KOSOVO: ETHNIC ALBANIANS PROTEST AGAINST SPATE OF KILLINGS

(9 Mar 1998) Natural Sound
Tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians poured into Pristina on Monday to protest at the spate of killings carried out by Serb police in Kosovo.
Other demonstrations took place simultaneously in cities across the province.
The protests happened as Serb police declared an end to their bloody crackdown on Albanian separatists.
Half an hour before demonstrations were scheduled to begin, about 40-thousand people gathered in the main streets of the capital of the province - Pristina.
The march was made up of ethnic Albanians angry at the harsh crackdown by the Serbian government in which dozens of people are believed to have died.
The official death toll from two villages west of Pristina was put at 46 Albanians and 6 Serb policemen.
Ethnic Albanians, who make up a 90 percent majority in Kosovo, claimed the casualties were higher.
They were intent on sending a defiant message to the Serbs.
It was the biggest demonstration in Pristina since the province of Kosovo was stripped of its autonomy in 1989.
Police didn't interfere with the protest which lasted 50-minutes.
Heavily armed riot squads sat in buses in side streets, but made no attempt to break up the crowd.
A similar protest in Pristina last week ended with riot police lobbing tear gas and clubbing demonstrators as they ran.
But Serbian authorities wanted to avoid violence coinciding with the meeting of six foreign powers in London on Monday.
They are deciding what action to take against Yugoslavia for last week's police crackdown in Kosovo.
The demonstrators demanded some form of intervention from the international community to help end the violence.
Thousands of ethnic Albanians also took to the streets in at least three other towns.
Albanians reported 17-thousand were present in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica, 7-thousand in the western town of Pec, and a thousand in Podujevo.
There were no immediate reports of violence anywhere.
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KOSOVA IS ALBANIA