Who Was Milosevic?
Slobodan Milosevic dominated Balkan politics throughout the 1990s, and since February 2002, he has been on trial for crimes against humanity and war crimes during the 11 years of his rule. Just six years after he became president of Yugoslavia, in May 1989, Milosevic was instrumental in initiating, continuing, or guiding conflicts in Croatia (1991) and Bosnia (1992). Many thousands died, over 8,000 of them on the site of the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, at Srebrenica. Those wars ended when the Dayton peace agreement was signed in 1995, and for a time it seemed he might be overthrown. But he survived to win reelection in July 1997. Then, as a rebellion flared up in the predominantly ethnic-Albanian province of Kosovo, he launched a brutal crackdown. The international community reacted swiftly with sanctions and air strikes aimed at Serbia. As a result, the domestic repercussions were greater: in October 2000, Milosevic was overthrown in a revolution. Milosevic became a t
