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The Fall of Milosevic: The October 5th Revolution

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The book, The Fall of Milosevic, by Dragan Bujosevic and Ivan Radovanovic describes the two hours of the afternoon on October 5, 2000, when the hold on power that Slobodan Milosevic and his regime of 13 years had in Yugoslavia, fell to the ground. Inside the pages you get a detailed look at what exactly happened on all sides of the conflict those two hours. The book focuses on how the police, miners, protestors and citizens united peacefully to overthrow Milosevic and his corrupt cronies.

This event in 2000 is called by a variety of names, revolt and revolution to putsch and coup d'etat. It re-walks the steps of many different people that day and what their experiences were. This book is the outcome of conversations with 60 people-politicians, police, soldiers, and members of the public-who were in Belgrade that day.

"The goal of this book is that, by drawing on the accounts of the participants, laying them out and revealing them as far as possible, dispelling the abundant rumors, and, probably most important of all, demonstrating that October 5 was a personal story for every one of the hundreds of thousands of participants."

Each chapter in this book discusses a different conflict that happened that led to the fall of Milosevic out of power. For instance one major turning point was an incident that occurred in the city of Kolubara. There was an organized strike launched in the city of Kolubara at a coal mine by the Milosevic opposition. When Milosivic heard of what was happening he ordered his police to open fire on the demonstrators. The police however had different plans, they decided they couldn't fire upon their own people and decided to lay idol instead, which just fueled the fire that led all the way to Belgrade.

Another example was the battle for parliament which was over in exactly 37 minutes. Although the government tried controlling the situation with chemical gases the people still prevailed. This book goes to show that with a very well organized body with the right leaders can accomplish leaps and bounds. How these opposition groups joined forces and decided that something needed to be done was spectacular.

The authors of this book, Dragan Bujosevic and Ivan Radovanovic are both involved in journalism in and about Serbia. Dragan is now deputy editor in chief of NIN, a leading magazine, and host of a television political talk show in Belgrade. Ivan has reported on several of Serbia's various wars in the Balkans, he is also a novelist, and is education coordinator for journalists at Media Center Belgrade.

Overall this book did a great job pointing out exactly what occurred in this situation with great detail. The sources for the information provided in the text are first hand. I believe that this book adds a great perspective to the field of conflict studies. Revolts are a diamond in the rough and the study of them will be never ending. I would recommend any individual who is interested in learning more about revolutions and how they occur and prevail, read in this book about the conflict that occurred in Yugoslavia one October afternoon in 2000.