Long Walk To Justice

In

the end, he went quietly. A prison warden swung open the door to his 36-sq.-ft. cell and told him it was time to go. "Where?" Slobodan Milosevic asked softly. "The Hague," said the warden. Milosevic nodded, changed from his sweatsuit to an open-necked shirt, and joined his armed escort. They made their way through the central prison's corridors toward a small rear door, where a white-and-blue police van was waiting. He was whisked to a helicopter pad outside Belgrade and met by agents from the United Nations war-crimes tribunal. Six and a half hours later, the man whose policies had ignited a decade of brutal, fratricidal Balkan wars was in the Netherlands, where he will stand trial.

Once again, June 28--the feast of St. Vitus in the Christian Orthodox calendar--had written itself into the history of the Balkans. On St. Vitus day in 1389, Serbs were defeated by the Turks at the battle of Kosovo Polje, the event that launched Serbian claims to eternal victimhood. On the same day in 1914, Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip killed Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo, plunging Europe into World War I. And on the same day in 1989, Milosevic--speaking at Kosovo Polje--launched his career as the defender of Serbian nationalism. Twelve years later, he finds himself imprisoned while his country is broken, indebted and marred by a moral taint that will take years to undo.

This year, however, the symbolism of the day mattered less than cold, hard reality. Serbia is bankrupt, with an unemployment rate of 50% and inflation running at an annual rate of more than 110%. In the past few months, government ministers had started explaining to Serbs how much they needed foreign aid--and that they wouldn't get it unless they surrendered Milosevic. On June 29, a meeting of international donors was due to be held in Brussels. The Bush Administration had refused to attend unless the government in Belgrade demonstrated that it intended to hand Milosevic over to the court.

And so it did. In midweek, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic gave U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell the assurances the American was seeking. Djindjic kept his word, despite a decision by a court, packed with Milosevic supporters, to overturn the order that would send him into exile. Vojislav Kostunica, Milosevic's successor as President of Yugoslavia, considered the handover "both illegal and unconstitutional," and the Prime Minister of the Yugoslav Federation, a comparatively powerless figure, resigned. But a majority of the ruling coalition supported sending Milosevic to the Hague, and Kostunica backed away from a threat to break up the government. Milosevic will face charges in an international court for crimes committed while in office--only nine months after he stepped down. "In the annals of international justice," said David Scheffer, former U.S. ambassador-at-large for war-crimes issues, "this is warp speed."

Reaction in Belgrade was muted. A rally hastily organized by Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia drew just 3,000 diehards. Nationalist anthems blared from loudspeakers, but the protesters soon drifted away. "Those were the days," said Petar Gracanin, a Milosevic crony who was once Yugoslavia's Defense Minister, sounding almost wistful. Close by, young Serbs ignored the fuss. "Let them have their protest," said Jelena Savic, 19, a law student, buying ice cream. "It's their last one. Thank God it's over."

Unlike the hundreds of thousands who died in the Balkan wars, Milosevic can expect a fair trial. This week he is expected to plead not guilty to charges ranging from crimes against humanity to violations of the laws or customs of war. Specifically, prosecutors intend to link him through the chain of command to atrocities committed in Kosovo in 1999, including the murder of more than 600 civilians by Serbian security forces. Prosecutors are also looking to expand the charges to cover other crimes, including ones committed from 1991 to 1995, during the Croatian and Bosnian wars. Though U.N. lawyers will not discuss details of the indictment and the chain of command is more difficult to establish in Bosnia, charges could include Milosevic's complicity in the 1995 massacre of more than 7,000 Muslims in Srebrenica. His lawyers dismiss the case as a form of victors' justice. "The charges are political, so his defense will be political," says a lawyer, Branimir Gugl.

Six months ago, none of this seemed possible. Shortly after taking office, Kostunica said that transferring Milosevic was not "a priority" and that, in any event, the court in the Hague was biased against Serbs. Most Serbs seemed to share that view, believing if Milosevic was tried anywhere, it should be in Belgrade, for corruption. But U.S. and European officials consistently linked their financial aid to cooperation with the court. And over the past two months, the Interior Ministry has revealed the existence of three mass graves filled with victims of the Kosovo war. The latest, uncovered the day Milosevic was arrested, contained the bodies of nine children. For Serbs, who had been sheltered from reports of such atrocities, the news hit home. "I don't care if he stole money, and I don't care if he was abusing power," said Vojin Savic, a taxi driver in Belgrade. "He killed innocent people, and he should be tried for that."