Yugoslavia may use troops in Kosovo

Press, 25 February 1989, Page 13

Yugoslavia may use troops in Kosovo

NZPA-Reuter Pristina, Yugoslavia Yugoslavia’s leaders are showing signs of running out of patience with rebellious Kosovo province, hinting they may send in troops to put down a wave of ethnic Albanian unrest and strikes. President Raif Dizdarevic, the Serbian President, Petar Gracanin, and Yugoslav Army chief-of-staff, Stefan Mirkovic, held emergency talks on Thursday night with Kosovo leaders. Earlier in the day the collective State Presidency, the country’s highest Constitutional body, said it “would use all Constitutional and legal means” to prevent turmoil in the region — a clear reference to its power to apply emergency measures including the use of troops. Troops have been sent to the province three times — in 1945, 1968 and 1981 — to quell ethnic Albanian unrest. Mr Dizdarevic met Albanian miners who have led a general strike in the province along Albania’s border. Kosovo’s Albanians are

rebelling against Constitutional changes which would allow a Serbian takeover of the province. Leaflets circulated in Pristina this week calling on ethnic Albanians to take up arms and spill Serbian blood. Serbia is the biggest of Yugoslavia’s six republics and is pressing to gain greater power within the Yugoslav federation. Yugoslav party chief, Stipe Suvar, and the Serbian party boss, Slobodan Milosevic, were due in Pristina today to join attempts to calm what officials called “a serious security situation.” Mr Dizdarevic pressed home the State Presidency warning during his six hours of talks with Kosovo leaders. It said that if the protests continued they would have “even graver consequences than so far and would seriously endanger public law and order and the Constitutional system in the province.” This could not be permitted, it said. . The latest unrest began on Monday when 1000 zinc miners launched a sit-in protest underground.

Their action triggered paralysing strikes in factories throughout the province. Tension between Kosovo’s 1.7 million ethnic Albanians and 200,000 Serbs and Montenegrins has risen since Albanian riots in 1981 which prompted thousands of Serbs to flee the area. It worsened last year after Mr Milosevic launched the drive for Serbian control over the province, which won sweeping autonomy under a 1974 constitution. Serbia’s Parliament has voted for Constitutional changes to give it direct control over Kosovo’s judiciary, police and defence. The Kosovo Parliament still has to vote on the changes. The State Presidency statement said the changes “do not in any way violate either the principles of the Constitution or the Federal system of Yugoslavia, and, hence, the status of the provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo which are part of the republic of Serbia.” The Albanians are demanding the sacking of the Kosovo Party chief.