ON March 12, 2003, the prime minister of Serbia, Zoran Djindjiæ, was killed by snipers as he walked to his office in downtown Belgrade. The assassination was the latest in a series of dramatic and unsettling political events to shake Serbia. Djindjiæ had come to power in the parliamentary elections of December 2000, which followed Vojislav Koštunica’s dramatic defeat of long-time Serbian strongman Slobodan Miloševiæ in the elections of September 24, 2000.(Miloševiæ was compelled to leave power after mass demonstrations on October 5.) Weeks before Djindjiæ’s death, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) had been replaced by a looser political confederation,“Serbia and Montenegro,” forcing Koštunica out of his job as FRY president. Now the most visible Serbian leader was gone, and the political scene was again in flux. Following the murder of Djindjiæ, high-ranking Serbian officials began to clearly and openly draw linkages between war crimes and other types of crime, and between the perpetrators and the remnants of the Miloševiæ regime. As a result, the parties of the Miloševiæ regime and the parties perceived as advocating compromise with them seemed to be heading for the political margins. Initial evidence suggested an overwhelming degree of popular support both for Operation Sabre—the set of extraordinary measures against organized crime imposed following the assassination—and for the political parties behind the operation. One year later, after three failed attempts to elect a president, the government that assumed Djindjiæ’s legacy did not survive the parliamentary elections it was forced to call in December 2003. Amid widespread fears that the political forces that dominated the Miloševiæ era may