[Marxism] Slobodan Milosevic is dead

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

March 11, 2006
Slobodan Milosevic, Former Yugoslav Leader, Is Found Dead
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 8:08 a.m. ET

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav
leader who orchestrated the Balkan wars of the 1990s and was on trial for
war crimes, was found dead in his prison cell near The Hague, the U.N.
tribunal said Saturday.

Milosevic, 64, apparently died of natural causes, a tribunal press officer
said. He was found dead in his bed at the U.N. detention center.

Milosevic has been on trial since February 2002, defending himself against
66 counts of crimes, including genocide, in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

The trial repeatedly was interrupted by Milosevic's poor health and chronic
heart condition. It was recessed last week until Tuesday to await his next
defense witness.

His death comes less than a week after the star witness in his trial,
former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic, was found dead in the same prison.
Babic, who was serving a 13-year prison sentence, committed suicide. He
testified against Milosevic in 2002.

A figure of beguiling charm and cunning ruthlessness, Milosevic was a
master tactician who turned his country's defeats into personal victories
and held onto power for 13 years despite losing four wars that shattered
his nation and impoverished his people.

Milosevic led Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic, into four Balkan
wars, but always managed to emerge politically stronger. The secret of his
survival was his uncanny ability to exploit what less adroit figures would
consider a fatal blow.

Each time he would bounce back, skillfully reinventing himself in a series
of political transformations -- as a devout communist, a reform-minded
nationalist, and again as a communist at a time when most of the world had
abandoned Marxist ideology.

He once described himself as the ''Ayatollah Khomeini of Serbia,'' assuring
his prime minister, Milan Panic, that ''the Serbs will follow me no matter
what.'' For years, they did -- through wars which dismembered Yugoslavia
and plunged what was left of the country into social, political, moral and
economic ruin.

But in the end, his people abandoned him: first in October 2000, when he
was unable to convince the majority of Yugoslavs that he had staved off
electoral defeat by his successor, Vojislav Kostunica, and again on April
1, 2001, when he surrendered after a 26-hour standoff to face criminal
charges stemming from his ruinous rule.


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