So Slobodan Milošević is dead. I wouldn’t be surprised if what they say about a drug-induced heart attack is true. However, the cause of his death is not the subject of this thread.
There are three ethical questions I have, and they might be moot at this point, but oh well. They are:
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[li]Should he be granted a state funeral?[/li][li]Should he be buried in accordance with his wishes?[/li][li]Should the arrest warrant on his widow be temporarily suspended so she may attend the funeral?[/li][/ol]
Now these would be a lot easier to answer if he had lived through the verdict of his trial. However, a man is innocent until proven guilty, and he’s never been convicted.
So would the right thing to do be to say “yes” to the three above questions? I personally find it disgusting that a man responsible for genocide would be granted these honors, legally convicted or not. Furthermore, I’m appalled at the suggestion that his widow’s arrest warrant might be temporarily suspended – if I was wanted for the murder of even one person, the Government wouldn’t suspend my arrest warrant so I could attend the funeral of my dead wife. Why does she deserve any more?
Wait, why would we suspend an arrest warrant on a fugitive so they can attend a funeral?
I would agree with the idea of allowing a fugitive to attend a funeral, provided they went quietly into custody afterwards. But allowing a fugitive to disappear afterwards? That’s insane.
As for the state funeral, I suppose that’s up to Serbia to decide. They can do what they want with the rotting corpse. Even if he had been convicted and died while serving his sentence that wouldn’t mean we’d disregard his burial wishes, assuming his estate/relatives/death-squad was able to pay for them. Disrespecting someone’s corpse after they’re dead isn’t part of any modern criminal sentence as far as I’m aware.
Thankfully, the President of Serbia is a reformer who knows better than to schedule a state funeral for a disgraced dictator, regardless of whether he would have been convicted of horrible atrocities. Serbia still has a way to go in rejoining the full confidence of the international community, especially with respect to the failure to hand over other nationalist maniacs like Mladic. I see no reason that Serbia should look back to the “good ol’ days” of genocidal wars by according the high status and honor of a state funeral to the likes of Milosevic.
I have no problem with Milosevic being buried in Serbia. What else are we gonna do with him?
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[li]Should he be granted a state funeral? No[/li][li]Should he be buried in accordance with his wishes? No[/li][li]Should the arrest warrant on his widow be temporarily suspended so she may attend the funeral? No[/li][/ol]
There’s no way to prevent people from coming up with a memorial if they want one. If they don’t have a gravesite, they’ll just go to his last house, or his childhood home, or any building to which they can connect him.
As for the OP, I don’t agree that he should have a state funeral, since he was deposed, but I think he sould be permitted to be buried where he wished. I cannot comment on allowing his widow to attend, since I don’t know much about her. Was she accused of crimes herself, or was it more like guilt-by-association? If it was the latter, then I’d say let her attend without arresting her. If it’s the former, I say she has no rights to amnesty to attend a funeral.
I’m with no to the state funeral, yes to his wishes, and no to his wife. He deserves respect as a human, but not respect as a leader, and his wife doesn’t deserve any sort of special treatment. Assuming she chose to commit crimes, she needs to face the consequences of her decision (which means choosing to be arrested or to skip her husband’s funeral–a far better choice that Milosevic gave to his victims); assuming she didn’t choose to commit crimes, the warrant should be cancelled. There’s no reason for a compromise position between those two.