Kosovo/Kosova As Seen, As Told Kosove meeting their representatives, a large crowd demonstrating in their support was driven back by local police using batons. The crowd fought back, and then Milosevic came out to address them. He made himself the instant hero of the Kosovar Serbs, telling them in front of the television cameras that "no one should dare to beat you", and making their controversial nationalist agenda his own. By the end of 1987 Milosevic was in firm control of both the party and government in Serbia. The loss of autonomy status The following year, as both the Albanian nationalist agitation and Serb anti-discrimination rallies maintained their momentum, proposals were put forward to amend the Serbian constitution to give Belgrade more control over security in Kosovo and Vojvodina (as well as over financial and social policy), thereby reducing provincial autonomy. Leading members of the League of Communists in both provinces resigned before the constitutional amendments were approved in February-March 1989 by the Serbian parliament and the respective provincial assemblies. Further stages in the removal of provincial autonomy followed. The main step, including dissolving the provincial assemblies, was taken in the form of amendments to the Serbian constitution proposed in May 1990, implemented in June and supported in a republic-wide referendum that July. The last visible political institutions of provincial autonomy - representation on the collective SFRY presidency and in the Federal Assembly - remained nominally intact, but in practice the presidency itself was in chronic crisis as the federation approached the end of its existence. At one stage in March 1991 the Kosovo representative was recalled for "anti-Serbian activities" and the Serbian Assembly voted to abolish the post. Although this was soon rescinded, two months later the Kosovo delegation walked out of the Federal Assembly when it voted to confirm a candidate chosen by Serbia as the new Kosovo representative on the Presidency. Of greater real significance than this political manoeuvring within the Presidency were the withdrawal or closure of publicly funded Albanian language media in 1989, the publication in 1990 of a new schools curriculum for Kosovo to bring Albanian-language teaching into line with that in the rest of Serbia, the ending of teaching in Albanian in most secondary schools in 1992, and the cutting of Albanian-language teaching at Pristina University at the same time. Kosovo Albanians responded with a schools boycott and attempts to maintain a "parallel" system of Albanian-language education, often provided by teachers who had lost their jobs. Periods of particularly acute tension in the continuing unrest included violent rioting over the 1989 constitutional amendments and the arrest of popular local political leader Azem Vlasi; disturbances in Pristina in early 1990, quelled by the temporary imposition of a state of emergency, after Milosevic had issued a call for Serbs to begin a campaign of mass settlement to reverse the decline in their numbers in Kosovo; protests over the dissolution of the provincial assembly that July; and a general strike in September 1990 over mass dismissals of Kosovo Albanian officials. A state of emergency, backed by a strong Serbian police and security presence, was in force in Kosovo from late 1989 until the latter part of 1992. http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/hr/part1/ch1.htm (3 of 8)12/5/2003 11:48:35 AM