However, the wind of change didn’t blow for long. In 2003, barely three years after the process of political reconstruction in Serbia began, Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić was assassinated. When his life came to an end, so did his push for democracy and the rule of law in Serbia. The consequences of this homicide have crippled Serbian institutions to this day, and are still clearly visible in the country’s struggle to obtain positive reform and maintain fundamental constitutional principles.

In between these two events, though, Serbia was the stage for an unprecedented show of defiance against Yugoslavia. The standoff between the Federal Government of Yugoslavia, led by Vojislav Koštunica, and the Serbian government, led by Zoran Đinđić, played a large role in the latter’s assassination. This article will aim to explore how Đinđić tried to stand up to Yugoslavia and the reasons for the souring relationship between these two leaders.

The relationship between Koštunica and Đinđić

Đinđić and Koštunica were no strangers by the time they’d reached the apex of their careers. They had both been prominent members of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), a key actor in the Bulldozer Revolution on that fateful 5th of October 2000. DOS was a coalition of very diverse parties, united mainly by their common opposition to Milošević. Within this coalition, two parties stood out from the rest: Đinđić’s Democratic Party (DS) and Koštunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS).

The former was the oldest, dating from 1990, and it was the first party to openly oppose the communist regime. A split in the party occurred in 1992, with right-wing elements deciding to follow Vojislav Koštunica into the newly formed Democratic Party of Serbia. But with Milošević in power, these two parties still had something in common, regardless of the split: both wanted Milošević out.

On the 5th of October 2000, in the final act of the revolution, Milošević was forced to accept the presidential election results and Koštunica became president of Yugoslavia. From this point on, the two men’s paths would diverge. When Koštunica took office, Milošević’s administration remained in place and the freshly elected President stood by them. On the other hand, Đinđić – who had become Prime Minister of Serbia not much later – sought the renewal of the whole administration, the military, the special forces, and the state media, arresting some of its members if necessary.

Đinđić’s party, the centre-left social-liberal Democratic Party (DS), had no lack of powerful enemies. The fundamental policies of his administration were cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and a relentless fight against organised crime. Unsurprisingly, this made him the target of several groups that longed for the former Yugoslavian dictator Milošević. Said mafia organisations were covered and supported by important elements of Koštunica’s administration, which helped them evade the Serbian government’s attempts to rein in criminal activity.

Koštunica himself had a role in supporting these criminal organisations. He negotiated with the army chief and the head of the special forces during the revolution. All DOS asked of them was their passivity: with the troops remaining by the sidelines, Serbia could spare herself a bloodshed and a new civil war. In return, the two officers, who had both committed crimes during the Yugoslav Wars were to receive immunity by the ensuing federal government. Koštunica would even go on record to say that there would be neither “reprisals” nor “revolutionary justice” against them. This move, in open conflict with DS’s ideals of upholding the rule of law, would drive a wedge between Koštunica and Đinđić, who always opposed granting immunity to henchmen of the regime.

One of Koštunica‘s protégés would be of particular relevance for the succession of events that would follow: Milorad Ulemek, leader of the Special Operations Unit (JSO), a special command of the Yugoslav Secret Services (RDB). He also went by the name of Legija, a reminiscence of his days in the French Foreign Legion, and he would be the one to order Đinđić’s assassination.

The mediatic war to discredit Đinđić

As planned after the 2000 parliamentary election, which had seen Đinđić elected as PM, the Serbian government soon began to chase war criminals located in Serbia. Their first target was the former dictator, Slobodan Milošević, who remained at large until his extradition to The Hague on the 28th of June 2001.

Koštunica’s DSS considered the move was nothing short of treason, due to its historic refusal to cooperate with the ICTY. In July, the party even left Đinđić’s cabinet following a mediatic campaign by the pro-Koštunica media outlets attacking the Serbian government and presenting the prime minister as a corrupted man and a “Puppet of the West”. This mediatic offensive was rooted in the remains of Milošević’s media and intellectuals, now favourable to Koštunica, who were vocal opponent the Serbian government’s project of cooperation with the West.

But the former dictator’s extradition was not the only reason why DSS left the government. The move was also motivated by the assassination of a Yugoslav high-rank security officer who allegedly had evidence of corruption and links between politicians and mafia groups, according to pro-Koštunica media outlets. The prime minister would eventually become the target of ill-founded accusations of being behind this assassination. The mediatic war between Đinđić supporters and the DSS-affiliated media outlets that tried to discredit him and to picture him as a mafia boss would rage undeterred from this moment onwards.

This ongoing war of influence was representative of what was happening in the Serbian society at that time. While Koštunica wanted to avoid deep reforms in Serbia and, by extension, Yugoslavia for the sake of stability, people like Đinđić believed that reforms and chasing criminals for a safer country was the way to go for the future. For DS, Đinđić’s party, this also translated into a strong pro-European stance, which had the unfortunate consequence of reinforcing its “puppet” status towards the West.

The JSO mutiny

Despite the ongoing mediatic war, the Serbian government carried on with its job: the democratisation process and the urgent fight against corruption and organised crime in Serbia. This crackdown began to seriously worry some leaders involved in those matters.

In November 2001, Legija, the JSO leader, organised an armed mutiny with his former colleagues on the highway heading to Belgrade. The uprisers asked for the departure of the Serbian home secretary and the head of the Yugoslav Secret Services (RDB), which were part of his ministry, because of their pursuance of war criminals.

The JSO mutiny could have been avoided or stopped if the federal army had been deployed. However, the JSO’s interests were aligned with Koštunica’s and those of the DSS, so the president refused to send in the troops. Đinđić tried to meet half-way: he didn’t sack his home secretary, but he replaced the head of the RDB by two individuals who were favourable to the JSO and Legija.

The mutiny was living proof that there were irreconcilable differences between the Serbian and the federal government. It also showed that Đinđić’s position lacked the strength needed to prevent such events. However, setbacks like this mutiny didn’t prevent the Serbian government from keeping up its hard work inside the country. While the mediatic war was still ongoing, especially when Milošević’s trial began in 2002, attacks depicting Đinđić as a “spy” or a “traitor” showed no sign of stopping. Meanwhile, Koštunica kept trying to portray DSS and himself as the true Serbian patriots.

The danger was that several of the aforementioned institutions were infested by nationalistic groups deeply linked to mafia groups such as the Zemun Clan, a powerful Serbian mafia group favourable to DSS, opposing the attempts to open the country to the European Union. Their power in Serbia was so high that the government itself could not really control them. By turning a blind eye, the Federal Government did not allow a complete purge of the administration, still full of supporters of the former dictator.

“Serbia on the right road”: EU membership

Very aware of the atmosphere around him and the attempts to discredit him, Đinđić was nevertheless able to rely on the support of most European Union Member States – Schröder’s Germany, Chirac’s France, and Blair’s United Kingdom among them.

In 2002, the Serbian prime minister began an important campaign in all Serbia, meeting citizens and giving speeches on the future of the country and the great achievements secured so far. His goal was to meet people and to show that his government was working in the best interest of the Serbian people for a better, safer, democratised, and European-integrated Serbia. The campaign name was “Serbia on the right road”.

The campaign goal was twofold: first, he set out to engage directly with the people, bypassing mediatic harassment against him, and second, he sought to win legitimacy beyond his core of supporters, generally the younger generation and the people who had led the Revolution back in October 2000. During all the speeches, he implied that the Serbian government had to fight against destabilization attempts both from the Yugoslav government and the mafia groups which infiltrated the highest spheres of power.

Serbia made some important progress under Đinđić in all matters, despite the attacks committed against him because he represented change, notably in his dedication to cooperating with the ICTY and upholding the rule of law in his country. His views contrasted in a country which, in his own words, “had been kept under water for 50 years”; he wanted Serbia to look upon its future and lean toward democratic ideals, which also meant the complete erasure of any reminiscence of the former dictatorship.

Đinđić’s assassination

The many attempts to circumvent Zoran Đinđić’s policies did not stop him. In his own words, “it’s the final stand. It will be them, or us”. Đinđić really meant it, as the Serbian police launched Operation Sabre on the 13th of March, cracking down hard on mafia groups all over the country. But when Zoran Đinđić gave the green light to this operation, little did he know that it would be his undoing.

His fight against corruption and organised crime was met with relentless harassment coming from media opposing outlets. It soon became evident that many people would be better without Đinđić in charge of the government, and Operation Sabre was the last straw. JSO tried to take him down, the two most notable failed attempts being a rocket fired at his car and an attempt to ram the prime minister’s car on the motorway. They would eventually succeed at killing him on the 12th of March 2003, when Đinđić was shot dead in the back. The bullet came from Zvezdan Jovanovic, a sniper affiliated to JSO.

Eventually, some of the perpetrators of this crime were arrested. Milorad Ulemek surrendered one year after the attack to be given a 120-year sentence. Zvezdan Jovanović was arrested as well and remains in prison to this day. However, the trial was not as straightforward as one would desire, as meddling attempts from government officials were frequent.

Notably, some amongst Đinđić’s supporters accused Vojislav Koštunica’s DSS of being behind the assassination. The theory was that their connections with the JSO and therefore with the Zemun Clan made such an act in their interest. However, Koštunica never did confront the accusations upfront, and it remains an unattested avenue of investigation.

The aftermath

Be it as it may, Zoran Đinđić’s death let back in the very corruption that his government had been fighting against. His fight against corruption precipitated his death, which produced severe changes in Serbian politics in its aftermath. It teaches the lesson that things such as reformism and dedication can be so fragile that may depend on an individual’s willingness to push for them, as it was the case that no one could carry out Đinđić’s reforms after his magnicide.

While Đinđić’s legacy lives to this day, it keeps being attacked by his detractors, trying to go back in his reforms. For the best and the worst, Đinđić’s bequest remains central to Serbian politics nowadays. The current SNS-led government pays lip service to his aspirations, carrying Serbia in quite the opposite direction. It portrays itself as Europhile, but is only so on paper, not disguising its nationalist tendencies well, and it is leading the country with Milošević-like methods.

However, there is a glimmer of hope, for there remains a core of people whose aim is to take Serbia down the road of stability and democratisation despite the many challenges, including harassment. Our hope is that more people will commit to Đinđić’s dream in the near future.

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His party and him were the first to launch the idea of an adhesion of Serbia and Montenegro (officially the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro) to the European Union. His dramatic and brutal assassination in 2003 left an empty space in Serbian politics, a space which remains empty to this day. The lack of charismatic, strong-willed and dedicated leaders is one of the reasons why Serbian political life today is crippled. Zoran Đinđić once represented hope for an entire generation, one fresh out of a war and shouting for democracy.

Early life

Zoran Đinđić was born in 1952 in the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the constituent republics within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. His father was part of the Yugoslav People Army and his mother was a housewife. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Belgrade, capital of Yugoslavia. Đinđić was raised there, maturing over time a strong interest in philosophy and politics. Although Yugoslavia was freer than any of the countries of the Warsaw Pact, these interests still had the potential to be dangerous in such an autocratic state.

In the Seventies, he enrolled in Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy and depicted himself as a “reformist and democratic socialist”. His attempts to form an independent Students’ Union at his university were met with strong disapproval by the regime, which resulted in a conviction by the communist authorities. This contributed to his decision to emigrate to West Germany after graduating from the Belgrade faculty in 1974.

He obtained a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Konstanz university in 1979, and stayed in Germany for a decade before returning to Yugoslavia. Eventually, he took up a philosophy chair in the University of Novi Sad in 1989. The year of his return corresponded to the sudden resurgence of multipartism in a crumbling Yugoslavia. The political landscape of the Nineties’ Yugoslavia was incredibly troubled. Even though there were regular formal elections, Milošević and his Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) were meddling with electoral results, manipulating results and trying to intimidate opponents. Đinđić saw the chance for change and took it: in December of the same year he founded, together with other opponents of the regime, the liberal Democratic Party (Demokratska Stranka in Serbian). It was the first opposition and non-communist party to exist in the country, a true upheaval in the Yugoslav political sphere.

The year 1990 would sign the beginning of his budding career: Đinđić got elected to the Serbian Parliament and his party’s Executive Board Chairman. The party split only two years later, in 1992, with the more right-wing elements deciding to leave and found the Democratic Party of Serbia under the guide of Vojislav Koštunica. This split would prove to be a blessing in disguise for Đinđić’s political career, allowing him to gain leadership of the Democratic Party in 1994.

The political springboard

Đinđić’s political career truly started in 1995, when he got re-elected as the head of the Demokratska Stranka and his party expelled all of the members who looked favorably to the Socialist Party of Serbia, the ruling party. The opposition to Milošević effectively started to become stronger and more organised. During the 1996 municipal elections, the Democratic Party and Đinđić formed into a coalition with other opposition parties and attacked one of the strongholds of the regime: Belgrade’s town hall.

Zoran Đinđić was elected as Belgrade’s new mayor at the end of 1996, and two others major cities in Serbia fell into the hands of the opposition thanks to his campaigning: Novi Sad and Niš. Milošević and his government initially refused to acknowledge the results of the election, leading to the first wave of protests from an exhausted. Losing popularity at a worrying rate and under pressure both from citizens and from the international community, Milošević eventually stepped aside and allowed Đinđić to take his place in Belgrade’s town hall. At this time, Đinđić’s popularity truly started growing, and the parts of the population in disagreement with the government began to view him as the one who would bring change and hope to Serbia, after a series of crises in the Eighties.

The Democratic Party, under his recommendation, decided to boycott the upcoming 1997 parliamentary election. Unfortunately for Đinđić, such a move caused a rift in the coalition which had allowed him to be elected to mayor in the first place. Seeing the internal disagreements in the coalition, he SPS took this as an opportunity to vote out the dangerous opponent. In September 1997, Đinđić was voted out of his position. Nevertheless, this short term as Belgrade mayor once again increased the popular support towards him and the Democratic Party, mostly thanks to the perceived “eviction” by the regime.

Some months later, in February 1998, the troubles in Kosovo between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the armed wing of Kosovars independentists and Serbian forces lead to the beginning of Kosovo War, the last war in the Balkans. Đinđić, together with many other opposition members, condemned Belgrade’s intervention and stood firmly against the crimes committed on the ethnic Albanian population, as well as those of the KLA on Serbian civilians.

This vocal opposition posed a significant threat to Milošević, who was trying at this time to reinforce his legitimacy by taking down his opponents by having his secret services assassinate them. As the war was raging and NATO began to strike Yugoslavia in the optic of forcing them to withdraw from Kosovo, Slavko Ćuruvija, an anti-Milošević journalist and friend of Đinđić, was brutally murdered in April 1999, during Orthodox Easter. Learning that he, too, was on the brink of being assassinated by the regime’s secret services, Đinđić left Serbia and sought shelter in Montenegro.

The return to Serbia

The end of Kosovo war in June 1999 saw a traumatized population and a country going through a hyper-inflation because of the sanctions. Đinđić returned to Serbia in July 1999, in a country angry against its President and craving change. Most of the opposition leaders began to understand the need to oust Milošević.

With the country facing an unstoppable political unrest, protests and new parties challenging him. Milošević announced anticipated presidential and parliamentary elections in 2000. This decision led to the creation of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) in January 2000, mainly led by Đinđić’s Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Serbia headed by his rival, Vojislav Koštunica.

The anticipated elections would give way to the so-called Bulldozer Revolution, which would force Milošević out of power and see Koštunica elected as new Yugoslavian President. The legislative election saw the DOS, winning approximatively 65% of the votes, leaving the Socialist Party of Serbia in the dust. Zoran Đinđić, being the DOS’ candidate for the post of Prime Minister, saw himself catapulted into one of the highest offices of the country.

A new Prime Minister for Serbia

Zoran Đinđić was sworn in as Serbian Prime Minister in January 2001. He immediately announced the complete cooperation of the Serbian government with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). This would lead to the Democratic Party of Serbia led by Vojislav Koštunica disassociating from their coalition partner, since they didn’t agree with such a decision.

Serbia found itself in a difficult position, being embroiled into a deep economic crisis. The new government’s priorities under Đinđić were to revitalise the economy, fight corruption and to “invest fully in the youth.” He effectively believed that a freshly, newly educated generation raised into a free and democratic country would fully heal the wounds of Serbia and the Serbian people. He was known for being a man close of his people, and  could be regularly found in the streets talking to citizens. He also moved around all the country visiting factories and schools, taking the time to talk to the people who were in front of him.

The Prime minister, alongside his party, had a strong and powerful Europhile rhetoric. He effectively claimed that Serbia had for goal its accession to the European Union. He called the EU Serbia’s “fresh air. A family of modern, democratic and developed countries”. This policy of drawing closer to the West also showed Serbia’s will to step away from Russia, its traditional and historic ally. Zoran Đinđić managed to attract global attention and admiration thanks to the reforms he implemented in his fight for a globalised and functional Serbia, as well as for his thirst for justice and democracy. However, the attention he attracted was not all positive.

Đinđić’s assassination

The government led by the Democratic Party had many enemies, both in the political arena and within underground criminal groups. The conservatives were against most of the reforms that the progressive Prime Minister was pushing in the Serbian Parliament. The relationship between Đinđić and President Koštunica had also become strained, although in the past the two had been allies in their fight against Milošević. Moreover, one of the priorities of the Prime Minister had been to prosecute all the war criminals and to tackle the issue of mafia groups in the country, which led to him becoming a target for many of these groups.

The hatred that he had started gathering with his actions led to several elimination attempts in the coming years. Realising that the constant attacks would eventually be successful, Đinđić predicted his own assassination just a few weeks before it happened and was quoted saying:

“If some people think they’ll stop the implementation of laws and reforms by removing me, then they are awfully mistaken, because I am not the system. The system will keep functioning and nobody will receive amnesty for committed crimes by removing one or two government officials.”

Zoran Đinđić was assassinated on the 12^th March 2003, shot in the back by a sniper, affiliated to nationalist groups and the Zemun Clan, one of Belgrade’s mafia groups. He was 51 and had two young kids. Only a few days after his death – just a few days too late – the government finally enacted the “Operation Saber” to globally eradicate the mafia.

The country cried the death of the Prime Minister, especially the younger generation which Đinđić had inspired and given hope to. And yet, the shock and despair caused by such a tragic loss didn’t help Serbia at all and the consequences of the assassination of the Prime Minister are still there nowadays. The death of Đinđić was an enormous blow to the forming democracy and it showed the limits of his government. Without him, and without an energetic and charismatic leader, the rest of his government had trouble continuing the fast-paced reforms. The corruption came back in full-force, dramatically slowing Serbia’s progress towards democratisation.

A post- Đinđić Serbia

Serbia today is effectively a country that some would call a “jaded” country.  The governments which followed Đinđić’s were crippled by corruption problems. Matters such as the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo also empowered nationalistic parties such as the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which have ruled Serbia since 2012 with autocratic means.

The incredible lack of interest in politics nowadays could be explained by the lack of charismatic and dedicated opponents. It is also clear that the SNS has no interest in letting an opposition grow, and is relying on the state-controlled media to harass independent journalists and opponents. Đinđić’s Democratic Party, once representing the hope of a generation, is now a small and corrupted party.

Nevertheless, democratic institutions in Serbia do exist and challenging the actual government seems possible. However, it can’t be done without people dedicating themselves to this task, as difficult as it is. Pragmatically speaking, the situation is in a better shape than the one just before the Bulldozer Revolution. The satirical candidate in the 2017 presidential election, “Beli” mocked the government intelligentsia was the candidate generally supported by the youth. Beli also is the godson of Zoran Đinđić, quite ironically.

Let’s hope that some members of the younger generations will try to take the torch of hope and progress, which was borne by men like Đinđić. The struggle is probably not over for Serbia, but the legacy of the ones who tried to make it achieve something great still lives, even though some are trying to stifle it. It can be revived.

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