yugoslavias implosion

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ChApter 1
installation of policeman Rahman Morina at the head of the party
swept across Kosovo.
In 1988–89, Albanians working at the Trepča mine in Kosovo
were summarily expelled. They responded with protest marches and
hunger strikes, to which the Serbian government in turn responded
by arresting and imprisoning many of the protesting workers. The
Federal Assembly held an emergency session at which Yugoslav president
Lazar Mojsov disclosed an irredentist “headquarters document”
on creating a Kosovo Republic (reportedly a copy of Tanjug
news agency’s internal service bulletin distributed to federal agencies
and found in a Pristina street; that document has never been seen
by anyone). 127 The Federal Assembly gave the federal leadership the
green light to impose a state of emergency in Kosovo. In March 1989,
amendments to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Serbia
depriving the provinces of their right to veto revision of the republic’s
constitution were promulgated in Belgrade. The decision provoked
mass demonstrations in Kosovo; twenty-two demonstrators
and two policemen were killed. Simultaneously with his unification
of Serbia, Milošević prepared a campaign against Slovenia and Croatia.
The attack on Slovenia was occasioned by a gathering in Ljubljana
in February 1989 in support of the Trepča miners, when the
Slovenian president, Milan Kučan, declared, “avnoj Yugoslavia is
being defended in Trepča.”
Milošević’s vision was diametrically opposed to the view that
had been evolving in Slovenia, which saw Yugoslavia’s future
only through substantial decentralization and a greater role for
the republics. In 1989, Croatia joined Slovenia in its demands. The
appointment of Ante Marković as federal prime minister was the last
attempt to find a solution for Yugoslavia. Marković’s program presupposed
economic reform in the hope of initiating political change,
an expectation that had proved illusory since the 1970s.
127 Politika, 3 . March 1989