Slobodan Milosevic: Nationalist and leader

On a personal level, Milosevic is said to be aloof with associates and uncomfortable in crowds

By Douglas Herbert, CNN.com writer

(CNN) -- Slobodan Milosevic owes his political fortunes to a 1987 incident at Kosovo Polje, site of a Serb defeat at the hands of Turkish invaders that remains a sore point in the national psyche six centuries later.

Milosevic, then a protégé of former Serbian President Ivan Stambolic, was summoned in April 1987 to help calm a crowd of riotous Serbs at a political meeting outside the town hall in the southern Serbian province.

The mob was livid over what it claimed to be egregious mistreatment by the province's Albanian majority. That majority was the by-product of a demographic policy promoted in Soviet times by Marshal Josip Broz Tito, the wartime guerrilla leader who led Yugoslavia from 1945 until his death in 1980.

Tito promoted the communist dictum of "brotherhood and unity" as a bulwark against ethnic strife. His division of Serbia into two contiguous provinces -- Vojvodina in the north and Kosovo in the south -- was aimed at reducing Serbia's dominance on Yugoslavia's patchwork quilt of nationalities.

But Tito's tactics left one-third of Serbs outside their own province. These Serbs later became ripe targets for the virulent strain of resurgent nationalism that Milosevic brought to the balcony of Kosovo Polje's town hall in April 1987.

Milosevic silenced the crowd. "No one has the right to beat you," he said, to affectionate chants of 'Slobo! Slobo!' from the crowd. "No one will beat you ever again." With that, he single-handedly seized the mantle of defender of Greater Serbia, violating Tito's dictum and paving the way for Yugoslavia's bloody disintegration.

By 1989, Milosevic had deposed his former mentor, Stambolic, to become Serbian President.

Ensconced in power, Milosevic laid the groundwork for his next move -- the abolition of Kosovo's autonomy.

'Butcher of the Balkans'

Today, Milosevic's fervour for the nationalist cause shows few signs of waning. Nor, analysts say, has the one-time Communist party boss's grip on power slackened.

On the contrary, observers say, the man branded by critics "the Butcher of the Balkans" has employed a disarming combination of guile and charm to deflect, or dampen, international efforts to bring about his political demise.

Aleksa Djilas, a Belgrade political analyst and academic, believes Milosevic continues to draw political capital from his unerring ability to stymie his opposition.

"Milosevic is not a genius, he's a good, clever tactician," Djilas says.

Those tactics came to the fore after 72 days of NATO bombing in mid-1999 left the Yugoslavian infrastructure in smouldering ruins. Many western observers at the time thought the intervention would spur Yugoslav Serbs to rise up and drive Milosevic from office.

Indeed, thousands filled the streets of Belgrade in the summer and autumn of 1999, demonstrating against what Alliance for Change leader Zoran Djindjic called "the last dictatorship in Europe." Djindjic added: "We will crush it."

But Milosevic, turning the tables, ridiculed the protesters as "cowards, blackmailers and sycophants," thereby tightening his grip on the power structure long enough to ride out the demonstrations. The protests ultimately stalled amid growing apathy and disenchantment with a bickering opposition.

Today, Milosevic continues to dominate Yugoslavia's political landscape, despite involving the country in wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Some say Milosevic has thrived on the constant crisis atmosphere.

The family of Mirjana Markovic, Milosevic's wife, has a history of suicide -- as has her husband's family

Young poet

When it was announced, for example, in May 1999 that a tribunal in The Hague had indicted him for alleged atrocities in Kosovo, state TV showed a smiling Milosevic condemning "aggression on our country" as he shook hands with Greek Premier Constantine Mitsotakis.

Observers say such sang-froid is customary with Milosevic. He is chilly and distant with associates, uncomfortable in crowds and has a history of suicide in his family.

Milosevic was born Aug. 29, 1941, in Pozarevac, an industrial city in central Serbia, to Montenegrin parents. He was reportedly overweight as a child and preferred writing poetry and being alone, to sports and people.

While Milosevic was a student at the University of Belgrade, his father committed suicide. His mother took her life 11 years later, and her brother, a former general, also committed suicide.

After graduating with a law degree in 1964, Milosevic joined the Communist Party, the customary avenue to power in Communist Yugoslavia. He moved up the career ladder as a business administrator, eventually assuming the leadership of the state-owned gas company before being appointed director of Beobanka, one of the major state-run banks.

He also married Mirjana Markovic, a professor of Marxist sociology at the University of Belgrade who was even more devout in her communist beliefs than Milosevic.

In 1990, Milosevic orchestrated changes in the Serbian constitution that reduced the provinces' autonomy. But an anti-Serb backlash erupted in the other republics, and in 1991 Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia all declared independence.

When Muslims and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina also voted to secede, Milosevic supported Serb militias trying to unite Bosnia and Croatia with Serbia in a "Greater Serbia."

The fighting, which lasted three years, made "ethnic cleansing" an international household term and established Milosevic as a key power broker in the region. His participation was considered essential to the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian conflict.

Milosevic's efforts to abolish Kosovo's autonomy, and NATO's efforts to oppose him, have come at a high price.

In 1996, Milosevic survived major opposition from a coalition of students and opposition leaders calling themselves "Zajedno" (Together). He stalled for three months before giving the opposition control of towns and cities that were bankrupt and in disarray. Political in-fighting eventually caused the coalition to unravel, however, leaving Milosevic firmly in charge.

When the Serbian constitution prevented him from serving another term as president in 1997, Milosevic had himself named president of Yugoslavia and invested what had been a ceremonial office with unlimited authority. It was expected the Serbs would lose the war in Kosovo, just as they lost in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia.

Today, the standard of living in Serbia has dramatically declined. Prices have increased and wages often are not paid on time. The result may be a population that lacks the will to overthrow their leader.