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Milosevic arrest: Balkans reaction


Milosevic's arrest was front page news in Croatia on Monday

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Newspapers which were formally mouthpieces for Slobodan Milosevic covered his arrest in dramatic detail.

"The dictator has turned himself in" Vecernje Novosti, a Yugoslav daily in the past tightly controlled by the Milosevic government, said.

The independent daily Danas said Milosevic was housed on the Belgrade jail's first floor with party comrades arrested before him. The paper asks "Now What?"

Some civilians who suffered under Milosevic's rule greeted his arrest with rejoicing and reflections on hardships endured.

"We were waiting eagerly for this to happen," Zorica Vitic, a 34-year old university lecturer of medieval history, said in Belgrade. "Milosevic should now stay behind bars for as long as possible."

"He should be lynched," said Hajrullah Dalipi, an ethnic Albanian in the province of Kosovo. "He was and is the personification of the devil, and as such, he should burn in hell and not stay in prison."

Many Serbs would prefer to see Milosevic tried in Yugoslavia, reluctant to have him extradited for trial to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands because the court is perceived as anti-Serb and politically biased.

However, many Croats, Muslims, ethnic Albanians and Slovenes disagree. "Only if he answers for the war comes in The Hague can he, and with him all Serbs, begin to become aware of what some of them under his command did to us," said Mato Vidakovic in Zagreb, the Croatian capital.

Vidakovic said he lost nine family members to the war in Croatia when his republic's ethnic Serbs, backed by the Yugoslav army, seized control of his hometown, Vukovar, in 1991.

"If Serbs do not fully realise what Milosevic's warmongering policy has done, then a new Milosevic may appear in 10 to 15 years," he said.

Both the Croatian and Slovenian presidents also called for Milosevic to be tried for war crimes.

Bosnian Muslims were stunned that Milosevic had finally been arrested. "Is this an April Fools' joke?" asked Sakiba Rovcanin, a 58-year old retiree, who had hoped to hear this news for 10 years.

In Bosnia, Milosevic is widely blamed for fuelling the 1992 war that kept the capital of Sarajevo besieged for three years in Europe's bloodiest violence since World War II. Up to 200,000 people are believed killed or remain missing from the conflict.

Meanwhile, Milo Djukanovic, president of Montenegro, the small republic in the Yugoslav Federation, welcomed Milosevic's arrest.

He pressed authorities in Belgrade to ensure the former president's trial was proper and open to the public.

The trial would have a strong political element, he said, and therefore, "I believe authorities in Serbia have a huge responsibility to ensure the trial be carried out in a correct manner, with transparency and public access."

Milosevic lost elections last October and was forced to step down by street protests. His arrest on Sunday came after intense pressure from abroad and accusations of corruption at home.

"At the end of the day, no court in the country or even the U.N. Hague Tribunal will be able to punish Milosevic enough for all the damage he has done to this country during his reign in power," said the Yugoslav daily newspaper Danas, which was repeatedly fined in the Milosevic era.