Politics the KLA way

Divisions between rebel leaders manifest as some leaders split off to form a political party.

By Laura Rozen

Jul 7, 1999 | Leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army announced the formation of a new political party Monday as the KLA struggled to transform itself from an armed rebel group into a political force at the center of Kosovo's war-ravaged society. The creation of the first political party drawn from the ranks of the KLA's political and military leadership signaled the initial success of the international community in helping to move Kosovo from civil war to postwar normalcy, where political demands are pursued on the floor of Parliament instead of the fields of battle. But the formation of the new political party also came amid signs of jealousies and growing political divisions among the leadership of the KLA in this time of high-stakes reconstruction.

The new political party, the Party of Democratic Union, headed by KLA spokesman Bardhyl Mahmuti, includes some of the key figures associated with 30-year-old KLA political leader Hashim Thaci, but not Thaci himself. Though Thaci, as prime minister of Kosovo's provisional government, is now a political leader supported by the West, it remains unclear just what his failure to lead the new party will mean for the future of Kosovo politics.

Mahmuti served as the KLA's Geneva-based spokesman over the past year of war. His deputy in the new party is Shaban Shalla, a KLA commander from the central Drenica region who became a respected Kosovar human-rights leader as the head of the Council for Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms, Kosovo's leading human-rights organization. Other party founders include Jakup Krasniqi, the KLA's graying Kosovo-based spokesman; Rame Buja, a member of the KLA political directorate close to Thaci; Azem Syla, the KLA's minister of defense and also close to Thaci; Jashar Salihu, head of the KLA's finances; and Pleurat Sejdiu, who has represented the KLA from London.

While the formation of the new political party out of the KLA rebel command could be seen as an indicator of the demilitarization and normalization of Kosovar life, it also signaled that factions are forming within the KLA leadership itself. Some KLA leaders appear to be frustrated with Thaci and his inner circle, as well as with Thaci's growing coziness with representatives of the international community. Some figures, such as Sejdiu and Mahmuti, appear to feel that they have been left somewhat on the sidelines of KLA decision-making in the rapidly changing postwar environment. Mahmuti, for instance, did not have a seat among the delegation of Kosovar Albanians sent to the failed Rambouillet peace talks earlier this year.

"There are too many ambitions in the KLA for just one party," said Blerim Shala, 35, editor of Kosovo's leading weekly political magazine, Zeri, and a politically moderate member of the Kosovo transitional government being formed at the urging of the United Nations. "I would say that most of the leaders of this new political party [the Party of Democratic Union] are the most dissatisfied members of the KLA: those who feel they haven't been given enough power and respect."

Both Zeri's Blerim Shala and the KLA's Pleurat Sejdiu, who are about the same age, believe the ambitions and political influence of Kosovo's would-be political leaders will be moderated by the enormous role the international community will have in administering the province as a virtual protectorate over the next several years.

"Whoever will get the support of the West will be the leader of the future," Sejdiu said. "I warned Thaci he could be tossed off by the West" when they are done with him.

Revealing the desire of the KLA leadership to leverage the tremendous power base it has created over the past year of conflict and turn it into political strength, Sejdiu said, "If the West pushes the KLA to disappear, I will start to prepare people to work for the withdrawal of NATO." He suggested that he, among other members of the KLA leadership, would not tolerate KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force, making the KLA disband. The KLA command's eagerness for KFOR to help them create a national guard and police force seems to stem in part from the KLA's desire to continue to play a role in postwar Kosovo.

Sejdiu suggested that the KLA is ordering its regional commanders not to entirely decommission its ranks of KLA fighters until the West follows through on agreements to help train the new forces. It seems the KLA leadership fears that when its rank-and-file soldiers return to their former civilian lives as farmers, shopkeepers, etc., the KLA may never get them back, either as soldiers or, necessarily, as voters.

Drawing on a cigarette, Sejdiu added, "Because of KFOR's stalling, the KLA is losing control of Kosova every day."

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