Slobodan Milošević quotes

Slobodan Milošević was a Serbian politician who served as the President of Serbia and later the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. His leadership was marked by nationalism, the Yugoslav Wars, and international controversy. He was later tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity, dying before the verdict was reached. Here are 20 of his quotes:

We know how to handle these murderers, these rapists, these criminals. We've done this before ... in Drenica in 1946. We killed them. We killed them all. Of course we did not do it all at once. It took some time.

Slobodan Milošević

I do not suggest to you, Comrades, that in staying you put up with the suffering and the situation that you're not satisfied with. Quite the contrary. You must change the situation together with all other progressive people here in Serbia and Yugoslavia.... We in Serbia and everybody else in Yugoslavia will strive to change the situation.

Slobodan Milošević

Yugoslavia cannot exist without Kosovo! Yugoslavia will become disintegrated without Kosovo! Yugoslavia and Serbia will never give up Kosovo!

Slobodan Milošević

If we legalised this state of lawlessness, then all those who are exposed to lawlessness are endangered. Today it is the Serbs and Montenegrins that suffer most from that, but tomorrow this could be the Albanians, too, and that is why, unless law and order is introduced and respected in the broader social and historical sense, this will be the interest of all of the inhabitants of Kosovo.

Slobodan Milošević

This is your country. These are your houses. These are your cultivated fields and gardens, and your memories lie here. You are not going to leave your country, are you, just because you live hard there or because you have been weighed down by the injustices and humiliation? It has never been typical of the Serbian and Montenegrin people to yield before obstacles and to become demoralized when facing a problem, when coming upon hard times.

Slobodan Milošević

Borders are always dictated by the strong, never by the weak.... We simply consider it as a legitimate right and interest of the Serb nation to live in one state. This is the beginning and the end.... If we have to fight, by God we are going to fight. I hope that they will not be so crazy as to fight against us. If we do not know how to work properly or run an economy, at least we know how to fight properly.

Slobodan Milošević

This is a political trial. What is at issue here is not at all whether I committed a crime. What is at issue is that certain intentions are ascribed to me from which consequences are later derived that are beyond the expertise of any conceivable lawyer. The point here is that the truth about the events in the former Yugoslavia has to be told here. It is that which is at issue, not the procedural questions, because I'm not sitting here because I was accused of a specific crime. I'm sitting here because I am accused of conducting a policy against the interests of this or another party. The nature of he proceedings here is such that a lawyer cannot deal with it.

Slobodan Milošević

I read to you parts of the indictment claiming that I was part of a joint criminal enterprise to expel Croatians from Croatia, Muslims from Bosnia, Albanians from Kosovo, in order to create some sort of Greater Serbia. Now, if you have in mind that the greatest part of that Greater Serbia would be precisely the Republic of Serbia, which did not see any expulsions at all throughout the crisis, do you find it logical that Serbia should initiate expulsions from territories outside of Serbia?

Slobodan Milošević

So in addition to what I've quoted to you just now, in Prizren, I say particularly in this place and in this town, I want to tell you something that I consider to be the most important in this town, because in it, there are Serbs, Albanians, Muslims, Turks, Roma, and others. Every one of the ethnic groups, to a large proportion. That is why I believe that this town and this region should be an example of carrying out the policy of national equality of rights, a policy that would make it possible for all people to give - to live on a footing of equality and under humane conditions, that there should be a high degree of mutual understanding and that a joint life of all citizens should be built successfully.

Slobodan Milošević

I can tell Albanians in Kosovo that in Serbia, no one had trouble living for not being Serbian. Serbia has always been opened for all, and for those who had no other place to go-and for those who had no other place to go, for the poor and rich, for those who are happy and sad, and for those who are only passing through, and for those who wish to stay. Serbia only doesn't want evil people, even if they be Serbian.

Slobodan Milošević

I tell you, Izetbegović has earned Sarajevo by not abandoning it. He's one tough guy. It's his.

Slobodan Milošević

Countries under foreign command quickly forget their history, their past, their tradition, their national symbols, their way of living, often their own literary language.

Slobodan Milošević

Equal and united people can above all become a part of the civilization toward which mankind is moving. If we cannot be at the head of the column leading to such a civilization, there is certainly no need for us to be at is tail.

Slobodan Milošević

Equality means nothing unless incorporated into the institutions.

Slobodan Milošević

For as long as multinational communities have existed, their weak point has always been the relations between different nations.

Slobodan Milošević

Remark to Serbs in Kosovo Polje (24 April 1987)

Slobodan Milošević

No one is allowed to beat you! (Нико не сме да вас бије!)

Slobodan Milošević

Well, I want him to answer the following question: Where in my speech was there any reference to anything that would jeopardise the rights of Albanians? So I'm quoting this to him. "In this area there should be a policy of national equality of rights, a spirit of tolerance should prevail. Everything that characterises a humane, democratic society.”.

Slobodan Milošević