Global Policy Forum

By Steven Erlanger

The arrest of Slobodan Milosevic early today closes one cycle of Balkan history and opens, only now, the possibility of a considered debate in Serbia about his role in the wars that devastated the former Yugoslavia and horrified the world.

Having threatened to kill himself and his family rather than go to prison, Mr. Milosevic went comparatively quietly in the end, his surrender broken only by a few gunshots fired wildly by his anguished daughter, Marija. For Mr. Milosevic, who is just 59, the future stretches out as a series of courtrooms and jail cells.

Today the man who once called himself "the Ayatollah Khomeini of Serbia" found himself jailed and called up before a judge investigating a series of crimes, initially financial, that will very likely include more serious charges like conspiracy to murder political opponents. And, in time, at the end of any vista is Mr. Milosevic's likely transfer to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, to face charges over his role in the 1999 Kosovo war, with further indictments on Bosnia and Croatia expected to follow. When and if that happens may depend on constitutional changes in Yugoslavia as well as continued pressure from the United States and other nations, but many here are already considering his transfer an inevitability despite the opposition of Mr. Milosevic's successor, Vojislav Kostunica.

Mr. Milosevic is widely considered to be the main protagonist behind the wars that broke apart Yugoslavia in the 1990's infighting between Serbs, Croats and Muslims that left some 200,000 people dead. The Serbs who once followed him to battle and who voted against him in October reacted to his arrest with pleasure, indifference or disgust — but the rallies of supporters that the new government feared did not materialize. Even Mr. Milosevic's Serbian Socialist Party worked to persuade him to surrender after armed guards at his residence thwarted two arrest attempts at the start of the weekend, the party understanding that it has a future only with Mr. Milosevic gone.

His political career is over. But "the great debate about Milosevic in Serbia, among Serbs, is only about to begin," said Aleksa Djilas, a historian who has studied his career. "This debate will go on for a very long time." He added that "those who think of him as just an obstacle to the future have too rosy an idea of the future," especially in the economy. "People won't simply blame him for everything," Mr. Djilas said. "I think chances are that in a year people will blame him less than now." Foreign aid will come slowly, he said, the economy will continue to falter in the midst of a global slowdown, and anti-Western sentiment may increase.

Predrag Simic, an adviser to President Kostunica, who defeated Mr. Milosevic in an election last fall, said: "I forsee witch hunts to come, and Milosevic will be loudest in asking for a witch hunt. But that's normal. This country is undergoing a painful transformation. With his arrest, an important part of our political process from now on will be how to explain to our own people what happened over the Milosevic years." Mr. Milosevic, who is known for long periods of depression and indecision, pleaded innocent to all charges against him today and is expected by those who know him to bounce back and conduct a vigorous defense of himself, his policies and his government. He is expected to argue that he stole nothing for himself and did what he could to keep the country together and running in the face of international sanctions and hostility that were aimed not merely at him but at all Serbs.

His main theme came out in his last published interview, in the newspaper Danas, when he said, "I always considered myself to be an ordinary person, whom, at one point in life, historical circumstances placed in a position to devote his whole life to the nation that had everything in jeopardy." Mr. Milosevic is seen as a fighter with good tactical skills who will try to demolish what is so far a largely circumstantial case against him. "The people putting him on trial," Mr. Djilas said, "are themselves not above reproach, and those who respect the rule of law may not come out the winners."

A public trial even on domestic charges is likely to provide considerable room for embarrassment to many senior officials and politicians, including a number of new democrats who supported or flirted with Mr. Milosevic and Serbian nationalism in the past, like Vuk Draskovic of the Serbian Renewal Movement and Zoran Djindjic, the current Serbian prime minister. Mr. Kostunica also supported the right of the Bosnian Serbs to independence, but kept his distance from Mr. Milosevic or any paramilitary organization.

A trial in The Hague would most likely implicate or severely embarrass senior and former Yugoslav police and army commanders, like Momcilo Perisic, Mr. Milosevic's former chief of staff and now a Serbian deputy prime minister.

Mr. Milosevic could also have much to say, his aides have suggested, about key figures in the military of other states of the former Yugoslavia — let alone current allies of the West like Milo Djukanovic, the president of Montenegro, and Agim Ceku, a former Croatian general who runs the Kosovo Protection Corps, the civilian face of the supposedly dismantled Kosovo Liberation Army. The key roles of prominent Serbian intellectuals, journalists and institutions, like the Serbian Academy of Sciences and the Serbian Orthodox Church, in fanning Serbian nationalism may come under new scrutiny. Mr. Milosevic, with longstanding contacts with senior Western politicians and diplomats, is thought likely to be able to embarrass them, too. "We had both liberal and nationalist options, and to explain why the nationalist, crypto-fascist one prevailed is complicated," Mr. Simic said. "Milosevic took advantage of upheaval and our state of mind, like a rider on a wave. But what happened in Yugoslavia was made possible by the West's reaction to the crisis."

Mr. Milosevic's career is over, Mr. Simic said. "But the failure to deliver on their promises could put the reformers in a precarious situation, and help those who would cry that Milosevic was right, that reforms bring nothing, that he defended Serbian interests." After the arrest, he said, "we now need strong, sensible support in Washington." Slobodan Spremo, a 33-year-old physics professor buying juice at Belgrade's flea market today, said Mr. Milosevic was never a nationalist, but simply manipulated public opinion to hold on to power. "He and his wife are egomaniacs, and they used people's national feelings," he said. "Yugoslavia would have collapsed without Milosevic, but differently, and we wouldn't have been satanized in the same way."

Ivan Radovanovic, a Serbian journalist and author, said the arrest of Mr. Milosevic, like the death of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, left him with a sense of nausea. "Whenever a dictator gets his punishment, you feel a little sick, because for years and years he was on top and we have some responsibility for that, too," he said. "For years we were in a kind of war with the world and with ourselves," Mr. Radovanovic said. "And now something is over, we don't know exactly what, but it may allow us a certain peace, I think. And it will help define a path to our future, because the West is where we belong."

Mr. Djilas, who is critical of the Hague tribunal as an essentially political court, also sees important lessons for international behavior that could come out of a war-crimes trial of Mr. Milosevic. "Some kind of new international order is being constructed, intentionally or not," Mr. Djilas said. "And there will be a blessing in disguise through his trial. Something will crystallize: what kinds of nationalism are justified or not, what kinds of intervention are justified or not, how much are great powers entitled to respond, and how. It will not be a sterile exercise."