Slobodan Milosevic and his thugs beat up the Balkans like
a biker gang terrorizing a small town. He oversaw or
orchestrated civil wars and "ethnic cleansings" that left breakaway Yugoslavian
republics in smoking ruins and their people devastated by a
decade of massacres, kidnappings, mass rapes and deportations.
Now, he's where he belongs, in jail awaiting trial. There's
a visceral satisfaction in seeing the former Serb leader standing
charged before the United Nations war crimes tribunal for crimes
against humanity.
Milosevic's extradition to the Hague is a positive sign for
Yugoslavia. As long as Milosevic was in Serbia, even in
a cell, he was a touchstone for nationalism and a
roadblock to progress in the republic.
But if Milosevic's trial is to be seen as anything
more than just the West bearing a grudge, if it
is truly a hopeful sign of international justice and progress
for the global community, it cannot be an isolated incident.
Milosevic can't claim the dubious distinction of being the first
contemporary government leader to go before a war-crimes tribunal. Jean
Kambanda, prime minister of Rwanda in 1994 when an estimated
800,000 of his countrymen were slaughtered, pleaded guilty in 1998
to genocide before the UN tribunal. He got life in
prison. Source.
