Nation & World Views From London: Lesson of Milosevic simple: Never again
Slobodan Milosevic will not be much mourned across the former Yugoslavia that he tore apart. His vision of Serb nationalism brought bloodshed from Croatia to Bosnia and then Kosovo, first through the tanks of the Yugoslav National Army, then through Belgrade-backed Serb paramilitaries and, finally, through the police squads of the Ministry of the Interior. In a few brutal years, more than a quarter-of-a-million people died in Milosevic's failed wars. But while Milosevic and his Bosnian Serb ciphers - Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic - must bear the bulk of the responsibility for the killing, an assessment of the career of Europe's last mass murderer poses uncomfortable questions for a world that let him prosecute his crimes. ...
But if Milosevic's death brings memories of a shameful period, it is also a powerful reminder of how, in belated response to political thuggery, a new doctrine of humanitarian intervention emerged. ... It was led at first by President Clinton over Bosnia, and again in Kosovo. The rationale behind those interventions was then invoked for the invasion of Iraq.
But the principle that a brutal regime does not have inalienable rights to do as it pleases within its borders, that the international community can bring an incumbent dictator to justice, is a good one. It is possible, as history has shown in the Balkans, to intervene justly in the affairs of a sovereign state. ... The international community will again need to confront charismatic leaders with inflammatory agendas. It will again be tempted to appease them. Milosevic's death is a timely reminder of the lesson burned into an older generation of Europeans scarred by genocide: never again.
-- The Observer, London, March 12