Keeping Kosovo quiet

Press, 15 January 1986, Page 16

Keeping Kosovo quiet

From “The Economist,” London

In two big police swoops, one at the beginning of December and the other around Christmas, the Yugoslav authorities have arrested some 150 ethnic Albanians and have accused them of belonging to an illegal nationalist organisation. The people arrested come from

Kosovo, the largely Albanian-in-habited autonomous province of Serbia, and from neighbouring Macedonia and Montenegro, both of which have large Albanian populations. They allegedly belonged to a group — said to be supported by

some ethnic Albanians in the Ke and in the army and to have with Albanians in the West — whose aim was to set up an Albanian republic in Yugoslavia. The police claim to have found arms and a number of false passports during their raids. According to a Belgrade weekly, “Nin,” more than 70 illegal groups, .with more than 1000 members, have been uncovered by the police since the 1981 riots in Kosovo. The authorities usually refer to them as “irredentists,” meaning that they were seeking to have Kosovo included as part of Albania.

The arrests and the forthcoming trials are likely to be welcomed by many of Yugoslavia’s Serbs. Serbian opinion has been roused by a petition signed by more than 2000 Serbs and Montenegrins (a group closely related to the Serbs) from Kosovo Polje, in the heart of the province. Kosovo Polje Serbs say they feel as if they are living under occupation and demand protection against ; what they describe as constant attacks by their Kosovo Albanian neighbours. They also demand constitutional changes that would again link Kosovo closer to Serbia, and they would like to have recognised spokesmen for their interests at the centre of power in Belgrade. Copyright, “The Economist.”