Last week in this space I wrote about Ibrahim Rugova, the head of the Albanian Democratic League of Kosovo and the President of the shadow government the “Republic of Kosovo.” As a believer in nonviolence, Rugova worked for the past ten years to assert the rights of ethic Albanians without resorting to force.

Over the past year this nonviolent approach to resolving differences lost credibility with many ethnic Albanians. The Serb police would arrest or beat an Albanian. The young men in the Kosovo Liberation Army would ambush and kill a Serb policy officer. In retaliation, the Serbs would attack a village that they suspected of helping the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

By February 1999, Clinton officials described Rugova as “fairly ineffective.” A newspaper article said of the KLA “. . . to a man, they dismiss the pacifist path of the writer Ibrahim Rugova, the titular ethnic Albanian leader since 1989, and suggest that his days are over. ‘Like any parent,’ an officer said, ‘he thinks the children will always stay little. But there is a day for them to take their places. He must make way for us, the next generation.’”

What has happened to this next generation? According to a Post article, after a week of NATO bombing, “The ethnic Albanian rebel group . . . is facing imminent military defeat.”

What has happened to Ibrahim Rugova? April 1, Serb television showed Rugova meeting with Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic. The two men, looked relaxed and a reporter said they were signing a document calling for a peaceful end to the Kosovo crisis. However, other than the television images, which carried the date of April 1, there is no confirmation that the men met that day.

Whatever the fate of Rugova, I hope the dream of Serbs and Albanians living peacefully together will survive this war.