The End Of Milosevic

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All the while, Milosevic remained out of sight, whereabouts unknown. His suburban palace looked eerily empty as it stood guarded by a single soldier. Rumors flew that the boss was holed up in a bunker in eastern Serbia or already on a cargo plane to Belarus. In fact, he was locked away, as ever, in his private parallel universe, brooding on his next move, no doubt egged on to defiance by his uncompromising wife Mira. Serbs were so used to his prodigious talent for survival that they feared he still had one more trick up his sleeve. From his balcony overlooking the delirious crowd, Kostunica cried, "A great and beautiful Serbia has risen up just so Slobodan Milosevic will leave!" But to make sure, he urged the people to stay in the streets all night just in case the deposed strongman tried to call out the army.

It turned out to be too late for that. The opposition had enlisted former chief of staff Momcilo Perisic, fired by Milosevic two years ago, to cajole reluctant generals into accepting Kostunica as President. And Milosevic lost his last hope Friday morning when Moscow, after days of indecision, dispatched Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to Belgrade to congratulate Kostunica.

Russia seemed hopelessly behind the curve. Despite a blizzard of phone calls from Western leaders asking Russia to come out in support of the opposition's electoral win, the government of Vladimir Putin dithered. The Russian inclination was to side with the observance of prevailing law, even if these laws were written to support a strongman or being manipulated to keep one in power. Moscow fervently wished to retain its influence with its dear Slavic brother Slobodan. And it was convinced the whole business was a NATO plot to subjugate Yugoslavia. So Moscow basically did nothing until faced with a Serb fait accompli. Only when Milosevic was clearly on his way out did Moscow pile on.

After his well-photographed chat with Kostunica, Ivanov spent a very private hour with Milosevic. To tell him what? Assurances that no one would haul him to the Hague? We know for sure what Milosevic told him: I may be down, but I'm not out. The wily old manipulator said it again to the Serbs, vowing to lie low only for a while. He would be back, ready to help his party "gain force" and take up a "prominent" role in politics again.

Washington recoiled, saying, "This is something we cannot support." Opposition leader Zarko Korac was aghast: "Do they want such a man despised by the whole country as head of their party?" Inside Yugoslavia and out, nearly everyone is worried that democracy will be imperiled as long as Milosevic remains. "I don't trust a single word of Milosevic," said opposition spokesman Djindjic, warning that he would seek "to stab the nation in the back."

But Slobodan Milosevic literally has nowhere else to go in a world that is loath to offer safe haven to indicted war criminals (not even Belarus wanted the grief). He has always lived in a kind of house arrest, deliberately divorcing himself from the society around him. Now it will just be more involuntary. A thirst for revenge goes deep in the Balkans. Milosevic's son Marko, father of the grandson Slobodan hopes to "visit" and whose wealth makes him a target, didn't wait around to test the new government's tolerance; on Saturday he packed himself and his family aboard a plane to Moscow.