A step back in the Balkans

IS IT AT all possible for multi-ethnic countries, torn apart by the destructive force of hatred and vengeance, to be put back together? The one indisputable lesson from the experiences of the Balkans region in the heart of Europe from 600 years of divisive, bloody history is that achieving such reunification is a near- impossible dream. A region that has suffered the ravages of history more than most others is now witness to one more questionable act by the Western nations, led by the U.S. By forcing Yugoslavia, or what is left of it, to surrender one of its leaders, Mr. Slobodan Milosevic, whatever his crime, the West has just reiterated that it refuses to learn any lesson from Balkan history. Its action in linking grant of desperately needed, life sustaining economic aid to the handing over of the leader will be seen by large sections of the Serbs as an act of humiliation. It has for now succeeded in laying its hands on the Serb leader but runs the risk of turning a moment of singular triumph into ultimate defeat. By giving a handle and a rallying point to the recently defeated hardliners in Serbia, the West may be setting the region back on the much-trodden path of revenge and destruction. The seeds of bitterness and hate are being sown again. There certainly is no cause for celebration for the West that one of the Balkans' most vicious rulers has been brought before an international tribunal to face justice.

The arrest of Mr. Milosevic in April was widely hailed as the victory of forces of freedom and moderation in Yugoslavia, now reduced to Serbia and Montenegro thanks in the main to the Nazi- style ethnic cleansing wars launched by him in Croatia and Bosnia and finally Kosovo. In a short span of three years, he inflicted the worst suffering on Kosovo as the Serbs launched a campaign of terror and mass deportation. Before the U.S. and European nations could agree on intervention and the launch of a controversial bombing campaign to stop the reprehensive ethnic cleansing, half the population had been displaced and a hundred thousand killed as the multi-ethnic Yugoslavia that Marshal Tito stitched together against great odds at the end of World War II lay in shambles. The military campaign and a sanctions regime forced Mr. Milosevic to seek a mandate to govern and the man whose authority was once considered beyond question found himself rejected. Under a democratic regime, and as more and more evidence of his crimes against humanity were unearthed, there was hope that he would be tried in his country by his own people who had shown extraordinary courage in voting him out in the first opportunity they got and followed it up by thwarting his attempts to subvert the election verdict to retain power.

In this positive setting comes the decision to hand Mr. Milosevic over to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Ironically, Washington's insistence on this handover and linking it to grant of financial assistance can prove counter-productive, provoking a wave of sympathy for nationalist hardliners in Serbia. Already, the moderate President has spoken out openly against the extradition. If the rejection of Mr. Milosevic in the elections was a triumph of democracy and reason and an affirmation that the people had had enough of ethnic wars and self-inflicted sufferings, the forced deportation of the former ruler and undoubted hero is a slap in the face for the nation. Not just the Serbs and their allies in Russia but many in the rest of the world will have cause to wonder also at the apparent double standards that attend treatment of such ``criminals''. Cold War friends and allies like Chile's Pinochet have been treated with kid gloves. The latest beneficiary is the former Peruvian President, Mr. Fujimori, who is wanted in his country and has sought and received the sanctuary of Japan, the land of his ancestors.

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