Wide coverage is devoted to the trial of Milosevic in The Hague in the main European dailies and periodicals. An article published in the Spiegel (18/02), signed by Thomas Darnstaedt, is entitled “ With legs chained“, recurring to a metaphor used by the former Yugoslav president, who, in his defence, likened himself to a man “ swimming in a sea of lies, fabricated by the international community, with his legs chained and therefore unable to swim“. In Darntaedt’s view, the interest of the trial goes far beyond the individual case, however news-grabbing, and “ recalls the importance of the international penal tribunal, an institution that the United States does not recognize and with which, by law, American citizens cannot collaborate“. Such a court, in Washington’s view, “ could not work: a foreign power does not have the right to interfere in the decisions of a politician on questions of peace and war affecting his nation“. “ And yet concludes Darntaedt is not this unlimited sovereignty the same right that Milosevic claims for his Yugoslavia? It is just this claim that the Serbian dictator makes for himself, in rebutting the judicial legitimacy of the court that is judging him“. “The first witnesses depose against Milosevic”, is the headline of La Croix of 18/2, which dedicates a long report to the new phase of the trial against the former Yugoslav president. The Milosevic who “challenges” the eye-witnesses from Kosovo is commented on, in turn, by the Herald Tribune (20/2), which describes how the defendant tries to “throw discredit on a politician from Kosovo who had accused the Yugoslav government of imposing a system of apartheid. At once sarcastic and condescending, Milosevic reads from a pile of handwritten pages”. The Spanish press also devotes attention to the trial against Milosevic, considered by El Pais (13/02) “ a triumph of the civilized world over barbarity”. “In this judgement the paper says – two aspects are combined: a collective desire to see that justice be done and an unequivocal message not to guarantee the impunity of anyone who, from a position of power, is tempted to shed blood“. Another Spanish daily, the ABC of 13/02, considers the trial an “ historic event of decisive importance for the future of the international penal Tribunal”. La Vanguardia of 13/02 thinks that it will serve as a “ warning for all those leaders convinced that power means impunity“. El Mundo of 13/02 stresses the need for “ the trial to take place in an impartial manner because on this depends the legitimacy of the justice and constitution of a permanent international penal tribunal“. To an investigation into antisemitism in France Le Monde of 19/2 dedicates its front page, remarking on “the disquiet felt by the Jewish community, especially in its religious circles” and the “fear aroused by the acts of hostility that, in recent months, have gone so far as to set fire to synagogues”. Some commentators, points out the French daily, “are alarmed by the recrudescence of a latent antisemitism”, others “insist on the repercussions of the conflict in the Middle East”: meanwhile, a petition signed by several scientists comments on the “repercussions of these events on the relations between Jews and Arabs in France”. The protest of a Moroccan girl who wished to attend classes at school wearing the hiyab, the traditional Islamic headscarf, has given rise to a heated debate on multiculturalism in Spain: El Mundo of 17/2 is of the view that “ so far it is she who has been most harmed due to the lack of preparation of society in coping with dilemmas that are bound to increase in future“. “ Questions about foreigners” is the title of an article by Juan A. Belloch in La Razón of 13/02: “ We cannot fail to grasp the fact that we have created and continue to maintain the conditions for immigration to exist“. The same paper of 17/02 points out that “ in democratic societies a basic respect exists for the difference that we [in Spain] cannot forget“. According to La Vanguardia of 18/02 there is also “ a legal vacuum” but, in spite of it, “ the solution must come from tolerance”.
