STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [Courtesy of a disgusting paper, with despicable editors parading as progressive...] No place to hide Thus do despots fall. Two years ago, Slobodan Milosevic was undisputed master of Yugoslavia. A notorious Balkan nationalist, he seduced his people with dreams of a Greater Serbia, delivered nothing but ethnic hatred, war, disintegration, sanctions and ruin, yet remained in power. He seemed untouchable. Not so today. Milosevic has been replaced by a reformist democrat, President Vojislav Kostunica. He was ousted in a remarkable popular uprising last October. On April 1 Milosevic was arrested by fellow Serbs, charged with corruption, jailed, served with a warrant to face United Nations accusations of crimes against humanity, and now is fighting extradition to the U.N. war crimes tribunal at The Hague. After more than a decade of self-imposed isolation, Serbia is rejoining the family of nations. Milosevic's fate is a powerful caution to other political leaders who may imagine themselves to be above the rule of law. His comfortable world changed in May, 1999 when a Canadian jurist serving as U.N. chief war crimes prosecutor, Madam Justice Louise Arbour, made legal history by issuing the indictment against him and his cronies for crimes in Kosovo, where thousands of ethnic Albanians were killed by Serb forces and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes. That made him the first political leader in office to be so charged. At the time, Milosevic sneered that the court would never touch him, claiming its reach did not extend to Serbia. How wrong he was. The law proved more powerful than his bluster. Arbour's indictment, no less than the North Atlantic Treaty Organization air campaign to prevent Milosevic's army from rampaging through Kosovo, shattered his credibility with Serbs and ultimately his regime. Today, a broken man, Milosevic sits in a Belgrade prison fighting extradition, pitying himself and threatening suicide. "Yugoslavia's international obligation as a U.N. member state is to co-operate with The Hague tribunal," said Nebojsa Covic, a Kostunica ally. "We must no longer allow ourselves to be Milosevic's hostages.'' The Kostunica government deserves credit for adopting a cabinet decree on Saturday promising to send Milosevic to The Hague for trial for his role in Balkan campaigns of ``ethnic cleansing'' and terror that killed 250,000 or more. The decree is meant to override the Yugoslav parliament's refusal to change the law prohibiting such extradition. Parliament is still thick with holdover Milosevic cronies. Judges and prosecutors must now co-operate fully with The Hague, which yesterday requested Milosevic's extradition. Cabinet's decree recognizes that international law takes precedence over national law in war crimes cases. This gesture took political courage, because many Serbs still oppose Milosevic's extradition, though few want him back in office. It should spur the United States, Canada and other countries to pledge $1.5 billion or more in aid to Yugoslavia, to begin rebuilding its war- and sanctions-shattered economy. A donors' conference will be held in Brussels this coming weekend. Belgrade has earned some help. The sooner democratic Yugoslavia can regain its feet, and rejoin the European community of nations, the better. ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
