Serbia s long tragedy looks like it is coming to an end. The death of Slobodan Milosevic has just been followed by Montenegro s referendum on independence.

In 1999, the US led NATO into war against Slobodan Milosevic s Serbia to end gross violations of the rights of Kosovo s majority Albanians. Serb nationalists had quashed Kosovo s autonomy.

The survivors of Srebrenica, for whom Bosnia was seeking damage awards, will receive nothing from Serbia. And if former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic were alive, he would be absolved of the charge of genocide.

In the Balkans, the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) provided a boost to political change in the region. Regime delegitimation has become a leading function of the new permanent International Criminal Court.

In late 1980 s Yugoslavia, as the socialist regime disintegrated, the monetary authorities in Belgrade were inevitably closest to Serbian politicians such as Slobodan Milošević and to Serbian business interests. As a result, the Croats and Slovenes wanted out of the federation.

We are thus slowly reaching the point where some of those contemplating crimes such as those committed by Slobodan Milosevic must recognize that one day they could be held accountable. Charles Taylor was President of Liberia when the Tribunal for Sierra Leone indicted him.

DENVER Among the many arguments that former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević used to make to his interlocutors was that he never incited nationalism among his people. Indeed, his public statements and speeches during those turbulent times were carefully calibrated to avoid any outright exhortation to nationalism.

Yes, Ukraine has Ukrainian speakers and it has Russian speakers yes, it has Orthodox and Catholics. But those divisions were manipulated with the same sort of cynicism that Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman used to pit Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian against each other in the former Yugoslavia.

But the most important area, Sector East in Eastern Slavonia, remained under firm Serb control. And, much like Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine issue today, Serbia s then president, Slobodan Milošević, insisted that the issue could be resolved only by direct talks between the Serb separatists and the Croat government in Zagreb.

Serbia, which traded violent nationalism for nonviolent nationalism when Slobodan Milosevic was overthrown eight years ago, has done all it can to impede resolution of these issues, with strong support from Vladimir Putin s Russia. Serbia wants as much independence as possible for the Serb Republic, while asserting its own sovereignty over Kosovo.

The tribunal and the local courts imprisoned 13 of those who gave the orders, as well as 17 execution squad members 11 more men, four of them leaders, are facing their reckoning. On trial now are Radovan Karadžić, the Bosnian Serb political leader, and Jovica Stanišić, the police minister in Slobodan Milošević s Serbia.

But then came the Balkans crises of the 1990s, culminating in the realization that only American military power could put a stop to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic s ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. And then came the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, making the out of area or out of business choice seem a no brainer.

The proper sequencing of steps in dealing with world trouble spots is essential to gaining international support for further action. The air campaign that ultimately succeeded in breaking Slobodan Milošević s grip on Kosovo (and later his grip on Serbia proper) was made possible by prolonged diplomacy on the part of the United States, the European Union, and Russia.

In the 1990 s, following its atrocities in Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic s Serb regime abolished Kosovo s long standing autonomy, suppressing the rights of the province s overwhelming Albanian majority. Instead of simply watching in horror, as it did at the start of the Bosnian war, NATO decided to intervene before Milosevic s forces could again devastate one of the constituent ethnic groups of the former Yugoslavia.

Serbia long castigated as the land whose late president, Slobodan Milošević, launched a genocide in Yugoslavia is not accustomed to finding itself lauded for safeguarding human rights. But in one area of human rights protection, much maligned Serbia has taken an unprecedented step that puts ahead of all the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, including states that are already members of the European Union.

Given how catastrophic the invasion of Iraq has turned out to be, it is hard even to remember when interventions on moral grounds whether to thwart a dictator, as in the case of the Balkan wars, or to put an end to anarchic cruelty, as in the case of British intervention in Sierra Leone seemed like a great advance in international affairs. No longer would the powerful sit by idly while butchers like Slobodan Milosevic or Foday Sankoh slaughtered their own people.