Ibrahim Rugova: Encyclopedia II - Ibrahim Rugova - Political career

Ibrahim Rugova - Political career

In 1989, President Slobodan Milošević of Serbia greatly reduced Kosovo's autonomy within Yugoslavia. A harsh regime was imposed, leading to widespread violations of human rights and the repression of dissenters. An estimated 130,000 Kosovo Albanians were sacked from their jobs ^[3] and the police in particular were almost completely purged of Albanians ^[4] There were numerous reports of extrajudicial beatings, torture and killings, attracting strong criticism from human rights groups and other countries. ^{[5] [6]}

Milošević's actions were strongly opposed in Kosovo, not least by the Kosovo Albanian political élite (including the local Communist Party), which had been stripped of authority. Members of the abolished Kosovo assembly met to declare an independent "Republic of Kosovo", which was not recognised by the outside world. The Serbian government responded by arresting 112 of the 120 members of the assembly and six members of the Kosovo government and charging them with "counter-revolutionary activity." Journalists who reported the assembly's declaration were also detained and imprisoned. Kosovo's intellectuals also opposed the changes; Rugova was one of 215 signatories of the "Appeal of Kosovo Intellectuals" against Milošević's decision to change Kosovo's status. He was immediately expelled from the Communist Party in retaliation.

In December 1989, Rugova and a number of other dissents sent up the Democratic League of Kosovo as a vehicle for opposing Milošević's policies. Rugova became leader after the first candidate, Rexhep Qosja, a prominent nationalist writer, refused the job. The new party was an overwhelming success and within months, 700,000 people – virtually the entire adult population of Kosovo Albanians – had joined. The LDK established a "shadow government" to provide education and health services to the Albanian population, which was either excluded from or chose not to use the equivalent services provided by the Serbian government. An underground Kosovo Assembly was founded with Bujar Bukoshi acting as Prime Minister from the safe distance of Germany. The shadow government's activities was mostly funded by the overseas Kosovo Albanian diaspora, based primarily in Germany and the United States. However, Rugova's government was recognised officially only by the government of Albania.

The Kosovo Albanians boycotted Yugoslav and Serbian elections on the grounds that they would legitimise the Milošević regime and would in any case most likely be rigged. In May 1992, separate elections were held in Kosovo in which Rugova won an overwhelming majority and was elected President of Kosovo. Although there were questions about the fairness and propriety of the elections – they were held virtually in secret in Albanians' houses, there were repeated reports of harassment by state security forces, and there were allegations of vote-rigging – it was nonetheless generally accepted that Rugova was the legitimate winner of this election.

In 1991 the Yugoslav wars began with the secession of Slovenia and Croatia from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. By the summer of 1992, Yugoslavia was fully absorbed with the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, and had no spare military capacity to deal with conflicts elsewhere. Rugova supported Kosovo's independence but strongly opposed the use of force as a means of achieving it, fearing a Bosnia-style bloodbath. He instead advocated a policy of Gandhi-like passive resistance, stating on a visit to London that

The Serbian and Yugoslav governments subjected LDK activists and members to considerable harassment and intimidation, and argued that the shadow government was an illegal organisation. However, they did not try to shut down the LDK completely and they allowed him to travel abroad. It seems likely that Milošević saw Rugova as being useful in averting an uprising in Kosovo. The Yugoslav government would have found such a situation difficult to contain at the same time as supporting simultaneous wars in Croatia and Bosnia.

For his part, Rugova stuck to a hard line throughout the 1990s, rejecting any form of negotiation with Serbia's authorities other than on achieving outright independence of Kosovo. A compromise, or a setback in the eyes of his critics, came in 1996 when he reached an agreement with Serbia over educational facilities, under which the parallel shadow education system would not be integrated with that of Serbia.

Ibrahim Rugova - The slide to war

Rugova's strategy of passive resistance attracted widespread support from the Kosovo Albanian population, who had seen the carnage wrought in Croatia and Bosnia and was wary of facing a similar situation. However, the Dayton Agreement of 1995, which ended the Bosnian War, seriously weakened Rugova's position. The agreement failed to make any mention of Kosovo and the international community made no serious efforts to resolve the province's ongoing problems. Radicals among the Kosovo Albanian population began to argue that the only way to break the impasse was to launch an armed uprising, in the belief that this would force the outside world to intervene. They blamed Rugova's policy of non-violence for Kosovo's failure to achieve independence.

In 1997, the Kosovo Liberation Army emerged as a fighting force and began carrying out attacks and assassinations against Serbian security forces and civilians as well as Albanians deemed to be "collaborators". The Serbian response was, as the KLA had predicted, forceful and often indiscriminate. By 1998, the KLA had grown into a full-scale guerrilla army, 100,000 Kosovo Albanians were refugees and the province was in a state of virtual civil war. Rugova was re-elected president in the same year and was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament. However, he was by now clearly being eclipsed by the KLA. This was highlighted in February 1999 when he was passed over in favour of the KLA's political chief Hashim Thaçi, who was chosen by the underground Kosovo Assembly to head the Kosovo Albanian negotiating team in the discussions on the aborted Rambouillet Agreement.

At the end of March 1999, after negotiations at Rambouillet had broken down, NATO launched Operation Allied Force to impose a resolution of the Kosovo War. Rugova spent the first few weeks of the war under virtual house arrest, along with his family, in Priština. At the start of April 1999, Rugova was taken to Belgrade, where he was shown on Serbian state television meeting Milošević and calling for an end to the war. A few weeks later the Serbian media announced that Rugova had signed a "peace agreement" with the Serbian president, Milan Milutinović. This caused great damage to his public image at home and abroad, although he later claimed to have been acting under duress.

Rugova was allowed to leave Kosovo for temporary exile in Italy in early May 1999, not long before the war ended. He attracted further criticism for his slowness to return to Kosovo – it was not until July that he arrived back in the province – and it was reported that the Italian government had had to put pressure on him to return home. Nonetheless, he received a hero's welcome and returned to political life under the new United Nations administration in Kosovo.

Ibrahim Rugova - Post-war

Despite the political damage suffered by Rugova during the war, he soon regained public esteem and won a decisive victory against his political rivals in the KLA. The guerrillas had been welcomed as liberators by Kosovo Albanians but subsequently alienated many by engaging in organised crime, extortion and violence against political opponents and other ethnic groups in Kosovo. When elections were held in Kosovo in October 2000, the LDK won a landslide victory with 58% of the vote. Its nearest rival, Hashim Thraci's KLA-linked Democratic Party of Kosovo, polled only 27%. In March 2002, Rugova was appointed as President by the Kosovo Assembly, though this only took place at the fourth attempt after lengthy political negotiations.

As the new President of Kosovo – this time formally acknowledged as such by the international community – Rugova continued to campaign for Kosovo's independence from Serbia. However, he insisted that it had to be achieved by peaceful means and with the agreement of all parties. He also pursued a policy of very close relations with the United States, as well as with the European Union. His incremental approach was criticised by radicals, but he sought to bring along the supporters of the former KLA; in November 2004, he appointed Ramush Haradinaj, the former commander of the KLA, as Prime Minister. The following month, Rugova was again elected President by the Kosovo Assembly. Nonetheless, he still encountered violent opposition. On March 15, 2005, he escaped unhurt when a bomb exploded in a dustbin as his car passed by.

Rugova demonstrated a number of unusual traits during his time as President. He was readily identifiable by the silk neckscarf that he wore and was known for his habit of giving visitors samples from his rock collection. His presents were carefully graded; the size of a crystal could reflect Rugova's feelings about the outcome of a meeting, prompting diplomats to compare notes afterwards about the size of the rocks presented to them. He was also a chain-smoker, and it may have been this habit that caused his eventual fatal condition.

On August 30, 2005, Rugova left Kosovo and went to the United States Air Force Landstuhl Military Hospital in Germany for medical treatment after earlier treatment in Priština and Camp Bondsteel, the main US base in Kosovo. After a week at Landstuhl he returned to Kosovo. On September 5, 2005, he announced that he was suffering from lung cancer, but said that he would not be resigning from the post of President. He underwent chemotherapy at his residence in Priština but the treatment failed to resolve the cancer. He died four months later, on January 21, 2006. Although he was born a Muslim, there were persistent rumors that he had turned to Catholicism near the end of his life. He was buried without religious rites on January 26 at a funeral attended by regional leaders and a crowd estimated to number half a million people.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Political career", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki