Yugolavia’s Leader Pleads for End to Ethnic Violence

Federal President Janez Drnovsek visited Kosovo province Friday and appealed for an end to violence that has cost the lives of at least 21 ethnic Albanians in 10 days.

He said the ethnic unrest threatens political and economic reform in Yugoslavia, which is trying to transform itself from a Communist nation to a Western-style democracy with a market economy.

Riot police used tear gas to disperse about 200 demonstrators in Pristina, capital of Kosovo, while Drnovsek met with provincial officials.

No other protests were reported Friday, but a virtual general strike seemed to be in force. Kosovo, a southern province next to Albania, is the nation’s poorest region, and 90% of its 1.9 million people are ethnic Albanians.

“Production has almost completely stopped,” and even some people who went to their jobs were refusing to work, the official news agency Tanjug reported.

At least 30,000 people in Kosovo have been on almost constant strike since protests and riots began Jan. 24, according to official statistics.

Ethnic Albanians have demanded greater autonomy since Serbia, the largest of Yugoslavia’s six republics, made constitutional changes a year ago that gave it almost total control of the province. Kosovo is part of Serbia but had functioned as an autonomous region.

Tanjug quoted Drnovsek as saying: “I appeal to all peoples in Kosovo, regardless of their nationalities, to stop violent activities.”

Meanwhile, Adm. Stane Brovet, deputy defense minister, told the federal Parliament on Friday that ethnic Albanian “nationalists have clearly demonstrated they intend to secede from Yugoslavia in order to join Albania,” Tanjug reported.

“Their intentions must be thwarted by all means, including force,” and the armed forces are “prepared at all times to defend the country’s integrity and its constitutional order,” Brovet declared.