Rallies Banned in Yugoslavia’s Kosovo Region

Police in the southern province of Kosovo today banned all mass gatherings after five days of the region’s biggest rallies in more than four decades of communist rule.

The indefinite ban on mass gatherings was announced by the state-run news agency Tanjug. It quoted Rahman Morina, Kosovo’s chief of interior affairs, as saying: “Extraordinary circumstances have taken place which threaten public order.

“All those failing to comply (with the decree) will be subject to all legal and other measures.” Tanjug did not elaborate.

The decree said the ban “should not affect normal development of public and cultural life of citizens.”

The protests in Kosovo were triggered by the forced resignations Nov. 17 of two ethnic Albanian leaders, Kacusa Jasari and Azem Vlasi, under pressure from the Communist Party leadership in the republic of Serbia. (Story, Page 6.)

The move sparked the largest demonstrations ever in Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians compose 90% of the population in a region that Serbs have always considered their national cultural center.

Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian Communist Party leader, pushed hard for the resignations as part of his drive to gain more control in Kosovo, which won broad autonomy under a 1974 constitution. Milosevic wants the situation changed to protect the Serbian and Montenegrin minorities in Kosovo from alleged ethnic Albanian harassment.

Provincial party leaders have promised to review the resignations of Jasari and Vlasi at a meeting tentatively scheduled later this week.