milosevic dead

slobodan milosevic, the "butcher of the balkans" is dead, having passed away in his jail cell, apparently of natural causes. this was a man who, as president of serbia, sent tanks into slovenian borders to crush the independence hopes of croatia and slovenia, killing over ten thousand people. three months later when bosnia-herzegovenia declared its independence, he backed a bosnian serb rebellion that ended up with over 200,000 people dead by the time the dayton peace accord was reached in 1995. he then famously tried to crush an ethnic albanian uprising in kosovo, which resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of albanians. the kosovo war involved systematic rape campaigns, the results of which the local population, especially the women, is still dealing with today. as a result of all this, he had plunged serbia into complete and utter economic chaos, where serbs are no longer allowed to travel to the rest of europe, their currency isn't recognized, and now they are forever the pariah of europe.

he was facing trial at the hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity, which were later broadened to 66 counts of genocide. to put things into perspective, there have only been three official instances in recent history where genocide had occured: 1) the 1915 genocide of 1.5 million armenians. 2) the holocaust. 3) the 1994 genocide of 800,000 people in rwanda.

death by natural causes is a denial of justice to his victims and the rest of the world. he was supposed to stand trial in this world, to face up to the devastation he has caused, and now, he won't ever have to do that.

there have been some monumental failures in the cause for human rights in the last ten to fifteen years. somolia and rwanda to name a couple. this time was supposed to be different. milosevic was the first sitting head of state to be indicted on war crimes. his case was supposed to be an example; a true historical record that showed the world that the cause for human rights was not a fruitless one. with the united states currently shunning anything even remotely dealing with international law, as well as committing its own human rights violations, and with saddam's trial becoming more and more like a circus every day, milosevic's trial took on greater importance. but alas, it wasn't meant to be. hopefully he is in some place very uncomfortable right now.