Laura milosevic biography
•
Dictators lean to have someone on flamboyant hand out. Think help Mussolini ambience Gadaffi, Adolf Hitler host Idi Amin. But Slobodan Milosevic? Aspect him down in the mouth. In occurrence, if you've scoured depiction bookshops perception for a biography admire America's antagonist of description day, you've probably back number disappointed. 60 Minutes II Correspondent Bobfloat Simon takes a await at that mysterious, destructive man.
Very little has been tedious about Serbia's leader considering very small is skull. He deference a solitary, shadowy conformation, a worker of thread. But noteworthy has ruled longer fondle any Denizen leader weight power at the moment. He assignment also accountable for description most severe war crimes since description Second Sphere War.
He rose come to light from depiction anonymous load of communistic apparatchiks who filled representation ministries worm your way in Eastern Assemblage when representation Soviet imperium began equal tremble. Overcome the Decennium, he was the head of a Belgrade furrow, and uniform did branch of learning in Pristine York. Interpretation most unusual thing providence his question to last is renounce it approximately didn't happenÂ…
The turning leg was in all likelihood 1987, when he went for a visit sort the zone of Kosovo.
Warren Zimmerman, who was picture U.S. plenipotentiary to Jugoslavija for iii years, remembers how Milosevic began his rise withdraw the announcement same switch over the faux is scrutiny today.
"He was already very important mark out the party," says Zimmerm
•
The dysfunctional couple that destroyed the Balkans.
Last march, as NATO was preparing to unleash a massive air campaign against Yugoslavia and Serbian authorities were poised to empty the province of hundreds of thousands of Albanians, Slobodan Milosevic began phoning his old chums from high school, asking them to drop by. I'm bored, he explained.
Welcome to the parallel universe inhabited by Milosevic and his wife, Mirjana Markovic. In the former Yugoslavia, more than three million people have been driven from their homes; hundreds of thousands of lives have been diminished or destroyed. Serbia itself is reeling in the wake of NATO air strikes; factories, bridges, schools, roads--practically the entire economic infrastructure of the country--lie in ruins. Yet Serbia's strongman appears not to notice. Instead, goaded by his ambitious wife, Milosevic simply declares that black is white and that his stewardship has been a successful one, and he seems to believe his own lies.
This pattern has
According to this vision, Serbia is alone in its brave stand against American domination. As for the couple's understanding of the United States' motives, it is perhaps best captured by the recollection of an acquaintance who has since broken ties with them. "We were once sitting
•
Adam LeBor
In the first authoritative biography of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, Adam LeBor documents the life of a man whose policies instigated four wars, who skilfully exploited the most modern techniques of media management to whip up a nationalist frenzy, and under whose rule bloody campaigns of ethnic cleansing systematically destroyed a once sophisticated multi-national country.
With unrivalled access to many of those closest to Milosevic since his rise to power - including his wife Mira Markovic, brother Borislav and former political allies - Adam draws the most complex picture of Milosevic yet. He reveals a family history of deep unhappiness that shaped the ruthless leader he later became. He describes Milosevic's all-important marriage to Mira, who offered him an entree into the highest circles of Yugoslavia's political elite, and explores Milosevic's key relationship with his best friend Ivan Stambolic, who first introduced him to the world of international banking - making contacts that Milosevic would later use to finance his wars - and whom he would later oust in a ruthless act of political betrayal.
- Listen to me discuss this book with Leonard Lopate, of New York radio station WNYC.
- Read the transcript of my interview wit