[5][6][7] During his presidency, anti-government and anti-war protests took place, and hundreds of thousands deserted the Milošević-controlled Yugoslav People's Army, leading to mass emigration from Serbia.

Marković would have some influence on Milošević's political career both before and after his rise to power; she was also leader of her husband's junior coalition partner, Yugoslav Left (JUL) in the 1990s.

By 1978, Stambolić's sponsorship had enabled Milošević to become the head of Beobanka, one of Yugoslavia's largest banks; his frequent trips to Paris and New York gave him the opportunity to learn English.

The New York Times reported that "a crowd of 15,000 Serbs and Montenegrins hurled stones at the police after they used truncheons to push people away from the entrance to the cultural center of Kosovo Polje.

"[45] He accused the Serbian government of deliberately fanning nationalist passions, and Slovene newspapers published articles comparing Milošević to Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, a one-time socialist who turned to nationalism.

[46] In Vojvodina, where 54 percent of the population was Serb, an estimated 100,000 demonstrators rallied outside the Communist Party headquarters in Novi Sad on 6 October 1988 to demand the resignation of the provincial leadership.

[52] On 10 January 1989, the anti-bureaucratic revolution continued in Montenegro, which had the lowest average monthly wage in Yugoslavia, an unemployment rate of nearly 25 percent, and where one-fifth of the population lived below the poverty line.

[70] The anti-bureaucratic revolutions in Montenegro and Vojvodina coupled with Kosovo effectively meant that Slobodan Milošević and his supporters held power in four out of the eight republics and autonomous provinces that made-up the Yugoslav federation.

[citation needed] In 1990, after other republics abandoned the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and adopted democratic multiparty systems, Milošević's government quickly followed suit and the 1990 Serbian Constitution was created.

The National Bank of Yugoslavia's war-related easy money policies contributed to hyperinflation which reached an alarming rate of 313 million percent in January 1994.

Avramović began monetary reforms that ended hyperinflation and returned the Serbian economy to economic growth by giving the Yugoslav dinar a 1:1 parity with the Deutsche Mark.

An example was in March 1991, when Serbia's Public Prosecutor ordered a 36-hour blackout of two independent media stations, B92 Radio and Studio B television to prevent the broadcast of a demonstration against the Serbian government taking place in Belgrade.

[82] Upon the creation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Milošević's government engaged in reforms to the Serbian penal code regarding restrictions on free speech, which were seen by critics as highly authoritarian.

[41] ICTY prosecutors argued that "the (Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo) indictments were all part of a common scheme, strategy or plan on the part of the accused Milošević to create a Greater Serbia, a centralized Serbian state encompassing the Serb-populated areas of Croatia and Bosnia and all of Kosovo, and that this plan was to be achieved by forcibly removing non-Serbs from large geographical areas through the commission of the crimes charged in the indictments.

[95] In August 1988, meetings by supporters of the Anti-bureaucratic revolution were held in many locations in Serbia and Montenegro, with increasingly violent nature, with calls being heard such as "Give us arms!

[102] Milošević and other members of the Serbian leadership in the 1980s attempted to gain support among Serb nationalists by appealing to revisionism of the history of Yugoslavia in World War II.

[128] Subsequent interviews with government officials involved in these affairs have revealed that Milošević planned to arrest the Republic of Macedonia's political leadership and replace it with politicians loyal to him.

'"[133][134] Following the rise of nationalism and political tensions after Slobodan Milošević came to power, as well as the outbreaks of the Yugoslav Wars, numerous anti-war movements developed in Serbia.

[139][137] According to professor Renaud de la Brosse, senior lecturer at the University of Reims and a witness called by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, it is surprising how great the resistance to Milošević's propaganda was among Serbs, given that and the lack of access to alternative news.

[citation needed] Milošević was President of Serbia, not of Yugoslavia, and claims that his government was only indirectly involved through support for Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia at some points.

Others including former members of his cabinet such as Borisav Jović have admitted that Milošević, while not head of state of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, in fact played a key role in the military affairs taken in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia.

Zimmerman has claimed that Milošević opportunistically used nationalism to allow him to rise to power in the Communist establishment in Serbia as Communism in eastern Europe became increasingly unpopular, and continued to advocate a nationalist agenda to draw in support for his government.

[150] Milošević also refused to keep notes on talks on important issues and would only meet with his most trusted allies, to whom he simply gave directions and instructions without engaging in substantial discussion.

[153] Following his arrest, the United States pressured the Yugoslav government to extradite Milošević to the ICTY or lose financial aid from the IMF and World Bank.

[159][160] The New York Times observed that Milošević, and particularly his wife Marković, had "long viewed Beijing and its Communist party" as allies and "the sort of ideological comrades" lacking in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism in the 1990s.

Throughout the two-year period, the trial was being closely followed by the public of the involved former Yugoslav republics as it covered various notable events from the war and included several high-profile witnesses.

He was found to have participated during this period in a joint criminal enterprise which included Slobodan Milošević, whose aim was to create a unified Serbian state through commission of a widespread and systematic campaign of crimes against non-Serbs inhabiting areas in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina envisaged to become parts of such a state.In its 2021 verdict against Serbia's operatives Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović, the follow-up International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals concluded: The Trial Chamber, therefore, finds proven beyond reasonable doubt that, from at least August 1991, and at all times relevant to the crimes charged in the Indictment, a common criminal purpose existed to forcibly and permanently remove, through the commission of the crimes of persecution, murder, deportation and inhumane acts (forcible transfer), the majority of non-Serbs, principally Croats, Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croats, from large areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Trial Chamber finds that the common criminal purpose, as defined above, was shared by senior political, military, and police leadership in Serbia, the SAO Krajina, the SAO SBWS, and Republika Srpska, with the core members, among others and varying depending on the area and timing of the commission of the crimes, being Slobodan Milošević.In the two Kosovo verdicts, the Nikola Šainović et al. and Vlastimir Đorđević cases, Milošević was found to have been "one of the crucial members" of the criminal enterprise aimed at uprooting large parts of Albanians from Kosovo.

[166][167] In February 2007, the International Court of Justice cleared Serbia under Milošević's rule of direct responsibility for occurrences of crime committed during the Bosnian War.

[169][170] On 11 March 2006, Milošević was found dead in his prison cell in the UN war crimes tribunal's detention centre, located in the Scheveningen section of The Hague, Netherlands.