President Dr. Ibrahim Rugova passed away recently in Kosovo. This is an excerpt from TFF director Jan Oberg’s announcement:
In the early 1990s, it was with Rugova and his LDK party officials TFF’s team worked out the modalities of an independent Kosova – a Kosova with open borders, non-aligned, non-military and neutral. Dr. Rugova was our partner – together with three government leaders in Belgrade – in TFF’s conflict-mitigating endeavour to develop a comprehensive international treaty that would secure a negotiated solution with a civilian UN presence there (UNTANS, 1996).
Regrettably, hardline Kosovo-Albanians, with the support of the German intelligence service, CIA and others created the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, behind his back. Predictably, a war followed and in 1999 NATO’s bombing which – as can be seen today – effectively prevented the development of the peaceful nonviolent Kosova that he and his colleagues creatively envisioned 15 years ago.
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Updated 4 February: See Kosovo: Wiping the Slate Clean for Some Dirty Work Ahead by Christopher Deliso of balkanalysis.com
Also, An Insult to Gandhi by Nebojsa Malic