Balkan Ghost
I woke up this morning to the news of Milosevic’s death at the Haque, just a few months before the U.N. tribunal decision on his war crimes. It was just two weeks and three Mondays ago when there was a victim protest against him in front of the courtroom at the Haque.
It seems Milosevic caused as much problems while he was alive as when he is dead. Apparently there’s a dispute by his family and his Russian ally that he might be poisoned or given the wrong medicine. As the article below aptly put it, he was luckier compared to all the victims of the genocide and ethnic furies that he instigated and the many many many lives he and his followers destroyed.
Here’s the excerpt from the WSJ opinion column.
Balkan Ghost
No one now disputes that stopping Slobodan Milosevic was the right thing to do.
Monday, March 13, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
In the end, Slobodan Milosevic was luckier than his victims. The former Serbian leader died at age 64 in his prison bed early Saturday, apparently of a heart attack, though full autopsy results are pending. Death was his small victory over the U.N. tribunal that now can't complete the first-ever war crimes trial of a former head of state.
As Serbian leader after 1989, Milosevic unleashed the ethnic furies that sparked the bloodiest conflicts in Europe since World War II. Yugoslavia was the West's great failure for most of the 1990s. "This is the hour of Europe," proclaimed Luxembourg's foreign minister, Jacques Poos, in 1991 when the Croats and Serbs came to blows. Yet not until after Srebrenica and its 7,000 dead men and boys in 1995 did the U.S. step in and lead an ineffective Europe to stop the fighting.
For too long, U.S. officials convinced themselves the Balkan wars resulted from implacable hatreds and nationalism rather than Milosevic's autocratic ambitions. But when NATO finally used force--with U.N. support in Kosovo only after the fact--his regime fell and the furies ended.
Today the new post-Milosevic arrangements in the Balkans are imperfect, sectarian tensions are raw and democracy is fragile. Western troops are still needed on the ground in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia. But no one seriously questions whether outside intervention was the right thing to do. The tragedy of the Balkans is that it took so long for the West to generate the nerve to stop the man who died on the weekend as a largely forgotten war criminal.
posted by teliung @ 4:17 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Let me tell you something. Either you are a propagandist or misinformed. Milosevic is far from being an "instigator" of a genocide, I'm afraid you have a terrible misconception. Do you see yourself as a good person spreading hatred toward people you have no clue about and participating in twisting history? It pisses me off to see the mainstream propaganda being retold by sheep all over the world. Are you actually aware who lit war in Yugoslavia?
Obviously it was a "victory" for Milosevic for dying before the UN tribunal decision and his victims lose again. Interestingly, folks like you continue to deny the genocide and attrocities against humanity that happened (with the knowledge and under the eyes of the UN and the whole of Europe).
Knowing actual ppl whose families were forced out of their homes and forced to walk amongst a field of landmines at midnite and lived to tell, frens whose houses were either consficated and plundered by Serbs and their houses bombed and who had to fight in the war to defend themselves and their families, and saw many of their friends and families dying during the war and children made orphans, gives me a personal right to address this issue in my blog.
Stefan,
I noticed you also commented at http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com .
"Stefan" is pure Serbian name, so I am not surprised why you invest so much energy visiting blogs and defending Milosevic's actions. You are nothing more but Milosevic's apologist. You are also one-sided and you suffer from Serbian syndrome which is called "West-is-Against-Us" and "Mainstream-Media-is-Against-Us".
Milosevic could only be compared to Hitler. I am sorry he died in prison before he was to be pronounced guilty on 66 counts of genocide. I am trully sorry he prematurely died. He escaped justice too early.
He was not only instigator of genocide - he was PART of genocide. Do I have to remind you that he was charge with NOT ONE, buy 66 (sixty-six) counts of GENOCIDE?
And who do you exactly call a sheep? In my opinion - you are a sheep, Milosevic's sheep.
Well Stefan, I would advice that you jump into the grave of Milosevic and join him as a "matyr" as you inferred him. The bottom line is: Milosevic was a criminal and he would be dealt with even after his death.
Do not waste your time crying on his grave.
rama-rama
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