Milošević, Slobodan

Milošević, Slobodan (1941– ) Serbian politician; President of Serbia (1989– ) and of the self-declared Yugoslav Federal Republic (Serbia and Montenegro) since 1997. Milošević trained as a lawyer and became director of the Belgrade Bank in 1978. He was elected as First Secretary of the Serbian Communist (later Socialist) Party in 1987 and won the presidential election in the republic two years later. A champion of Serbian hegemony over the constituent republics of the former YUGOSLAVIA, Milošević organized the intervention of the Yugoslav federal army in Slovenia and Croatia (1991–92) and supported the secession of the Bosnian Serbs that began the war in BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA (1992–95), with its ‘ethnic cleansing’ policies. As a result he achieved isolation from the international community and the collapse of the Serbian economy. Serbia's subsequent policy of oppression, ethnic cleansing, and genocide against the majority Albanian population in the province of Kosovo led NATO to unleash a devastating series of bombing raids against Yugoslavia from March to June 1999, when Serbia effectively capitulated. The displaced Albanians then flooded back into the country from temporary camps in neighbouring states. As a result of his policies in Kosovo, Milošević was branded a war criminal and faced growing internal demands for his removal.