Mladic, Ratko (1943– )

Bosnian Serb general, leader of the Bosnian Serb army 1992–96. His ruthless conduct in the civil war in Bosnia, including the widespread maltreatment of prisoners and the disappearance of many more, led to his being indicted for war crimes by the United Nations War Crimes Commission in 1995.

Mladic was born in Kalnovik, Herzegovina. He graduated from a military academy and joined the Yugoslav Communist Party in 1965. He started his military career as a general in the former Yugoslav Federal Army, but when Yugoslavia broke up he became one of the leaders of the Serbian population in Bosnia, and was appointed military commander of the Republika Srbska by its president Radovan Karadžić in 1992. He led the Bosnian Serb armed forces until the Dayton Agreement brought peace in 1995. In November 1996 he was dismissed as arms chief by Biljana Plavsic, president of the Bosnian Serb Republic; supporters of Mladic sought unsuccessfully to overturn the decision.