Viewpoint: The Legacy of Milosevic

Slobodan Milosevic was not the only culprit in the bloody breakdown of multi-ethnic Yugoslavia, but he can be assigned the bulk of responsibility. He had a unique talent for bringing out the worst in everything and everybody he touched. He brought out the worst in Serbs, and provoked retaliatory responses from the Croats, Bosnians, and Albanians. A political opportunist, he picked up ideologies such as nationalism, socialism, and even democracy itself, and perverted them to suit his own needs, discarding them when they no longer served his purposes. He burned bridges between nations and peoples that took centuries to build in the Balkans. And by doing that, he poisoned the political atmosphere for the decades to come.

This poisoned legacy lives on, despite Milosevics physical disappearance. The majority of Serbs still refuse to deal with the psychological and political consequences of the atrocities committed by Serbian Forces during the Balkan conflicts, but so do Croats, Bosnians and Kosovars when it comes to their own war crimes. It is always really someone elses fault; it is some other ethnic group that has not properly and sufficiently faced up to its guilt. The distorted, extremely one-sided view on recent past prevails throughout the former Yugoslavia. Detoxification will be long and painful because no one wants to face up to it.

There is, however, a brighter side. The countries of the former Yugoslavia now all have normal, though tense, relations. They are also all taking steps, big and small, towards becoming members of the European Union. And while ethnic animosities are still high, national courts in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia have begun put their own war criminals on trial; these courts will continue to work long after the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) shuts down its proceedings in The Hague, where Milosevic died under detention and undergoing trial. His death will not affect this slow, difficult journey towards normalcy. He had already played his part: the opening act of hateful bravura, unburdened by conscience, in what will be an extended expatiation of all guilt. Milosevic will be buried. It is now up to the survivors to ensure that the spirit of Milosevic is buried too. And the sooner the better.

Dejan Anastasijevic testified before the ICTY in the Hague in October 2002 and was cross-examined by Milosevic, who was acting as his own defense counsel. He has been TIME's correspondent in Belgrade since 1996