Laureate profiles for Kosovo 1991

Ibrahim Rugova was awarded the Sakharov Prize for his contribution to Kosovo’s struggle for self- determination and the promotion of peaceful means of resistance. Mr Rugova, often referred to as the ‘Father of the Nation’ or the ‘Gandhi of the Balkans’, was a prominent Kosovo political leader, scholar and writer, posthumously declared a ‘Hero of Kosovo’. Throughout the 1970s, Mr Rugova was active as a journalist and editor-in-chief of student magazines and academic periodicals. As a response to then President Slobodan Milošević’s policies, in 1989 Mr Rugova and a number of other activists set up the Democratic League of Kosovo Party (LDK), of which he became leader. After unofficial elections on 24 May 1992, Mr Rugova became the first President of the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosova. Even though he had to go underground as the conflict escalated, Mr Rugova remained committed to his cause of promoting Kosovo’s self-determination through non-violent means. In March 2002, he was elected again as the first post-war President of Kosovo. He died of cancer on 21 January 2006.