Djindjic, Zoran

▪ 2004

      Serbian politician (b. Aug. 1, 1952, Bosanski Samac, Yugos. [now in Bosnia and Herzegovina]—d. March 12, 2003, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro), was a boldly pragmatic prime minister of Serbia who reformed the economy and brought former strongman Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war-crimes tribunal. As a university student in 1974, Djindjic was imprisoned for attempting to organize a noncommunist youth group. After his release he moved to West Germany, where he earned a doctorate in 1979 from the University of Konstanz. Returning to Yugoslavia, Djindjic cofounded the Democratic Party in 1989, and in 1994 he became the party's president. When Milosevic attempted to annul the results of the 1996 legislative elections, Djindjic organized demonstrations that were sustained for 12 weeks, until Milosevic relented and recognized opposition victories. Djindjic became the first noncommunist mayor of Belgrade since 1945, though he was ousted a few months later. In the 2000 Yugoslav presidential election, Djindjic backed opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica, who won and named him prime minister of Serbia in January 2001. Thereafter Djindjic engaged in a power struggle with Kostunica, even while beginning to root out corruption and bringing Serbian political and social standards more in line with those of Western Europe. In the face of widespread local opposition, he allowed the extradition of Milosevic to face war-crimes charges in June 2001, which resulted in the immediate offer of millions of dollars in foreign aid. Arrests of scores of Serb-nationalist and organized-crime gang members in the weeks following the gunning down of Djindjic in downtown Belgrade pointed to a political assassination.

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