Word: kosovo
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Milosevic has been campaigning for a drastic expansion of Serbia's power within Yugoslavia, including a tightened grip over the province of Kosovo, which is now only technically under Serbian control. Yugoslavia's Serbs regard Kosovo as their historic homeland, even though they now constitute little more than 10% of the province's population. At last week's meeting, Milosevic was opposed by the leaders of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, all of whom feared that his ambitious campaign would upset the fragile balance of power among Yugoslavia's six republics and two autonomous provinces...
...Serbia. Kosovo. The names rise up like wraiths from the mists of European history, evoking episodes that dispatched the tumbrels of war throughout the Old Continent 74 summers ago, or paved the way a half-millennium earlier for the Turkish domination of the Balkans. It was at Sarajevo in June 1914 that a Serbian-trained assassin shot the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, igniting World War I. And it was at Kosovo Field in 1389 that the Ottomans snuffed out Serbian independence...
...leadership vacuum coincided with bitter ethnic tensions in the autonomous province of Kosovo. Though the province is part of the Serbian republic, Albanians account for at least 77% of its 1.9 million inhabitants, a proportion that continues to increase. Fears of Albanian irredentism and tales of rape and murder of Serbs in Kosovo by Albanians stirred many of Yugoslavia's 8 million Serbs to demand a crackdown on Kosovo and tough leadership to implement it. The man and the hour met in 1986 when Slobodan Milosevic rose to power in the Serbian Communist Party and soon stirred up a wave...
During the past few months, Milosevic has deftly manipulated his supporters throughout Serbia into pressing for the ouster of moderates opposed to tighter Serbian controls over Kosovo. Demonstrations erupted in Serbia and Voivodina, like Kosovo an autonomous province. In Montenegro last week, police used tear gas and nightsticks to suppress a demonstration by thousands of Milosevic partisans...
...republics in preparation for a meeting of the 165-member Yugoslav Central Committee this week, there was talk that up to one-third of the members might be ousted in a pro-Milosevic shake-up and a purge of incompetents. The Serbian party, meanwhile, hammered away at the Kosovo issue. A Serbian party resolution, backed by Milosevic, demanded the ouster of three top Kosovo party officials, two of them ethnic Albanians. Warned Milosevic: "The people gather in the streets because their institutions fail to settle the matter...