[ALBSA-Info] Victims greet fall of 'Balkan Butcher' with relief

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Victims greet fall of 'Balkan Butcher' with relief

By Maja Zuvela

  
SARAJEVO, April 1 (Reuters) - People across former Yugoslavia expressed 
relief on Sunday at the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic, whom they blame for 
wars that left tens of thousands of their kinfolk dead and the lives of 
countless more ruined. 

"There is no justice that can satisfy a mother who has lost her child," said 
Munira Subasic, who lost 22 family members when Bosnian Serbs murdered 
several thousand Muslims they captured after the Srebrenica enclave fell to 
their forces in 1995. 

"But I am really happy that Milosevic has finally been arrested," she said. 

Disbelief and discontent mingled with satisfaction that the man reviled as 
"The Butcher of the Balkans" might finally face judgement for directing the 
killing that marked old socialist Yugoslavia's protracted and bloody 
break-up. 

A middle-aged couple in the Croatian capital Zagreb said, "Is this an April 
Fool's joke," and walked on laughing. 

"I don't believe he was arrested. They've just put him somewhere safe so as 
not to send him to The Hague," said Jahir Rexhepi, 43, in the Kosovo capital 
Pristina. 

His views reflected widespread scepticism in the breakaway regions of old 
Yugoslavia that Serbia's reformist government will ever send Milosevic to The 
Hague to stand trial on charges of crimes against humanity at the United 
Nations tribunal. 

The former Yugoslav president was finally arrested early on Sunday on charges 
of corruption and abuse of office after a tense stand-off outside his luxury 
Belgrade villa. The Serbian authorities say they do not intend to extradite 
him. 

"I am glad that the process has finally kicked off, but Milosevic, as the 
main orchestrator of all the Balkan wars, as well as all his proteges, have 
to end up in The Hague," said Zineta Mujic, who lost her son in the 
Srebrenica massacre. 

ARREST A CHANGE OF DIRECTION 

Political figures in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, whose struggles from 1991 
to 1995 for independence from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia left more than 
200,000 dead, repeated that Milosevic must face no other fate than 
international justice. 

"We hope today's action is only the first phase in bringing to justice those 
responsible for the immeasurable suffering and destruction carried out in the 
name of Greater Serbia in the last decade," said Croatian Foreign Minister 
Tomina Picula. 

Slovenian President Milan Kucan said the arrest was an important break with 
the expansionist nationalism that was the hallmark of Serb policy throughout 
the 1990s. 

"I believe the new democratic political and legal authorities in Serbia will 
manage to design politics that will be a clear alternative to the concept of 
Greater Serbia that was (pursued) ruthlessly by the Milosevic regime," said 
Kucan. 

The arrest of Milosevic was particularly piquant in Kosovo, where divisions 
between ethnic Albanians and Serbs were the springboard that brought the 
ex-communist banker to power in 1987 and were to prove the seeds of his 
downfall. 

Milosevic exploited Serb resentment at alleged mistreatment in Kosovo to rise 
to power amid nationalist fervour. 

But his attempts to crack down on Albanian discontent provoked armed 
rebellion in the province in 1998 and his subsequent repression brought a war 
crimes indictment and NATO military intervention that loosened his grip on 
power. 

"Better late than never. It was about time they arrested him after all those 
crimes he committed," said Zarife Gashe, 22. 

"Of course we are happy. We lost everything we had because of him. They 
should have done it earlier, though," said Shukrie Blacaku, 42, another 
ethnic Albanian refugee, whose home was destroyed by Serb forces during the 
1998-1999 conflict.