The Overthrow of Slobodan Milošević began in the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro or simply Serbia and Montenegro, known until 2003 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and commonly referred to as FR Yugoslavia (FRY) or simply Yugoslavia, was a country in Southeast Europe locate ...
after the
general election
A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...
on 24 September 2000 and culminated in the downfall of
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević ( sr-Cyrl, Слободан Милошевић, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the President of Serbia between 1989 and 1997 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugos ...
's government on 5 October 2000. As such, it is commonly referred to as the 5 October Revolution () or colloquially the Bulldozer Revolution (), after one of the most memorable episodes from the day-long protest in which a heavy equipment operator charged the
Radio Television of Serbia building, considered to be symbolic of the
Milošević regime's propaganda.
Prelude
Milošević's rule has been described by observers as
authoritarian or
autocratic, as well as
kleptocratic, with numerous accusations of
electoral fraud
Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud, or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share o ...
, political assassinations,
suppression of media freedom and
police brutality. He became the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes. His role in the
Yugoslav Wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related#Naimark, Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and Insurgency, insurgencies that took place from 1991 to 2001 in what had been the Socialist Federal Republic of ...
led to
international sanctions
International sanctions are political and economic decisions that are part of diplomatic efforts by countries, multilateral or regional organizations against states or organizations either to protect national security interests, or to protect i ...
against Yugoslavia, which had a devastating impact on the Yugoslav economy and society, while
NATO bombing significantly damaged the country's infrastructure. While the overthrow of Milošević was reported as a spontaneous revolution, there had been a year-long battle involving thousands of Serbs in a strategy to strip the leader of his legitimacy, turn his security forces against him, and force him to call for elections, the result of which he would not acknowledge.
In 1998, a dozen students met to form
Otpor! (Serbian for "resistance"). Analysing the mistakes of the
1996–97 protests, they realised they needed more effective organisation, strategy, planning, recruiting, and everything necessary for a sustained fight. Galvanised by outrage over new laws that imposed political control of their universities and harassment of independent media, the Otpor students called for the removal of Milošević and the establishment of democracy and the rule of law.
[
Prior to this, Milošević was cracking down on opposition, non-government organisations and independent media. From 1991 onwards there were campaigns of ]civil resistance
Civil resistance is a form of political action that relies on the use of nonviolent resistance by ordinary people to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and co ...
against his administration that were to culminate in the largely non-violent revolution of October 2000. As the end of his first term in office of the president of Yugoslavia approached (previously, he had been elected president of Serbia, in two terms, from 1989 to 1997), on 6 July 2000, the rules of the election of the president were changed. Whilst the president of Yugoslavia had previously been chosen for one term only by the legislature, in the Yugoslav parliament, it was now to be directly elected via the two-round voting system of presidential elections with a maximum of two terms. Many onlookers believed that Milošević's intentions for supporting such reforms had more to do with holding power than with improving democracy. On 27 July 2000, the authorities announced that the early elections were to be held 24 September 2000, although Milošević's term wouldn't expire until 23 July 2001. The elections for the upper house of the federal parliament, Council of Citizens (''Veće građana''), as well as the local elections were also scheduled to be held on the same date.
On 25 August 2000, Ivan Stambolić, a former mentor and political ally of Milošević, was mysteriously kidnapped and detained from his home and was summarily executed in Fruška Gora
Fruška gora ( sr-Cyrl, Фрушка гора) is a mountain in Syrmia, with most of the mountain being part of Serbia and its westernmost edge extending into eastern Croatia. The Serbian part of the mountain forms the country's oldest National p ...
. The hit was believed to have been initiated by Milošević so he could prevent Stambolić from being a potential electoral opponent. His decomposed body was found three years later in March 2003. The four officers who had kidnapped him were sentenced. Milošević was charged for initiating the assassination.
Soon after the announcement, the anti-government youth movement Otpor! led the campaign to topple the administration and introduce a transparent democracy. To unify opposition, eighteen parties in Serbia formed the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) coalition, with Vojislav Koštunica
Vojislav Koštunica ( sr-cyrl, Војислав Коштуница, ; born 24 March 1944) is a Serbian former politician who served as the last President of Serbia and Montenegro, president of FR Yugoslavia from 2000 to 2003 and as the Prime Min ...
as the candidate to confront Milošević. Apart from this, two major opposition parties, Serbian Radical Party and Serbian Renewal Movement also had candidates ( Tomislav Nikolić and Vojislav Mihailović
Vojislav Mihailović ( sr-cyrl, Војислав Михаиловић; born 3 September 1951) is a Serbian politician who served as the mayor of Belgrade from 1999 to 2000. As of January 2022, he has been the president of the Movement for the ...
, respectively), but the main battle of the elections was the one between Milošević and Koštunica. The election campaign lasted for about two months and was extremely tense, with numerous incidents, accusations of treason, independent media shutdowns and even murders.
Elections
The vote took place on 24 September 2000. The DOS coalition reported that Vojislav Koštunica
Vojislav Koštunica ( sr-cyrl, Војислав Коштуница, ; born 24 March 1944) is a Serbian former politician who served as the last President of Serbia and Montenegro, president of FR Yugoslavia from 2000 to 2003 and as the Prime Min ...
won over half of the votes, enough to defeat Milošević in a single round. The government-controlled Federal Electoral Committee claimed that no candidate won over 50% of the votes and that a second round between Koštunica and Milošević would take place. The vote was largely boycotted in Montenegro
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and by Kosovo Albanians (not under Yugoslav control). Yet, Milošević officially won by a large margin in these parts of the country. These unexpected results provoked stronger accusations of election fraud and led DOS to call for peaceful protests to topple the government.
Some obvious irregularities could be found in the Federal Electoral Committee official results. For example, the sum of the numbers of valid and invalid votes was not equal to the number of voters; the sum of the numbers of the voters voting at the polling station
A polling place is where voters cast their ballots in elections. The phrase polling station is also used in American English, British English and Canadian English although a polling place is the building and polling station is the specific ...
s and the voters voting at home exceeded the total number of voters; the sum of the numbers of the used and the unused ballot papers was short by 117,244 in comparison to the number of eligible voters, the number of eligible voters was different from the one announced before the elections and has differed in the presidential, federal and local elections results.
All of these discrepancies provoked massive outrage. The results were declared false immediately after Milošević was removed, and revised official results were released shortly afterwards. The new results were practically the same, except for the number of total votes and the votes for Milošević, both of which were lower by 125,000–130,000 votes, thus giving Koštunica an absolute, if narrow, first-round victory; Koštunica finished with just 11,843 votes over the threshold to avoid a runoff (4,916,920 voters cast their votes, so 2,458,461 votes were needed for a "50% of turnout + 1 vote" first round victory; Koštunica got 2,470,304 votes).
Protests and overthrow
The protests initially started with strikers at the Kolubara mines on 29 September, which produced most of Serbia
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, national_anthem = ()
, image_map =
, map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...
's electricity. The protest reached its height on 5 October 2000. Several hundred thousand protesters from all over Serbia arrived in Belgrade
Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...
to protest, chanting "Gotov je!" ("He's finished!") Unlike previous protests, there was no large scale police crackdown. The parliament was partially burned during the protests.
Ljubisav Đokić; nicknamed "Džo" ("Џо"), the Serbian phonetical translation of ''Joe'' (1943–2020) was a wheel loader operator who became the main symbol of the overthrow. Đokić turned on his wheel loader and filled a public broadcaster
Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive ...
building in Belgrade with it. The loader served as a kind of elevator and bullet protection. Đokić had a spinal deformity
A deformity, dysmorphism, or dysmorphic feature is a major abnormality of an organism that makes a part of the body appear or function differently than how it is supposed to.
Causes
Deformity can be caused by a variety of factors:
*Arthritis a ...
and at the time he was a timber yard and construction material warehouse owner.
The building's tenant, Serbian state television RTS, had for a decade been a symbol and bastion of Milošević's rule. When their studios were taken over, the station was quickly renamed ''Novi RTS'' ("New RTS") as a sign that the regime had lost power.
Although the protest was mostly peaceful, without a larger escalation of violence, 65 people were injured in the riots and two people died:
* Jasmina Jovanović fell under a wheel loader or, according to other sources, a truck.[
* Momčilo Stakić succumbed to a fatal heart attack.
In the time between elections and the protest, Milošević said that he would gladly resign but only when his term expired in June 2001. Due to pressure caused by the protests, Milošević resigned on 5 October 2000.
]
U.S. involvement in the revolution
For a year leading up to the elections, the United States-funded consultants played a crucial role in the anti-Milošević campaign.[ The key symbol of the campaign was the slogan ''Gotov je!'' ( sr-Cyrl, Готов је!, meaning "He is finished!"), created by Otpor!. Part of the U.S. funding of the opposition (a reported $41 million) included 2.5 million stickers with the slogan and 5,000 spray cans for anti-Milošević graffiti.][ Material was channeled by the U.S. Department of State through QUANGOs.][ In the months leading up to the election, the National Endowment for Democracy provided funding to opposition parties and media, unions and student groups, with Otpor! being the largest beneficiary.
Slobodan Homen, head of international affairs at Otpor, recalled how Secretary of State ]Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (born Marie Jana Körbelová, later Korbelová; May 15, 1937 – March 23, 2022) was an American diplomat and political science, political scientist who served as the 64th United States Secretary of State, United S ...
said at a June 2000 meeting in Berlin that she wanted to see Milošević removed from power. Homen also met at the U.S. Embassy in Hungary with former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia William Dale Montgomery. According to Montgomery, "Milošević was personal for Madeleine Albright, a very high priority." He added: "She wanted him gone, and Otpor was ready to stand up to the regime with a vigor and in a way that others were not. Seldom has so much fire, energy, enthusiasm, money — everything — gone into anything as into Serbia in the months before Milošević went".
The International Republican Institute trained 400 activists outside the country, who returned to Serbia and trained another 15,000 people to observe polling stations inside the country.[ On election day, the opposition was able to get a minimum of two trained observers to each polling station in Serbia.][ Each observer's participation was paid at $5 - money provided by the West (in 2000, the average monthly salary in the country was $30).][ Researcher David Shimer wrote that most Serbs did not realize that the U.S. was directing the opposition's electoral strategy and funding the creation and distribution of campaign materials, although this was no secret.]
Among other things, U.S. President Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
instructed the CIA to direct efforts to prevent the Serbian leader from winning the presidential election. According to the American president, "There’s a death threshold, and Milošević crossed it." Vince Houghton, who later became historian of the International Spy Museum, said the U.S. had no intention of allowing Milošević to remain in power.[ John Sipher, who became station chief in Serbia immediately after Milosevic's ouster, said the agency spent "certainly millions of dollars" on the campaign against Milošević, organizing meetings with opposition leaders outside the country and "providing them with cash" inside Serbia.] Also, he said, "Many of the key players who became senior figures in the follow-on government continued to meet with us and continued to tell us that it was our efforts that led to their success."
CIA Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin noted that "I know stuff about that, but I’m not able to talk about it." Douglas Wise, a CIA official who worked in the Balkans, said Milosevic was a "genocidal maniac"; when asked whether U.S. intelligence supported protests against the Serbian president, he said "It was a broad-spectrum involvement." David Shimer quotes an unnamed senior U.S. administration official in 2000 who took umbrage at the revelations of former U.S. intelligence officers: "I can’t talk about what we did or didn’t do. I’m just not going to talk about it...They may not take their oaths and legal obligations seriously, but I do."
Aftermath
A DOS victory was guaranteed in parliamentary elections in December, where they achieved a two-thirds majority. On 1 April 2001, Milošević was detained by Serbian police and later transferred to The Hague
The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...
to be prosecuted by the ICTY. He died in his cell on 11 March 2006, a few months before the conclusion of his four-year trial.
Soon after the overthrow, Ljubisav Đokić started opposing the new government, saying it had done almost nothing to improve the standard of the war-torn country. He even said that during Milošević's regime he was the owner of a company which operated with success, but that post-Milošević politicians made such unhealthy economic conditions, that his business failed and he went bankrupt, even selling his iconic wheel loader and living on 180-euro social benefits. Đokić died 11 July 2020.
The Bulldozer Revolution is thought to have inspired the Georgia's Rose Revolution. Serbia's opposition organisation Otpor has been involved in training students in civil disobedience in Georgia.
See also
* Nonviolent revolution
* Anti-bureaucratic revolution
* March 1991 protests in Belgrade
* 1996–1997 protests in Serbia
Annotations
References
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic
2000 in Serbia
2000 protests
2000 riots
2000s in Belgrade
20th-century revolutions
Colour revolutions
Events in Belgrade
October 2000 in Europe
Protests against results of elections
Protests in Serbia
Riots and civil disorder in Serbia
Student protests in Serbia
Attacks on legislatures in Europe
Democratization
CIA activities in Russia and Europe