(19 Mar 1998) Natural Sound
25-thousand ethnic Albanians staged a sit-down protest in Pristina on Thursday, denouncing what the protesters called "Serb terror and repression in Kosovo".
At midday, they rang bells and shook keys to highlight the passing of the deadline for Serbia to ease up on Kosovo Albanians.
After the rally, dispersing protesters hurled rocks at police and a Serb car driving through the crowd and officers broke up a brawl between demonstrators and Serbs.
In a later development Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic told France and Germany's foreign ministers that he had agreed to withdraw the special police forces blamed for some of the 80 killings.
The second demonstration in two days, staged by 25-thousand ethnic Albanians, completely blocked central Pristina.
Dozens of Serb policemen in full riot gear watched the peaceful protest but did not intervene.
The protesters called for an end to the terror they say exists in the Serb controlled province.
Kosovo is located in the south of Serbia, and is the larger of two republics that make up the remainder of Yugoslavia.
Ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 per cent of the population of Kosovo, want autonomy - demands which the Serbian government has so far resisted.
The crackdown by Serbian police in the province has inflamed tensions there.
Over 80 ethnic Albanians were killed earlier this month by Serbian police in retaliation for the killing of four Serb policeman on February 28th.
A total of some 50 Serbs, including policemen, and ethnic Albanians loyal to authorities had been killed by that time in attacks for which the clandestine Kosovo Liberation Army claimed responsibility.
This month's police security sweep was aimed at wiping out the armed resistance group, which advocates an armed struggle for nothing less than total secession from Serbian rule.
Ethnic Albanians blamed Serb police for another fatal shooting during a demonstration on Wednesday, an accusation that Kosovo's Serb information minister denied.
Serbia had until noon on Thursday to withdraw special police from Kosovo or face toughened international sanctions.
Demonstrators sat down in silence until noon, and then rang bells and shook keys to signal that the deadline imposed by the international community had expired.
As the protest broke up and the demonstrators dispersed skirmishes broke out between ethnic Albanians and a number of Serbs, who had been part of a huge counter rally elsewhere in Pristina.
Serb police came under fire from stone-throwing protesters and began chasing them through the streets.
In an incident that proved to be the flash point of the clashes, a Serbian drove his car through the running Albanian demonstrators.
The Albanians soon began stoning the vehicle which was badly damaged.
This sparked off an attack by the Serbs who were nearby, who started brawling with the protesters.
The police moved in to break it up, but not soon enough for this television cameraman to be badly beaten up by angry Serbs, leaving his colleague to ask for assistance from the police.
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