THE SERB PRESS ACCUSES THE ALBANIANS FOR " A NEW SCENARIO"
PRISHTINE, 26 SEPT, ENTER/ - The Serb paper "Jedinstvo" is accusing the Albanians for drafting a " a new scenario". " the Albanian separatists are drafting a new scenario" in Kosova, writes the paper, commenting of the latest protest in the form of peaceful walk of the Albanians students in the main streets of Pristine. These movements of the Albanian students could not leave indifferent the Serb and Montenegro population and the paper foresees a clash with the police forces. The paper accuses the Albanians that they are preparing a new Bosnia in Kosova and illustrates this with the "terrorist" activities of the " militant groups".
The Serb paper accuses the " militant parties
and the fractions that are doing all the attempts in order to organise
the students". Jedinstvo writes that " after the intervention of the police
against the students, the protest will be transformed into all-people protests
and a political line
will come to the Albanian political scene led
by Adem Demaci, Rexhep Qose, mahmut bakalli, Luljeta Pulaj and some other
close companies of ibrahim Rugova, that are dissidents in his party for
the moment".
THE COUNCIL ON THE HUMAN RIGHT PROTECTION AGAINST THE VIOLENCE
PRISHTINE, 27 SEPT, ENTER/ - The council for the Human Rights Protection and the freedom of human being in Kosova protested Friday against the use of violence on the Albanian youth that have joined with the Students union of Pristine stressing that the violence is a sign that the actual Serb regime is not interesting for the stabilization of the situation in Kosova.
The council protested also against the police intervention in the offices of the local paper "Koha Ditore" and the interruption by force of the work of the publisher of this paper Baton Haxhiu and other journalists.
STATEMENT OF AMERICAN STATE SECRETARY ON THE STUDENTS PROTESTS IN KOSOVA
PRISHTINE, 27 SEPT, ENTER/ - "We put the stress on our concern about the present situation in Kosova. At a time when the first of October is approaching, the date fixed for the students protests in Kosova, there exist a real danger about a great violence in Kosova.
It would negligence if we would not call for maturity
in these conditions. We discussed some details of the serious situation
and very dangerous in Kosova. We are all concerned for the possibility
of a violence in Kosova against students protests and ask all sides to
be mature. We have reaffirmed our determination to apply heavy punishment
towards those that are not able
to fulfill their obligations.
The people of Kosova needs a long term peace and we are working together to establish this in your region".
Foreign envoys seek to avert protests in Kosovo 06:33 p.m Sep 29, 1997 Eastern
By Jovan Kovacic
BELGRADE, Sept 29 (Reuter) - Foreign envoys from the West and Russia were in Serbia's troubled province of Kosovo on Monday in a bid to avert threatened protests by ethnic Albanian students and defuse tensions in the region.
Student unions said last week they were planning to demonstrate across the troubled territory, which has a 90 percent Albanian majority, from October 1 to press their demands for university premises for Albanian-language lectures.
Albanian community leaders have rallied behind the move but the chief of the most influential ethnic Albanian party the LDK, Ibrahim Rugova, urged the students on Monday to postpone the protests.
The students' union UPS said it would decide on the issue later on Monday.
The LDK statement was issued after Rugova met a 13-member delegation of ambassadors and senior diplomats from the United States, Russia, European Union, Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe and the High Representative for Bosnia.
Belgrade media reported that while the envoys backed the right to demonstrate peacefully they voiced concern that the planned protest could turn violent and derail talks on implementing an accord on Albanian-language education.
Diplomats in Belgrade told Reuters the high-level delegation travelled to Kosovo ``to convince the Albanians that the international community backs the restoration of human rights in the province but does not condone acts which could provoke further escalation of tensions.''
``We fear the Albanians could provoke the police into violence and spiral the province far from any possible solution, especially after the Serbian elections,'' one said.
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's leftist alliance lost their majority in the Serbian parliament at September 21 elections and his candidate for Serbian president faces an ultranationalist in a runoff next weekend.
The poor election results and increased influence of extreme nationalists have sparked fears that Milosevic's hands might be tied in his attempts to solve the Kosovo problem.
The West would like to see the implementation of an educational deal clinched last year by Milosevic and Rugova.
Over the past few days hundreds of Albanian students have held daily silent marches through the streets of Pristina, the provincial capital. Albanian newspapers claim hundreds have been arrested, which has been denied by Serbian police.
Serbia revoked Kosovo's autonomy in 1989,
claiming its population wanted to secede and join
neighbouring Albania.
The Albanians have since boycotted Serbian institutions since and their leaders have openly called for secession, prompting the United States to tell them this was not an option and to find a solution within Serbia.
The United States has made an improvement
in Serbia's treatment of Kosovo one of its conditions for lifting remaining
sanctions in force against Belgrade.
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ALBANEWS Site of the Week <><><><><><><><><><><><
! K O S O V A
S T U D E N T P R O T E S T S '97 !
! Protests Against the Serbian occupation
of University buildings !
!
http://www.alb-net.com/
!
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ALBANEWS Site of the Day: "Food and Drinks"
http://www.albanian.com/main/culture/food/index.html
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September 30, 1997
Albanian Students Take On Milosevic
Filed at 8:35 a.m. EDT
By The Associated Press
VELANIJA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Ethnic Albanian students in Yugoslavia's restive Kosovo province are definitely ready for school to start. They've mapped their routes, mailed their pamphlets and contacted about every human rights group they can think of.
For weeks, student union leaders have been meeting daily at their office -- a crumbling red-brick house with paper taped over the windows that blocks the light but not the chill -- preparing for a massive protest to demand access to a better university.
Diplomats have tried to stop them. So have local leaders.
Nevertheless, on Wednesday -- the first day of the fall semester -- 23,000 students and their families are determined to storm the streets.
For seven years, some 16,000 Albanian students have held underground classes, organized in private homes and financed by Kosovo residents.
Last year, President Slobodan Milosevic signed an agreement with the Albanians' outlaw president, Ibrahim Rugova to allow the return of the Albanian students to Serbian schools. But it has never been implemented.
Instead, the Albanians' campus is a village, with no real classrooms, no laboratories and no libraries. Students learn in living rooms, basements and attics, sitting and writing on wooden planks instead of desks.
Meanwhile, just a few miles (kilometers) away in the provincial capital, Pristina, Serb students study at a sweeping state school, with extra room and plenty of facilities.
The universities are just one example of a schizophrenic society where everything is separate and nothing is equal.
Street signs in two languages. Separate shops and restaurants. Separate health clinics for giving birth to children, who will grow up going to separate schools.
One set is for the ethnic Albanians who make up 90 percent of Kosovo's 1.9 million people; the other is for minority Serbs, whose leaders control the government.
It has been like this since 1989, when Milosevic yanked away the province's autonomy, the first blow in his fight to create a greater Serbia -- the fight that started Bosnia's war.
He dissolved Kosovo's government and fired Albanian civil servants. Doctors and teachers either walked off their jobs or were forced out.
In response, Albanians established a parallel administration in Kosovo -- including health and education systems -- that has been tolerated but always watched by Serb police.
Last year, Milosevic agreed to let Albanians return to state schools starting Oct. 1, 1996, with classes to include Albanian language and history.
Nothing changed, and students are sick of waiting. Inspired by last winter's huge demonstrations in other parts of Yugoslavia, they say their protest will last until Milosevic hears their complaints or sends police to silence them.
``We're not asking the Serb students to leave. We want them to stay,'' said student union president Bujar Dugoli, a history major. ``But we're 90 percent of the people here, and we want 90 percent of the rights, and 90 percent of the space.''
The students insist the protests will be peaceful and non-political, by which they mean that -- unlike other Albanians -- they aren't asking for the region's independence. But this is Kosovo, and everything is political -- a contest of wills between a government that wants these 80 square miles (207.2 square kilometers) for Serbs and 1.8 million Albanians who aren't about to go away.
Depressing in its poverty and bizarre in its parallel societies, Kosovo already feels like the separate country many Albanians wish they had. Across the invisible border, minarets pierce the horizon, and brick farmhouses are surrounded by walls, protecting Muslim women from prying eyes.
At Pristina University, the library has clusters of white domes, an architectural reference to the distinctive cap worn by Kosovo's Muslim men. Just next door, an Orthodox church, representing the religion of most Serbs, is being built.
``They don't need to come back to our university,'' said Dejan Karalovic, a 21-year-old Serb student walking across the campus. ``They have their own country in Albania.''
Of 18,000 Serbs at the university, only 5,000 are Kosovo natives. The rest come from Bosnia, Croatia and Yugoslavia's Montenegro republic. That still doesn't fill the five dormitories, so one has become housing for refugees from Bosnia's war -- another way to swell the province's Serb minority.
``The situation with schools is absolutely unbearable,'' says Fehmi Agani, a 69-year-old former sociology professor. ``Not even fascism took such measures here. It's the most evident discrimination.''
In 1990, the Albanians elected a shadow government, which Milosevic promptly banned. Agani is the vice president, and despite his sympathy, his government doesn't support the student protest.
In a last-ditch effort to stop it, Rugova met with student leaders on Monday, along with diplomats from the United States, Russia and other European countries.
The last big anti-Milosevic rallies here were in 1989, when at least 25 people were killed in clashes with Serb police. Fearful the student protest will cause similar unrest, Rugova stressed the need for Kosovo to stay calm -- particularly now, with the possibility of new talks with Serbian authorities.
The students declined. After the meeting, they resumed what they call their daily ``walks'' through Pristina and its suburbs, tracing the steps of a protest they hope -- against the odds -- will be peaceful.
<><><><><><><><><><>
ALBANEWS Site of the Week <><><><><><><><><><><><
! K O S O V A
S T U D E N T P R O T E S T S '97 !
! Protests Against the Serbian occupation
of University buildings !
!
http://www.alb-net.com/
!
______________________________________________________________________
ALBANEWS Site of the Day: "Albania and
Albanians in World Art"
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/3629/art1.html
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/1710/apolonia.html
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