Government welcomes life sentence for Ratko Mladic

The government of the Republic of Kosovo estimates that Ratko Mladic's penalty for life in prison is the establishment of international justice and satisfare for war victims in Bosnia.

The government and the people of Kosovo on this occasion remind the world public that Slobodan Milosevic's regime and its generals have also applied in Kosovo all forms of crimes described in the indictment against Mladic.

Milosevic's Serbia has killed 11 thousand Albanian civilians in Kosovo, burned and destroyed 130 thousand houses, taken war hostages of another 4 thousand, has used the sexual violation of thousands of women as a means of war, and eventually deported about 800 thousand Albanian citizens outside Kosovo's borders.

The government of the Republic of Kosovo considers it to be an extremely sad signal for generations that come the tendency to rehabilitate war criminals, whether through heroism or through their rehabilitation, proposing them to legalise at military academies.

Kosovo's government estimates that the order issued today TPNJ should serve primarily the governments of the region to confront the past courageously and reflect more determination to say no to the ethnonationalist policies, as well as to promote more consensus for victims despite their origin for a lasting peace and reconciliation among the peoples of this European space.

This TPNJ verdict should serve the governments of the region to eventually abandon violence in resolving open issues and to take the course of reconciliation and recognition of mutual values, to encourage the embrace of common European values and to encourage the goal of the people of our region towards European and Euro-Atlantic integration.