The world is a better place now that Slobodan Milosevic has left it. He died of a heart attack Saturday in his cell in the Hague, the Netherlands, putting an anti-climactic period on his reign of terror over the Yugoslav federation. Regrettably, it means that Milosevic’s four-year, $200 million trial will not reach an end, and that he won’t be brought to justice on 66 counts of war crimes and genocide in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo involving the slaughter of more than 250,000. Milosevic may be another global thug who escaped accountability for his crimes against humanity, but authorities should continue to seek and prosecute his minions, notably Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic. (Oddly, Milosevic’s death also demonstrates the danger of prescription drug interaction.)
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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9 Comments
Rhonda,He didn’t escape retribution: If there is a hell, he is present in its deepest level.
It’s times like this I wish I believed in heaven and hell.
At least he died in the Hague.
Suspicion – he had been under the care of Russian doctors. If he were to really ’spill his guts’ at trial how much information might he have revealed about Russian complicity in the genocide; particularly in Bosnia?
“Butcher of Belgrade.”
What about the Terrorist from Texas? His death toll is a lot higher than some petty tyrant in the Balkans.
Not really PL. Slobodon butchered hundreds of thousands in his holy wars.
The Legacy of Slobodan MilosevicThe death of Slobodan Milosevic may turn out to be nearly as controversial as his life. The former Serb leader died in the Hague while still under trial at a war crimes tribunal. The first question that arose is whether he died of natural causes. He had a heart condition, and illness often forced delays in his trial. His body will be autopsied at the Hague, after refusing a request from his attorney that it be conducted in Moscow.
No matter what the results prove, many in Serbia will claim foul play. His death comes just six days after a fellow Serb prisoner at The Hague, Milan Babic, committed suicide. Babic testified against Mr Milosevic in 2002.
The term Balkanization originated with the factional splitting and map redrawing of the Balkan wars in 1912-1913, which were a precursor to World War I. That area lives up to the word again, with the former Yugoslavia now divided into Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovenia. Here’s a link to a map. Kosovo and Montenegro may soon get independence from Serbia, further splintering things.
The successive wars that Milosevic started in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo – and the campaign of ethnic cleansing – leave him a legacy in which some Serbs still regard him as a hero and now a martyr. Many others feel cheated that he died before he could be convicted and sentenced.
In another twist, his death may help two people who remain at the top of The Hague’s most wanted list, former Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. Pressure had been mounting on the Serbian and Bosnian governments to arrest and turn them over. Now some think the governments may be even more resistant, out of fear of arousing internal unrest among their supporters.
Both of Milosevic’s parents and an uncle died by suicide when he was young. His wife’s mother was executed during World War II. The story has several versions. She was a Nazi collaborator shot by other partisans, a partisan who was tortured by the Gestapo and gave up her fellow resistance members and was shot anyway, or a brave partisan shot by the Gestapo. All records of her death disappeared after Milosevic’s rise to power. Either way, it is a family with a tragic history that went on to inflict tragedy on thousands of others. Lets hope the violence ends with him.
http://theflyoverzone.blogspot.com/2006/03/legacy-of-slobodan-milosevic.html
Geez, you can’t even die anymore without someone wishing something worse had happened to you.
All Milosevic did was free his country from the religious Muslim fanatics. He should be declared a “saint!”