"In less than a year, the KLA has been transformed in the eyes of the West from terrorists to blue-eyed boys, real blue-eyed boys," de Mello said in an interview Tuesday in a Pristina house just across the street from where Thaci and his "provisional government" have set up offices. "Madeleine Albright is in love with Thaci. Jamie Rubin is his best friend. It's not helpful. Thaci's arrived here with the impression that he has the full weight of the American government behind him. He believes he has earned the right to rule.

"In the KLA's eyes, they have proved their legitimacy as an active armed force on the same side as NATO," de Mello added. "But that the KLA is a political force with a real constituency is not yet proven. And there probably won't be elections here before next year. How can we have elections before there is an agreement on what the final endgame for Kosovo will be?" he asked, referring to the fact that the international community has not yet explicitly said whether Kosovo will be allowed to seek full independence from Serbia in a certain time frame.

As one tours the destruction of Kosovo - the ruins of the beautiful old town of the northwestern Kosovo city of Pec, the torched old Turkish-style wooden stalls of the southwestern city of Djakova and the emptied and burned homes and villages of the central Drenica valley -- what stands out are not the fierce, oversized green tanks of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force, but the red-and-black eagle flag of the Kosovo Liberation Army hanging from many public buildings. At key posts in most every hamlet and town in Kosovo, the KLA's uniformed soldiers stand guard.

"The Kosovo Albanians are confused," admits Lirak Celaj, a KLA spokesman and former actor from Pristina who has been serving in the northeastern Kosovo "Llap" region. "They don't know the difference between the KLA and Rugova. They used to believe in Rugova very much. He has disappointed them very much, especially in the last months when he met Milosevic in Belgrade. Now they are thinking maybe he is not the guy they wanted to have. The KLA will not become a political party that will enter in elections. But there must be some test" to see who the people support.

But in the villages of Kosovo, signs that the KLA will dominate Kosovo public life in the near future are everywhere: in the red-and-black, double-eagle flags now hanging from the schools, police stations and other buildings where formerly hung the Serbian white, red and blue flag; in the checkpoints and other intrusions they are imposing on the people; and in the uniformed masses of KLA soldiers who have not disappeared with the withdrawal of the threat of Serbian forces.

The tyranny that Kosovo Albanians suffered under the Serbian regime could be recreated under the KLA, which has stepped into the vacuum of destruction left in the wake of the war faster than NATO forces could get here.

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