MR. MILOSEVIC'S LEGACY

Washington Post: The improper arrest of a U.S. diplomat in Belgrade has dramatically demonstrated that the Yugoslav federal government and military establishment remain entirely unfit for Western support and cooperation. The U.S. Embassy staffer was arrested by military police as he allegedly accepted secret documents from a senior official in the Serb government, then was illegally held incommunicado for 15 hours and physically assaulted. Western officials said some secret documents were planted on the official; but even more revealing are the reports that the information allegedly being transferred was evidence against former Serb ruler Slobodan Milosevic, who is now on trial before an international tribunal. The Yugoslav federal government under President Vojislav Kostunica is already guilty of an almost complete failure to cooperate with the tribunal. Now, the indication is that it was ready to arrest and rough up a U.S. diplomat who may have tried to obtain evidence the government has withheld in violation of a United Nations resolution.
Bogus charges: The episode should greatly simplify an administration decision due by the end of the month on whether to certify that Yugoslavia has met congressionally mandated conditions for receiving further U.S. aid. Quite simply, it has not. Not only has it not cooperated with the tribunal, it has also failed to meet other conditions requiring it to release ethnic Albanian political prisoners and stop funding the Serb army in neighboring Bosnia. Mr. Kostunica has willfully blocked action against the 20 indicted war criminals who live in his country, and he has continued to allow the military and police establishments created by Mr. Milosevic to operate with impunity, led by the same commanders who practiced genocide in Kosovo. It was military intelligence forces who arrested the U.S. diplomat and a former general; yet Mr. Kostunica publicly sanctioned this illegal procedure and the bogus charges behind it.
Reimposing sanctions on Yugoslavia and blocking its efforts to join or obtain financing from Western institutions would be painful only because the republic governments of Serbia and Montenegro, the remaining components of Yugoslavia, are led by pro-Western reformists who have worked hard to lead the country out of Mr. Milosevic's decade-long nightmare of nationalist aggression.
Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic went around Mr. Kostunica to deliver Mr. Milosevic to The Hague a year ago; he has strongly criticized last Thursday's arrests and called for the imposition of civilian control on the military. But making concessions for the sake of Mr. Djindjic essentially means ratifying the agenda of Mr. Kostunica, who wants to restore Yugoslavia's international standing without repudiating Mr. Milosevic's poisonous and repugnant nationalism. That is an increasingly dangerous position; with the help of his well-placed supporters in Belgrade, Mr. Milosevic has been using his trial to broadcast his demagoguery to Serbia, where his case is covered daily on television.