A tyrant's comeuppance

If patriotism is indeed the last refuge of the scoundrel, as Samuel Johnson said so famously, then the handcuffed figure of Slobodan Milosevic, en route to his jail cell in the Hague, is living proof of its truth. The former Yugoslav president used the worst excesses of nationalism to justify a thuggish and corrupt rule which diminished his country both physically and morally, and mainly brought disaster to the Balkans.

Now he faces an international tribunal which will try him for assorted crimes against humanity, including mass murder and displacing civilian populations in Kosovo. Other charges alleging atrocities elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia, where his policies brought death to so many thousands, likely will be filed later.

The Milosevic trial will test the world's ability to bring to justice those who stand accused of egregious crimes against their own and neighboring peoples. And it will be the first time that a former head of government has stood in the dock before such a tribunal.

The Milosevic arrest and deportation is to be welcomed. It will not only try someone who knowingly imposed a murderous and criminal regime on a misguided public (though many citizens chose to rise above moral qualms for the sake of personal gain), it will also serve as a warning to others. Any political leaders who use the emotional appeal of fervent nationalism to mask thuggish and corrupt rule should take note; no regime, however dictatorial, can last forever and their turn could be next.

Others already are facing justice for their sins. General Augusto Pinochet of Chile is enmeshed in a legal proceeding prompted by his harsh rule. Likewise, Indonesia's former president Suharto faces corruption charges though both may evade prosecution due to age and infirmity.

Milosevic once headed a state bank and reveled in foreign travel to meet the likes of Robert McNamara and David Rockefeller. But precisely 12 years before his deportation day, he changed course to seek power by exploiting a fraudulent nationalism intended to divide his fellow Serbs from other Yugoslavs.

He threatened internal wars and delivered four of them, shrinking his nation each time. Now he must pay the price.

-- The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong