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- *ê WORLD, Page 39World NotesYUGOSLAVIASteps Toward The Abyss
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- Months of deepening tension between its bitterly divided
- national republics and ethnic groups have brought Yugoslavia
- dangerously close to civil war. In the autonomous province of
- Kosovo, striking ethnic Albanian lead and zinc miners protesting
- a strident campaign by Serbians to tighten their grip touched
- off a wave of demonstrations. Tens of thousands of ethnic
- Albanians joined the strike, forcing the resignations of
- provincial Communist Party boss Rahman Morina and other
- officials considered to be puppets of Serbia.
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- In Belgrade half a million resentful Serbs chanting "Kosovo
- is Serbian!" demanded a drastic expansion of their control over
- the province and stiff retaliatory measures against the ethnic
- Albanian majority. The spiraling unrest drove Raif Dizdarevic ,
- leader of Yugoslavia's collective presidency, to dispatch
- paramilitary units and tanks into Kosovo while banning all
- public gatherings. The unrest also exacerbated the rift between
- Serbia and the republic of Slovenia.
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