Kosovo riots leave 21 dead

Press, 30 March 1989, Page 8

Kosovo riots leave 21 dead

NZPA-AP Pristina, Yugoslavia Authorities proclaimed yesterday a day of mourning throughout Serbia and its troubled province of Kosovo for two policemen killed in two days of bloodshed that left 21 dead and scores injured. Tuesday brought the sixth straight day of violence in Kosovo. In at least 10 places across the province, stone-throwing crowds of ethnic Albanians clashed with riot police who fired tear gas at the protesters, the State news agency, Tanjug, said. The agency said the crowds of Albanians ranged from 50 to 400 people.

The official death toll in the violence on Monday and Tuesday mounted to 21, according to figures released by the Interior Ministry in Belgrade. Two policemen, one an ethnic Albanian and one a Serb, who were killed in

violence on Monday were to be buried in separate funerals yesterday, Tanjug said.

The tension and violence in Kosovo on Tuesday contrasted with street celebrations in Belgrade and other Serbian towns

of controversial constitutional changes that have spurred the violent protests by ethnic Albanians.

The changes are designed to give the republic of Serbia more control over the judiciary, police and schools in Kosovo and another Serbian province, Vojvodina.

Serbia said the changes are needed to protect Kosovo’s Slav minority against alleged harassment from the province’s ethnic Albanian majority, which contends that the changes curb the broad autonomy Kosovo won under Yugoslavia’s 1974 Constitution.

At least 30,000 Slavs are officially estimated to have left Kosovo since the last ethnic riots erupted there in 1981, in which at least nine people were killed.

The anniversary of those riots falls on Saturday.

A strong police presence in Kosovo towns, backed by heavy movement of tanks and other military vehicles and army units seen along main provincial roads on Tuesday seems intended to curb further violence.