In Banja Luka, the administrative center of Bosnia’s Serb state Republika Srpska, people seem to hardly take notice of Ratko Mladić‘ death. Mladić‘ war crimes had helped forge Republika Srpska in the 1990s. The only ones who seem to care are football hooligans and the devout. A dispatch from a divided country.

„Eternal Glory to the General“, the banner on a roadbridge over Banja Luka’s bypass says. It is signed: „Lešinari“, or Vultures in English. They are the hooligans of Banja Luka’s football club Borac. They are a nasy bunch, even by Balkan standards. And they are open rightwing extremists.

They must have put it up late Thursday night, after the Borac home match, when news had hit the region that Ratko Mladić had finally served his life sentence to the end. As commanding general of the Army of Republika Srpska, he had overseen and ordered hundreds of war crimes during the war in Bosnia, culminating in the genocide of Srebrenica in July 1995.

The Vultures call him „General“, or sometimes „A Serb Hero“.

Dozens such banners went up the night Mladić died in many towns and cities in Serbia and in Republika Srpska, Bosnia’s Serb dominated, largely autonomous, State. Most had been made by ultras of hooligans of local football clubs. In Banja Luka, RS‘ de facto capital, it was only one.

I had not even noticed it before, and just happened to see it on my bus ride to Sarajevo on Saturday. I had no time to take a photo. Mladić, the man who ordered thousands of his soldiers to loot, pillage, rape and kill Muslim majority villages or towns, and sometimes their Croat majority equivalents, had been dead for two days by then.

The Portrait That Is Not.

As domineering as they may be in public space, as aggressively as they may mark their turf, Banja Luka’s Vultures had by then only managed to make one more spot in town a place to mourn the war criminal many nationalist Serbs regard as their hero.

That was a mural in a neighborhood locals still call Mejdan, a Turkish word. That’s Vulture turf.

After Thursday’s match, they had put down a wreath underneath it, and some candles Orthodox Christians burn for the dead.

Early Friday morning I went to check on the mural again. After hanging out in the area for an hour or so, I found one man in his 40s obviously mourning the deceased. His name is Dragoljub. „He defended us Serbs“, he told me with tears in his eyes as he lit several of the candles the Vultures had put on the sidewalk in a circular shape. „And now, look at it. They have sold everything he stood for. The Vultures are the only ones who care about him“.

Everyone else just seems to walk by and not care about the mural at all, nor about the wreath or the candles.

Even if one keeps in mind that it is around 6:30 in the morning, this is a remarkably low turnout. Especially considering that this is probably the most prominent mural of Ratko Mladić in all of Bosnia.

Late in 2025, the mural and its creators had been under investigation for violating Bosnia’s penal code that prohibits the denial of the genocide of Srebrenica or its glorification.

The Surpeme Court of Bosnia and Hercegovina ruled that the mural did not violate those bans. One could not be sure the mural actually depicted Ratko Mladić, it could only positively identified as a man in a military uniform the court found to the surprise of just about everyone, as Bosnian journalist Dragan Bursać reported.

The rationale behind this somewhat remarkable verdict is that the Justices assumed they had no means to enforce the law on an everyday level in Bosnia’s Serb State or entity. A Bosnian solution, of sorts. The country’s political division and deadlock in many important government matters have created dozens of such absurdities over the years.

They Didn’t Think it Was Tito

Never mind the likeness with a photo Orthodox clergy had put up in front of Banja Luka’s main Orthodox church in the city center on Friday morning.

Just a few hours after I had met Dragoljub, about thirty or so devout stood there at any time, forming two lines: One to buy candles to light for the deceased war criminal, and one to enter the church. A few in between were loitering before the photo, making the sign of the cross, or saluting, like Suzana.

It is unlikely they thought it was a photo of Tito.

„Darling, I had always been a Yugoslav“, Suzana sighs after saluting Ratko Mladić. „But now?“

To Suzana, being a Christian is of utmost importance. She makes no secret she hates Muslims. „Darling“, she tells me, „you people in Vienna have so many of them, you must know what it’s like“.

I don’t ask her whether she thinks Ratko Mladić was a war criminal or a hero.

Still, Banja Luka has around 180.000 inhabitants, including the suburban areas. And it is the administrative center of RS, whose government has made open nationalism and revisionism its raison d’etre over the years.

Given these circumstances, this strikes me as a remarkably low manifestation of mourning over a man most Serb nationalists consider a hero of their nation.

By comparison, the government of neighboring Serbia, run by parties just as clericonationalist as in RS, announced Ratko Mladić would receive a state funeral.

And here?

Not even the flags in front of the Presidency of Republika Srpska are flown half mast. Not on Thursday night, not all of Friday.

This is probably less out of decency than out consideration for the ban on glorifying the genocide of Srebrenica. Honoring the man responsible for the murder of 8.372 Muslim boys and men could rationally be interpreted as in violation of this section of Bosnia’s penal code.

And while Bosnia’s Surpreme Court may think this rule unenforcable on an everyday level in Republika Srpska, it did get then RS‘ President Milorad Dodik removed from office over exactly that section of the penal code. The process was long and arduous, however.

It’s left to the Vultures and the Orthodox Church to organize the mourning. Both are carriers of Serb nationalism, even though the latter is more divided on that question than the first, to be fair. Not in Banja Luka, though, it seems.

Ordinary People Seemed Not to Care

Everyone else just not seemed to care at all.

The night the news of Mladić‘ death broke, I saw no one who looked like he had just received bad news. Nor did I hear his name uttered once.

The next morning, just before talking to Dragoljub, I had had a very early morning coffee. An elderly patron got some local newspapers at a nearby kiosk and handed one of them – the Serbian tabloid Blic – to another guest. She herself kept a copy of Glas Srpske, a Banja Luka paper close to RS‘ government.

Both had Ratko Mladić on their cover – much like every newspaper in probably all of former Yugoslavia.

She started reading the horoscopes and celebrity section in the back.

The elderly guy with Blic is on his second rakija this morning. He glances over the cover page, and then starts with the sports sections.

The papers go around several times the time I’m there. I must have watched five people reading them. At best, they glance over Mladić‘ photos and browse through the coverage of his demise in his The Hague prison cell for a minute. They spend a lot more time on other sections.

„Mladić is dead“, the waitress tells the elderly lady who had bought the papers. It’s the first time I hear his name. News of his death must have circulating around here for at least 12 hours. „Ah yes, the general“, the patron replies. „You know, I really gotta work a lot these days. I have been working all week, and won’t a day off until Monday“.

Others talk about how high their pensions are, often over their first or second beer this morning.

This impression doesn’t change over the course of the day.

Of Villagers and City Dwellers

Banja Luka has its own history. Even though RS‘ government is seated here, and spews out its nationalist propaganda, and in spite of the Vulture’s openly nationalist and at least protofascist culture, it is not a nationalist hotbed, and never has been.

„It’s different in the suburbs and the villages in the neighborhood“, a friend tells me while we are sitting at the cafe at Hotel Bosna, occasionally glancing at the mourners in front of the main church. „“But in the city itself, there is still a strong Yugoslav and Partisan heritage. Whenever you meet a nationalist extremist here, you can almost be certain he’s moved in from the countryside“.

Many Vulture activists are said to be originally out-of-towners for instance.

That may simplify things a bit, and it may the old trope of the city dwellers holding village people accountable for whatever unfavorable change or attitude they perceive. You can find very much the same attitude in Sarajevo, for instance. Old Sarajlije often complain how the influx of – in that case mainly Muslim – people from the countryside have changed the city and are threatening the generally universalist und tolerant attitude, and of attempting to Islamize it. Those complaints come from Muslims, Orthodox and Catholic people born in Sarajevo alike.

There are other tropes people with at least two generations of city life under their belt share about villagers moving into their cities in Banja Luka and in Sarajevo: The sheep they say villagers kept on their balconies after comint to town after the war and the Lost Cow in the Elevator.

„She Would Never Say that in Public“

That the majority of people in Banja Luka may not be nationalist – or at least not extreme nationalists – does not diminish the sway Serb nationalists have over public discourse here and in RS in general. „When my wife heard Mladić died, she just: „The bastard is dead““, my friend tells me. „She would never say that in public. And the same goes for a lot people“.

Decent people feel they are cowed into silence by a small but outspoken group of radicals. This is a very universal phenomenon. On the Balkans it lets corrupt nationalists dominate public discourse and political life, be in Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia or Kosovo.

Football ultras or hooligans and respective religious majority organisations play a major role in this process. Be it in Banja Luka, in Split, in Mostar, in Beograd or on Zadar.

In this part of the world, it keeps a viscious circle alive. As radicals appear more powerful and, crucially, more numerous than they are they shape how the outside world sees the respective societies.

In this case, Serb nationalism appears more far more rampant than it is, and lets Bosnjak, Croat or other neighbors perceive Republika Srpska or Serbia as hopelessly nationalist societies beyond redemption. This lets them interact with Serbian or Serb political institutions very differently from how they would would they think Serb nationalism less pervasive.

The same is true in any direction. With Croat nationalism appearing even more prevalent than it actually is, Serb or Serbian politicians are wary to attempt whatever reconciliation they may be prepared to initiate – woefully little though that may be.

It leads to the general attitude „We don’t admit to our crimes unless you admit to yours first“. This mutual fingerpointing fuels revanchism and revisionism.

In this sense, Mladić‘ status as „Serb hero“ has been maintained as much by openly and ever radicalizing Serb nationalism, fuelled at least in part by the clericonationalist regimes in Beograd and Banja Luka, as it has by the unwillingness of Croat, Bosnjak and Kosovar politicians to address the war crimes their armies or militias committed in the names of their respective peoples or ethnicities.

It has given Serb nationalists an excuse to diminish or flatout deny the crimes Mladić ordered, or to portrait them as acts of either justified revenge or self defence.

Mladić‘ Status Is Unique

That is not deny that the degree of nationalist reverence for Mladić is a uniquely Serb thing. No other war criminal has been elevated to his status, not Naser Orić, not Ante Gotovina, not Dario Kordić. And all three have a large followership. Hashim Thaçi comes close.

It also showed on social media and the comments sections of major news outlets in the past few days. Hundreds of thousands of comments glorifying Mladić polluted the internet.

„I had to unfriend a couple of people on Instagram“, Benjamin tells me. He now lives in Sarajevo. „Those were people I had worked with, had been hanging out with, considered my friends. And they were openly celebrating this war criminal“. He is not alone in that experience.

The reactions to Mladić‘ death certainly did not show the best of Serb or Serbian society – even if one keeps in mind that it is largely a handful of radical group and parts of the Orthodox Church who organized them. Not to forget Serbia’s clericonationalist regime.

The outpouring of mourning for the man who ordered the genocide of Srebrenica represents a minority of ethnic Serbs. But it is a large enough minority, and it is a large enough sentiment within society, that ethnic Serbs will have to reckon with it if Serbia or Republika Srpska are ever to move forward and if they ever are to end the war that never really ended in the minds of Serb nationalists for the past 35 years.

This reckoning will be a difficult task. But not an impossible one.

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