1981 protests in Kosovo

Protests and riots demanding greater Kosovan autonomy within the SFR Yugoslavia July 2020 1981 protests in Kosovo the breakup of Yugoslavia 11 March – 3 April 1981 SAP Kosovo, SR Serbia, Yugoslavia Demanding higher autonomy for Kosovo Protests, Civil unrest Protests failed Flag of Yugoslavia (1946-1992).svg SFR Yugoslavia Flag of Montenegro (1946–1993), Flag of Serbia (1947–1992).svg SR Serbia Flag of Montenegro (1946–1993), Flag of Serbia (1947–1992).svg SAP Kosovo Flag of SFR Yugoslav Albanian Minority.svg Kosovo Albanian protestors Supported by:Flag of Albania (1946–1992).svg Albania Cvijetin MijatovićDobrivoje VidićXhavid Nimani Besim BaraliuFehmi LladrovciMilazim ShalaAslan PirevaHydajet HyseniJakup Krasniqi 4 killed 7 killed4,200 arrested1,500 expelled from LCY In March and April 1981, a student protest in Pristina, the capital of the then Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, led to widespread protests by Kosovo Albanians demanding more autonomy within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Presidency of Yugoslavia declared a state of emergency in Pristina and Kosovska Mitrovica, which led to rioting. The unrest was suppressed by a large police intervention that caused numerous casualties, and a period of political repression followed.Nelsson Richard Nelsson compiled by Richard 2019-03-20 How Milosevic stripped Kosovo's autonomy - archive, 1989 https://www.theguardian.com/world/from-the-archive-blog/2019/mar/20/how-milosevic-stripped-kosovos-autonomy-archive-1989 2024-10-28 The Guardian en-GB 0261-3077 8 June 2023 https://web.archive.org/web/20230608111821/https://www.theguardian.com/world/from-the-archive-blog/2019/mar/20/how-milosevic-stripped-kosovos-autonomy-archive-1989 live Background thumb|right|Average strength of Yugoslav state economies as a deviation from the Yugoslav average in 1975. SAP Kosovo (in red) was the least developed entity within Yugoslavia. The University of Pristina was the starting point of the 1981 Kosovo student protests. Kosovo's cultural isolation within Yugoslavia and its endemic underdevelopment, compared to the rest of the country, resulted in the province having the highest ratio of both students and illiterates in Yugoslavia.Llapi Gjylbehare Peterson Claudette M. Education Interrupted: Kosovo 1980-1999 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED570511 live https://web.archive.org/web/20240520000603/https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED570511 20 May 2024 28 October 2024 eric.ed.gov 31 October 2015 A university education was not deemed a guarantee of future employment; instead of training students for technical careers, the university specialized in liberal arts, in particular in Albanology, which could hardly secure work except in bureaucracy or local cultural institutions, especially outside of Kosovo.Shahini Arjan 2021-12-15 Sullied: The Albanian Student Movement of December 1990 Frontiers in Political Science English 3 10.3389/fpos.2021.708881 free 2673-3145 This created a large pool of unemployed but highly educated, and resentful, Albanians – prime recruits for nationalist sentiment.NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY 20; ALBANIA; GENERAL SURVEY CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov) https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp01-00707r000200110034-6 2024-10-28 www.cia.gov 7 February 2025 https://web.archive.org/web/20250207190940/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp01-00707r000200110034-6 live Demonstrations were organized by several professors and students: Besim Baraliu, Fehmi Lladrovc. In addition, the Serb and Montenegrin population of Kosovo increasingly resented the economic and social burden incurred by the university's student population. By 1981, the University of Pristina had 20,000 students – one in ten of the city's total population.Mertus 1999 29 Student protests The demonstrations started on 11 March 1981, originally as a spontaneous small-scale protest for better food in the school cafeteria and improved living conditions in the dormitories. Tired of being made to wait in line, for hours, for poor quality food, students began demonstrating under Gani Koci's command, who later was arrested.Mertus 1999 29 Two to four thousand demonstrators were dispersed by police, with around a hundred arrests made.Mertus 1999 29Jović 2009 184 The student protests resumed two weeks later on 26 March 1981, as several thousand demonstrators chanted increasingly nationalist slogans, and the police used force to disperse them, injuring 32 people.Jović 2009 185 The engagement included a sit-in by Albanian students in a dormitory. As the police reacted negatively to a perceived increase in nationalism among the protesters, more arrests were made, which in turn fueled more protests.Jović 2009 185 On 30 March, students of the three of the largest university faculties declared a boycott, fearing a return of Rankovićism.Jović 2009 185 The demands of the Albanian students were both nationalist and egalitarianist, implying a desire for a different kind of socialism than the Yugoslav kind, marked by semi-confederalism and workers' self-management.Jović 2009 184 Escalation of protests On 1 April, demonstrations swept through Kosovo, and 17 policemen were injured in clashes with demonstrators, failing to disperse them.Jović 2009 185 The army moved in to secure state institutions, and Mahmut Bakalli soon called on them to send tanks to the streets.Jović 2009 185 Within days, the protests over conditions for students turned into discontent over the treatment of the ethnic Albanian population by the Serbian majority, and then to rioting and Albanian nationalist demands.Mertus 1999 30Jović 2009 184 The primary demand was that Kosovo become a republic within Yugoslavia as opposed to its then-current status as a province of Serbia.Jović 2009 184 Pavlović Momčilo 1981 demonstrations in Kosovo transconflict.com 26 April 2013 http://www.transconflict.com/2013/04/1981-demonstrations-in-kosovo-264/ 2013-08-13 1 April 2016 https://web.archive.org/web/20160401181744/http://www.transconflict.com/2013/04/1981-demonstrations-in-kosovo-264/ dead The authorities blamed the protests on nationalist radicals – the May 1981 Politika said the goal of the protests was for a Republic of Kosovo to become separate from Yugoslavia, and join Albania.Bulatović 1981 10 The authorities imposed a ban on foreign reporting, and the local reporting, unlike at the time of the 1968 protests in Kosovo, entirely lacked independence, and instead ran only official statements.Mertus 1999 31 Some of the official statements were inherently vague, talking of "internal and external enemies", which provoked a variety of conspiracy theories that stoked nationalist sentiment elsewhere in Yugoslavia.Mertus 1999 32 One of the conspiracy theories was promoted by Azem Vllasi, who later publicly discussed the alleged involvement of the Albanian security service Sigurimi in the protests.Mertus 1999 39 The demand that Kosovo become the seventh republic of Yugoslavia was politically unacceptable to Serbia and the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. A standoff happened near Podujevo, where police reinforcements coming in from Central Serbia were stopped by Albanian demonstrators who had taken local Serbs and Montenegrins as hostages.Jović 2009 186 Some of the groups of protesters were Marxist–Leninist whose ideology was shaped by the views of the Albanian leader Enver Hoxha.Myrtaj Mrika Limani 2021-09-01 The Ideology and Agency of Kosovar Albanian Marxist Groups in the Demonstrations of 1981 https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/soeu-2021-0026/html Comparative Southeast European Studies en 69 2–3 183–203 10.1515/soeu-2021-0026 244134295 2701-8202 free 18 February 2023 22 February 2023 https://web.archive.org/web/20230218191040/https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/soeu-2021-0026/html live Yugoslav authorities accused Albania of interfering in their internal matters. The level of influence exerted by the Albanian government in the protests is disputed however. Mertus notes that some of the students held up signs saying "We Are Enver Hoxha's Soldiers" but that their numbers were small. Albania used radio, television and sent books to encourage Kosovo Albanians to "unite with the motherland" but little else beyond that, as Mertus argues directly assisting the protesters would have been a violation of Albanian policy.Mertus 1999 37-38 State of emergency The leadership of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia saw the protesters' opposition to self-management and their nationalism as a grave threat, and decided to "suppress them by all available means".Jović 2009 184 On 2 April 1981 the Presidency of Yugoslavia under the chairmanship of Cvijetin Mijatović declared a state of emergency in Pristina and Kosovska Mitrovica, which lasted one week.http://www.osaarchivum.org/files/holdings/300/8/3/text/85-4-101.shtml https://web.archive.org/web/20110728062629/http://www.osaarchivum.org/files/holdings/300/8/3/text/85-4-101.shtml dead 28 July 2011 Kosovo: One year after the riots Zdenko Antić 17 March 1982 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute 2013-08-14 http://www.slobodnaevropa.mobi/a/1045339.html Raif Dizdarević: Velika prevara Radio Free Europe sh Nenad Pejić Radio Slobodna Evropa 27 February 2008 2013-08-14 9 March 2014 https://web.archive.org/web/20140309231806/http://www.slobodnaevropa.mobi/a/1045339.html live Presidency sent in special forces to stop the demonstrations. The federal government rushed up to 30,000 troops to the province. Riots broke out and the Yugoslav authorities used force against the protesters. On 3 April, the last demonstrations happened in Vučitrn, Uroševac, Vitina and Kosovska Mitrovica, which were soon suppressed by the additional police deployment.Jović 2009 186 The rioting involved 20,000 people in six cities. In late April, New York Times reported that nine people had died and more than fifty were injured during the protests. The New York Times 19 April 1981 One Storm has Passed but Others are Gathering in Yugoslavia https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/19/weekinreview/one-storm-has-passed-but-others-are-gathering-in-yugoslavia.html 2013-08-14 22 March 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20170322102435/http://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/19/weekinreview/one-storm-has-passed-but-others-are-gathering-in-yugoslavia.html live In July, the outlet reported that more than 250 had been injured by the end of the protests. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/30/world/6-more-yugoslavs-sentenced-for-ethnic-rioting-in-kosovo.html 6 More Yugoslavs Sentenced For Ethnic Rioting in Kosovo New York Times 30 July 1981 2013-08-14 22 March 2016 https://web.archive.org/web/20160322235448/http://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/30/world/6-more-yugoslavs-sentenced-for-ethnic-rioting-in-kosovo.html live Aftermath thumb|Memorial to two of the dead, in Pristina Kosovo's Communist Party suffered purges, with several key figures, including its president, expelled. Veli Deva replaced Bakalli because he was thought to have been harder on Tirana.Mertus 1999 42 Following the demonstrations, the University of Pristina faculty and students were purged of those deemed to be "separatists". 226 students and workers were tried, convicted and sentenced to up to fifteen years in prison. Many Albanians were purged from official posts, including the president of the university and two rectors. They were replaced with Communist Party hardliners. The university was also prohibited from using textbooks imported from Albania; from then on, the university was only permitted to use books translated from Serbo-Croatian. The demonstrations also produced a growing tendency for Serbian politicians to demand centralization, the unity of Serb lands, a decrease in cultural pluralism for Albanians and an increase in the protection and promotion of Serbian culture.Mertus 1999 The university was denounced by the Serbian Communist leadership as a "fortress of nationalism".Kostovicova 2005 44 Presidency did not repeal the province's autonomy as some Serbian Communists demanded.July 2012 The League of Communists of Kosovo declared the riots to be a product of Albanian nationalism, and Serbia reacted by a desire to reduce the power of the Albanians in the province, and a propaganda campaign that claimed that Serbs were being pushed out of the province primarily by the growing Albanian population, rather than the bad state of the economy.Ramet 2010 361 In 1981, it was reported that some 4,000 Serbs planned to move from Kosovo to Central Serbia after the riots in March that resulted in several Serb deaths and the desecration of Serbian Orthodox architecture and graveyards.Di Lellio 2006 39-40 33 nationalist formations were dismantled by the Yugoslav Police who sentenced some 280 people (800 fined, 100 under investigation) and seized arms caches and propaganda material.Financial Times London 5 February 1982 Police fail to crush resistance in Kosovo Paul Lendvai The demonstrations in Kosovo were the beginning of a deep crisis in Yugoslavia that later led to its dissolution.Jović 2009 186 The government response to the demonstrations changed the political discourse in the country in a way that significantly impaired its ability to sustain itself in the future.Mertus 1999 44 In literature and arts The events inspired a novel by Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, The Wedding Procession Turned to Ice (sq Krushqit janë të ngrirë), where he describes an Albanian physician, Teuta Shkreli, tending to the injured students. The figure of Teuta was inspired by the actions of Albanian physician Sehadete Mekuli, gynaecologist and wife of Albanian writer Esad Mekuli.Elsie 2010 82 See also 2013 protests in Kosovo 2014 student protest in Kosovo References Sources Mertus Julie A. Julie A. Mertus Kosovo: How Myths and Truths Started a War http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8454/8454.ch01.html University of California Press 1999 0-253-20703-7 The 1981 Student Demonstrations 13 August 2013 1 December 2008 https://web.archive.org/web/20081201172257/http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8454/8454.ch01.html dead Dejan Jović Yugoslavia: A State That Withered Away Purdue University Press 2009 184 9781557534958 https://books.google.com/books?id=Po03enYpbqsC&pg=PA184 Kostovicova Denisa Kosovo: the politics of identity and space https://books.google.com/books?id=L562PiBM6GEC 2005 Routledge 9780415348065 Ramet Sabrina P. Central and Southeast European Politics Since 1989 https://books.google.com/books?id=oFXdiS25N78C&pg=PA361 2010 Cambridge University Press 9780521716161 May 1981 sr:Шта се догађало на Косову What was happening in Kosovo Predrag Bulatović Predrag Bulatović Politika's Little Library sr Politika Belgrade Elsie Robert Historical Dictionary of Kosovo https://books.google.com/books?id=Pg-aeA-nUeAC&pg=PA82 2010 Scarecrow Press 9780810874831 Di Lellio Anna The Case for Kosova: Passage to Independence 2006 Anthem Press 9780857287120 Category:1981 riots Category:1981 protests Category:Communism in Kosovo Category:Political repression in Communist Yugoslavia Category:Protests in Kosovo Category:20th century in Pristina Category:March 1981 in Europe Category:April 1981 in Europe Category:1981 in Kosovo Category:Protests in Serbia Category:Socialist Republic of Serbia Category:Yugoslav People's Army