Adem Demaci - the "armed prophet" of the Albanian national movement in Kosovo (8)

Writing for Kosovo Online: Dragan Bisenic, journalist

Albanian Napoleon without a horse

Reiterating that the acceptance of the 1991 referendum results by Serbia was a minimum requirement for Kosovo Albanians to negotiate, Demaci offered that if Serbia accepted the will of the Albanians from 1991 and cooperation in the future, "the Serbs living in Kosovo will be able to regulate their lives as they wish, and the Albanians will not treat them as a national minority".

At that time, the KLA suffered significant losses in clashes with Serbian forces, as Demaci admitted, "KLA lost the compact territory it held", but it had preserved its fighting force, which numbered between 10,000 and 30,000 people. Demaci said that those leading it "fought in Bosnia and Croatia", and there were "former officers of the Yugoslav People's Army" among them. There were no fighters from Islamic countries, even though such offers were made and not accepted. "We know how sensitive the Americans are to these things," Demaci summarized.

He defined that the KLA was not conducting a "guerrilla" but a "partisan war", refusing to accept that they were "terrorists". "Terrorists are those who want to impose some ideology or religion. Or to steal something that doesn't belong to them. Terrorists cannot be those who fight for freedom," Demaci assessed. "Anyone who claims that a national uprising, like the one in Kosovo, is terrorism either sees nothing or has ulterior motives like the Serbian regime trying to label the KLA as terrorists. The Serbs must understand that the Albanians in Kosovo are forced to fight against the Serbian regime," Demaci concluded.

Recently, in Pristina, the diaries of Rexhep Qosja appeared with numerous texts and details about Demaci, compiled by Selatin Novosella. Prior to the negotiations in Rambouillet, Demaci refused to attend them, and Bujar Bukoshi unsuccessfully attempted to meet with Demaci and Qosja, while the KLA opened a war front across all of Kosovo. Kosovo, as Qosja writes, entered "two terrible fronts": the danger coming from refusing communication with international diplomacy and, even worse, the danger of entering an internal war, now not only within the party but also within civil society. "Serbia could not allow the entry of an army like the FARK, but as a compromise, Serbia could allow the 'Rugova’s police' to operate," to maintain the already fragile order, after the Kosovo Liberation Army emerged on the scene.

Demaci is the only figure who disagrees with the outcomes of that conference, yet the conference and the conclusions of these talks will be in his shadow. Many internal discussions among members of the Albanian delegation, as well as meetings with our international delegation, will be needed, along with many consultations and discussions between the Albanian delegation and Adem Demaci, to conclude the Rambouillet International Resolution for Kosovo, which, as known, paved the way for the bombing of Serbia by NATO military forces.

In Rambouillet, behind the scenes, Demaci is the only figure who disagrees with the results of that conference, so the conference and the conclusions of these talks, from the Albanian side, will be in his shadow. Hours and hours of persuasion were needed, not only internal discussions among members of the Albanian delegation, as well as meetings with the Albanian and international delegations but also many consultations and discussions between the Albanian delegation and Adem Demaci to accept the Rambouillet conclusions.

In 1999, he resigned from the KLA after attending peace talks in France, criticizing the proposed agreement for not guaranteeing the independence of Kosovo. The year 1999 marked the final break between Rugova and Thaci and the significant rise of the man known as the "Snake" while he was in command of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army.

"I am a co-founder of the KLA. Since 1992, I have participated in actions in Drenica. I was a part of the initial ideas in the liberation war," Hashim Thaci claimed. However, Thaci was already heavily involved in politics. He was an exponent of the 'Drenica Group'. The political origin of the Kosovo Liberation Army was a small group of "Enverist" political refugees who advocated for the unification of Kosovo with Albania, represented by the People's Movement of Kosovo (LPK). In Rambouillet in 1999, at the peace conference on Kosovo, he reportedly asked, "What, should I be a history professor in Malisevo?" Instead of becoming a professor, he was promoted to the new leader in Rambouillet. Kosovo Albanians went to Rambouillet with one leader, Ibrahim Rugova, and returned with another, Hashim Thaci.

Immediately after the end of the bombing in June 1999 and the entry of NATO forces, all those who were outside Pristina during the bombing returned to the city. Demaci recalled how he lived without fear in the Kosovo capital.

"There were no major problems. I was stopped on the street a few times. Only once, I think it was on May 25th, they took me to the police station. There were threats, they said very nasty things. At one point, I asked them - do you have guns? Of course, they said yes. Then I told them - kill me, don't insult me". Later, a certain commander appeared who behaved more politely. One of those who initially insulted me even later suggested that we have a "friendly" conversation, which I, of course, declined after that insulting. In the police station, there were those who wanted to talk to me about politics. I explained to them that there is only one person in their country with whom I can talk about politics. Their boss understood that. He said - all 12 million Serbs are Slobodan Milosevic. I replied: "In that case, I don't have time to talk to that many people. But the discomforts of that wartime were more in what I could see, and hear from other people. Pristina was almost empty. Every day, I walked around the city with my sister. We could see all sorts of things - destroyed shops, looted houses, some people with masks or without masks breaking into houses and apartments, threatening, forcing people to flee to Macedonia or Albania. Many were leaving with nothing. It was a tragedy," Demaci said.

In the days following the end of the bombing, when the KLA became the most important factor in the internal life of the Albanians in Pristina, there were also grotesque scenes. Qosja describes how he saw a TV report about a KLA ceremony dedicated to Demaci. "In the evening news, I see an interesting scene: Adem Demaci parading in front of the honor guard arranged for him by Commander Remi - I thought it said - in Pristina. Watching him, small and somewhat awestruck in front of the large assembly of KLA fighters, between him and me, scenes from historical films about Napoleon Bonaparte appear. In this case, Adem Demaci only lacks a white horse to be our Napoleon! Maybe Adem Demaci himself was not disturbed by this similarity from a little comic," Qosja sarcastically writes.

Tomorrow: An unsuccessful symbiosis with the KLA