Monitor all the news of the world: Slobodan Milosevic, Reaction to the indictment of the Yugoslavian president as a war criminal

The Washington Post

US

SOME NATO officials expressed concern that the indictment will complicate negotiations. But the tribunal is not the cause of Nato's problem; the problem is Nato's decision to negotiate with a war criminal. This willingness to make Mr Milosevic once again a guarantor of peace stems from an understandable reluctance to face the alternative; no one in Nato has the stomach for a war aimed at unseating him. But there should be clarity about the consequences; Mr Milosevic is a serial war criminal; and he will not stop with Kosovo.

Khaleej Times

UAE

WITH DOMESTIC support for the bombing of Yugoslavia waning in America and Europe, Bill Clinton and his allies realise that time is not on their side in their campaign. If their electorates turn against the war, it would undermine their efforts to prolong the air campaign or plan a ground invasion. The indictment of Milosevic will, therefore, likely come handy for them to explain to their people the need for staying the course, whatever the cost.

The Economist

UK

EVEN AS fighting between the Serb army and its ethnic-Albanian opponents intensifies, and the plight of the remaining residents of Kosovo grows more desperate, peace - or at least a truce - was declared this week within Nato's own ranks. At the same time, the formal indictment by the UN's International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague of Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milosevic has made it hard, if not impossible, for anyone to negotiate with him.