Konjufca described the act as a deep moral and political disgrace, also criticizing the presence of acting ministers at the ceremony honoring Mladic.

“Honoring a convicted war criminal, whose crimes an international tribunal has described as ‘among the gravest known to humanity,’ is an act of deep moral and political disgrace,” Konjufca wrote.

According to him, the military honors and the involvement of government officials in the ceremony represent the institutional glorification of a figure convicted of genocide.

Konjufca placed this development in the context of Serbia’s political past, also mentioning the current president, Aleksandar Vučić, who served as information minister during Slobodan Milošević’s regime.

“For the Republic of Kosovo, this is not an abstract debate about history. Our people carry the memory of massacres, murdered civilians and children, mass expulsions and systematic violence carried out by Serbian state forces,” he said.

The acting minister stressed that Kosovo opposes any attempt to treat crimes established by the courts as matters of national interpretation, or convicted perpetrators as people deserving of honors.

“Genocide does not take on a different meaning over time, and denial cannot erase the dignity of those who were killed, persecuted and expelled. We stand alongside the Bosniak people, the victims and survivors of Srebrenica, as well as all the families whose suffering can never be reconciled with the glorification of those responsible for these crimes. There can be no genuine reconciliation without the truth, nor a credible European future built on honoring the perpetrators of crimes that shocked the conscience of humanity,” Konjufca wrote, among other things.