Vitaly Portnikov. Winners: Ibrahim Rugova

Winners: Ibrahim Rugova
Vitaly Portnikov

Date of publication: October 31, 2000

Having learned about the impressive victory of the Democratic Union of Kosovo in the first democratic local government elections in the region , I was not even happy for the party of the long-time leader of the Kosovo Albanians, Ibrahim Rugova. I was happy for the Albanians themselves: when they came to the polls, it turned out that they were not as embittered and radicalized as it seemed in the first months of the escalation of the Kosovo conflict. The choice in the local elections was between two forces - between the Democratic Union of Kosovo of Ibrahim Rugova and the Democratic Party of Kosovo of Hashim Thaçi. The Democratic Party - if we discard the shy pseudonym of the organization - is the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). That is, it was precisely the force that began the armed struggle with the Yugoslav army and police that provoked a violent confrontation in the region - a confrontation that ended with the NATO action against Yugoslavia, the exodus of the Kosovars to neighboring countries and their triumphant return after the surrender of the Milosevic regime...

Ibrahim Rugova has always defended a different position - the position of peaceful resistance to authoritarianism. A literary critic, chairman of the Writers' Union of Kosovo, he - perhaps unexpectedly for himself - found himself in the spotlight in the late 80s, daring to speak openly about the situation in the region. Rugova was expelled from the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (UCYU), and his name was forbidden to be mentioned in the press. But the time was already different: the Slovenian magazine Mladina , which nevertheless published an interview with the disgraced writer, was read not only in Ljubljana, but also in Belgrade, Zagreb, and Pristina... Rugova, who by no means looked like a fighter, and the typical European intellectual - glasses, neckerchief, Pierre Richard hairstyle - became the idol of the population, which itself was probably amazed that it had chosen such a leader... I remember my first meeting with Rugova in the one-story building of the Writers' Union in Pristina , on the outskirts of the city stadium... We talked with him about the role of the intelligentsia in society, Rugova unexpectedly reminded me - both in his appearance and in his manner of speaking - of the Soviet "perestroika foremen" from the writing workshop... Only the tasks before him were different: Rugova practically imposed the concept of Gandhism, non-violent resistance, on a society ready to explode. So parallel schools, hospitals, universities, even maternity hospitals began to appear in city apartments! In the end, there is a parallel Republic of Kosovo led by Rugova. The whole society is underground! The life of the entire population is practically underground, where everything is their own - President Rugova, the government, schools, hospitals, maternity hospitals, traffic police... In the end, even Slobodan Milosevic was forced to admit the reality of this parallel existence: in 1997 he signed an agreement with Rugova on the return of Albanians to public schools, which never materialized. And yet, in the very concept of Rugova there was hidden a circumstance that was destroying it: over the years, a whole generation of young people has grown up, not suspecting that they live in Yugoslavia, do not know the Serbian language, and have never come into contact with the Serbs. Moreover, the continued existence of the “underground republic” turned out to be unprofitable for both Milosevic and the Albanian radicals, who were striving for an open conflict, for war. The creation of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) turned out to be the end of the strategy that made it possible to call Rugova the “Mahatma Gandhi of the Balkans.” Although for the West Rugova continued to be the preferred figure for the Albanian-Serbian negotiation process, his influence decreased every day... At the time of the escalation of the conflict, Belgrade tried to use Rugova by organizing his meeting with Milosevic - it was clear that Rugova was trying to do something did not prevent the expulsion of the Kosovars, but his negotiations gave radicals the opportunity to accuse the president of the self-proclaimed republic of collaboration and claim that he no longer represents anyone...

...And he probably simply felt responsible for the fate of these children, women and old people in the refugee camps... These people no longer trusted him, but he continued to trust them. Forced out to Italy, he seemed simply a historical figure. Even Albanian television stopped calling him the President of Kosovo. The formation of the interim government was entrusted to Hashim Thaci... The KLA could celebrate victory. But it’s premature. Because in the first elections the Kosovars preferred Rugova.

I am not deceived - if there were no peacekeepers in Kosovo, Thaci’s party would have been able to force people to vote for themselves: even in the presence of foreign troops, real terror was launched in the region against Rugova’s supporters. But it was not possible to intimidate people. And now, if parliamentary or presidential elections are held in Kosovo, it can be argued that Rugova will retain his mandate. This means that a difficult dialogue with the new Serbia will be conducted not with a machine gun at the ready, but through negotiations. Yugoslavia, which refused to recognize the results of the Kosovo elections, should actually be happy that the time of talking with Hashim Thaci and his people is becoming a thing of the past along with the Milosevic regime. Because Thaci was to some extent a product of this regime, and Rugova was the first democratic alternative to it already at a time when there was only one dissident in all of Serbia - Milovan Djilas, and that former member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia...

The Kosovars protected their long-time mentor from history itself. He didn't want them to fight. And they continue to believe in him even after the war...