BELGRADE, March 12 (Hina) - Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, 51, who died early Wednesday afternoon after an assassination in Belgrade, had lead the Serbian government since January 25, 2000.
BELGRADE, March 12 (Hina) - Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic,
51, who died early Wednesday afternoon after an assassination in
Belgrade, had lead the Serbian government since January 25, 2000.
#L#
Born in Bosanski Samac in Bosnia on August 1 1952, Djindjic was one
of the founders of the Democratic Party in 1989. He became party
president in 1994. He was a deputy at the Serbian parliament in all
three multi-party terms -- from 1991 through 1995.
Djindjic graduated in philosophy from the Faculty of Philosophy in
Belgrade in 1974. He earned a doctor's degree at Konstanz
University in Germany in 1979. He received a Humbolt scholarship in
Germany for 1982-1984.
From June 1986 he was a research fellow at the Institute for
Philosophy and Social Theory in Belgrade. From 1988 to 1990 he
lectured at the Institute for Human Science in Vienna. He left the
post to engage in Serbia's political life after a multi-party
system in the state had been established.
Since 1991 Djindjic had an outstanding role in the development and
unification of opposition parties against the Slobodan Milosevic
regime. He was the mastermind of an operation on October 5, 2002,
when the opposition, following extensive demonstrations in
Belgrade, in effect took over power and forced Milosevic to admit
defeat at Yugoslav presidential elections, won by Vojislav
Kostunica, candidate for the opposition's DOS coalition.
As Serbian premier, Djindjic initiated a number of reforms, started
to consolidate the situation in state bodies and the economy and
established relations with Europe and the United States after the
country's international isolation of several years.
The extradition of Slobodan Milosevic to the Hague's war crimes
tribunal in 2001 was carried out on the basis of Djindjic's decision
as prime minister.
The person who ordered Djinjdic's assassination could belong to
criminal, but also political circles. Djindjic had made enemies
among those who resented the introduction of order in the country,
the fight against organised crime and corruption, as well as many
members of the former regime, today's residents of the Hague's
Scheveningen prison and many indictees who are destined to end up
there. Djindjic also had enemies among those who did not accept the
market economy, the inflow of foreign capital, the country's
opening towards the world, and its drawing closer to the EU and
NATO.
An attempt to assassinate Djindjic had already been made on
February 21 in Belgrade when a truck cut in front of a motorcade
carrying Djindjic to the airport. At the time, the police did not
characterise the incident as an attempted assassination, so they
released the driver from custody shortly after his arrest.
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