The death of Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague, while in the custody of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, leaves a large hole in the political strategy designed to bring peace and stability to the western Balkans. Milosevic was the principal player in the wars and ethnic cleansing attending Yugoslavia's disintegration, and the tribunal is a crucial component of the international effort to overcome the conflict.
His departure may re-stoke its passions and postpone its resolution. The cause of his death must be clearly determined and explained if another cycle of nationalist blame and victimhood - Milosevic's characteristic psychological weapons - is to be avoided.
Although Yugoslavia was not directly a part of the Soviet sphere of influence during the Cold War, its growing political troubles in the late 1980s prefigured the break-up of that immense system of power and was to be its most destructive outcome. Milosevic saw that coming when he seized control of the Serbian Communist party in 1987. His skill in presenting the plan for a greater Serbia as a defence against threats from Slovene, Croatian, Bosnian and Kosovan secession was key to his political success. He combined plausibility with ruthlessness; but the result of these wars left Serbia a far more impoverished country. His failure became bound up with an obsessive hold on power for its own sake.
When he was driven from power in 2000 after Nato's intervention in Kosovo, Milosevic had lost credibility with most Serbs. But even in defeat he retained the ability to present himself as a victim of international machinations against them. The tribunal hearings gave him the opportunity to spin out this story over four years. Their complexity, coupled with the decision to conduct his own defence, ensured him a hearing at home, even as Serb leaders and citizens strove to find another role in tune with a changing Balkans in a more accommodating Europe. The timing of his death, and the uncertainty about its cause, could set back realisation of this project.
It is worth putting a lot of effort into avoiding such a political regression. Decisions are looming on Montenegro's future and on the status of Kosovo, while in Bosnia-Herzegovina an uneasy peace is maintained in a stand-off based on international force rather than inter-communal reconciliation. Overall, the key to political progress in former Yugoslavia is how its successor states relate to Europe as a whole. The prospect of the European Union's eventual enlargement to embrace the western Balkans is what drives political reform.
A trade-off between that objective and a constructive response by Serb leaders to the demands for international justice is required if Milosevic is not to claim a residual victory in the manner of his death. A prompt delivery of the other men charged with war crimes to The Hague would best deliver on that potential bargain. But that will be impossible if there is no satisfactory explanation of how he died.