"Bringing Down a Dictator"


 

 

Film about the Fall of Slobodan Milosevic

 

"We were a group of fans of life. And this is why we succeeded."


 

Serbian Student Resistance Leader

 


May 22, 2006, 7pm,

West Hall, Bathish Auditorium

  

In the year 2000, in a battle barely publicized in the West and around the world, Yugoslavia's authoritarian leader Slobodan Milosevic fought to hold onto power. He controlled a fiercely equipped and impeccably trained army, a tough police force, and most of the news media. However his opponents, undiscouraged and led by a student movement called Otpor! (Serbian for "resistance"), attacked the regime with ridicule, rock music, and a willingness to face arrest. Their courage and audacity inspired others to overcome their fear and join the fight.

 
Otpor! students were the shock troops in what became an army of human rights and pro-democracy activists who systematically undermined Milosevic's grip on power and forced him to call early elections. When Milosevic refused to accept defeat at the polls, the people responded with a general strike. As everyday life ground to a halt, hundreds of thousands of Serbs marched in the capital Belgrade on October 5 to seize control of the parliament in a dramatic triumph for democracy. Following his downfall, Milosevic was arrested in June 2001 and extradited to a United Nations tribunal in The Hague, in order to stand trial for an indictment related to crimes against humanity.