The show is over for Milosevic

Mr. Milosevic's last stand too was predictable - sabre-rattling and a show of strength which ended in humiliation and unconditional capitulation, says Vaiju Naravane.

IT WAS a small envelope containing a three-page note that led to the dramatic arrest last weekend of the former Yugoslav President, Mr. Slobodan Milosevic. It is unclear as to whose signature was appended at the bottom of the page. It has been strongly hinted in Belgrade that the letter, handed over to Yugoslavia's new President, Mr. Vojislav Kostunica, was signed by ``W'' himself.

The letter was personally handed over to Mr. Kostunica by the U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Mr. William D. Montgomery. An unequivocal ultimatum, the letter told Mr. Kostunica in no uncertain terms that failure to imprison Mr. Milosevic by March 31 would mean kissing good-bye to the first half of a $100- million development aid package from the U.S. Government, vital to jump-start the jammed Yugoslav economy.

Sources in Belgrade say that the U.S. President, Mr. George Bush, ``ordered'' Mr. Kostunica to ``continue to cooperate'' with the International Criminal Tribunal on The Former Yugoslavia (ICTFY) and to ''ensure`` that Mr. Milosevic is brought to ''a speedy trial`` in the international court.

The U.S. dikat could not have been more crudely put. The arrest and transfer to prison had to take place by March 31. If not, the U.S. Congress would vote against the $50 million aid package to Belgrade for this year. More importantly, the U.S. would oppose any World Bank or International Monetary fund credits to the former Yugoslavia.

Neither Mr. Kostunica nor the Prime Minister, Mr. Zoran Djindjic, had much choice in the matter. However, the country's new leaders did not have much to lose beyond a bit of nationalistic pride. And even that has become a rare commodity in Yugoslavia today. Opinion polls indicate that Yugoslavs no longer care about what happens to the ''Butcher of the Balkans``.

Over 70 per cent of those questioned say they want his arrest. ''All we want is to be like ordinary citizens. ``We have realised that heroism is not for us. We want bread and meat in our stomachs, shoes on our feet, education for our children and a decent, peaceful lifestyle. We are tired of war. We have been humiliated so much already. Much of that was caused by Mr. Milosevic. Now let him pay the price for his folly,'' said Ms. Braka Stepanovic, a journalist, explaining the fairly straightforward way in which the Milosevic arrest was carried out. ``The former President did try to make a stand, did try to mobilise the population but he managed to get only a couple of hundred up-country bumpkins. Belgrade remained supremely unmoved. That is when he decided to throw in the towel and give himself up,'' she says.

Mr. Milosevic's last stand too was predictable - sabre-rattling and a show of strength which ended in humiliation and unconditional capitulation. During the preceding decade, he had unerringly and consistently played out the same scenario with his country, losing huge swathes of territory, sowing seeds of hatred, extremism and discord, reducing a once-proud people to political and economic dwarfdom.

``Milosevic's arrest revealed the man's weakness and inconsistencies. He started out defiantly, his heavily armed guards firing back at the special police units sent to arrest him. Towards the end he was a pathetic figure, threatening to blow up his own family, assassinate his wife and daughter. That was a coward's last stand. And the Yugoslav people finally saw him for what he really is, a pathetic, hollow, insecure little man, all threat and bluster but without any real courage, not even the courage to take his own life. We discovered a veritable ammunition depot in his house in Dedjine - rocket launchers, mortars, enough arms and ammunition to keep a little army going for several month,'' says the special services officer, Mr. Jajco Stepic.

Mr. Slobodan Milosevic stands accused of crimes against humanity for the excesses committed in Kosovo by the Yugoslav army and paramilitary forces. NATO and western leaders are asking that he be extradited to the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague. For the time being he has been charged with corruption and fraud, for stealing from the Yugoslav people and the state. It is unclear how long Yugoslav leaders will be able to resist international pressure to hand him over to the chief war crimes prosecutor.

The U.S. letter did not set down any cut-off date by which Mr. Milosevic should be handed over to the international court, stipulating simply that ``the Yugoslav Government should finally cooperate with the ICTFY on the question of Mr. Milosevic's arrest''. Washington is now likely to pressure Belgrade to expel other wanted Bosnian Serb war criminals like General Ratko Mladic or Radovan Karazdic who have found safe havens in Serbia.

Following the death of the dictatorial Franzo Tudjman and the establishment of a democratically-elected Government in Croatia, the authorities there have begun cooperating with the international court. For the first time Croatia appears determined to truly examine the horrors committed in the name of nationalism and the misplaced ideal of ``Greater Croatia.''

With the arrest of Mr. Milosevic on the demands of the U.S., the capitulation of Serbia is now complete. Many Yugoslavs feel they have to ``fall in line'' like the other Balkan states and like the rest of ``pacified and globalised'' former eastern Europe.

``What Serbia needs is an absence of aggression, of hostility, of war. We must set up a national truth and reconciliation commission and look at what we have done to ourselves, to others these past ten years. I think we have lost Kosovo and we must come to terms with that,'' says Dragan Predrag, a journalist.

But people like Ljubisa Ristic, a noted theatre director, an advocate of a certain idea of Serbia and a die-hard supporter of the Milosevics looks at the tragedy of the former Yugoslavia and the present state of Serbia as ``the inevitable result of a process of neo-colonisation.'' For him this only a passing phase. ``They wanted to destroy the Balkans. They have done it. Serbia has been humbled. The Balkans has been decimated. The West has won again. But my people shall rise up. We have done so in the past, again and again. We are not the types to accept humiliation for long.''

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