On Saturday, March 11, 2006 Slobodan Milosevic was found dead of a heart attack at the Scheveningen Detention Center.� � Victims of the ethnic-cleansing attributed to Milosevic are outraged that justice has been thwarted by his death.� This is perfectly understandable.� What is less understandable is that tens of thousands (perhaps several hundred thousand) of Milosevic supporters claim he was innocent, have demanded he be buried at home with honors, claim he was murdered in prison to prevent an embarrassment of NATO, and have even threatened to bring down the pro-Western government of Serbia for refusing him the right of burial.� � According to Time Magazine, “ … up to 100,000 people packed a square and surrounding streets outside the federal parliament of Serbia and Montenegro, many weeping, clutching photos of the former leader and shouting his nickname "Slobo, Slobo."�

In 2000, Milosevic’s popularity plunged for having cut off support to Croatian and Bosnian Serbs he’d earlier encouraged to insurrection.� High inflation and a two-term limit on his presidency further eroded his power and support.� Deprived of the Serbian presidency, he shifted his power base to the all but defunct Yugoslav Federation presidency.� Milosevic’s rejection of claims of a first-round opposition victory for the Federal presidency in 2000 led to demonstrations against him in October of that year, and the collapse of his regime's authority.� Even then he refused to recognize defeat and it wasn’t until opposition leader Kostunica physically took office, backed by overwhelming support, that he yielded title to the opposition.

By 2002, while on trial for crimes against humanity, Milosevic’s popularity began to slowly rise.� Approval of the ex-President, previously in the single digits, doubled in the first week of his trial to 20% and has remained at least that high.� � Milosevic (acting as his own lawyer) presented a picture of Serbs as victims rather than as instigators of the Balkan wars; a refrain that resonated well with Serbs at home.� � Milosevic skillfully recast himself as an outsider to the more powerful European power structure.� � He repeatedly called for the subpoenaing of NATO military and political leaders who he claimed “illegally” interfered in the Balkans and, by so doing, destabilized the region with a result� of widespread atrocities.� His self-representation in the court combined with his physical isolation and arguments of an unlawful trial created an image of a lone man standing against powerful foes.� His heart condition, repeatedly halting the proceedings, merely enhanced his image of victim beset by conspiratorial forces set on making him the scapegoat for crimes committed without his knowledge or not committed at all.� The Time article quotes then 19-year old Luka Raspopovic saying, “In principle I hate him, but I am rooting for him in the trial.� He's alone against the world.”

Milosevic used the trial to hammer his view that Serbia should never have been singled out for what happened.� � In so doing, he’s succeeded in deflecting blame from himself and from his supporters to the point that leftists like Michael Pareti, Noam Chomsky, and Jared Israel rally to his defense.� Today, many Serbs blame Croat nationalism, NATO and the United States (anything but Serb extremism) for initiating the breakup of Yugoslavia and the crime of ethnic-cleansing.� � The Time article puts it rather succinctly, “In cafés from Belgrade to Bujanovac, a kind of collective amnesia is setting in.”

The evidence against Milosevic

In 1999, Special FBI Agent Art Eberhart and his team of investigators went to Gjacova, Kosovo where they cataloged some of the hard evidence in the war crimes trial of Milosevic and members of his regime.� The story they and others tell is compelling that: the crimes took place, were carried out by Serb paramilitaries, were widespread and coordinated, were initiated at the highest level of Serb government, and had mixed support among Serb forces.� The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR), details how difficult it has been to get former and current Serb apparatchiks to testify against Milosevic.� Milosevic long maintained that, as President, he did not have control over the paramilitaries and other forces, making the testimony of henchmen and others who were privy to his actual directives and influence important to a solid conviction.� Although important to substantiate the degree of Milosevic's involvement, they are not necessary to demonstrate it was Milosevic who triggered the breakup of Yugoslavia or that he had it within his power to stop the pattern of mass deportation, murder, rape, and torture.

The charges and specifications against Milosevic are in two parts.� � The first part accuses him of directing, encouraging, or supporting the Serb military and paramilitaries in a campaign of terror to forcibly expel Albanians from Kosovo.� These operations are described as well-planned and coordinated, and resulted in nearly 800,000 civilians expelled, killed, murdered, abused, looted, and deprived of identification between January 1 and June 20, 1999.� The second part charges that from 1987 until late 2000, Slobodan Milosevic was the dominant political figure in Serbia and the SFRY/FRY, and that he acted alone and in joint criminal enterprises in the following ways: (a) exerted effective control over the elements of the Yugoslav People's Army ("JNA") and the Yugoslav Army ("VJ") participating in the planning, preparation, facilitation and execution of the forcible removal of the majority of non-Serbs, principally Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, from large areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina, (b) provided financial, logistical and political support to the Bosnian Serb Army ("VRS") participating … , (c) exercised substantial influence over and assisted the political leadership of the "Republika Srpska" in the planning, preparation, facilitation and execution of the take-over of municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the subsequent forcible removal of the majority of non-Serbs, (d) participated in the planning and preparation of the take-over of municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the subsequent forcible removal of the majority of non-Serbs and provided the financial, material and logistical support for it, (e) participated in the formation, financing, supply, support and direction of special forces of the Republic of Serbia Ministry of Internal Affairs ("MUP") participating … , (f) participated in providing financial, logistical and political support and direction to Serbian irregular forces or paramilitaries participating in the execution of the enterprise, (g) controlled, manipulated or otherwise utilized Serbian state-run media to spread exaggerated and false messages of ethnically-based attacks by Bosnian Muslims and Croats against Serbs intended to create an atmosphere of fear and hatred among Serbs living in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina which contributed to the forcible removal of the majority of non-Serbs.

Is it now academic?

Slobodan Milosevic may have escaped prosecution, but perhaps not from ultimate justice.� Those of us who believe in a just G-d know he still needs to answer to his maker and his victims.

More disturbing is the reaction of ordinary Serbs and others who defend his behavior.� � Serb apologists claim post-Milosevic Serbia is not post-Hitler Germany, and that the acts of the one cannot be likened to the other.� If not, why are the rationalizations and denials of Serbs so like those of Germans during the Nuremburg Trials?� I am reminded of the film (Judgment at Nuremburg) with Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, and Maximillian Schell.� There is a scene in which Schell (defending a group of Nazi ex-judges) is brow-beating witnesses who were victims of Nazi ‘justice.’� Schell is effectively reenacting the same miscarriage of justice for which the judges are on trial in order to demonstrate how “reasonable” it all was.� He shifts blame from the defendant/judges onto the witness/victims.� They are made the cause of their own misfortune because they stood in violation of laws over which they had no volition and were, in any case, atrocious.� Lancaster, as former chief-justice and now chief-defendant, rises to stop Schell’s repeating the kind of rationalization as led to a malignant justice to begin with.� Background characters in the film protest they never knew what was happening, or that the Americans are no better to judge, or that it is better to forget in order to go on living.� In Germany, no one knew and no one was to be held accountable.� This same pattern seems to be playing out in former Yugoslavia.� Perhaps, this was art and not perfect truth, but, if not, it is pretty close.�

At what point is the leader of a group not culpable for acts performed in his name, at his direction, or under his sponsorship?� � What, too, is the responsibility of a people to own up for their consent and support, even when they do not directly participate or ‘know’ the particulars of crimes committed on their behalf.� It is clear the Serb people are in some difficulty for their support of Milosevic.� Like the Germans of 55 years ago, it is less painful to deny than to admit.� But, healing cannot start until we admit, and denial guarantees we keep coming back to the same place until either it is burned out of us or we accomplish its full and awful potential.� The early 1960’s saw a brief resurgence of Nazi fanaticism in Germany when the communists built their wall.� The still strong denial and bitterness of the German people made a Nazi resurgence that much easier, and, it may be, only their relative weakness held that passion in check.� In 10 years, must we see a repeat in the Balkans until one group or another has eradicated all others?� Or perhaps some other people, seeing how well the Serbs have stood up to recrimination, will feel safe adopting the same justifications.