21.01.2006
Life of Ibrahim Rugova: Victory in Politics, Defeat to Cancer
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Can Karpat, AIA Turkish section
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Turkish Version
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| Ibrahim Rugova |
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Ibrahim Rugova, the icon with silk scarf of the Kosovan cause, made his comeback to the international scene more powerful than ever. The negotiations for the final status of Kosovo began. But less than two months later he lost the long-lasting battle with lung cancer. Rugova died today at the age of 61, and the echo of his death is going to be heard in the region for long from now. Its immediate consequence is the postponing of the UN-mediated talks that were supposed to determine Kosovo's final status.
His life was an eternal battle. So was his death...
The “Gandhi of Prishtina”
“Ibrahim Rugova presents an extraordinary example of a man, who is politically extremely passive, though who succeeded to become a symbol”. That is the way that Bujar Bukoshi, the Chairman of the New Party of Kosovo (PREK) describes Ibrahim Rugova, the charismatic leader of Kosovo.
Rugova was born on December 2, 1944, in Crnica near Istog (a town in the western part of Kosovo). Few weeks after his birth, his father and grandfather, both members of the People Front Balli, were murdered by communists, and their land was confiscated. That event would mark his life forever, and make him a determined anti-communist. Throughout his boyhood full of material sufferings, Rugova succeeded to attend the college in Peja (a town along the Albanian frontier). Thereafter, he managed to go to Paris to study literature with Roland Barthes in 1976-1977. In Kosovo, where the illiteracy rate was as high as 76% in 1945, and where the first Albanian university had to wait until the end of the World War II to be built, Rugova, with his much promising education, became a potential candidate for the political and intellectual establishment of the region. Being acquainted with the West in Paris, he adopted democratic and existentialist ideas.
The year that changed Rugova's fate was 1989. That year, Slobodan Milosevic suppressed the autonomy of Kosovo - a status, which was granted to Kosovo in the Yugoslavian Constitution in 1972. As a reaction, Rugova founded the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK). A highly significant name for Kosovan Albanians, for the “League” was an allusion to the first Albanian national movement born in Prizren (a town in the southern part of Kosovo) in 1878. Once against the Ottomans, this time - against the Serbians…
The LDK, under Rugova’s leadership, started clandestine activities in the name of independence. The demand for independence was a complete novelty for those Kosovan Albanians, who used to fight in the name of an autonomous Republic in 1968-1972, and then during the 1980’s. It would not be exaggerated to suggest that it was Rugova, who first implanted the idea of independence into the Kosovan Albanians. On the July 7, 1990, the declaration of independence was issued, and then the Constitution was adopted by the Parliament. On September 26, 1991, the LDK organised a clandestine referendum, which confirmed the will and determination of the Kosovans for independence, with 99% of the votes. The first significant success of that year was the official recognition of the “Kosovo Republic” by the neighbouring kin State, Albania. On May 24, 1992, Rugova was elected the President of Kosovo. No wonder that Milosevic administration proclaimed all of those initiatives illegal.
The Yugoslavian War actually began in Kosovo. As the war extended throughout the whole Yugoslavian territory by 1991, some Kosovo Albanians argued that they too should "open a southern front" in order to obtain their own independence. Rugova argued that this would be an appalling mistake. After hundreds of thousands of people were driven from their homes in Croatia and Bosnia, he feared that the same could happen to the Kosovo's Albanian population.
Rugova preserved his anti-violence attitude in the most stubborn way till today. During the Yugoslavia War, where Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia had to fight against Serbia for their full independence, Kosovo under the guidance of Rugova pursued the most original path of this much troubled period: the Kosovans created a “parallel system” (health, education, etc.) along with the Serbian official institutions, and thus they paralysed the Serbian authority in this region. Rugova’s absolute denial of violence at any cost made him earn the title of the “Gandhi of Prishtina”. However this Gandhi-like attitude of his was also severely criticised by some Kosovans, who argued that the pacific means would lead their cause nowhere against the Serbs. His strategy of passive resistance put him even in a kind of disgrace, though temporarily, during the second conflict between the Kosovans and the Serbians in 1998-1999.
Rugova's Temporary Decline
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| Hashim Thaci |
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It is widely believed that Serbia actually permitted Rugova to follow his clandestine activities, for another “independence warrior”, who would use much more violent means to reach this aim, would be harder for Serbia to deal with.
From 1989 till 1995, namely until the Dayton Accord, the Kosovans faithfully followed Rugova's passive resistance. The Dayton Accord, which put an end to the Yugoslavian War, was in fact a real shock to the Kosovans, for there was no word at all in it about the Kosovo issue. Americans, who guaranteed Rugova that Kosovo would be the next issue on their agenda, did not keep their promise. No wonder that the entrance of the Kosovo Liberation Army
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The Kosovo Liberation Army logo |
(Ushtria Clirimtare E Kosoves - UCK, under the leadership of Hashim Thaci, coincided the year 1996, when the disillusion of the Kosovans with Rugova and his passive resistance was at its highest. UCK started the systematic attacks against the Serbians. The motto was “The war began in Kosovo, it will end in Kosovo”.
The history of the UCK goes as early as to February 1982, where it was founded in Turkey by the Maoist militants and partisans of Enver Hodja as the “Movement for the Albanian Republic of Yugoslavia”. After a couple of name changes, the movement began to be notorious first in February 1996 as the perpetrator of the assault to a Serbian refugees camp in Bosnia. The UCK militants were trained in Iran and Pakistan, and financed by the Albania’s socialists. By 1996, it seems that the West dropped Rugova. Otherwise, what was the purpose of the American negotiator, Richard Holbrook, and the German Foreign Office official, Wolfgang Ischinger establishing contact with the indomitable UCK? In 1997, in Albania, the Socialists overthrew Sali Belisha, who was Rugova's close partner.
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| Rugova’s much discussed meeting with Milosevic in May 1998 |
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The new Prime Minister, the Socialist leader Fatos Nano supported the UCK.
Rugova's decline was sealed up with the Serbian attack on Drenica (a small town in the central part of Kosovo) in February 1998. The UCK defended the town, and at the end conquered it. It was an undeniable strategic success for the hard-liner UCK against the soft-liner Rugova. In the meantime, Rugova committed three serious mistakes.
First, in February 1998, he dismissed his deputy and the “good spirit” of the LDK, Fehmi Agani, who was thereafter murdered by the Serbians as he tried to leave Kosovo. Secondly, on March 22, 1998, he organised the presidential elections. Although he was elected the President, as he was the only candidate for that post, the international public opinion considered the timing of those elections as “politically unwise”, in the midst of a serious crisis with the Serbians for Drenica. However, the third mistake was the most fatal one, which he himself can still hardly explain: his meeting with Milosevic on May 15, 1998,
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Rugova with former Pope, John Paul II in May 1999 |
in Belgrade, with an inexplicable smile on his face as he shook the hand of the Serbian dictator in front of the TV cameras. They might have discussed the future of Kosovo together, while the Serbian “ethnic cleansing” campaigns were intensifying each day. That event was a definite loss of prestige for Rugova. His representative, Hidayet Hiseni, quitted the LDK to found his own opposition party.
Rugova, after he was held in Prishtina as the “hostage of Milosevic” for some time, managed to flee to Roma. In 1999, Rugova visited a lot of European top officials including the Pope John Paul II in the Holy See. However, the West and the NATO granted their favour now to another one: Hashim Thaci, the unpredictable leader of the UCK. During Rambouillet (Paris) pour parleys in February 1999, Rugova had to endure the presence of five representatives of the UCK. At the end of those pour parleys, it was decided that the UCK would behave in Kosovo as the NATO “land troops”, during the intervention planned for March 1999. The absolute pacifist Rugova saw the bankruptcy of his passive resistance strategy, which failed against the Serbian aggression: the
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| Ibrahim Rugova (L) with Hashim Taci |
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Serbs had to be stopped by war.
In Kosovo, a coalition of the UCK and the LBD (the leftist fraction of the LDK) was established. That administration went as further as not to recognise the Rugova government in exile, financed by the Albanian Diaspora. Fatos Nano’s Albania recognised the new Thaci government at once.
In 2000, Rugova, who was criticised not to have met the Albanians abroad during his exile in Italy, made his comeback in Gnjilane (a town in the southeast of Kosovo). The most surprising aspect was that he changed absolutely nothing in his primary ideas: the independence of Kosovo by pacific means. The public demonstration in Gnjilane clearly showed, how deep Rugova was actually loved by the ordinary Kosovan Albanians, and how charismatic he actually was on the political stage of the Balkans. His prestige having fully restored in the two parliamentary elections (November 17, 2001, and October 23, 2004) resulted in the victory of his party, the LDK, and he also began to benefit from the complete support of the West.
Are Rugova’s ideals for Kosovo feasible?
Since his political début in 1989, Rugova did not change anything in his party program, even though some Kosovans criticised him for not being flexible enough to changing situations. It is claimed that his final success was largely due to the fact that he waited until his opponents made a mistake.
Rugova demands independence for Kosovo through pacific means. Once a sovereign and independent State of Kosovo established, this new entity will be completely neutral. Thus Kosovo will be a kind of “Switzerland of the Balkans”. Kosovo will hold good relations with all of the neighbouring countries, especially with Serbia and Albania, which have, according to Rugova, “national elements” in this region. Kosovo will be administrated according to democratic rules and values, and liberal economy. Rugova grants a special attention to privatisations, the most effective solution to rebuild Kosovo. Thereafter Kosovo, where the Euro is already used as currency, will be integrated into the European Union and the NATO, preserving its good relations with the United States.
One of the main issues for Rugova is the maintenance of religious tolerance. Throughout their history, the Albanians adopted two religions and three confessions: Islam, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy. Rugova qualified himself as a “historical Muslim”, a residue of the Ottoman Empire. He is strictly against the Islamic radicalism, for he argued that the Muslims of the Balkans are not from the same religious family as that of the Arab people. Claiming for an Islam, secular and “Europeanised”, he also emphasises that the majority of the Kosovans agree with him on this matter.
Endorsed by the West, Rugova has now great prospects to achieve his dream. Even Albania changed its hostile attitude towards the LDK since 1997. With Fatos Nano’s official visit to Kosovo in March 2004, Rugova made his truce with the Albanian socialists. Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia, which know well the meaning of fight against Serbia, grant their total support to Rugova’s cause.
Along with Serbia, that no one can expect that it could be delighted with this turn of the tide, Macedonia is the most concerned country about the fate of Kosovo. In February 2001, Macedonia faced grave conflicts with the UCKM, the UCK branch for Macedonia. Although Rugova assures that the LDK has no such objective as the creation of the “Greater Albania”, who can confirm that every Albanian from Kosovo, Albania, or Macedonia agree with him? A collapse of Macedonia may create a domino effect on Bulgaria and Greece. The latter being a member of the EU and the NATO, any instability in this country may cause great troubles to the EU itself.
Outside the Balkan countries, it is known that Russia and China will not hesitate to use their veto rights in the UN Security Council against the independence of Kosovo. The principle of “immunity of territorial integrity” causes great concerns to these two countries, which struggle against the separatist movements on their own soil.
However, it seems that Rugova’s opponents have lost grounds. It can be claimed that the Western world supported Rugova for the same reason as Serbia: A soft-liner is easier to control than a hard-liner. It can be even claimed that the West preferred the less evil to the worst: a second Albanian State than the “Greater Albania” in the Balkans. The main trump will be the membership in the EU.
In October 2005, Rugova declared that he suffers from a lung cancer. As the negotiations for the final status of Kosovo began in November, the Western world commented that timing of this illness would not have been worse. The succession fight within the LDK began straight after the fact of his illness became known. And this fight actually will be an ultimate maturity test for the Kosovan politicians. Is the Kosovan cause an articulated national program born form a solid consensus, or is it as weak as to depend solely on the political competency of a single man?
Kosovo issue:
Kosovo: A New State or a New Bone of Contention in the Balkans? (26.11.2005)
Kosovo is Heating Up Again (16.11.2005)
Kosovo – Another Example of the International Impotence (29.10.2005)
Regional issues:
The Great Secret of Serbian Military Affair
Former Serbian Minister Atop of the French Ecomony
Croatia and Serbia on Their Way to the EU, as Turkey Left Behind?
Anti-Turkish “Croatia Front” Is Growing
The Turks See UN Responsible for the Balkan Massacre
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