Tens of thousands turn out for Rugova funeral

SERBIA & MONTENEGRO: Tens of thousands of Kosovo Albanians lined the streets of the regional capital, Pristina, yesterday, to bid farewell to president Ibrahim Rugova, whose non-violent struggle for freedom from Belgrade saw him dubbed the "Gandhi of the Balkans".

Dozens of international envoys joined the mourning for Mr Rugova (61), who died of cancer last Saturday, just days before the planned start of UN-brokered talks on resolving Kosovo's dispute with a Serb government that opposes its full independence.

A gun carriage bore Mr Rugova's flag-draped coffin from his lying-in-state at the parliament building to the so-called Martyrs' cemetery, through weeping crowds who endured freezing weather to toss flowers into the street as the cortege passed by.

Mr Rugova's family joined colleagues and foreign visitors at the graveside as a 21-gun salute rang out in honour of the Paris-educated writer and academic who, for more than 15 years, led Kosovo's drive for independence.

"His death is a great loss," said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. "It is one of the cruel ironies of history that he left at the moment he was most needed, the very moment he expected to provide leadership in helping settle the future status of Kosovo." In the absence of an obvious successor, Western diplomats have urged unity across Kosovo's fractious political scene ahead of the final status talks, which have been postponed to February.

"President Rugova has left a void," said Soren Jessen-Petersen, head of a UN administration that has run Kosovo since Nato bombing halted a brutal Serb crackdown on separatist rebels in 1999, "but he has also left a vision to guide Kosovo forward."