Kosovo Miners’ Underground Strike of 1989 Inspires Exhibition

An exhibition opening on Wednesday evening at the National Museum of Kosovo presents pictures and interviews with mineworkers from the Trepca mining complex in northern Kosovo who staged a historic underground strike in 1989 against the revocation of Kosovo's autonomy by the Serbian authorities.

After proposals to revoke Kosovo's autonomy as a province of Yugoslav were put forward by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's regime, a series of protests erupted including an eight-day hunger strike by 1,200 Kosovo miners at the Trepca lead and zinc mines in February 1989, the month before the vote on the proposals.

The hunger strike was a crucial moment that inspired political resistance, stoked ethnic unrest, and set the course toward armed conflict between Milosevic's forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army in the 1990s.

This first-of-its-kind exhibition in Kosovo, entitled 'A Site of Political Struggle: Trepca Mine 1989', organised by ForumZFD Kosovo in partnership with Oral History Kosovo, includes around 15 interviews along with pictures selected by curator Ermire Krasniqi.

Photo: 'A Site of Political Struggle: Trepca Mine 1989'.

"The exhibition is driven by a commitment to understanding new forms of political engagement that emerged during the miners' strike organised from February 20 to 28, 1989," said Krasniqi.

Ramadan Gjeloshi was one of the Trepca miners who went on hunger strike in February 1989 to oppose the constitutional changes to revoke Kosovo's autonomy.
"We organised to go on strike. We said we will not go out [of the mine] alive until they [the then Communist leaders in Kosovo] resign," Gjeloshi said in an interview that forms part of the exhibition.

"It was difficult. We found a box of salt,...