yugoslavias implosion

Autonomous Province of Kosovo, the Law on the Serbian Academy
of Sciences and Arts, the Law on the Abrogation of the Law on the
Institute of Kosovo History, and many other statutes struck at the
very core of the Albanians’ identity and gradually took away their
self-rule.
All organs of power in Kosovo were dissolved and the police
were disarmed. A new state apparatus was established to further
Serbian interests, effectively annexing Kosovo to Serbia and institutionalizing
Serbian domination. The Belgrade regime took every
measure to revive the unitary Yugoslav ideal espoused during the
Ranković era.
The Albanians proclaimed the Kosovo Republic at a secret meeting
in Kačanik on September 7. In this proclamation, they asserted
their continuing control of the print media, commerce, schools,
political and humanitarian organizations, professional associations,
and a segment of the health service; the disbanded local government
agencies were left without administrative and economic authority.
The Democratic League of Kosovo—a conservative party founded in
1989 and led by Rugova—claimed the “political and moral” authority
over the Albanians and took over administration of a series of “parallel
institutions” mostly inherited from the days of autonomy. (In
reality, this parallel system was very weak; lacking official premises,
for instance, the institutions operated from private homes.) This
political development led to the complete separation of the two communities.
The mutual alienation was total: Serbs lived like a privileged
minority under police and army protection and continued to
administer Kosovo; Albanians, though in the majority, were marginalized
and languished in conditions of national apartheid and
segregation.
Milošević turned Kosovo into a power base in which he could
oppress and rob the Albanian population with impunity. The Socialist
Party of Serbia (sps) was already firmly entrenched there; Šešelj’s
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