Word: serb
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...ideology has never meant as much to Milosevic as it does to her. When he saw a chance to grab power, he pushed the communists aside and refashioned himself as a nationalist. In 1987 he went to Kosovo, the cradle of Serbian identity, to soothe the grievances of local Serbs, and he made his name by declaring, "No one shall be allowed to beat you." Milosevic was moved less by Serb nationalism than by its power to electrify. "After that night," recounted a Serb journalist, "there was a psychological change in him. All at once he discovered he had this...
...Ottoman Turks in an epic battle fought in 1389, marks both the beginning and possibly the end of Milosevic's career. Milosevic has displayed an uncanny knack for defeats. His 1991 war in Croatia to retain control of the old Yugoslavia eventually ended with hundreds of thousands of Serbs forced out of their homes, farms and villages. Today they make up a refugee population living hand to mouth inside Serbia, not even granted the privilege of Yugoslav citizenship. Yet the war served to polish Milosevic's nationalist credentials with the Serb masses...
Milosevic's war in Bosnia to expand Greater Serbia ended in another defeat. To save himself, he had to knuckle under to international diplomacy. Ever ready to discard what has become harmful, he dropped his backing for Serb kin in the breakaway state, eventually making peace at their expense at Dayton in 1995. He turned this humiliation into another kind of triumph when he paraded on the world stage as a peacemaker equal to the superpower leaders negotiating with him. Yet he was no more a man of peace than he was a communist or nationalist. He simply did what...
Power, say those who know him, is the one thing he truly loves. He exercises it daily, in matters large and small. From his subordinates, he brooks no challenges. When Serb officials began several months ago to obstruct the work of international monitors in Kosovo, it was clearly at his orders, a way of saying, notes a diplomat involved, "This is my turf, and I'm boss." He does not flaunt decorative symbols of office or stage showy ceremonies and cares nothing for state protocol. But if he shirks the glamour of power, he still loves delicious moments of control...
Much of his strength lies in the weakness of his enemies. In 1996 the Serb President did suffer a scare when three months of protests over fraudulent elections filled the streets with disillusioned citizens demanding democratic change. But he held out long enough to allow the opposition to self-destruct in personal rivalries. Since then his strongest potential challengers have opted to join his government instead of fight it. In 1997, when the constitution barred him from a third term as President of Serbia, he stuck to legal niceties and "won" election as President of the Yugoslav Federation, transforming that...