Balkans split over Madeleine Albright’s wartime legacy

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC
Associated Press

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — A monument in Kosovo, a snake named after her in Serbia. Madeleine Albright was either loved or hated in the Balkans for her pivotal role during the region’s 1990s wars. Following the former U.S. secretary of state’s death on Wednesday at age 84, how her legacy is viewed from the Balkans mostly depends on whether one was on the receiving or triggering end of the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Albright quickly emerged as the Clinton administration’s chief hawk on the Balkans after she became secretary of state in 1997. She identified herself so strongly with the push for a Western intervention in Kosovo that her critics dubbed the 1998-1999 conflict there “Madeleine’s War.”