Slobedan Milosevic

1941- 2006

Serbian Leader

Slobodan Milosevic was born in Pozarevac, Yugoslavia on August 29, 1941. He joined the Communist Party when he was 18, later studied law at the University of Belgrade and became a businessman. In 1984, he became the head of the Communist Party in Belgrade and by 1987, he was head of the Serbian Communist Party.

In 1989, he became the President of Serbia. His resistence to reform contributed to the breakup of Yugoslavia, and led to the Croatian and Slovenian deceleration of independence in 1991 and the secessions of Croats and Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992.

Milosevic backed the Serbian rebels during the Bosnian conflict and, in 1997, he became the President of the new Federated Republic. His actions led to renewed violence in Kosovo which ultimately led to the war there in 1998-99. An international tribunal on war crimes indicted him for the crimes committed by the Serbs in Kosovo. In 2001 he lost his bid for reelection and was forced to resign. He was remanded to the internatinal war tribunal in the Hague. He died in is cell on March 11th before his long trial could be completed.