Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2006, pages 48, 58

Special Report

Will Ibrahim Rugova’s Death Affect the Future of Nonviolent Change in Kosovo?

By Peter Lippman

THE recently deceased president of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, had a consistent vision of independence for his people. Through a series of developments that at times had little to do with Rugova, it appears that his vision soon will come to fruition.

A Sorbonne-educated intellectual, Rugova became the foremost leader of Kosovo when Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic abolished the province’s autonomy in the late 1980s—the opening move in Milosevic’s drive to carve a Greater Serbia out of a disintegrating Yugoslavia.

The year 1989 marked a turning point in the Albanian-Serbian conflict. Previously, Kosovo Albanians had expressed loyalty to Yugoslavia while seeking the status of a Kosovo republic on the same footing as Serbia and Croatia. But the intensified cycle of Albanian protest answered by Serbian brutality and repression, led to a conviction on the part of Kosovo’s Albanian majority that only complete independence would suffice.

In shadow elections in 1990 Rugova was elected president of a parallel Albanian government of Kosovo. His popularity increased as he oversaw the development of an underground Albanian civil society that looked after health care, education, and other services that had been shattered by Serbian repression.

Throughout the repressive 1990s Rugova, who has often been called the “Gandhi of the Balkans,” held steadfastly to the ideals of nonviolence. Meanwhile, however, the impact of the wars of Yugoslav dissolution in Croatia and Bosnia was felt strongly in the province. Serb refugees from those two breakaway republics were directed to Kosovo, and extreme Serb nationalist paramilitary forces, such as those of the notorious “Arkan,” Zeljko Raznatovic, were beginning to operate there with lethal results.

In the face of this heightened tension and increased Serbian abuses, Rugova’s policy of passive nonviolence began to lose popularity. As a leader, he lacked the dynamic strategy of a Gandhi who could galvanize a popular movement into effective nonviolent resistance against repression. By the late 1990s ordinary Albanians were desperately weary of Serbian domination and, by extension, fed up with Rugova’s unimaginative leadership.

At this point, two counter-movements developed: in the cities a student-led movement calling for “active nonviolent resistance” led to demonstrations that were in full swing by late 1997. Around the same time, a rural paramilitary movement gradually began small-scale attacks against Serbian police forces.

After NATO drove Serbian forces out of Kosovo in June 1999, circumstances led to an unexpected revival of Rugova’s popularity. As Albanian euphoria wore off, the continuing chaos and profiteering of Albanian gangsters and some demobilized KLA fighters began to feel oppressive to ordinary Albanians. Thus the revival of Rugova’s popularity. His educated, relatively genteel persona, enhanced by his popularity among Western officials now running the province, contrasted attractively with the rough ways of the neophyte liberators-cum-politicians.

By the elections of 2000 Rugova’s LDK party carried the majority in most of Kosovo’s municipalities. Rugova and other actors, such as publisher Veton Surroi, advocated, at some risk, inter-ethnic tolerance and a policy of inclusion.

The Future of Kosovo

Since 1999, the outstanding unresolved political question in Kosovo has been the “final status” of the province, currently partitioned with small enclaves of Serbs (comprising around 100,000 people) surrounded by the dominant Albanian population. For the two ethnicities the preferred answers are clear, but diametrically opposed. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, passed during the NATO intervention, settles the question for the Serbs: Kosovo is to remain a province of Serbia. This resolution is consistent with the principle against changing borders by force, enshrined in the U.N. Charter.

Among the Albanians of Kosovo, however, there is unanimous and immovable agreement that nothing short of independence will be acceptable—a fact of which international officials and Serbian leaders are quite aware. The U.N. Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has attempted a pragmatic approach to the problem, gradually establishing “standards”—the rule of law and respect for minority rights—together with incremental steps toward independence for the province.

Within Serbia, however, there has been no leader who has been courageous enough to acknowledge the reality that there will either be independence for Kosovo or more war. Instead, politicians in Belgrade use the careworn Kosovo Serb population—much of it still displaced and under refugee status in Serbia—as a political football, working against rapprochement between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo.

The international community is finessing this problem by reminding Serbia of its wish to join the European Union. But if negotiations move in the direction of Kosovo becoming an independent, stable country, and Serbia relinquishes the “medieval cradle of Serb civilization,” there could be repercussions in other parts of the former Yugoslavia. It is quite possible that Serb hard-liners in Bosnia, for example, will agitate for the realization of their dream of annexation to Serbia. Kosovo’s independence would also encourage those pressing for the annulment of Montenegro’s union with Serbia.

While Rugova’s legacy is a powerful one, developments in Kosovo have for some time taken on momentum without his guidance. His passive nonviolent approach to problem-solving will be supplanted by a more aggressive one—a stance evident in his successors’ statement that Serbian President Boris Tadic would not be welcome at Rugova’s funeral.

Peter Lippman is an independent human rights researcher based in Seattle.