Glass and Ice Cream

On May 17 shortly before midnight, police stormed into Pristina's Faculty of Technical Sciences and kicked out about 100 students who happened to be there. They had been sleeping in the building for a week and half, demanding fresh talks on the education agreement enabling ethnic Albanians to return to the Faculty by May 15.

The students retaliated by throwing stones at the building. The most militant of them tried to set the building on fire, but three fire brigades were on the spot and dealt with the problem instantly. However, a poster at the main door said that all Serbs should rally outside the Faculty at 1 p.m. that day and "welcome" the ethnic Albanian students whose return was expected. Around 200 people showed up. The students and their supporters went wild when the ethnic Albanian delegation showed up and entered the building. As they could do nothing to harm the delegation with police everywhere around them, they ran up a hill and started hurling stones at ethnic Albanian children playing there. A lot of windows and a few car windshields were smashed in the resulting skirmish. The young Albanians managed to escape and police say that only one girl broke her leg while running for cover.  A few bold policemen, who increasingly grew in number, dared separate the sides of the conflict.

The school year in Pristina ended on May 15 and the students have been given special exam terms. The education agreement says that both Serb and ethnic Albanian students must have access to all facilities of the Pristina University. As of next term, classes will be organized on an ethnic principle. "The person in Belgrade who came up with this idea either has no idea what's going on here or doesn't care. Today's incident demonstrated what could happen if classes were organized on the basis of ethnic shifts", a university official said.

Pristina's inhabitants are trying to deal with food shortages these days. There is no sugar and oil. These products were last seen on Monday, but they were sold out in a matter of hours. There is already a black market price for oil - it sells at 19 dinars per liter. There are occasional shortages of flour too, while fresh milk can be found early in the morning. A liter of milk in Djakovica costs 22 dinars and a kilo of potatoes sells at five marks.

Truck drivers carrying food from Serbia to Kosovo are having a very hard time at police checkpoints since Milosevic and Rugova met on May 15, although the Ministry of Trade says police units are only doing routine checks. In fact, entire caravans have piled up at some parking lots at "border" checkpoints. Advertisements for buying and selling flats in both languages have appeared, even on shop windows. Many people have sent their [sic.] women and children to safer locations, as most primary schools said they would end the final term in the last week of May, three weeks ahead of schedule. "We will send our child to the safety of my cousin's house in Srebrenica", a father of a primary school pupil said.