Residents from Ratko Mladic's home village await start of war crimes trial

Описание: (15 May 2012) 1. Wide of road leading into remote town of Kalinovik
2. Close up of road sign for Kalinovik
3. Wide of village of Bozinovici, close to Kalinovik, surrounded by mountains
4. Various of Mile Mladic, Ratko's uncle, chopping wood in the yard
6. Wide of Mile Mladic walking into Mladic family house
7. Mid of Mile Mladic walking into the room carrying black and white photos
8. Close up of Mile holding two photos of Ratko Mladic with himself, and Ratko Mladic with a girl
9. Close up of black and white photo showing Ratko Mladic (left), and Mile Mladic
10. Close up of black and white photo showing Ratko Mladic with girlfriend (unknown name)
11. Close up of black and white photo of young Ratko Mladic
12. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Mile Mladic, Uncle of Ratko Mladic:
"A big fuss is created that he is a war criminal, that he is on trial. He has never been, he will never be a war criminal. I don't allow anyone to say that he is a war criminal. He was a military leader, he led his troops, he was a commander, that suited him, and he was only defending his people."
13. Wide of Ratko Mladic's family home
14. Wide of Bozinovici village
15. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Mile Mladic, Uncle of Ratko Mladic:
''He was young, strong, hardworking, nice, good looking. Everything you want to see in one man, he had it. The girls loved him. When he walked up to girls, they were all ecstatic, they were so happy Ratko had approached them."
16. Wide of Mile Mladic walking into Mladic family home
17. Wide of chicken in the yard of Mladic's house
STORYLINE
The beginning of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic's war crimes trial on Wednesday is being anxiously awaited by residents of the remote Bosnian village where he grew up.
In the tiny mountain village of Bozinovici, near the town of Kalinovik, all 200 inhabitants bear the same surname - Mladic.
The general faces 11 charges, including two genocide counts, for allegedly masterminding Bosnian Serb atrocities throughout the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
His uncle, Mile Mladic, still lives in the dilapidated, old family house, where Ratko Mladic was born nearly 70 years ago.
Though they are uncle and nephew, Mile and Ratko Mladic were born only six years apart and the two were best friends when they were growing up.
To his relatives, Ratko Mladic is a legend.
Mile remembers the good looking Ratko as a soldier and a womaniser, famous for his many relationships with girls from neighbouring villages.
"He was young, strong, hardworking, nice, good looking, everything you want to see in one man, he had it," Mile said, while showing black and white photos from 1960 of Ratko Mladic with a girlfriend.
"The girls loved him. When he walked up to girls, they were all ecstatic, they were so happy Ratko had approached them."
The family was poor, so the young Ratko decided that his only prospect in life was to join the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) in 1965, after graduating from the Belgrade military academy, his uncle said.
Mladic's career in the Yugoslav army was extremely successful, and he rose to the rank of general within a few years.
At the end of the 1980s the Yugoslav army was the fourth largest military force in Europe, but when war broke out in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s the national force fell apart.
Mladic fought Croat forces in 1991, before moving back to Bosnia, where he formed the army of the Republika Srpska.
But Ratko Mladic's relatives do not believe he committed a single crime.
For them, General Mladic is a war hero, and they believe that is how Bosnian Serbs should remember him.

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