ALBANIAN-SERB CONFRONTATION IN THE STREETS OF KOSOVO

Pristina Oct 3, 1997

AIM Pristina, 3 October, 1997

On 1 October, Kosovo and Pristina were under yet unseen police siege, unprecedented in the past several years. On the previous day, huge police forces were brought from different parts of Serbia. The purpose of police reinforcements was to prevent the public protest of Albanian students scheduled for 1 October, the first day of the new school year. For days before that, both on the Serb and the Albanian side, an atmosphere was created for the first time after many years for a confrontation of the Serbian and Albanian forces in the streets of Kosovo cities. There were rumours about significant accumulation of police vehicles for quick intervention and armoured vehicles for breaking up demonstrations and even about additional large quantities of tear gas brought to Kosovo for the needs of the police.

After the students' protest was announced, serious political tensions appeared within the Albanian political movement. Independent Union of Albanian Students managed to remain neutral and in the end decide on its own, despite mostly concealed resistance, to organize public protests on 1 October with the aim to enable Albanian pupils and students to resume their studies in school and university buildings from which they were banished more than six years ago.

After large-scale preparations, despite various doubts, the first confrontation of the Albanians and the police was imminent. Nobody had any illusions whose side force was on, just as nobody had any doubts that in this part of the world it was force that conditioned and arranged aspirations of people and nations. Nevertheless, it did not prevent the students in their attempt to try once again, but also for as many times as necessary, to achieve their goals.

That is exactly what happened on the first day of the new school year. Thousands of members of special police units, fully equipped and armed and assisted by armoured and other vehicles for breaking up undesired gatherings, dispersed about midday a large mass of protesters and numerous other minor or major groups of the Albanians around Pristina, who were waiting to greet or to join the large protest march of the students.

The main mass of protesting students gathered around the seat of the administration of the Albanian university in Pristina suburb of Velanija. As planned, at 10.30, the head of the University Ejup Statovci, with his associates and students' leaders led the way on a tour of main university buildings from which Albanian pupils and students had been banished several years ago. Deans and professors were at the head of the students of their respective faculties. Students, dressed in white shirts, carried a large number of banners without political connotations written in Albanian and in English.

It is true that estimates of the number of people present at gatherings of this kind in Kosovo are part of the psychological and propaganda war, but it is still believed that the head of the Albanian university and the students' leadership stood at the head of a column of 20 to 30 thousand students, pupils and teachers. The column of pupils and students was cheered along the way by a mass of 30 to 40 thousand Albanians. However, the column did not manage to cover a single kilometre when its head was stopped when leaving the Velanija suburb. Their way was blocked from all sides by massive police forces fully armed and equipped. Police helicopters flying low added to the threatening atmosphere on the ground. At that moment, most of the students were still at the starting point, squeezed in the streets around the administration building waiting for the column to expand.

Approximately after silently standing for an hour, in the space of about one metre between the confronted column of protesters and the first police cordon, journalists learnt that the police had allegedly warned the part of the head of the column that it would use force if the masses refused to disperse voluntarily. The leaders of the march and other eye-witnesses claim that they were not warned but that suddenly tear gas was thrown among them and that force was used quite unexpectedly. This happened at a quarter to twelve. For the first time in Kosovo, tear gas was thrown at the Albanian demonstrants from helicopters. Demonstrants started running away towards the surrounding hills, and the head of the university and some members of the students' leadership were beaten up and then led to police vehicles and arrested just to be released later that day.

Squeezed in narrow streets, the mass of students of about 10 to 15 thousand young people who were waiting to start on the march were in the worst position, because they had no place to go. They were warned three times to disperse voluntarily, but pursuant the decision of the main organizing committee of the demonstrations, in case of police attack, after the warning, the demonstrants were supposed to sit down. Eye witnesses, the author of this text inclusive, felt the deeply moving dead silence of the disciplined young men and girls who sat down waiting for nearly two thousand policemen coming towards them step by step, prepared to beat them up. It was probably the largest police force concentrated in such a small space during yesterday's police intervention in Pristina. Due to the position they were in while waiting to join the protesting column, the first and the severest blows fell on medical school students. In the terrible confusion after the first tear gas bombs, baton charge, kicking and smacking, the students and the pupils were forced to jump over walls and fences which were much over a metre high. In about ten minutes, the demonstrants found refuge mostly in the surrounding houses. Despite the probably greatest brutality ever used against the gathered masses of students, the police did not enter private homes where majority of the pupils and students were hidden. While jumping over the walls and fences, many students injured their legs, arms and other parts of the body. There were sprained ankles and possible fractures. Many complained of pain because of truncheon blows and nauseousness caused by inhaling tear gas. In this part of Velanija, a girl who had received blows on the head was in the worst position. Although there were numerous journalists, they were naturally interested the most for developments at the head of the column, so that by pure chance, this brutal clash between blind force and defiance and the undescribable chaos that followed was witnessed only by two foreign journalists.

The commander of the special unit which intervened in this part of Velanija mostly around the university administration building, while checking identity and journalists' papers, said that the police was not interested in students' demands and slogans, but only in maintenance of peace and order and that the police was forced to intervene, because the authorities had not been informed about this gathering.

In order to prevent the attempt to form protest processions of the citizens and secondary school students, tear gas, truncheons and other forms of force were applied in all parts of Pristina. All secondary schools, that is buildings used for teaching of Albanian pupils were blocked in the early morning by strong police forces. Police entered some of them and applied force against pupils and teachers. Despite that, minor or major processions were formed all around Pristina, which were then dispersed by brutal interventions of the police. These unequal confrontations with the police in all parts of Pristina lasted until the early afternoon.

By organized public gatherings, students of faculties and colleges, pupils and citizens in almost all Kosovo cities expressed their solidarity with the students in Pristina. According to Albanian sources, gatherings in Gnjilane and Prizren were the most numerous ones. In each of these cities, about 10 thousand Albanians protested. According to these sources, violence used against demonstrants was the most brutal in Pec and Djakovica. During the protest, all shops owned by the Albanians were closed.

According to the first summed up information, Albanian sources speak about 200 injured persons only in Pristina. However, this figure must be much larger. Only in the Velanija suburb, around the university administration building, there were several ten injured persons. Judging by the number of injured persons lying on all its three floors, a privately-owned building near the administration building resembled a hospital.

After five-year "peace" and numerous inter-Albanian political remonstrations, leaders of Albanian students, but also politicians and analysts could not have dreamt that the response of the Albanian students, pupils and citizens would be so massive. It seems that the Serbian authorities were also surprised with the proportions of the gatherings, as well as their official local media. They are still talking about attempts to demonstrate of the "separatists" wishing to create an impression among the Serb public primarily in Kosovo that only insignificant small groups of the Albanian population came out into the streets to protest...

AIM Pristina

Fehim REXHEPI