Why is the United States so cruel to Milosevic?

Former Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milosevic died in the cell of the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the 11th at the age of 64. However, Mi's coffin is difficult to close and the conclusion is difficult to determine. Due to the high profile of his death, an autopsy was required and Michael's body could not be laid to rest. There are even more opinions on his evaluation, and this debate will probably never end.

The period in power was full of turmoil.

During Milosevic's term in power, he experienced the most turbulent 10 years of conflict in the former Yugoslavia.

In 1991, Croatia and Slovenia declared independence from the Yugoslav Federation. Milosevic ordered the dispatch of tanks to the border areas between Serbia and Slovenia, and there was a small-scale conflict between the two sides.

In March 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina held a referendum on whether the country would be independent. The Muslims and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina were in favor of independence, but the Serbs boycotted the vote. After that, a three-and-a-half-year conflict broke out among the three ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina. war. During the war, each side had its own supporters, and the Milosevic government supported the Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In November 1995, under the auspices of the United States, Milosevic signed the Dayton Peace Agreement with Bosnia and Herzegovina with President Tudjman of the Republic of Croatia and President Izetbegovic of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Agreement, declaring the end of the Bosnian War.

In February 1998, the Federal Government of Yugoslavia accused Kosovo Albanian militants of launching multiple violent attacks, causing a large number of civilian and police casualties, and immediately dispatched troops into Kosovo.

The United States and its allies accused Yugoslavia of killing a large number of Albanian residents in Kosovo and creating a "humanitarian disaster", and reinstated some sanctions on Yugoslavia.

In 1999, on the grounds that the Yugoslavia government refused to implement the peace agreement led by Western countries, the U.S.-led NATO launched a 78-day period of violent air strikes against Yugoslavia. In June of the same year, Milosevic was forced to agree to a peace agreement that allowed the United Nations and NATO to take over Kosovo.

Resigned and stepped down and was arrested

In September 2000, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia held a presidential election, in which Milosevic lost to Voi, the leader of the Serbian Democratic Party (opposition party) Slav Kostunica later announced his resignation.

After losing the election, Milosevic continued to serve as chairman of the Socialist Party of Serbia, but gradually faded out of politics and lived in a villa in Dedinje, a suburb of Belgrade.

In January 2001, Milosevic was placed under house arrest at home, but was still closely protected by security personnel around him, and the police took no further action. At that time, Washington exerted tremendous pressure on the Kostunica government, demanding that Milosevic and other ICTY war criminals be handed over before March 31, otherwise economic assistance would be cancelled.

With the support of Zoran Djinjic, the then Serbian Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the police raided Milosevic's residence on March 30 in an attempt to arrest him. However, the security personnel around Milosevic resisted, a fierce gun battle broke out between the two sides, and the arrest operation stalled. Milosevic shouted at the time that he would "never go to prison alive."

In order to avoid a bloody conflict, late at night on March 31, Djindjic sent his confidant and negotiator Chedomir Yovanovic to "persuade" Milosevic to surrender. Under Yovanovic's persuasion, Milosevic finally agreed to take the initiative to go to the prison in Belgrade. But he put forward three conditions: to ensure a fair trial and not a political trial; the government promised that the arrest would not be linked to immediate extradition to The Hague; and to allow his wife to visit the prison every day.

In the early morning of April 1, a thrilling scene occurred just as the police car drove Milosevic out of the villa. Milosevic's daughter Maria, who was in a state of mental breakdown, pulled out a pistol and fired five shots at Yovanovitch's car. Although Yovanovitch was not hit, his car was. Two holes were drilled. Afterwards, Maria was sentenced to 8 months in prison, suspended for 2 years, by the Belgrade Second District Court for illegal possession of firearms, and shooting in protest when the police arrested Milosevic, destroying public security.

Court trial prevails

Shortly after Milosevic was arrested, the Yugoslav Parliament passed the law on cooperation with the United Nations International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague submitted by the Yugoslav government.

According to this law, any war criminal suspect wanted by The Hague Tribunal before the passage of this law will be extradited to the Tribunal as long as he is found on the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, regardless of which country he is a citizen of.

Long before the end of the Kosovo War, the United Nations International Tribunal for War Crimes for the Former Yugoslavia, established in May 1993 in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, brought charges against Milosevic and a number of senior Yugoslavia officials. As a result, Milosevic was extradited by the Serbian authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 28, 2001.

The trial kicked off in February 2002, and the entire trial process lasted more than four years. It was not until Michael's death that the trial came to an end. During this period, the court changed judges many times, and the first presiding judge, British Richard May, also died of illness.

The International Court of Justice brought 66 charges against Milosevic, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, but Milosevic dismissed it and refused to recognize the legitimacy of the court. He accused the ICTY of being "just a part of NATO's war strategy... This court is not an international organization at all. It is an institution subordinate to NATO and has no independence."

Milosevic, who was a lawyer by training, not only refused to be assigned a defense lawyer by the court, but also defended himself personally. He was quick-thinking and eloquent in court debates, and he often quoted from other sources, from the two world wars to the Kosovo War at the end of the last century, from former British Prime Minister Churchill to former U.S. President Clinton, which made the presiding judge also feel Overwhelming.

Milosevic also sued Western countries in court. He said it was not him who should be punished, but those Western countries that divided and disintegrated Yugoslavia.

With the death of Milosevic, this marathon trial also came to an abrupt end. (