Milka Planinc, a female prime minister in communist Yugoslavia, dies at 86
By APThursday, October 7, 2010
Former Yugoslav premier Milka Planinc dies at 86
ZAGREB, Croatia — The Croatian state-run news agency HINA says Milka Planinc, who was prime minister in the 1980s in what was then communist Yugoslavia, has died at the age of 86.
HINA, quoting family sources, says Planinc died Thursday in a Zagreb clinic following a long illness.
Planinc was a high-level communist official in Yugoslavia, a close associate of longtime president, Josip Broz Tito, and the first female premier of a communist country. In 1982-86, she headed the Federal Executive Council, the federal Cabinet.
Yugoslavia disintegrated in wars in the early 1990s, and the country no longer exists. Planinc retired from politics.
She was disliked in Croatia for crushing a 1971 movement seeking more independence for Croatia within Yugoslavia.
