Slobodan Milošević

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Slobodan Milošević Слободан Милошевић
1st President of Serbia
In office 08 May 1989 – 23 July 1997
Prime Minister	Desimir Jevtić Stanko Radmilović Dragutin Zelenović Radoman Božović Nikola Šainović Mirko Marjanović
Preceded by	Office created
Succeeded by	Milan Milutinović
3rd President of Yugoslavia
In office 23 July 1997 – 05 October 2000
Prime Minister	Radoje Kontić Momir Bulatović
Preceded by	Zoran Lilić
Succeeded by	Vojislav Koštunica
Born	20 August 1941(1941-08-20) Požarevac, Yugoslavia
Died	11 March 2006 (aged 64) The Hague, Netherlands
Nationality	Serb
Political party	Socialist Party of Serbia
Spouse	Mirjana Marković
Religion	Atheist
Signature

Slobodan Milošević (pronounced [sloˈbodan miˈloʃevitɕ] listen (help·info); Serbian Cyrillic: Слободан Милошевић) (August 20, 1941, Požarevac, Kingdom of Yugoslavia – March 11, 2006, The Hague, Netherlands) was President of Serbia and of Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. He also led Serbia's Socialist Party from its foundation in 1990.

He resigned the Yugoslav presidency amid demonstrations, following the disputed presidential election of September 24, 2000.

Milošević was arrested by Serbian authorities early on Sunday, April 1, 2001, on suspicion of corruption, abuse of power, and embezzlement. ^{[1] [2]} The initial investigation into Milošević faltered for lack of hard evidence prompting the Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić to send him to The Hague to stand trial for alleged war crimes instead. ^[3]

The Hague war crimes tribunal charged Milošević with crimes against humanity, violating the laws or customs of war, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and genocide for his role during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo.

Milošević conducted his own defense, but the trial ended without a verdict because he died during the proceedings. ^[4] Milošević suffered from heart ailments and high blood pressure. He died of a heart attack ^{[5] [6]}after the court denied his request to seek specialized medical treatment at a cardiology clinic in Moscow. ^{[7] [8]}

Contents 1 Early life 2 Rise to power 3 The Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution 4 The 1989 Amendments to the Serbian Constitution 5 The Yugoslav Wars 6 Milošević's views 7 Death of Political Opponents 8 Downfall of presidency 9 Relations with other countries 9.1 Relations with Russia 9.2 Relations with China 10 Trial 11 Defenders of Milošević 12 Death 13 Aftermath 14 Further reading 15 References 16 External links

[edit] Early life

Milošević, by origin, was a Vasojevići tribe Montenegrin, born in Požarevac, Serbia during the Axis occupation. His parents separated soon after the war; his father, Svetozar Milošević, was an atheist who committed suicide in 1962, and his mother, Stanislava Milošević née Koljenšić, a school teacher and also an active member of the Communist Party, hanged herself in 1974.

He went on to study law at Belgrade University, where he became the head of the ideology committee of the Yugoslav Communist League's (SKJ) student branch (SSOJ). While at the university, he befriended Ivan Stambolić, whose uncle Petar Stambolić had been a president of Serbian Executive Council (the Communist equivalent of a prime minister). This was to prove a crucial connection for Milošević's career prospects, as Stambolić sponsored his rise through the SKJ hierarchy.

On leaving university in 1960, Milošević became an economic advisor to the Mayor of Belgrade. Five years later, he married Mirjana Marković, whom he had known since childhood. Marković would have some influence on her husband's political career both before and after his rise to power; she was also leader of Milošević's junior coalition partner, Yugoslav Left (JUL) in the 1990s. In 1968 he got a job at the Tehnogas company, where Stambolić was working, and became its chairman in 1973. By 1978, Stambolić's sponsorship had enabled Milošević to become the head of Beobanka, one of Yugoslavia's largest banks; his frequent trips to Paris and New York gave him the opportunity to learn English and French, both of which were to be considerable assets in his political career.

[edit] Rise to power

On April 16, 1984 Slobodan Milošević was elected to a two-year term as president of the Belgrade League of Communists City Committee. ^[9]

On February 21, 1986 the Socialist Alliance of Working People unanimously supported him as presidential candidate for the SKJ's Serbian branch Central Committee. ^[10] Milošević was elected by a majority vote at the 10th Congress of the Serbian League of Communists on May 28, 1986. ^[11]

Milošević emerged in 1987 as a force in Serbian politics. The Hague indictment alleges that, starting in 1987, Milošević "endorsed a Serbian nationalist agenda" and "exploited a growing wave of Serbian nationalism in order to strengthen centralised rule in the SFRY." ^[12]

Milošević always denied allegations that he exploited Serbian nationalism in his rise to power. In a 1995 interview with TIME, he said: "All my speeches up to '89 were published in my book. You can see that there was no nationalism in those speeches. We were explaining why we think it is good to preserve Yugoslavia for all Serbs, all Croats, all Muslims and all Slovenians as our joint country. Nothing else." ^[13]

As animosity between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo deepened during the 1980s, Milošević was sent to address a crowd of Serbs in Kosovo Polje on April 24, 1987. While Milošević was talking to the leadership inside the local cultural hall demonstrators outside clashed with the local Kosovo-Albanian police force.

The New York Times reported that "a crowd of 15,000 Serbs and Montenegrins hurled stones at the police after they used truncheons to push people away from the entrance to the cultural center of Kosovo Polje." ^[14]

Milošević heard the commotion and was sent outside to calm the situation. A videotape of the event shows Milošević responding to complaints from the crowd that the police were beating people by saying "You will not be beaten". ^[15] Later that evening, Serbian television aired the video of Milošević's encounter.

In Adam LeBor's biography of Milošević, he describes that the crowd attacked the police and Milošević's response was "No one should dare to beat you again!" ^[16]

The Federal Secretariat of the SFRY Interior Ministry however, condemned the police's use of rubber truncheons as not in keeping within the provisions of Articles 100 and 101 of the rules of procedure for "conducting the work of law enforcement", they had found that "the total conduct of the citizenry in the mass rally before the cultural hall in Kosovo Polje cannot be assessed as negative or extremist. There was no significant violation of law and order." ^[17]

Although Milošević was only addressing a small group of people around him -- not the public,^[18] a great deal of significance has been attached to that remark. Stambolić, after his reign as President, said that he had seen that day as "the end of Yugoslavia".

Dragiša Pavlović, a Stambolic ally and Milošević's successor at the head of the Belgrade Committee of the party, was expelled from the party during the 8th Session of the League of Communists of Serbia after he publicly criticized the party's Kosovo policy. The central committee voted overwhelmingly for his dismissal: 106 members voted for his expulsion, eight voted against, and 18 abstained. ^[19]

Stambolić was fired after Communist officials in Belgrade accused him of abusing his office during the Pavlović affair. Stambolic was accused of sending a secret letter to the party Presidium, in what was seen as an attempt to misuse the weight of his position as Serbian President, to prevent the central committee's vote on Pavlović's expulsion from the party. ^{[20] [21]}

In 2002 Adam LeBor and Louis Sell would write that Pavlović was really dismissed because he opposed Milošević's policies towards Kosovo-Serbs. They contend that, contrary to advice from Stambolić, Milošević had denounced Pavlović as being soft on Albanian radicals. LeBor and Sell assert that Milošević prepared the ground for his ascent to power by quietly replacing Stambolić's supporters with his own people, thereby forcing Pavlović and Stambolić from power.^[22][23]

In February 1988, Stambolić's resignation was formalized, allowing Milošević to take his place as Serbia's President.

[edit] The Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution

Starting in 1988 the so-called "anti-bureaucratic revolution" led to the resignation of the governments of Vojvodina and Montenegro and to the election of officials allied with Milošević.

Slovenian leader Milan Kučan accused Serbia of deliberately fanning nationalist passions and Slovene newspapers published articles comparing Milošević to Mussolini. Milošević contended that such criticism was unfounded and amounted to “spreading fear of Serbia”.^[24]

In Vojvodina, where 54 percent of the population was Serbian, an estimated 100,000 demonstrators rallied outside the Communist Party headquarters in Novi Sad on October 6, 1988 to demand the resignation of the provincial leadership. The majority of protesters were workers from the Vojvodina town of Bačka Palanka, 40 kilometres west of Novi Sad. They were supportive of Milošević and opposed the provincial government's moves to block forthcoming amendments to the Serbian Constitution. ^{[25] [26] [27]}

The demonstrations were successful. The provincial leadership resigned, and Vojvodina League of Communists elected a new leadership. ^[28]

In the elections that followed Dr. Dragutin Zelenović, a Milošević ally, was elected member of the SFRY Presidency from Vojvodina ^[29]

On January 10, 1989 the anti-bureaucratic revolution continued in Montenegro, which had the lowest average monthly wage in Yugoslavia, an unemployment rate of nearly 25 percent, and where one-fifth of the population lived below the poverty line. 50,000 demonstrators gathered in the Montenegrin capital of Titograd (now Podgorica) to protest the republic's economic situation and to demand the resignation of its leadership. ^[30]

The next day Montenegro's state presidency tendered its collective resignation along with the Montenegrin delegates in the Yugoslav Politburo. Montenegro's representative on the federal presidency, Veselin Đuranović, said the decision to step down "was motivated by a sense of responsibility for the economic situation." ^{[31] [32]}

Demonstrators were seen carrying portraits of Milošević and shouting his name, but the New York Times reported "there is no evidence that the Serbian leader played an organizing role" in the demonstrations.^[33]

Multiparty elections were held in Montenegro for the first time after the anti-bureaucratic revolution. Nenad Bućin, an opponent of Milošević's policies, was elected Montenegro's representative on Yugoslavia's collective presidency ^[34] and Momir Bulatović, a Milošević ally, was elected Montenegrin President. ^{[35] [36]}

[edit] The 1989 Amendments to the Serbian Constitution

Starting in 1982 and 1983, in response to nationalist Albanian riots in Kosovo, the Central Committee of the SFRY League of Communists adopted a set of conclusions aimed at centralizing Serbia’s control over law enforcement and the judiciary in its Kosovo and Vojvodina provinces. ^[37]

In 1986 Serbian president Ivan Stambolic established a commission to amend the Serbian Constitution inkeeping with conclusions adopted by the federal Communist Party. ^[38]

The constitutional commission worked for three years to harmonize its positions and in 1989 an amended Serbian constitution was submitted to the governments of Kosovo, Vojvodina and Serbia for approval.

On March 10, 1989 the Vojvodina Assembly approved the amendments, followed by the Kosovo Assembly on March 23, and the Serbian Assembly on March 28. ^{[39] [40] [41]}

In the Kosovo Assembly 187 of the 190 assembly members were present when the vote was taken: 10 voted against the amendments, two abstained, and the remaining 175 voted in favor of the amendments. ^{[42] [43]}

Although the ethnic composition of the Kosovo Assembly was over 70 percent Albanian ^[44], Kosovo-Albanian nationalists reacted violently to the constitutional amendments. The UPI wire service reported that "unrest began [in Kosovo] when amendments were approved returning to Serbia control over the province's police, courts, national defense and foreign affairs ... mass demonstrations turned into violent street rioting when demonstrators began using firearms against police." According to the report the rioting killed 29 people and injured 30 policemen and 97 civilians. ^[45]

The changes to the Serbian constitution were approved by the Yugoslav presidency as part of a deal; in return for this approval, Serbian presidency member Borisav Jović and his allies voted in favour of the appointment of former Croatian republic leader Ante Marković to become premier. Marković would play a key role in the last years of the SFRY as the Americans' top ally there and as a promoter of International Monetary Fund Structural Adjustment Policies. It was his presence there that caused the U.S. government to not support the separatist regimes in Slovenia and Croatia until his resignation in late 1991.

In the wake of the unrest following the 1989 constitutional amendments, ethnic Albanians in Kosovo largely boycotted the provincial government and established their own parallel institutions. Serbian supporters of Slobodan Milošević then seized power in Kosovo.^{[citation needed]}

Azem Vllasi, leader of the League of Communists of Kosovo, was arrested for inciting rioting amid a strike by Kosovo-Albanian miners.^[46]

As nationalism grew within Yugoslavia, Milošević sought major constitutional changes. The 1974 Yugoslav Constitution had organised the country so that Serbia's status as the largest and most populous republic was counterbalanced by the way that the other republics were represented. The socialist Yugoslavia was at the time governed by an eight-member Presidency, representing the six republics plus Kosovo and Vojvodina. By ousting the government of Montenegro and replacing it with a more compliant one, Milošević effectively secured that republic's vote for himself; likewise the abolition of the autonomous governments of Vojvodina and Kosovo ensured that he controlled those votes as well. The Presidency was thus divided down the middle between Milošević's supporters and his opponents in the other republics, with four votes for each side. The result was stalemate and an increasing paralysis of Yugoslavia's federal government.

As Yugoslavia's division of powers was only workable in the context of a one-party system, the introduction of multiparty politics threatened to paralyse the federal government. For instance, the presidency could function properly when all presidents are communists; with competing nationalist and even separatist politicians openly advocating the country's dissolution holding votes on the presidency, this is a recipe for paralysis.

This paralysis was deliberate. For instance, illegal armed formations were created in the separatist republics of Slovenia and Croatia. The Yugoslavian military was aware of these illegal acts and wanted the enforcement of the law and the dissolution of these groups by force. The separatists on the presidency successfully prevented any such action from being taken, thereby permitting the growth of these illegal armed formations. In short, the separatists could tie the hands of the federal government, paralyse it to the point where it effectively ceases to exist, which plays right into their hands.

Two main visions for constitutional reform developed; the first was that promoted by Slovenia, which was to feature the de-facto independence of each of the republics. The second, that promoted by Milošević, envisioned a federal bicameral parliament with the lower chamber elected through the one-person, one-vote principle. This was roundly condemned by Slovenia and Croatia and by Western powers in general.

At the 14th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in January 1990, Milošević's Serbian delegation campaigned for major constitutional changes based on the democratic principle of "one man - one vote". Slovenian and Croatian delegations (led by Milan Kučan and Ivica Račan respectively) strongly opposed this, seeing it as an attack on their own republics' status, and left the Congress in protest. This caused a deep rift in the League of Communists and effectively put an end to the Party as a unified organisation.

With the collapse of the Yugoslav League of Communists, Milošević presided over the Serbian party's transformation into the Socialist Party of Serbia (July 1990) and the adoption of a new Serbian constitution (September 1990) providing for the direct election of a president with increased powers. Milošević was subsequently re-elected president of the Serbian Republic in the direct elections of December 1990 and December 1992.

In the first free parliamentary elections of December 1990, Milošević's Socialist Party won 80.5 percent of the vote. The ethnic Albanians in Kosovo largely boycotted the election, effectively eliminating even what little opposition Milošević had. Milošević himself won the presidential election with an even higher percentage of the vote. Although the elections could not have been described as wholly free and fair – Milošević controlled much of the media as well as the election system itself – at this time he genuinely enjoyed mass popular support in Serbia.

The opposition in Serbia were mainly Chetnik-inspired nationalists, and at the time was led by the likes of Vuk Drašković and Vojislav Seselj. In March 1991, Drašković led a series of Belgrade protests featuring the chants "Slobo, Saddam", and "Slobo, Stalin". Drašković, who later was to sponsor the Serb Guard paramilitary forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina, openly attempted to topple the government. Tanks were sent into the streets of Belgrade and this attempt was crushed. Such was a warning to Milošević not to appear too weak when dealing with national questions, lest the nationalist opposition successfully oust him.

Milošević's rise to power happened amid a growth of nationalism in all the former Yugoslavian republics following the collapse of Communist governments throughout eastern Europe. In 1990, Slovenians elected a nationalist government under Milan Kučan, and the Croatians did the same with Franjo Tuđman. Communist single-party rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina was replaced by an unstable coalition of three ethnically-based parties.

[edit] The Yugoslav Wars

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Yugoslav wars. (Discuss)

In June 1991 Slovenia and Croatia seceded from the Yugoslav federation. They were followed by the republics of Macedonia in September and Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 1992. This provoked the beginning of the Yugoslav wars.

Milošević was opposed to granting the republics greater autonomy or independence, and instead claimed the large minority of Serbs in other republics had the right to stay in Yugoslavia and that the Yugoslav Constitution gave the right of self-determination to populations (Serbs, Croats, etc) as a whole, not republics (Serbia, Croatia, etc). However he had little opposition to Slovenia leaving the country, as Milan Kučan recalled:

"Milošević had said to me that we should reach some agreement on Slovenia's desire to leave Yugoslavia. He said that he would not stop us, and that the others didn't understand what the whole thing was about anyway. But he said that he could not let Croatia go, because Croatia was bound to Serbia by blood."^[47]

Slovenia did not have a large Serbian population, and historically Slovenia's ties with Serbia were less significant than the other republics - Slovenia had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until its demise in 1918. However, from the day of Croatia's declared independence (June 25, 1991) until the Croatian War of Independence ended in 1995, Croatia faced armed resistance from the Yugoslav National Army (JNA). There also emerged a number of Serb dissidents from within Croatia's borders who engaged in a war against the Croatian government in an attempt to form a separate republic of their own - the Republic of Serbian Krajina. The first leader of Serbs in Croatia, Milan Babić, has stated that Milošević was responsible for this. War crimes prosecutors would later call the attempts at creating an independent Serb republic a "joint criminal enterprise" whose goal amounted to ethnic cleansing. At Babić's trial, the ICTY found that Milosevic's government was directly involved in the Croatian Serb rebellion, providing supplies, weapons, money and leadership.^{[citation needed]}

In early 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina was also plunged into war even before its formal declaration of independence. Bosnian Serb forces captured as much as 70 percent of the country, although this was partly due to the pre-war demographics where Serbs tended to live in rural areas while Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) were concentrated in cities. The Bosnian Serb forces were intent on keeping Bosnia in Yugoslavia, and would sometimes work alongside pro-Yugoslav Bosniaks such as Fikret Abdic's army. In this period hundreds of thousands of people were compelled to leave their homes and many thousands more lost their lives, often in atrocities such as the Srebrenica and Bratunac massacres. Again, war crimes prosecutors have characterised this as a "joint criminal enterprise" in which Milošević played a leading part.^[48] The ICTY likewise found that the Serbian government was directly involved in the conflict. However, no evidence was ever found that Milošević was involved in the massacre at Srebrenica; there is even evidence that he was upset by it^[49]. Although the ICTY trial asserted that the Srebrenica massacre was an example of genocide, Milosevic himself was never proven to be responsible for it.

By 1995, the ongoing wars in Croatia and Bosnia had become an unsupportable burden for Serbia. The country had experienced hyperinflation and a drastic worsening of living standards, due to an economic collapse and the effect of international sanctions. Milošević sought to force the Croatian and Bosnian Serbs to the negotiating table but was rebuffed by their nationalist leaderships. In response, despite his earlier support for their rebellions, he let it be known that they were on their own.

The Croatian War was brought to an end in August 1995 when Croatia's Operation Storm rapidly overran the Republic of Serbian Krajina. Almost the entire Croatian Serb population fled from Croatia in the process, fleeing into Bosnia and Serbia. Only a month later, the Bosnian Serbs were brought to the brink of military collapse by a combination of NATO air strikes (Operation Deliberate Force) and a joint Croatian/Bosniak ground offensive (Operation Mistral). Again, many hundreds of thousands of Serbs were forced into exile.

Milošević subsequently negotiated the Dayton Agreement in the name of the Bosnian Serbs, ending the conflict. As the agreement finally brought an end to the war in Bosnia, Milošević was credited in the West with being one of the pillars of Balkan peace. But crucially, the Dayton Agreement did not grant amnesty for the war crimes committed during the conflict – an omission on Milošević's part that was to pave the way for his eventual prosecution.

Milošević was limited to two terms as President of Serbia, but at the end of his term of office he instead stood for the hitherto relatively unimportant post of President of Yugoslavia (which by this time consisted of only Serbia and Montenegro). He won easily and assumed office on July 23, 1997. His old post passed into the hands of Milan Milutinović, a political ally. In Montenegro, however, the pro-Milošević old guard was pushed aside by the ambitious Milo Đukanović, who became President of Montenegro and emerged as an increasingly bitter opponent of Milošević.

That same year, an armed rebellion broke out in Kosovo against Serbian aggressive rule. The separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began to launch attacks against Serbian and Yugoslav security forces as well as Serbian officials and those Serbs and others whom the KLA regarded as "collaborators". Serbian response was brutal: By mid-1999 several thousand were killed by Serbs forces, several thousand had died in escalating retaliations, and 150,000 Kosovo Albanians were reported to have been made homeless.

The conflict culminated in the Kosovo War of 1999, during which over half of the province's Albanian population fled and several thousand people died. A NATO campaign of air strikes (Operation Allied Force) eventually forced Milošević to back down. The subsequent Kumanovo Agreement saw Kosovo being handed over to a United Nations protectorate along with the total withdrawal of Yugoslav forces. In the aftermath of the war, the majority of Kosovo's Serb and Roma population fled into Serbia proper, fearing or experiencing persecution by vengeful Albanians and adding to the country's already large refugee population.

This time, though, Milošević was not lionised as a peacemaker. On May 27, 1999, he was indicted by the ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Kosovo. The possibility of his standing trial seemed remote at this point; despite the loss of Kosovo, he still appeared to retain popular support.

[edit] Milošević's views

A large number of Slobodan Milošević's interviews have been collected online^[50]. Milošević argued that the Serbian Constitution gave self-determination to peoples, not to nations. On this basis, he states that the Croatian Serbs and later the Bosnian Serbs should not have been subject to the declarations of independence by the nations of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

He denies that Serbia was at war during the wars in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia. Milošević was President of Serbia, not of Yugoslavia, and claims that his government was only indirectly involved through support for Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia at some points. Biographer Adam LeBor writes that Milošević cut off links with the Bosnian Serbs due to hyperinflation in Serbia rather than to objections over their tactics.

Milošević spent most of 1988–89 focusing his politics on the "Kosovo problem". In Kosovo, Milošević alleges that he supported the right of the Albanians to "self-determination", but not to independence. He also claimed that the KLA were a neo-Nazi organisation that sought an ethnically pure Kosovo, and he argued that independence would deliver Kosovo to their hands^[51]. He often referred to Kosovo as an essential part of Serbia due to its history and its numerous churches and cultural relics.

Milošević denies that he gave orders to massacre Albanians in 1998. He claims that the deaths were sporadic events confined to rural areas of West Kosovo committed by paramilitaries and by rebels in the armed forces. Those from the Serbian army or police who were involved were all, he claims, arrested and many were sentenced to long prison sentences^[52].

[edit] Death of Political Opponents

In the summer of 2000 former Serbian President Ivan Stambolić was kidnapped; his body was found in 2003 and Milošević was charged with ordering his murder. In 2005, several members of the Serbian secret police and criminal gangs were convicted in Belgrade for a number of murders, including Stambolić's. These were the same people who arrested Milošević in April 2001. Later, Interior Minister Dušan Mihajlović denied that Milošević had been involved in Stambolić's death at Fruška Gora.^[53]

In June 2006 the Supreme Court of Serbia ruled that Milošević had ordered the murders of Stambolić and Vuk Drašković. The Supreme Court accepted the previous ruling of the Special Court for Organized Crime in Belgrade which targeted Milošević as the main abettor of politically motivated murders in the 1990s.

Milošević's attorneys said the Court's ruling was of little value because he was never formally charged or given an opportunity to defend himself against the accusations.

Moreover, most of these murders were of Serbian and Yugoslavian government officials, such as high police official Radovan Stojijić Badza, Defence Minister Pavle Bulatović, and the head of Yugoslav airlines JAT.

[edit] Downfall of presidency

On February 4, 1997, Milošević recognized the opposition victories in some local elections, after mass protests lasting 96 days.

Constitutionally limited to two terms as Serbian president, on July 23, 1997, Milošević assumed the presidency of the Yugoslav Federation (the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia).

Armed actions by Albanian separatist groups and Serbian police and military counter-action in Serbia's previously autonomous (and 90 percent Albanian) province of Kosovo culminated in escalating warfare in 1998, NATO air strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between March and June 1999, and finally a full withdrawal of all Yugoslav security forces from the province.

During the Kosovo War he was indicted on May 27, 1999, for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Kosovo, and he was standing trial, up until his death, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. He attempted to assert that the trial was illegal, having been established in contravention of the UN charter.^[54]

Milošević's permissive rule featured a very free press, much of it financed by Yugoslavia's enemies. Despite attempts by the Serbian Radical Party to tighten the space open to those serving Yugoslavia's enemies, attempts that included the October 1998 media law, a whole rebel infrastructure operated financed by Yugoslavia's enemies. This included media such as B92, described by Vojislav Seselj as a "treacherous medium", and a parallel election counting agency, CeSID, that openly advocated the overthrow of the government. Milošević appeared not to fear this formidable enemy and took no substantial measures against it, and did so to his own disadvantage.

Milošević's rejection of claims of a first-round opposition victory in new elections for the Federal parliament and presidency in September 2000 led to mass demonstrations in Belgrade on October 5, known as the Bulldozer Revolution. The Yugoslav constitution called for a second election round with all but the two leading candidates eliminated, in the event that no candidate won more than 50 percent of the vote. Official results put Koštunica ahead of Milošević but at under 50 percent. The U.S.-financed CeSID claimed otherwise, though its story changed throughout the two weeks between 24 September and 5 October.

On cue, the rebel infrastructure sprung into action with paid strikes and demonstrations. The regime's authority collapsed when security forces refused to put down the protests and the Milošević controlled public broadcaster, RTS was taken over by fellow "Joint Criminal Enterprise" co-conspirator Captain Dragan. The Yugoslav parliament was set on fire and ballots burned, so that no one would ever know the truth about the vote.

Milošević lost power not because of the presidential election, but because of the coup d'etat against the Serbian government of Mirko Marjanović, carried out by armed groups with the help of the JSO unit of special operations. Marjanović held the most powerful official post in Yugoslavia but as a subordinate in the SPS run by Milošević, that power was effectively Milošević's. The illegal overthrow of the Serbian government was what ended his power.

Milošević was forced to accept this when commanders of the army whom he had expected to support him had indicated that in this instance they would not, and would permit the violent overthrow of the Serbian government. On October 6, Milošević met with opposition presidential candidate leader Vojislav Koštunica and publicly accepted defeat. Koštunica finally took office as Yugoslav president on October 7 following Milošević's announcement.

Ironically, Milošević lost his grip on power by losing in elections which he scheduled prematurely (before the end of his mandate) and which he did not even need to win in order to retain power which was centered in the parliaments which his party and its associates controlled.

He did so because of successes in the reconstruction effort led by Milutin Mrkonjić, and because the main opposition leaders, Zoran Đinđić and Vuk Drašković, could not agree to unite against him and because they both were caught shaking Bill Clinton's hand in one case, and kissing Madeleine Albright's hand in the other.

According to American polling, only Vojislav Koštunica had a chance to defeat Milošević. This was because of his decision to sit out the Serbian political struggles since the mid-1990s and because of his nationalism. He did not participate in Zajedno nor did he participate in the 1997 Serbian parliamentary and presidential elections. He was effectively Fortinbras, entering the fray as other Serbian politicians were beating each other to death.

He ran for Zoran Đinđić's Democratic Opposition of Serbia; Đinđić was the real candidate against Milošević, effectively, as Milošević warned the Serbian people on 2 October 2000. Koštunica claimed that he took no money from NATO powers, claiming such money to be the "kiss of death", and said "no to NATO, no to Milošević", and was able to obtain many votes from those angry at Milošević for his concessions to the West during the 1993-98 period, and for allowing himself to be fooled into permitting a NATO occupation of Kosovo-Metohija. His candidacy served as a trojan horse for a planned coup d'etat planned by Đinđić and his foreign sponsors.

The coup d'etat placed Democratic Opposition of Serbia leader Zoran Đinđić in power. He forced the Serbian parliament to create a new government under his effective control, with DOS leading (Hungarian autonomist politicians who joined the DOS provided its parliamentary presence) and with the SPS and SPO as window dressing. The Serbian Radical Party refused to participate in this illegal act and went into opposition. With the entire media under his control, Đinđić arranged for Serbian parliamentary elections; in order to trick Serbian voters, Vojislav Koštunica's name headlined the DOS list. DOS swept that vote and Đinđić formalised his power as Serbia's ruler with the post of Serbian Prime Minister.

Following a warrant for his arrest by the Yugoslav authorities on charges of corruption and abuse of power, Milošević was forced to surrender to security forces on March 31, 2001 following an armed stand off at his fortified villa in Belgrade. On June 28 of the same year, Milošević was transferred by Yugoslav government officials from the jail in Belgrade where he was being held to United Nations custody just inside Bosnian territory. He was then transported to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav Constitution prohibited extradition of Yugoslav citizens and Koštunica formally on legal grounds opposed the transfer that has been ordered by Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Relations with other countries

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[edit] Relations with Russia

Historically, Russia has consistently had very close relations with Serbia and the former Yugoslavia, with Russian influence on Serbia/Yugoslavia often strong. Russia and Serbia have significant affinities, including majority populations of Slavic ethno-linguistic groups, Orthodox Christianity, multi-ethnic polities. Russia is remembered by Serbs for giving assistance in becoming autonomous from the Ottoman and establishing the Kingdom of Serbia in 19th century. During Milošević's rule, Russia pursued policies that generally supported the Milošević regime. During the Kosovo conflict in 1999, some observers suggested the possibility of Russia deploying troops in support of Serbia.^[55] However, in spite of being considered as a great friend in need for Serbia, Russia has provided political asylum to Milosevic's family, which the families of those killed in the conflicts have protested.^[56]

[edit] Relations with China

Milošević first visited China in the early 1980s while head of Beobank. Milošević visited China again in 1997, after an invitation by Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Milošević was often popularly known in China by the nickname "Lao Mi" (老米), a shortened form of the informal Chinese-style nickname "Old Milošević" (老米洛舍维奇); among the state-operated media in China, Milošević was often referred to as "Comrade Milošević" (米洛舍维奇同志). Many sources hold that the Chinese government asserted strong backing of Milošević throughout his presidency until his surrender, and was one of the few countries supportive of him and the Yugoslav regime,^[57] at a time when most Western countries were strongly critical of the Milošević government. The New York Times states that China was "one of Mr. Milošević's staunchest supporters" during the Kosovo conflict.^[58] China vocally opposed NATO armed intervention in Kosovo throughout the campaign. Chinese parliamentary leader Li Peng, was presented by Milošević with Yugoslavia's highest medal (the Great Star) in Belgrade in 2000.^[59]

The New York Times observed that Milošević, and particularly his wife Marković had "long viewed Beijing and its Communist party" as allied and "the sort of ideological comrades" lacking in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism in the 1990s.^[60] After Milošević's indictment, China's public statements shifted toward emphasizing Yugoslav-Chinese relations rather than focusing on its support for Milošević, while after the election of Vojislav Koštunica as Yugoslav president, Chinese foreign ministry officially stated that "China respects the choice of the Yugoslavian people."^[61]

[edit] Trial

Milošević was indicted in May 1999, during the Kosovo War, by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity in Kosovo. Charges of violating the laws or customs of war, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions in Croatia and Bosnia and genocide in Bosnia were added a year and a half later.

Following Milošević's transfer, the original charges of war crimes in Kosovo were upgraded by adding charges of genocide in Bosnia and war crimes in Croatia. On January 30, 2002, Milošević accused the war crimes tribunal of an "evil and hostile attack" against him. The trial began at The Hague on February 12, 2002, with Milošević defending himself while refusing to recognize the legality of the court's jurisdiction.^{[citation needed]}

Milošević had a team in Belgrade that helped him, often sending him information available from the secret police files.^{[citation needed]} Serbian insiders often supported Milošević's point of view, while Bosnian and Croatian witnesses have offered much testimony supporting the indictments.^{[citation needed]}

The trial was a controversial issue and has featured many conflicting testimonies. For example:

• the statement by William Walker, the US former ambassador to El Salvador during its war, that he did not remember phoning several senior US officials to say that, at Račak, he had discovered a justification for a NATO war. He did not dispute that officials who said they had received his calls were telling the truth, however.^{[citation needed]}

• Rade Marković's statement that a written statement he had made implicating Milošević had been extracted from him by ill-treatment legally amounting to torture by named NATO officers^[62] Judge May declared this to be "irrelevant", but Milošević stated that it was forbidden under the 1988 rules concerning evidence gained by torture.

• the statement by Lord Owen (author of the Vance Owen Plan) that Milošević was not a racist, a radical nationalist or an "ethnic purist". Owen said he didn't think "that he (Milošević) was one of those who wanted all Muslims out of Republika Srpska any more than he wanted all Muslims out of Serbia."^{[citation needed]}

The prosecution took two years to present its case in the first part of the trial, where they covered the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Throughout the two-year period, the trial was being closely followed by the publics of the involved former Yugoslav republics as it covered various notable events from the war and included several high-profile witnesses.

Milošević became increasingly ill during this time (high blood pressure and severe flu), which caused intermissions and prolonged the trial by at least six months. In early 2004, when he finally appeared in court in order to start presenting his defense (announcing over 1,200 witnesses), the two ICTY judges decided to appoint him two defense lawyers in accordance with the medical opinions of the resident cardiologists. This action was opposed by Milošević himself and the pair of British lawyers appointed to him.^{[citation needed]}

In October 2004, the trial was resumed after being suspended for a month to allow counsel Steven Kay, who complained Milošević was not cooperating, to prepare the defense. Steven Kay has since asked to be allowed to resign from his court appointed position, complaining that of the 1200 witnesses he has only been able to get five to testify. Many of the other witnesses refused to testify in protest of ICTY's decision not to permit Milošević to defend himself.^{[citation needed]}

In late 2004, former Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov became the first high profile witness to testify for the defence.^{[citation needed]}

It was considered likely that, if allowed to present his case, Milošević would attempt to establish that NATO's attack on Yugoslavia was aggressive, thus being a war crime under international law and that, while supporting the KLA, were aware that they had practiced and intended to continue practicing genocide.^{[citation needed]} If a prima facie case for either claim were established, the ICTY would be legally obliged under its terms of reference to prepare an indictment against the leaders of most of the NATO countries, even though the prosecutor had already concluded an "inquiry" against the NATO leaders.^{[citation needed]}

A two-hour documentary entitled Milosevic on Trial documents the trial against Milošević.

[edit] Defenders of Milošević

A great number of professors, writers and journalists, among them political scientist Michael Parenti in his book To Kill a Nation, have argued that the actions of Milošević, and of the Serbs more broadly, were systematically exaggerated by the Western media and politicians during the Bosnian War in order to provide justification for military intervention. ^[63]

Adam Lebor, a biographer of Milošević, states that Milošević was not a dictator, suggesting that Serbia under Milošević was not a totalitarian regime. Lebor points out that the opposition continued to operate throughout his rule, and Slobodan even negotiated with and made concessions to a leader of student demonstrations on one occasion. LeBor also points out that when election results in Serbia were disputed, the government had called in international observers to evaluate the validity of the elections and accepted their verdict when it was judged that Milošević's Socialist Party had been involved in electoral fraud.^[64]

Lebor also believes that Milošević's role in the Slovenian War was restricted to making weighty demands on the use of Slovene airports, and being a passive supporter of the Yugoslav military in the Ten Day War. Some had seen the conflict as the first of four wars that Milošević was responsible for. Many reports from the time do not mention Milošević at all ^[65].

In her book Fool's Crusade Paris-based journalist Diana Johnstone contends that Milošević's actions during the conflict in the Balkans were no worse than the crimes of the Croats or the Bosnian Muslims, asserting also that the massacre in Srebrenica has been exaggerated. Political scientist Edward Herman endorsed Johnstone's findings in his review of Fool's Crusade in the Monthly Review ^[66].

In another book, The New Military Humanism, Noam Chomsky, who at times writes collaboratively with Herman, disagrees with Johnstone's views on Milošević, the Serbs, and Srebrenica in particular. While Chomsky believes that the massacres at Srebrenica did occur, he does not believe that Milošević was involved, pointing to the Dutch report that claimed that he was horrified to hear of it.^[67] He has described Milošević as a "terrible person", but still believes that he was not a dictator and that his crimes have been exaggerated while the crimes of the Kosovo Liberation Army have been ignored.^[68] In a 1999 interview, Chomsky sparked controversy with his view that to call the deaths in Kosovo a "genocide" was "an insult to the victims of Hitler".^[69]

Leadership of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milošević (ICDSM) includes: Professor Velko Valkanov (President of the Bulgarian Committee for Human Rights, Honorary President of the Bulgarian Antifascist Union, former Member of Parliament, and founder of ICDSM, Bulgaria); Ramsey Clark, former United States Attorney General; Professor Alexander Zinoviev, a Russian philosopher and writer; and Canadian lawyer Christopher Black, co-founder, vice-chairman, and chair of ICDSM's legal committee. In 2004 Clark wrote a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stating that "the Prosecution has failed to present significant or compelling evidence of any criminal act or intention of President Milošević" ^[70]. Those who have joined the ICDSM include (in 2001) playwright and Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter, who also signed the "Artists’ Appeal for Milošević" (Mar./Apr. 2004), a statement protesting unfair and biased conduct of the Tribunal, asserting its failure to prove Milošević's guilt justly, and calling for his immediate release ^[71].

As to his personal characteristics, former acquaintances have said that in private Milošević was patriarchal and conservative, devoted to his family and wife. His personality was marked by stubbornness—a trait of which he was proud; and his most devoted followers were older people, who had spent most of their lives in an era characterised by a moral code which they believed Milošević embodied. His stubbornness and unwillingness to compromise may be partly credited for the political problems and wars which marked his years in power, as well as his unrelenting defence in his trial. His lifelong devotion to his wife was reflected in the place of his burial, which is under the tree where they first kissed in 1958.

His defenders deny that Milošević was a nationalist; Jared Israel even offered a $500 reward for anyone to find incitements to racial hatred in any of his speeches^[72].

[edit] Death

Main article: Death of Slobodan Milošević

Milošević was found dead in his cell on March 11, 2006 in the UN war crimes tribunal's detention center, located in the Scheveningen section of The Hague.

Autopsies soon established that Milošević had died of a heart attack. He had been suffering from heart problems and high blood pressure. However, many suspicions were voiced to the effect that the heart attack had been caused or made possible deliberately - by the ICTY, according to sympathizers, or by himself, according to critics. Shortly before his death, Milošević had requested to be treated in a Russian heart surgery center, but the Tribunal had refused to permit that, citing mistrust of Russian guarantees that an escape would be made impossible. At the same time, Milošević had expressed fears that he was being poisoned. A scandal emerged when it was found that, according to an earlier medical test from January 12, Milošević's blood contained rifampicin, an antibiotic that is normally used to treat leprosy and tuberculosis and which would have neutralized some of the effects of his medicines for his high blood pressure and heart condition. Milošević had complained about the presence of a leprosis drug in his blood in a letter to the Russian foreign ministry. After that fact was disclosed, some hypothesized that the Tribunal medical staff had administered the drug deliberately, while others believed that he had taken it himself to worsen his heart condition and thus force the Tribunal to let him travel to Russia and escape. It is, however, questionable that he would have been able to smuggle in such drugs, since all his visitors were searched at least once before gaining access to him in response to an incident in September 2005 in which he had taken medicine from a Serbian doctor without the approval of the Hague doctors. Blood tests conducted as part of his post mortem showed that it was unlikely that Milošević had ingested rifampicin in the last few days before his death.

Several medical experts, such as Leo Bokeria (the director of the Russian heart surgery centre, where Milošević had requested to be treated) and The Times' medical columnist Thomas Stuttaford, asserted that Milošević's heart attack could and should have been prevented easily by means of standard medical procedures.

The reactions to the death were mixed: officials and sympathisers of the ICTY Prosecution lamented what they saw as Milošević's having remained unpunished, while opponents, mostly Serbian and Russian figures, stressed what they viewed as the responsibility of the Tribunal for what had happened.

A funeral was held in Milošević's home town Požarevac, after tens of thousands of supporters attended a farewell ceremony in Belgrade. The return of the body of this former president but alleged war criminal to Serbia and of his widow (who had not traveled to Serbia to attend her husband's funeral, as she would have been arrested immediately upon her arrival due to current arrest warrant issued related to fraud charges) was very controversial, leading to great difficulties before their resolution.

Emblematic of Milošević's detractors was Miroslav Milošević (no relation), a former member of OTPOR and self-described vampire hunter, arrested in 2007 after leading a group who told police that they had driven "a three-foot-long wooden stake into the ground and through the late president's heart" to prevent him from "returning from the dead". It is unclear whether the group actually believed in vampires, or if the act was politically motivated. ^[73][74][75]

The last opinion poll taken in Serbia before Milošević's death listed him as the third most favorably rated politician in Serbia behind Serbian Radical Party chairman Tomislav Nikolić #1, and current Serbian President Boris Tadić #2. ^[76]

[edit] Aftermath

In February 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) cleared Serbia of genocide, which implies Milošević cannot be guilty of genocide. In a reaction the ICJ's president stated that Milošević was aware of the risk of massacres occurring and did not act to prevent them.^[77]

[edit] Further reading

• Clark, Janine (May 2007). "National Minorities and the Milošević Regime". Nationalities Papers 35 (2): 317-339. 
• Crnobrnja, Mihailo, "The Yugoslav Drama" (McGill 1996)
• Herman, Edward S. and David Peterson, Marlise Simons on the Yugoslavia Tribunal: A Study in Total Propaganda Service, ZNet, 2004.
• Herman, Edward S. and David Peterson, Milosevic's Death in the Propaganda System, ZNet, May 14, 2006.
• Herman, Edward S. and David Peterson, Marlise Simons and the New York Times on the International Court of Justice Decision on Serbia and Genocide in Bosnia, ZNet, 2007.
• Kelly, Michael J., Nowhere to Hide: Defeat of the Sovereign Immunity Defense for Crimes of Genocide & the Trials of Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein (Peter Lang 2005).
• Sell, Louis D., Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (Duke University Press, 2002)
• Vladisavljevic, Nebojsa (March 2004). "Institutional power and the rise of Milošević". Nationalities Papers 32 (1): 183-205. 

[edit] References

[edit] External links

The external links in this article may not follow Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links.

BBC News, March 11, 2006

• Q&A: Milošević trial
• Obituary: Slobodan Milošević
• Have Your Say

CNN

• Milosevic years: An orgy of war, April 24, 2002
• In-Depth Specials: Milošević On Trial

The Guardian

• From Balkan tyranny to a lonely cell, Tim Judah, March 12, 2006
• Obituary: Slobodan Milošević, March 13, 2006

JURIST

• Milošević trial news and resources
• Meltdown at the Milošević Trial: A Much Delayed Rush to Judgment
• The Milošević Trial Legacy: If Not Outcome, Hope

Other links

• The Butcher of the Balkans, Time magazine, June 8, 1992
• Cornell International Law Journal Symposium on Trials of Hussein and Milosevic Articles and Video Content Regarding Two Seminal International Trials
• Carla del Ponte’s Pound of Serbian Flesh, Antiwar.com, December 9, 2003
• Bildt Comments blog: Slobodan Milošević, March 11, 2006
• Chronology of Milošević's career, The Boston Globe, March 12, 2006
• Obituaries: Slobodan Milošević, The Times, March 13, 2006
• Milošević Trial Public Archive, Bard College
• Rewards for Justice page on Slobodan Milošević, U.S. Department of State
• Srebrenica: A Cry from the Grave, Public Broadcasting Service
• The Trial of Slobodan Milošević, United Nations’ ICTY
• Milošević and the Balkan Wars photo galleries from The Washington Post
• ‘The Other Side of the Story’ by Dusan Vilic and Bosko Todorovic, February 16, 2002

Preceded by Ivan Stambolić	Chairman of the League of Communists of Serbia 1986–1989	Succeeded by Bogdan Trifunović
Preceded by Petar Gračanin as President of the Socialist Republic of Serbia	post created President of Serbia 1989–1997	Succeeded by Milan Milutinović
Preceded by Zoran Lilić	President of Yugoslavia 1997–2000	Succeeded by Vojislav Koštunica

v • d • e Presidents of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Ćosić | Lilić | Milošević | Koštunica
Presidents of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro
Marović

v • d • e Leaders of Serbia since 1945
Socialist Republic of Serbia (1945-1992), CC Secretaries	Siniša Stanković · Petar Stambolić · Jovan Veselinov · Dušan Petrović · Miloš Minić · Dragoslav Marković · Živan Vasiljević · Dragoslav Marković · Dobrivoje Vidić  · Nikola Ljubičić · Dušan Čkrebić · Ivan Stambolić · Petar Gračanin · Ljubiša Igić* · Slobodan Milošević
Within FR Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro (1992-2006), Presidents	Slobodan Milošević  · Dragan Tomić*  · Milan Milutinović  · Nataša Mićić*  · Dragan Maršićanin*  · Vojislav Mihailović*  · Predrag Marković*  · Boris Tadić
Republic of Serbia (2006-), President	Boris Tadić
* acting

Persondata
NAME	Milošević, Slobodan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	President of Serbia and Yugoslavia
DATE OF BIRTH	20 August 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH	Požarevac, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
DATE OF DEATH	11 March 2006
PLACE OF DEATH	The Hague, Netherlands