‘Kosovo’s Mandela’ Dies at 82
By Reuters. July 26, 2018
PRISTINA — Adem Demaci, a former long-term political prisoner known to ethnic Albanians as the “Mandela of Kosovo” for his resistance to Serb rule, died on Thursday at the age of 82, officials said.
Demaci spent 28 years in Serb jails during Yugoslav times and was considered a symbol for Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanians in their struggle with communist Yugoslavia and later Serbia for greater rights and independence for the province.
“It is difficult to accept that our symbol of resistance has passed away. He was always unbreakable and unbending in the face of every challenge,” Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci wrote on Facebook.
The president has announced three days of mourning.
After he was released from jail in 1990 he served until 1995 as a human rights activist, reporting on abuses carried out under the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.
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He won the European Parliament’s Andrei Sakharov Prize for his human rights work in 1991.
In the late 1990s Demaci was the head of the political representative office of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) which launched a guerrilla war.
Kosovo seceded from Serbia in 2008, almost a decade after a NATO bombing campaign ousted Serbian forces and ended the crackdown on ethnic Albanians.
It has been recognized by 115 countries, including 23 out of 28 EU members, but its UN membership is being blocked by Serbia’s allies Russia and China.
(Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Editing by Andrew Bolton)
Kosovo’s Last Respects to Demaci, Its Human Rights ‘Mandela’
By The Associated Press. July 27, 2018
PRISTINA, Kosovo — Kosovo paid its last respects on Friday to Adem Demaci, its famed human rights defender, or so-called “Kosovo’s Mandela,” who embodied resistance against authoritarianism.
A three-day mourning began with flags at half-mast for Demaci, who died a day earlier of natural causes. He was 82.
The parliament held a commemorative session with the presence of top parliamentary leaders from neighboring Albania and Macedonia.
“We have lost … the symbol of our national movement for Kosovo’s freedom and independence, the hero, our inspiration,” said Speaker Kadri Veseli.
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Demaci’s body was put at the parliament’s hall where hundreds of people paid their last respects for the man who avoided supporting specific political parties for long, and remained critical of their leaders.
“My father will be calm when Kosovo is better organized,” said Demaci’s son, Shqiptari (Translated as ‘Albanian’ in English).
Demaci was arrested three times and spent 28 years in jail for resisting then-Yugoslavia’s communist regime. In 1991, he was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and in 2010 he received the order Hero of Kosovo.
In 1991, he was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and in 2010 he received the Hero of Kosovo award.
He was also for a time the leading politician of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the independence fighters in the country’s 1998-1999 war, which ended after NATO intervened to stop a bloody Serb crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists.
Human Rights Defender and Kosovo Dissident Adem Demaci Dies
By The Associated Press. July 26, 2018
PRISTINA, Kosovo — Adem Demaci, a human rights defender who embodied Kosovo’s national resistance and was often called the “Balkans’ Mandela,” has died at 82.
Deputy Speaker Xhavit Haliti interrupted Thursday’s parliamentary session to report Demaci’s death, saying “our teacher, the man who spent 28 years of his life in Serb prisons” has died. The parliament in Pristina held a minute of silence and suspended the session.
President Hashim Thaci declared three days of mourning, adding that Demaci’s funeral would be with “the highest state honors.”
Pristina hospital chief Bujar Gashi said Demaci died of natural causes.
Demaci, who studied literature, law and education, was first known as a writer, especially for his 1958 novel titled “The Snakes of Blood,” which explored blood vendettas in Kosovo and Albania.
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A human rights defender, Demaci was arrested three times and spent 28 years in jail for resisting then-Yugoslavia’s communist regime. In 1991, he was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and in 2010 he received the order Hero of Kosovo.
He was also for a time the leading politician of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the independence fighters in the country’s 1998-1999 war, which ended after NATO intervened to stop a bloody Serb crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists.
Demaci never affiliated for long with a political group, being critical of their leaders and not pleased with the international deal with Serbia that ended the war.
After the war, Demaci still participated in politics, held several media posts and became more involved in defending the rights of minorities.
Demaci is survived by a wife, a son and a daughter.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/07/26/world/europe/ap-eu-kosovo-obit-demaci.html
