GENERAL MLADIĆ WAS SOLDIER FROM THE PEOPLE WHO GAVE HIS LIFE TO THE SERB PEOPLE

PALE, AUGUST 28 /SRNA/ – The Republika Srpska Creators Association members – deputies of the Assembly of Serb People in BiH who, on May 12, 1992, adopted the decision to establish the Republika Srpska Army /RSA/ – are bidding a sorrowful farewell to RSA General Staff Commander General Ratko Mladić, who was a soldier from the people and gave his life to the Serb people.

"From the day he assumed the position of Commander-in-Chief of our army, he stood bravely and resolutely in defence of the Serb people in BiH, sparing neither himself nor his fellow soldiers, nor his family," the Association said in a statement.

The Association members stressed that had the units under Mladić's command not fought bravely and honourably against the enemy, the newly established Republika Srpska would have disappeared, and the Serb people would have been wiped from their ancestral homes.

The Creators noted that General Mladić's army was not an occupying force, but, in the true sense of the word, a defensive, liberation-oriented and people’s army, which is an indisputable historical truth.

"General Mladić was a soldier from the people and gave his life to the Serb people. We hope that, sooner or later, the hand of justice will reach all those who, in the Hague Tribunal case against General Mladić, violated the fundamental provisions of the UN Charter, and particularly the Mandela Rules," the Republika Srpska Creators Association emphasised in its statement.

"May he rest in peace. We extend our condolences to his family and pray to God to give them strength during these difficult days," the Association members said.