Slobodan Milosevic - Yugoslav and Serbian politician, President of Serbia (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia, part of a republic in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) from 1989 to 1997 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. He has also led the Socialist Party of Serbia since its founding in 1990.
Slobodan Milosevic was born in August 1941. In his youth, he was educated at the University of Belgrade with a degree in jurisprudence. There he was destined to meet his love and future wife Mira Markovic, who is credited with a key role in shaping Milosevic's views on politics. In his student years, Milosevic enters and actively participates in the life of the SKU (Union of Communists of Yugoslavia)
His entire career is work in various responsible posts, which ultimately helped him take the post of first secretary of the Belgrade City Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. He managed it until 1982. Then, since 1987, Milosevic headed the Union of Communists of Serbia, which brought him into Yugoslav politics during the interethnic conflict based on long-term ethnic divisions between Albanians and Serbs. In 1989 he was elected President of the Serbian Republic, which is part of Yugoslavia. However, in fact, Slobodan Milosevic became the only politician to whom the peoples of all union republics in Yugoslavia listened.
Breakup of Yugoslavia
In the early 90s, two states seceded from Yugoslavia - Croatia, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. Milosevic had to decide on the introduction of federal forces into the territory of the former Soviet republics in order to protect the ethnic Serbs who did not want to leave Yugoslavia. Because of this reluctance, the Serbs were subject to harassment from the local government, which wanted independence to come unilaterally. Serbian settlements were called “Serbian republics”. This was the beginning of a civil war, in which several hundred thousand people died, and a large number of Bosnian Muslims and Croats left the territories of the Serbian republics.
A UN peacekeeping mission was brought into the territory of the former Soviet republics. Then Slovenia withdrew peacefully from Yugoslavia. By the mid-90s, the Serbian confrontation was suppressed by NATO troops. Milosevic gave his consent to the withdrawal of the republics. Thousands of refugees flocked to Serbia.
Two years later, Milosevic was re-elected to the presidency. But a year later, a new conflict broke out in Kosovo, in which the Serbs again became victims. There began mass pogroms of the Serbian autonomy by the Kosovars. NATO has become a new entry of troops if the President of Yugoslavia does not withdraw the Serbian military forces from Kosovo. Milosevic refused. In 1999, Yugoslavia was subjected to massive UN bombing. The President of Yugoslavia was forced to concede.
Arrest and trial
In 2000, Milosevic lost the presidential election by a narrow vote. And a year later, the new government subjected Milosevic to extradition to the International Tribunal. It was a barter between the United States and the new Serbian authorities, to whom America promised financial support and unfreezing of accounts. The trial took place in 2002. The former Yugoslav leader refused lawyers, as he was an experienced lawyer himself. Attempts to prove his guilt were in vain.
The trial continued for several years, severely undermining the health of the imprisoned Milosevic. Lacking the opportunity to meet with his family and fully relax, Slobodan Milosevic continued his fight alone against numerous perjury and hundreds of accusers. He also suspected that the prison doctors were being given counterfeit medicines. Milosevic died in The Hague in March 2006. Death was officially due to a heart attack. However, there is evidence that the former Yugoslav leader has drugs harmful to him in his blood. The tribunal never proved Milosevic's guilt.
