Ibrahim Rugova
Ibrahim Rugova 1st President of the Republic of Kosova In office 24 May 1992 – 21 January 2006 Preceded by None Succeeded by Fatmir Sejdiu Personal details Born (1944-12-02)December 2, 1944 Crnce, DF Yugoslavia Died January 21, 2006(2006-01-21) (aged 61) Pristina, Serbia and Montenegro Political party LDK (1989–2006) Spouse(s) Fana Rugova Children Mendim Rugova Ukë Rugova Teuta Rugova Signature Ibrahim Rugova  listen (help·info) (2 December 1944 – 21 January 2006) was the first President of the unrecognised Republic of Kosova, serving from 1992 to 2000 and again from 2002 to 2006, and a prominent Kosovo Albanian political leader, scholar, and writer. He oversaw a popular struggle for independence, advocating a peaceful resistance to Yugoslav rule and lobbying for U.S. and European support, especially during the Kosovo War. He strongly emphasized the heritage of ancient Dardania, the independent kingdom and later province of the Roman Empire that included modern-day Kosovo, to strengthen the country's identity and to promote his policy of closer relations with the West. Owing to his role in Kosovo's history, Rugova has been dubbed "Father of the Nation" and "Gandhi of the Balkans," awarded, among others, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and posthumously declared a Hero of Kosovo. Rugova was born to an Albanian family in Yugoslavia Yugoslav communists executed his father and grandfather while Rugova was still an infant. He studied literature at the University of Pristina and the University of Paris, and received a doctorate with a dissertation on Albanian literary criticism. As a student, he participated in a civil rights movement for the Albanians, although he formally joined the Communist League of Yugoslavia to secure career advancements. Thereby, he worked as editor of prestigious literary and scholarly publications and research fellow at the Institute of Albanian Studies; in 1988, he was elected president of the Kosovo Writers Union. Rugova entered politics in 1989, when he assumed the leadership of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), a newly formed political party that opposed the nullification of Kosovo's autonomy in the former Yugoslavia. In 1992, Rugova won the first presidential election in the Republic of Kosova, an unrecognised state declared in secret by members of Kosovo's former assembly within Yugoslavia. Serbia, led by Slobodan Milošević, retained effective power in Kosovo throughout most of the 1990s, but did not secure the full cooperation of the Albanian population. The Republic of Kosova collected donations from Kosovars at home and abroad and set up parallel institutions, including independent, albeit often clandestine, educational and healthcare systems for the ethnic Albanians. As president, Rugova continued to support his non-violent path to independence even as proponents of an armed resistance formed the Kosovo Liberation Army to counter increasing Serbian oppression on the ethnic Albanians. In 1998, Rugova secured a second term as president, but was placed at odds with the KLA as the Kosovo War broke out. In 1999, he participated in the failed Rambouillet talks, as a member of the Kosovar delegation, seeking an end to the hostilities. Having resided in the capital Pristina during his entire presidency, Rugova was taken prisoner by the state authorities after NATO began its U.S.-led aerial campaign against Yugoslav atrocities in Kosovo. Rugova was exiled to Rome in May 1999 and returned to Kosovo in the summer that year, shortly after the KLA and NATO occupation. Rugova remained nominal president of the republic with Bujar Bukoshi as his prime minister; meanwhile, Hashim Thaçi, a former KLA commander, had been leading a provisional government since April that year. Effective power, however, was in the hands of the United Nations administration. In 2000, Rugova and Thaçi agreed to relinquish their positions and to work on creating provisional institutions of self-government until Kosovo's final status was decided. Rugova was elected president of Kosovo by the newly formed parliament in 2002 and again in 2005. While his pre-war popularity had certainly diminished, he remained the most powerful leader in the country until his death from lung cancer in 2006.