(16 May 1998) Natural Sound
Thousands of ethnic Albanians demonstrated in Pristina, Kosovo, on Saturday against Serbian rule and demanding international intervention in their conflict with Belgrade's authorities.
They were expressing their support for Ibrahim Rugova, leader of Kosovo's separatist ethnic Albanians.
Rugova met for the first time with Yugoslavia's autocratic president, Slobodan Milosevic, on Friday in an attempt to resolve the crisis that pushed the country to the verge of
civil war.
Saturday's rally began with dozens of medical doctors and students, dressed in white, demanding medical assistance for an unspecified number of sick or injured ethnic Albanians, who are believed stuck in contested and inaccessible parts of Kosovo.
The ethnic Albanians were demonstrating once again in Kosovo's capital Pristina against the Serbian government's harsh rule, a day after U-S-brokered talks started on the province's future.
Up to 10-thousand protesters chanted "Freedom", "Independence", and the name of their top political leader, Ibrahim Rugova.
Serbia's ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs nine to one in the southern province.
They increasingly have clamoured for independence, a demand rejected by officials in the federal capital of Belgrade.
Serbia is the larger of the two republics that comprise what is left of Yugoslavia.
Violence in Kosovo has threatened to turn into all-out war since Serbian police forces and the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army began battling Kosovo militants in February.
More than 150 people have died in clashes between the police and ethnic Albanian militants, who say they are part of the clandestine Kosovo Liberation Army (K-L-A).
Rugova, head of the strongest ethnic Albanian political party in the province, advocates a peaceful road to independence and has denied connections with the K-L-A.
It took intense diplomatic activity by the top U-S envoys to the Balkans, Richard Holbrooke and Robert Gelbard, to get Rugova and Milosevic to meet each other.
The meeting resulted only in an agreement for designated teams from both sides to meet weekly to try find a solution or at least stop the violence.
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