Kosovo's mineral riches
were looted by Yugoslavia for decades and both Macedonia and Kosovo
were the poor relatives in the Yugoslav Federation.
In Kosovo, more than 31% of all those over 10 years of age were
illiterate (in 1979) and its per capita income was less than 30% of
the national average. Infant mortality was 6 times that in Slovenia.
Kosovo was an African enclave in an otherwise Europe-aspiring
country. Caught in the pernicious spiral of declining commodity
prices, Kosovo relied on transfers from Yugoslavia and from abroad
for more than 90% of its income. Inevitably, unemployment tripled
from 19% in 1971 to 57% in 1989.
As a result, the Federal government had to quell 3-months long,
paralysing riots in 1981. Riots were nothing new to Kosovo - the
demonstrations of 1968 were arguably worse (and led to
constitutional changes granting autonomy to Kosovo in 1974). But
this time, the authorities, reacted with tanks in scenes reminiscent
of China's Tiananmen Square 8 years later. The hotbed of hotheads
was, as usual, the University in Pristina. Students there were more
concerned with pedestrian issues such the quality of their food and
the lack of facilities than with any eternal revolutionary or
national truths. These mundane protests were hijacked by comrades
with higher class consciousness and loftier motives of self-
determination.
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