It eventually ended after the hospitalization of 180 miners and the resignation of the leaders of the League of Communists of Kosovo Rahman Morina, Ali Shukriu and Husamedin Azemi.
[3] In November 1988, 2,000 Albanian miners protested for the preservation of autonomy by marching from the southern mines to Kosovo's capital Pristina with support from another 6,000 other citizens along the way.
[1] As the National Assembly of Serbia was preparing constitutional changes that would have formally reduced the level of provincial autonomy, about 1,350 Trepča miners began their underground hunger strike on 20 February 1989 with similar demands about the preservation of the region's autonomous status and the resignation of pro-Milošević politicians of Kosovo.
In Belgrade, media and Serbian politicians accused Azem Vllasi, a provincial leader of the League of Communists, as the instigator of the strikes, although he denied any involvement in the events.
[2] A day after the end of the strikes the Slovenian Committee for Human Rights and the Slovene Writers' Association held a mass meeting in Cankar Hall, where Serbian interventionism in Kosovo was condemned and support for the strikers was expressed.
[7] About a month after the end of the strike the parliament of Kosovo was surrounded by tanks and the Serbian police and the deputies were brought in to vote for the effective revocation of the region's autonomy.