Milosevic Dashes Independence Hopes

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic dashed ethnic Albanian hopes that Serbia might grant independence to its mainly Albanian province of Kosovo. “The word Kosovo is being frequently used in pressures exerted against our country. . . . There are no pressures under which we will yield an inch of Kosovo,” Milosevic told a campaign rally in the main square of Pristina, the Kosovo capital. Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs nine to one, is widely regarded as a political powder keg which, if ignited, could wreck international peace efforts in the Balkans.