Slobodan Milosevic

From dKosopedia

Category: Serbia people

Serbian politician currently on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

Born 1941 in Pozarevac, Serbia. Both parents committed suicide. President of Serbia 1989-1997 President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 1997-2000 First indicted by ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo in 1999. Arrested by Serbian police 1 April 2001 on charges of abuse of power and embezzlement. Transferred to ICTY on 29 June 2001 on charges of violations of international humanitarian law.

Milosevic came to power, first as the head of the League of Communists in Serbia, on a platform of exerting control over Serbia's two autonomous provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina (the 1974 Constitution gave them status nearly equivalent to Yugoslavia's six republics) and of restructuring the Yugoslav federation along more centralist lines. By 1989 he had succeeded in establishing political control over the governments of Serbia, Kosovo and Vojvodina, as well as of neighboring Montenegro. However, his efforts to reform the federation put him on a collision course with Slovenia and Croatia, which advocated further decentralization of power. His effort to gain control over the federal party, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, at the party's XIV Congress in January 1990, resulted in the walkout the Slovenian delegation, followed by the Croatian delegation. After this disastrous final party congress, the League of Communists effectively ceased to exist. Milosevic had failed in his attempt to assert control over over the Yugoslav federation.

His name is correctly spoken as Slobodan Miloschevitsch.

[to be continued...]