World leaders react with little sympathy

LONDON — World leaders expressed surprise but little sorrow Saturday over the death of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic.

Many in the Balkans said they were dismayed that Milosevic never would face justice. Others said his death could help the region move on from a troubled past.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Milosevic had been a "malign influence" on the region.

"I hope very much that his passing will enable the people of Serbia better to come to terms with their past, which is the only way they can properly face the future," Straw said at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Salzburg, Austria.

In the United States, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Milosevic "was the principal figure responsible for the violent dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, including the outbreak of two horrific wars in Bosnia and Kosovo."

"Milosevic's rule has long ended, and the United States supports a future for the Serbian people of peace, security, prosperity and greater integration with the Euro-Atlantic community," he said in a statement.

Milosevic, 64, had been standing trial before the U.N. war-crimes tribunal for four years on charges including genocide in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. His personal guilt or innocence now will never be established in court.

"I regret deeply what happened. ... It is regrettable for all witnesses, for all survivors, for all victims that are expecting justice," Carla Del Ponte, the U.N.'s chief war-crimes prosecutor, told German-language Swiss Television DRS.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said it was "unfortunate and in many aspects unsatisfactory, given the countless victims of the Balkan wars, that justice now will not be able to run its course."

Croatian President Stipe Mesic agreed. "It is a pity he didn't live to the end of the trial to get the sentence he deserved," Mesic said.

Bosnia is still divided along ethnic lines a decade after the war ended. Dragan Cavic, president of the Bosnian Serb-run half of the country, said "a historic person has left the scene, a person who was disputed, criticized and praised."

Sulejman Tihic, the Bosnian Muslim member of the country's three-person presidency, said Milosevic "will be remembered as a negative historic person, the most responsible for the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia and suffering of its peoples, including the Serb people."

The tribunal said Milosevic appeared to have died of natural causes. A full inquiry, including an autopsy, will be conducted.

The former leader's allies, however, accused U.N. officials of neglecting his health.

"Milosevic did not die in The Hague, he was killed in The Hague," said Ivica Dacic, a senior official in Milosevic's Socialist Party.

Milosevic recently asked the tribunal to be released temporarily to seek treatment at a Moscow heart clinic. The tribunal rejected that request, saying it feared he would not return.

In a statement, Russia's Foreign Ministry implicitly criticized Milosevic's captors, saying: "Unfortunately, despite our guarantees, the tribunal did not agree to provide Milosevic the possibility of treatment in Russia."

Russia has historic ties with largely Slavic, Orthodox Christian Serbia and sharply opposed NATO's bombing of Milosevic's Yugoslavia in 1999.

Still, some in countries ravaged by Milosevic-fueled wars expressed satisfaction that he was gone.

"Finally, we have some reason to smile. God is fair," said Hajra Catic, who leads an association of women who lost their loved ones in the 1995 killings of 8,000 Muslims by Serb troops in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica — the worst massacre on European soil since World War II.