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Maybe now we will get some answers. Perhaps the trial of Slobodan Milosevic might finally resolve the question that has baffled the hundreds of thousands who have suffered at his hands: Why did he do it?

The proceedings looming at The Hague will be the first time an alleged war criminal of such magnitude has been asked to explain himself since Adolf Eichmann stood before the Jerusalem District Court in 1961. The distance Milosevic has always maintained between actions and consequences will vanish. Victim will confront perpetrator and the truth will be demanded.

The very fact he has been brought to justice - an almost unimaginable prospect only a year ago - is a cause for relief and satisfaction. But for the trial to be a complete success it must bring catharsis and make some sense of the 10-year festival of destruction masterminded by Milosevic.

For that to happen will require him to reveal something of his motivations and help to solve the mystery of who and what is Slobodan Milosevic.

Of all the protagonists in the Balkan wars, Milosevic is the most opaque, the least delineated. Franjo Tudjman was sustained by a fanatical belief in the glory of Croatia, Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia by his Muslim faith.

Milosevic, everyone agrees, is a pragmatist, avid only for power. But power to do what? Not, it would seem, to enrich himself. He did his share of thieving, yet spent little on personal luxuries.

He is a family man, devoted to his wife, Mira, and children, Marko and Marija, but their share of the spoils was paltry compared with the standards of international dynastic corruption.

Nor does personal glory seem to have interested him much; there was little attempt to inculcate a cult of personality.

On one of the few occasions he attempted to justify himself, Milosevic claimed he had "always been inspired by our glorious history". His nationalism, though, seemed strained - seized on simply as a new orthodoxy to replace the redundant faith of the old Yugoslavia. If this was so, he was a lukewarm convert. The instruments of repression inherited from communism were inefficiently applied to opponents. The jails did not overflow with political prisoners.

As for the Serbs, seldom can they have had a more disastrous custodian of their interests. Under his rule the frontiers of Serbdom steadily shrank.

Encouraged to demand their rights, the communities beyond Serbia's borders enthusiastically complied and the fatal pattern of assertion, aggression and expulsion was established; first in the Krajina, the Serb heartland in Croatia, then in Bosnia, finally in Kosovo. The tractor convoys rolled, carrying the Serbs away from their ancient lands, possibly forever, provoking a river of tears.

Only Milosevic seems to have remained dry-eyed. This emotional rigidity impressed many. Peacemakers fooled themselves that they were dealing with a rational being whose cruelty was a virtue in the harsh world of Balkan politics.

He was a man, they said, with whom we could do business. But Milosevic's stock in trade was devastation, for his own people and those around him.

Almost nothing he did after achieving power made any sense. For clues we go back to the terrible childhood, the mother and father who each died by their own hand. Looking into those icy eyes, it is tempting to see a psychopath, punishing the world to chase out his own demons.

If there is an explanation for what Milosevic has done, the tribunal at The Hague offers the best hope of providing it. That will require an unprecedented degree of candor from the man in the dock. The most frightening thought is that Milosevic himself may not know the answers.

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