Ethnic Albanians mourn the death of their president
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-22 09:45

Thousands of ethnic Albanians lit candles and placed flowers in memory of Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova who led them for nearly two decades toward their demand for independence from Serbia.

With family at his bedside, Rugova, 61, died at his official residence shortly before midday Saturday. He had suffered from lung cancer since September, when he was first diagnosed with the illness and went through months of treatment.

An ethnic Albanian holds a photo of Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova as Kosovo citizens hold candles in Kosovo's capital Pristina January 21, 2006. Rugova died of lung cancer on Saturday, leaving a leadership vacuum for ethnic Albanians on the eve of talks to secure the independence from Serbia that he championed. [Reuters]

Rugova's death left a leadership vacuum in Kosovo's fraction-ridden political scene before crucial talks on whether the province should gain the independence that was his lifelong dream.

He will be buried Wednesday in Kosovo's capital, Pristina. Five days of official mourning were declared and mourners will be allowed to pay their last respects for two days at the parliament's headquarters.

The assembly will hold a commemorative session Sunday.

International leaders stepped up their appeals for calm and unity in the disputed U.N.-run province, fearing it could trigger instability. The Serb government expressed concerns that Rugova's successor might not share his commitment to nonviolence.

The immediate effect of his death came almost immediately. The much-anticipated start of the talks between ethnic Albanians and Serb officials had been scheduled for Wednesday in Austria, but were postponed until February.

The flags throughout Kosovo were lowered to half mast and long lines of tearful mourners visited his hillside residence in Pristina after the announcement of his death.

Rugova was often called the "Gandhi of the Balkans" in an allusion to the Indian leader's epic campaign for his nation's independence.

Rugova had been at the forefront of demands for independence since the early 1990s, when he started leading a nonviolent movement against the policies of Slobodan Milosevic, then president of Yugoslavia.

No other Kosovo politician has been held in such high regard. He won international respect through his peaceful opposition to Serb dominance, in contrast to other Kosovo Albanians now in positions of leadership, who were part of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army that fought Serb troops.

The party that he created, the Democratic League of Kosovo or LDK, is fraught with divisions and simmering tension which could be exacerbated by his death. The LDK is currently in coalition with the much smaller Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, led by Ramush Haradinaj, a former rebel commander who has been indicted for war crimes by a U.N. court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Rugova's death comes as the restive U.N.-administered province of 2 million embarks on a delicate process of negotiating a solution that its ethnic Albanian majority hopes will result in full independence. The Serb minority insists Kosovo must remain part of Serbia-Montenegro, the union that replaced Yugoslavia.

The province has been run by the United Nations since NATO launched a bombing campaign to end a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian rebel separatists in 1999.