Blame Hits Right Target

With its indictments of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and four of his top henchmen for crimes against humanity, the United Nations war crimes tribunal has placed primary responsibility for the atrocities committed by Serb forces against Kosovars precisely where it belongs. As head of state and commander of Yugoslavia’s military and police units, Milosevic is rightly being held personally accountable for the mass killings, rapes and expulsions that continue to be carried out by his forces. Those indicted along with him, including the Serb republic’s president and interior minister and Yugoslavia’s deputy prime minister and armed forces chief of staff, share in that blame.

The indictment effectively makes Milosevic an international outcast. The tribunal has called on all U.N. members along with Interpol to detain Milosevic for trial before an international court should he ever venture beyond Yugoslavia’s borders. The chance that he would voluntarily do so admittedly is slight, and since the U.N. tribunal cannot try an indictee in absentia, Milosevic will probably never stand before the bar of justice. While regrettable, that does not diminish the significance of the tribunal’s action. For the first time, a sitting head of state has been indicted as a war criminal. Whatever Milosevic’s ultimate fate, the tribunal by this step has advanced the rule of law.

Concerns that the indictments might complicate or scuttle efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict seem to us exaggerated. Even as it denounced the indictments as “politically motivated,” Russia said it will press on with diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.

Do the indictments preclude Western leaders from dealing with Milosevic? There is a precedent for talking with indicted war criminals; U.S. officials did so four years ago when they negotiated with Bosnian Serb leaders. In any event the indictments simply give added prominence to the long-obvious crimes “planned, instigated [and] ordered,” in the tribunal’s words, by Milosevic and his colleagues.

Whatever criticisms can be made of NATO’s military policies, the essential humanitarian purposes of its effort loom large. At some point NATO and other foreign troops will enter Kosovo and a fuller picture of the atrocities that have been committed there will be revealed. This week an international tribunal identified those most responsible. The evidence of their guilt is compelling, and it will grow.