Yugoslavia: A History of its Demise - Indymedia

THE BEGINNING OF THE END 93
oriented Association for Yugoslav Democracy. On the Serbian side, it was
claimed that these groups had emerged as a result of inspiration from Albania, 133
but that was so absurd that even Serbian officialdom did not want to pursue this.
The Albanian organizations invited the Serbian side to open dialogue but were
brusquely turned down. In spring 1990, the brutal policy of repression was
resumed and intensified; an uninvestigated affair concerning poisoned drinking
water in Podujevo was used as a pretext to dismiss a large number of Albanian
police who had remained in the force until now. 134 Serbia wanted, for the second
time, to issue a new constitution; this new constitution was designed to further
curtail the rights and status of the two provinces. The new constitution, which
also strengthened the office of President of the Republic, was supposed to be
approved through a referendum at the beginning of 1990.
The Albanian parliamentarians and politicians who remained in office had
unified up to a point and put up some resistance. They asserted that the new
Serbian constitution was in violation of the federal constitution, since it no
longer made any acknowledgment of the position of Kosovo as a “constituent
factor” of Yugoslavia, while the Serbian politicians had promised to respect that
constitution just half a year before. In response, the Serbian parliament passed a
decree on 27 June 1990, without the participation of the Albanian deputies,
mandating the establishment of a Serbian special administration over Kosovo;
Momčilo Trajković, a close collaborator of Milošević’s and deputy prime
minister in the Serbian government, became “commissar” with unrestricted
powers. In the Belgrade newspapers he was described as “governor”; on the
occasion of the installation of his successor in early May 1991, Borba raised the
question as to whether such a “governor” was at all necessary since, by then, the
new constitution had introduced a unified administrative system for the entire
republic. 135
On 2 July 1990, the legally elected deputies to the provincial parliament of
Kosovo found themselves locked out of the meeting room and the entrance
blocked by Serbian police. In response, the parliamentary deputies, sitting on the
steps outside the building, decided to proclaim Kosovo a “republic”, as a
sovereign unit within Yugoslavia. Against Serbian accusations, Albanian
speakers explained that this was not an act of separation but only the execution
of the same step which had been taken already by almost all the Yugoslav
republics; even Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia had, in the meantime, declared
themselves “sovereign”. Kosovo, as a recognized “constituent factor” of
Yugoslavia, had the right to do the same thing. 136
The reaction of Serbia followed shortly. On 5 July 1990, the provincial
parliament was declared dissolved—in any form. After the provincial
government was likewise abolished, Kosovo ceased to enjoy the autonomy
guaranteed it under the Yugoslav constitution of 1974. The 114 deputies were
threatened by the Serbian Interior Minister with prosecution and, for the most
part, had to go underground or emigrate, many of them choosing to go to
Slovenia or Croatia. At the same time, the only newspaper in Albanian, Rilindja,