Kosovo workers fight back THE LEAD STORY in the main Croatian weekly news magazine, Danas, of September 11, described the repressive terror imposed on the Albanian majority in the province of Kosovo by the Serbian national-Stalinist regime of Slobodan Milosevic. It dealt in particular with attempts to destroy the independent union movement and the persecution of Albanian doctors and patients in the Pristina university clinic. The following are major excerpts from the article. DOCUMENT
N these days in Pristina [the capital of Kosovo], the illogicality and irrationality of the situation, the persecutions, injuries of people, tear gas, systematic humiliation and the triumphalist propaganda on the radio recalls the Stalinist purges of Soviet dissidents.
Arrest threatens the present moderator of the Coordinating Committee of the Federation of Independent Unions, sociology professor Dr. Agim Hyseni, who took over after the arrest of the former leaders, Professor Hajrullaha Gorani and Dr. Ilira Tollai.
[But] the independent unions cannot be extinguished by the arrest of their leaders, because they function on the principle of an umbrella organization. Every profession has its own independent union, every branch has its subbranch, and all have their own committees. Serbia's jails do not have room enough for all of Kosovo's workers, that is, all the Independent Unions.
Systematic arrests and terror only reinforce the revolt of the citizens against the emergency measures of the Serbian Socialist Republic, which even independent observers perceive as the police boot.
It is hard to say if there is any area of life not dominated by the emergency measures. Elektroprivreda Kosovo iz Obilica [an electricity supply company] is not going to get the $75 million that the Serbian Socialist Republic owes it. Even 24 organizations to which the emergency • measures do not apply have been affected, as in the case of the SOUR Trgovina Kosova. There the director was taken away with a police escort so that the mother republic [Serbia] could get access to the money kept in the bank.
The independent miners' union at Stari Trg has announced that for five months 2,700 of its members have stayed at home because the police have a list of those who are allowed to go down into the mines, and they are only Serbian and Montenegrans. The independent miners' unions at Goles report that 7,000 miners at this previously profitable mine are staying home because they do not want to sign a resolution approving the emergency measures. They want their legally selected hiring system, they do not want to have the question of who can work determined by a list of the acceptable and unacceptable. Chased away by soldiers with automatic weapons
On the day of the strike, they could not even show that they were on strike. They were chased away from the pit [by soldiers] with automatic weapons. So, Goles threatens to show unforeseeable losses. The twenty-first face is flooded, and if it started to be pumped day and night now it would take at least two weeks to dry it out.
It would take as long to completely clean up the mine and clear away the damage caused if it was shut down. It is also being said that the mine's equipment is being taken away by trucks to an
International Viewpoint #192 • October 15, 1990 unknown destination. Before the strike, 170 miners were asked to go down into the pit on September 3, a strike day, to show that the mine was functioning. They refused. Moreover, the pit is no longer safe. "Who will guarantee me that the mine is not mined, who will guarantee me that the Albanian miners will come out of the pit alive if they go down into it."
If more repressive measures are imposed, the Goles miners are ready for further protests. They do not think that they have anything to lose. The worst off families of Independent Union members are being given flour, cooking oil, sugar ana pasta. and pasta.
Miners prepared to hold out
The treasurer who gave a supplement to children has been arrested. If they get their last strike pay, they will give part of it for the miners' families in Krek. If they do not, they will send symbolic help. From others, they expect solidarity for their strike. But Kosovo is seen as a place that can defend itself. They also say that they can hold out as long as necessary against this [repressive] policy.
They think that a general strike should have been set earlier. They think that it is shameful that the state arrested Professor Gorani, because strikes are a legal instrument of trade-union struggle recognized in the civilized world, where no one arrests trade-union leaders.
It seems that no one is concerned about Kosovo. Miners are being expelled by the thousands; 50 per cent of the workers in Kosovo have been fired because of the emergency measures, and when anyone calls for a strike, they are arrested. A few more and there will not be anyone left to call a strike.
"Don't they have enough to be ashamed about? All Yugoslavia has to know that. It has died, we know that it doesn't exist any more, but we are surprised that the democratic forces tolerate this. They have expelled us from apartments, supposedly because of bad housing conditions, but where are we going to live? We have built apartments for gents in Belgrade and Pristina, but we live in dumps, and now they are expelling us from those. Where is this state based on laws? Write that down, that is my message for them.
"Let them know that we are not going to tolerate the policy Serbia is conducting against Kosovo anymore. We Albanians are no longer going to accept being a minority. We are the people. We are no longer going to accept living under this terror. If Yugoslavia thinks that we are people, let it know that we are no longer going accept living this way. From now on we can be a republic, a sovereign republic in a confederation or a federation of Yugoslavia. Nothing else is possible any more. There is no longer any force that compel us to live under Serbia. Is that clear?"*