CNN: You are a military man. So I believe you.
RM: I am going to answer your question. Let me continue. You are trying to influence me in a very cultured and intelligent way. I mean you and other of your male and female colleagues who have posed me such questions. But they were framed like pictures on a wall to fit in into some political dimensions or meet editorial wishes.
While we were fighting near Vares, we gave shelter to 25,000 Croatian wives and children and we enabled the Croats to take their armed units from the areas of Kiseljak and Vitez to rescue their people in Vares. We enabled their soldiers and officers after the Muslims had defeated them near Vares to leave that territory and safely walk with weapons in their hands to the region of Stoca where we handed them over to the Croatian side, even though they had committed some crimes against our people. In the region of Butojna and Mount Komar we received more than ten thousand of their soldiers and officers whom we later handed over near Kupres to Livno so that Croatia could attack that same Kupres several months later – just like Grahovo, Glamoc and the Republic of Srpska Krajina through which we had handed over their people to them. Then, in 1993 during the fighting in the vicinity of Srebrenica and Zepa we must have been the only army in the world to make it possible for the Muslims to evacuate in one day 495 wounded soldiers and officers from Srebrenica and 202 from Zepa by helicopters provided by the UNPROFOR. That number kept rising because the evacuation lasted for several days. In April 1994, about 753 Muslim officers and soldiers were evacuated by UN helicopters even though the NATO aviation was pounding us with bombs near Gorazde and killed our medical personnel in one village: the doctor and medical nurses from in the village of Gack. You can go there and film it to be convinced that I am telling the truth. Now, let’s get on to your second question.
I have partly followed that accusation of The Hague Tribunal launched against me.
I am a person who belongs to my people with all my heart just like my ancestors. My people or I were not the first to start that war. So neither my people nor its leadership, or me as a general, have declared war on anyone as yet. That war was declared on us and started by those who, unfortunately, in 1914 and 1941 together with the foreign troops of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and Hitler’s fascist hordes started slaughtering the Serbian people and throwing them into pits. I am defending my people with all my heart and all my skills from extermination because it was attacked by the Croat-Muslim armed formations against the will of a larger part of the Croatian and Mulsim populations, I have no doubt about that, and on the instructions from the world power centers that wish to “Germanize” and “Islamize” the Balkans and Europe.
I don’t recognize any trials except the trial of my own people. I don’t need to defend myself because these idiotic accusations have come from those centers which have been churning out lies through PR and similar organizations creating such chaos in these territories that the world community doesn’t know, doesn’t see or simply doesn’t want to see a way out of all this. Since you are a big country I will tell you the following: it doesn’t matter for me how long I am going to live, it’s important for me what I will be able to do for my people during my lifetime and how much I can contribute to saving them from all that terrible suffering from those who have attacked them and from those who support our adversaries and have great might.
I myself said that to General Smith and General Mayer and some other generals who had threatened us with bombardments. One of them was from your country. We are on our land and we are open to peace and cooperation with all the peoples and countries of the world. Neither the Serbian people nor I personally have any racial, religious or any other prejudices. The powers that be cannot take a decision to exterminate us because they are not going to succeed in doing that because our love of our homeland and desire to live are stronger than any weapons existing on this planet. We are going to survive and live because the suffering of the Serbian people in the Republic of Srpska Krajina has given us new and even greater strength than the suffering in Kosovo or the 1915 catastrophe when the Serbian army had to leave their homes and pull out to friendly Greece where it regrouped and reorganized and later liberated its motherland jointly with its allies. If you see any Serbian soldier or officer in the United States or any other country of the world who has come there on my order to stage a rebellion or overthrow the social system, you can be sure that I will voluntarily go to The Hague. I am also going to answer a question asked by your colleague Peter. He asked about rapes in Zepa. Let me apologize to a lady who is present here. In reply to his question I asked him to let me answer his question at the crime scene. I took him to one bus filled predominantly with women and children and also some men. He talked to those women. I wasn’t present during their conversation. When he went out I begged him to give an answer to his own question. I asked him whether he would have raped any of those ladies he had seen on the bus. He replied, “Mr. General, any person who’s going to ask you this idiotic question will be a crazy fool. After everything that I’ve seen there, I am surprised at you both as a person and general.” I don’t think he was hypocritical. I think he was sincere. You are from one country so you can talk to each other. I believe that you, a prominent journalist, has also come here with a picture which was a bit different from the one you are going to have after our conversation. Eventually, I would like to ask you that if you were General Mladic and so many of your people had been attacked and threatened, that the Mujahideens from Iran, Turkey and some Arab countries had cut the heads off both children and adults as was the case in Vlasic in 1993 and if your children had been killed by drug traffickers from some western countries, would you just sit idly or would you go out to defend your people? Would you wave your hands at NATO planes if they dropped bombs on you? Sir, with the help of powerful media you’ve convinced the whole world that the Serbs are savages because one of your planes came down on Serbian territory. President Clinton received that pilot as a hero. What right did he have to be in and over our country in the air space of the Serbian state? What threat did we pose to America? Did we threaten its sovereignty, integrity or did we simply reduce its role as a super power?
CNN: As a general and soldier in the rank, as a commanding officer and a soldier, if you knew a Serb soldier who has hurt or killed a woman or a child, how would you react to it?
RM: Every soldier who violates legal procedures based on international law and the law of the army of Republika Srpska, irrespective of the reason he commits an offence – the etiquette of the military profession or because of the task that has been assigned, will face the justice bodies of the Serbian Republic.
Let me tell you in the context of that sad scenario near Potocar in the outskirts of Srebrenica about an episode that was shot on camera. I may hand it over to the CNN one day. I spoke to those innocent women and children. I introduced myself to them. We had helped them with what we could. I told them how they were going to be evacuated. Then one lady of around thirty said allegedly in her torment, “General Mladic, you are very good-looking on television but one wouldn’t believe how handsome you are in real life.” Though I don’t belong to handsome people,I am not, say, as handsome as you are. You bear these typical American features: broad shoulders and a smile on your face. So, I answered that lady, “Madam, don’t present compliments to me. They are already accusing me of rape. How will the world react to your words?” But she replied jokingly, “You don’t have to rape, you just say.” I think that such stupid stories were told about high-ranking officials in Republika Srpska. I cannot understand one thing: how come that television sets haven’t burst in shame because of the lies they are spreading. Sir, we all have higher education. There’s not a single military school that I haven’t finished. I’ve been working with people all my life. For your information they were all absolutely normal people who underwent regular medical checkups twice a year. It didn’t matter whether a recruit, a junior commander or an officer came to a military school, all of them had to undergo a medical examination twice a year. My family, my school and my life have taught me to tell the truth and to fight for the truth. If it hadn’t been for this war, I would probably never have seen what can be seen and what can happen and be found in human skin. And now, my dear journalists, let me provoke you, despite the fact that you are from CNN. You cheated the world, all of you who announced the decision of the Security Council to declare a village of Zepa, where there are only ten houses, to be a town. It has never been and will never be a town. The war in Sarajevo started when Muslim terrorists attacked a Serbian wedding; and started boiling when Muslim terrorists attacked a column of the former Yugoslav People’s Army on Dobrovoljacka Street, where Muslim terrorists in the presence of General McKenzie were shooting at unarmed civilians and soldiers sometimes even from UNPROFOR cars. The Muslims did everything and will continue doing everything to involve the world community, especially the NATO pact, to fight on their side and for their goals by staging various subversive and terrorist acts and offensives. One such example was an attack on a queue for bread in which they killed a huge number of Serbs and also some of their own people for the purpose of demonstrating that the tragedy was a result of Serbian artillery and mortar attack. Or let’s take the tragedy of Markalama. Only those who had planned and perpetrated those monstrous acts and also those who covered them in the media by cheating the whole world have stayed clean of any crimes. And now let me defend myself slightly from your noble attacks.
What right have you got, as a person and journalist, I assume that you are a humane person if you are a journalist, to show so much interests in enclaves, be it Zepa or Sarajevo, and not to ask a single question how the Serbian people feel in …enclaves that were imposed on them by the will of world powers, including your country, when we cannot bring in oxygen for old people who need it? And now let me ask you one question: are you happy or unhappy that monstrous sanctions have been imposed on the Serbian people in Republika Srpska and Serbia? I assure you that the current exodus (from Srpska Krajina) and this 600-kilometer-long column of refugees is the result of those monstrous decisions on sanctions against the Serbian people and their demonization. The world power centers are doing everything to stir things up in order to achieve their dirty goals to dominate the Balkans. The Balkans should be left in peace to the Balkan peoples, who should be helped to find a way out of this Golgotha.
CNN: Final question. Does he have any sense, as a soldier and personally, when this war is going to end? Yesterday, Vice-President Koljevic told us he thinks the fighting will stop next month. Does the general have any sense in himself, as a soldier, as a man of experience and a human being as to when this war is going to end?
RM: Professor Koljevic is a political person and he’s probably more informed than I am. He has political contacts around the globe.
CNN: Is that possible – that the fighting could end next month?
RM: Are you married?
CNN: I am married with two children.
RM: Have you ever quarreled with your wife in your life or during your marriage?
CNN: No, never.
RM: I don’t believe you. I have quarreled with my wife. Sometimes those quarrels lasted for a long time…When we were young they were shorter. Now they are longer. You need great courage to start a war but much greater courage is needed to put an end to it. I am convinced that the Serbian people want peace and I am sure that the Muslim and Croatian peoples also want it. I am sure that with help from the world community and great powers it’s possible to end this war and force Croatia to withdraw its armed forces from the former Bosnia & Herzegovina. If it hadn’t had them there, there would have been no war in Bosnia & Herzegovina. We should sit down at the negotiating table and should solve all disputable issues on an equal footing in a short-term or long-term period because we are not against the Muslims or the Croats having their own state. But we don’t want this state to be created even on a millimeter of Serbian soil.
CNN: Is this possible so long as the Croatians are in Krajina?
RM: They ought to withdraw from the Republic of Srpska Krajina and a peacekeeping force should be deployed there to carry out its functions and re-establish the order that was there prior to the Croatian aggression. There’s not a single Serb and there should not be a single person in the world community who would try to verify the Croatian occupation of any part of the Republic of Srpska Krajina.
CNN: No peace unless the Croatians withdraw from Krajina?
RM: Let me tell you what. I would let those who had given the green light to the Croatian aggression against the Republic of Srpska Krajina to answer this question. I would tell you that we waged a war against the Turkish Empire for 500 and in some regions for 600 years until we liberated our hearths and the graves of our ancestors. For decades we fought against the Austro-Hungarian monarchy until we liberated our lands and for half a decade we fought against fascist Germany to do the same. Our ancestors fought better for our land than we do. Our land is sacred for us. We didn’t go to Alaska, Greenland, the Malvinas or the Falklands or Vietnam. We have stayed here and will continue to live on our land. It would be better for all the warring parties if peace settles here as soon as possible. It would also be good for their sponsors and patrons: a boomerang always comes back. The winds of war need to subside.
Interpreter: You should have the biography of General Mladic.
RM: Only don’t take it from me. I’ve met many prominent and fine people among the generals who held commanding posts in the former Bosnia & Herzegovina army or in the former Yugoslav army. They were of my age. It’s my first war and some of my colleagues, I am not going to name them now, have more than twelve wars and countries behind their backs but they have never fought on their own land for they have never been attacked. As far as I am concerned, the route to The Hague is open to me.
CNN: (Incomprehensible)
RM: CNN has fewer questions than I have answers.
http://rt.com/news/ratko-mladic-interview-full-185/