The arraignment of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic before the international penal tribunal in The Hague, and his trial for “crimes against humanity”, monopolizes the attention of the main international dailies. “An historic date in the slow birth of a world order governed by law”: that’s how Le Monde of 12/2 defines the event and adds: “For the first time, a former head of state is about to be judged by an international court of law for crimes committed against his own people”. “Martyrs of Kosovo”: that’s the title of an investigation published by the French daily in its edition of 13/2, in which Le Monde’s correspondent, Christophe Chatelot, gives a voice, in particular, to the women of Kosovo, “raped and assassinated”, the victims whose bodies were never found and the widows who have been left to mourn “their husbands killed by the Serbs”. Bruno Frappat, writing in La Croix of 12/2, also calls the process against Milosevic “a real innovation in History”, that tries to do justice to the victims of “one of the bloodiest episodes in the history of Europe since Nazism”. That’s why, according to the editorial in the same paper, “to judge Milosevic, without either hatred or weakness, means first of all to recognize the right of the victims and survivors to testify before the court of human memory”. The enterprise of the former Yugoslav President, writes Keith B. Richburg in the Herald Tribune (13/2), was “coordinated and criminal”: it systematically “used executions, torture, forced resettlement and genocide to seek to eliminate the non Serbs from a large part of the Balkans and create an ethnically pure Serb nation”. There’s a German risk for Europe. The warning is bluntly made by a lengthy editorial signed by Peter Hort on the front page of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 11 February. In the foreground of the analysis is the “warning expressed by the European Commission on the budget deficit of a country that had contributed so much to the economic stability” of the old continent. The Frankfurt daily expresses the hope that “the German electoral campaign will not unduly disturb serenity of judgement on the issue”. After all, says the editorialist “no one had anything to complain about when the reprimands were being directed at little Ireland”. “Now that it is Germany that is in the dock the judgement must be far more serious”. The German weekly Spiegel also deals at length with the problems of Europe in its issue of 11 February. It includes a lengthy interview with Jean Luc Dehaene, vice-president of the Convention for the European constitution. “In Europe we have had to proceed hitherto step by step he explains, replying to the questions of Winfried Didzoleit and Dirk Koch Now all that is no longer enough. The enlargement of the Union constitutes the great new reunification, the reunification of Europe”. The Spanish papers reflect on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ABC of 11/02 is of the view that “ something is moving” due to the loss of Sharon’s national and international support: “ everything leads us to think that, once the phase of the heavy hand has ended, an attitude more open to dialogue will become unavoidable“. The Spanish press gathers Israeli views at variance with the official positions. In El Pais of 11/02, Jeff Halper, coordinator of the Israeli Committee against the demolition of Palestinian homes, reaffirms his conviction that “ if the current campaign of repression were to meet with success, behind the occupation would be the creation of a mini Palestinian state, in other words an occupation… These are decisive days: either a just peace based on two vital and sovereign States, or the birth of a Palestinian ‘homeland’ under Israeli control, i.e. a new form of apartheid.” “ The struggle against terrorism must not violate the rights of refugees”, is the view of Lluis Magriñà, director of the Jesuit Service for refugees, writing in the review “ Servir“. Since 11 September, Magriñà points out, “ some senior officials of Western governments have made declarations that stigmatize political asylum-seekers as potential terrorists” and “ with the argument of the terrorist attacks, seek to justify the curbs proposed by their legislation“. “ Any response to terrorism – he declares – must guarantee respect for the rights of everyone and involve a reflection on the profound roots of injustice.”
