Word: mladic
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Clark’s behavior at Banja Luka is thus difficult to countenance. British Gen. Sir Michael Rose, who attended the infamous meeting, writes in his memoir Fighting for Peace that Clark was “ill-equipped to deal with the brutal cunning of a man like Mladic.” At one point, Rose describes, “[Mladic] took his pistol from its holster and presented it to Wes. On it were engraved the words, From General Mladic. We were appalled. As we left Banja Luka, one of Wes Clark’s aides asked Col. Gordon...
Many in the State Department, including the U.S. special envoy to Bosnian peace talks and the U.S. ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina, were furious. The Washington Post reported on Sept. 1, 1994, “What State Department officials found especially disturbing was a photograph of Clark and Mladic wearing each other’s caps. The picture appeared in several European newspapers, U.S. officials said. Clark accepted as gifts Mladic’s hat, a bottle of brandy and a pistol inscribed in Cyrillic, U.S. officials said. ‘It’s like cavorting with Hermann Goering...
...diplomatic fallout from the picture, which featured Clark and Mladic smiling jovially in their swapped hats, was severe. (It’s been rumored that Clark’s gaffe delayed his promotion to four-star general.) In retrospect, the picture appears even more shocking given what transpired nine months later in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica. Over the course of a week, Mladic directed a systematic roundup of the city’s Muslims and organized their transportation to execution sites. The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates that 7,079 Bosnian Muslims were killed in Srebrenica between...
...wryly observed, “If the president was trying to remind the public about the lack of seriousness with which his administration has taken war crimes in Bosnia, this is a fine choice.” Clark’s “jolly time” with Mladic, they wrote, had revealed his “moral cluelessness...
Since Clark announced his candidacy for president, however, the Mladic story has received little attention. His Democratic opponents haven’t yet made an issue of it, though they have pilloried the General for his past statements of support for President Bush. Not surprisingly, many of the Harvard student campaign leaders I contacted were unaware of the 1994 incident. Rebecca E. Rubins ’05, chair of Harvard Students for Lieberman, hadn’t heard of it. Neither had Nicholas F. B. Smyth ’05, chair of Harvard Students for Kerry, nor Andrew M. Crespo...