Even though, in his own violently nationalistic terms, Slobodan Milosevic would have imagined his enemies would crow at his passing, the fact is that most will feel his death, as that of any human being, is to be regretted.
Indeed the dignified expressions of sadness born of common humanity, which came yesterday from European politicians would probably have amazed the cynical communist functionary who rose to power on a tidal wave of chauvinism which he did much to create. Milosevic knew all about the politics of hatred and destruction. He established his power base by exploiting bigotry and narrow-minded nationalism. He was not a builder. He did not construct. He was a destroyer and he made his political nest in the bloodstained ruins of Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo until he finally brought ruin to his own country.
Though the Bosnian Serb military commander, Ratko Mladic, and his immediate political master, Radovan Karadzic, were the direct instruments of the terrible destruction and bloodletting that descended on Croatia and Bosnia as they struggled for independence, they could never have acted without the tacit support and encouragement of Milosevic sitting safely, as he thought, in the Serbian capital, Belgrade. The arrest and trial of Mladic and Karadzic remain of consummate importance but the trial of Milosevic as the architect of the horrors they perpetrated was no less crucial. He was charged with 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in complex indictments covering conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo in the 1990s. That the accused has died and so escaped the final verdict of the court means that for those who held him to blame, there can now never be complete closure. From his arrest in 2000, Milosevic used every means he could to delay and frustrate the workings of The Hague International Tribunal. When he fired his defense team and announced that he would conduct his own defense, common justice demanded that the court give him extra time to prepare his case. When he later protested that the pressure of his self-imposed task was damaging his health, there were many who assumed this was just another obstructive ploy. If he really were ill, then he could hand the defense back to lawyers.
In the event, whether he knew it or not, it seems that Milosevic actually was ill and he died in his cell of a heart attack.
The premature end of the trial does not, however, mean that the immense effort and cost of bringing Milosevic to the bar of international justice has been wasted. Not since the Nuremberg prosecutions of Germany’s Nazi leaders had the world set out to try former state leaders for crimes against humanity. The action against Milosevic put down a new marker that no despotic leader anywhere in the world could be absolutely sure that he or she would escape justice for crimes against humanity. In the right circumstances, they will find themselves brought to trial at The Hague. If it has served no other purpose, the Milosevic trial has made this important possibility abundantly clear.
