In death as in life, former Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic was contemptuous of the world. The heart attack that claimed his life while being tried for war crimes may have kept a tribunal from declaring him guilty, but there was no doubt about the eventual outcome. Mr. Milosevic was wrong -- and on the wrong side of history. His victims should have some comfort knowing that he did not escape justice.
While some will no doubt claim that Milosevic was a martyr for the Serb nation, he was in fact its destroyer. Until the 1990s, Yugoslavia was a model of ethnic harmony, an example of socialist moderation and a bridge between East and West during the Cold War. After taking power in the 1980s, Milosevic oversaw the dismantling of Yugoslavia, the destruction of its remnants in war and the ruin of that image. It was all done in the name of protecting "the Serbian nation."
His country's slide began June 28, 1989, when Milosevic went to the province of Kosovo and told the Serbs who gathered to hear him that the Serb nation's defeat 600 years before at that spot would never be replicated. The nationalism unleashed that day resonated among Serbs living in parts of Yugoslavia dominated by other ethnic groups. They took up arms against various provincial governments of Yugoslavia, fearful that their state would break up and they would find themselves citizens of another country. They fought to keep their homes within "Greater Serbia," even if it meant cleansing the territory of all other native inhabitants. The first battles were fought in what is now Croatia and then the bloody, brutal fighting spread to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Eventually, NATO intervention forced a settlement on the combatants.