THE refugees fleeing from their homes, the families who watched their villages burned to the ground, the women who were violated and the children who saw their parents murdered don't need an international tribunal court to tell them that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is a war criminal.

But last week's indictment of Milosevic by the independent International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia still matters because It tells the victims of Bosnia and Kosovo that international law stands with them, that it recognises the criminal acts that have taken place and that the tribunal intends to hold Milosevic and his gang responsible for their barbarism.

That may not be much immediate comfort to the thousands of Albanians who are feeling brunt of the brute force of Milosevic's plan for cleansing Kosovo of their presence, but it might; be some, and it could be more in the long run. Meanwhile Milosevic's government has accepted the Western backed peace plan on June 3. But this article mainly deals with his indictment.

This is the first time that a sitting head of state has been indicted as a war criminal, and the evidence seems overwhelming. There are one million pages of charges and accusations from the Bosnian conflict alone: there will be more from

KosoVo. Time and again in his plans to dominate the Balkans, those pages say, Milosevic has acted against humanity and common decency.

Critics of the indictment said it was timed badly: that it would only hamper efforts to make peace in Kosovo and return of Albanian refugees to their homes. They believed that the indictment gave Milosevic another excuse for refusing to deal with international arbitration.

But the one point on which negotiations were stuck was the insistence of international negotiators and Milosevic’s refusal to have troops on the ground in Kosovo to guarantee the Albanians safety. There was not much room for negotiation there — and it was hard to believe that anything could make Milosevic more recalcitrant on that point than he already was.

However, placing Milosevic and his paramilitary leaders under threat of trial sends a signal to everyone in the Balkans that this kind of racism will no longer be tolerated by the international community.

It needs to be noted here that there are many Serbs who have

stood up to Milosevic’s gang, and there are some who have Said the ultimate price for aving done so. In fact, the common Serbs have some similarities with the Kosovars and others who have felt this tyrant's heel on their necks, and should welcome the indictment for telling the-truth about this despot.

On the eve of his indictment.

Milosevic had sent a letter to the German government suggesting that he was ready to withdraw forces from Kosovo and accept a "United Nations presence" there. The letter formally accepts broad principles for a peace accord set earlier by the Group of Seven industrialised countries and Russia. The letter arrived as the Finnish President. Marti Ahtissari. prepared to travel to Belgrade for the first meeting between a Western leader ana

Milosevic since the bombing campaign began.

The planned visit, and the decision by Ahtissari to talk to a man indicted last week on war crimes charges, suggested that diplomacy had advanced enough to necessitate a direct exchange, however unpalatable such a meeting may be. It also reflected a conviction among Western governments that

Milosevic was beginning to yield under the pressure of bombing and that time was running out for a diplomatic settlement that would avert a possible ground invasion of Kosovo.

Although Milosevic has accepted a Kosovo peace deal, President Clinton seemed cautiously waiting for signs that Yugoslav troops begin pulling out allowing return of Albanian refuges. The next few days could be decisive in determining

whether peace really comes in the Balkans or whether the allied forces will have to take further measures.

To not want peace would be madness. Certainly, stopping the killing, the bloodletting, the destruction should be everyone's goal. There have been enough mistakes and too many civilian deaths caused by the more than 30,000 NATO air strikes. Bombing raids have killed innocent people, some of them because of mistakes, and some because those people were being used as human shields by a ruler who has yet to show any evidence that he is familiar with the words "compassion" and "conscience".

But those tragic deaths and the desire for peace must not have pressured the international community into forgetting the reason the strikes were launched in the first place: to stop Milosevic from carrying out the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. It would have been worse than a travesty to stop the bombing only to have Milosevic continue the killing of Albanians.

The more than 850.000 ethnic Albanian Muslims who have been forced to flee the

province by Milosevic's forces now must be allowed to return to their homes. And international troops must be allowed in Kosovo to police any agreement and protect the Albanians from any future attacks. These are the two bedrock principles to which the international community must hold.

It is not difficult to imagine Milosevic agreeing to those conditions. What's difficult is imagining him keeping his word on such an agreement. He has broken promises after {>romises. His track record eads to one conclusion: he cannot be trusted with his words.

That's why peacekeeping forces, under the auspices of a neutral organisation such as the United Nations, are needed on the ground, to ensure that even if Milosevic again breaks his promise, there will be enough force to stop this man who is already under indictment for alleged war crimes in Bosnia and Kosovo. The UN has performed similar peace-keeping functions in many places around the globe. So getting involved in Kosovo in administering a peace agreement should be nothing new nor difficult for

The writer teaches at Marquette University College of Business Administration, Department of Economics. Milwaukee. Wisconsin, USA.