Is This the End For Milosevic?

By Massimo Calabresi/Skopje

To hear Slobodan Milosevic tell it, his surrender to NATO was the happy ending to a fairy tale. Appearing before his bombed-out, beleaguered nation on TV last Thursday, he said, "The aggression ended. Peace prevailed. Dear citizens, happy peace to us all!" It's hard to know how any rational Serb could stand it. After starting and losing four wars in eight years, Milosevic was calling on his people to rejoice. Some bought it, singing along to the government tune. But once the Serbs wake up from their agitprop reverie, they will discover a country in ruins. Some were already awakening: "It's clear now that Milosevic is selling one by one pieces of [Serbian] territory," said Ruza Radovanovic, 57, who weathered the bombing in her Belgrade home.

So does this spell the end for "the Butcher of the Balkans"? It's unlikely, at least in the short term. Nobody holds on to power as mercilessly as Milosevic. In the dictator's best-case scenario, he can hope for continuing control, thanks to a paucity of opponents and the postwar inertia of a beaten population. But if there are uprisings against him at home, he is more than ready to crush them. And while his indictment by the Hague war-crimes tribunal means he can't hope for a cushy retirement in any U.N.-compliant country, there are some nice mountain resorts in Serbia where he could take up hiking.

Disgruntled Serbs may have other ideas. By bringing the Balkan wars to Belgrade, Milosevic and his wife Mira Markovic may have pushed their people too far. In their hearts, many Serbs secretly hope Milosevic will go the way of his brutal Romanian neighbor, Nicolae Ceausescu, who was overthrown and executed in 1989. For many in the Balkans, that ending is the only happy one for this miserable fairy tale gone bad.

--Reported by Gillian Sandford/Pristina

With reporting by Gillian Sandford/Pristina