FEATURED | The Fourth President of Kosovo : Hashim Thaçi

The independent Kosovo has recently witnessed the inauguration of its fourth President, Hashim Tachi, not without criticism of the opposition and clashes between demonstrators and the Police.

By Federica Fanuli

Editor-at-Large, IndraStra Global

The independent Kosovo has recently witnessed the inauguration of its fourth President, Hashim Thaçi, not without criticism of the opposition and clashes between demonstrators

 and the Police.

Image Attribute: Hashim Thaçi / Source: Wikimedia Commons

Thaçi is nicknamed “the snake” for his unquestionable ability to skillfully break free from complicated situations and his name is closely linked to the Rambouillet talks aimed to end the war in the country. Hashim Thaçi, the serpent, was born April 24, 1968, in Buroje, near Drenica. In 1993, Thaçi fled to Switzerland to escape arrest and joined the Marxist People's Movement of Kosovo (LPK). Often he has tried to come illegally back, as a matter of the fact in 1997, he took part in an operation against the police in Glogovac and the Pristina District Court sentenced him to ten years in prison in absentia. Appointed by the General Staff in Tirana the political representative of the Kosovo Liberation Army Party (KLA), Hashim Thaçi was the head of the Kosovo delegation that has taken part in the Rambouillet talks at end the war Kosovo. 

A conflict determined by the thrust of the separatist region, the autonomous province of Serbia, which prompted the Yugoslav Federation towards total disintegration. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia broke up in the nationalist shots first in Slovenia and then in Croatia, much to unleash a war that has deeply marked the nineties. The Christian inhabitants and Kosovo Muslims, belonging to a single and Albanian ethnic group, exalted the independence with the slogan "Kosovo Republika" because they have not satisfied of the granting status of autonomy. The people advanced the request that Kosovo would become the seventh republic of socialist Yugoslavia, such as Slovenia and Croatia, and then declare independence without having to clash with Serbia. In the late '80s, the situation worsened. 

In March of 1989, in fact, the autonomy of the province granted at the time of the birth of the Yugoslav Republic of Titus was revoked under the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic's pressure. The Albanian, co-official language in Kosovo with the Serb-Croat, was revoked; autonomous schools have been closed and Serb citizens or men loyal to Serbia replaced officials and Albanian teachers. In response, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), headed by the leader Ibrahim Rugova led a nonviolent resistance campaign. In total, were both phases that marked the Kosovo war. From 1996 to 1999, prevailed the internal clashes fuelled by the operations of the Albanian KLA separatist; several terrorist attacks struck citizens Serbs and non-Albanians. 

Since 1999, however, it was the NATO intervention against Serbia, although the bloody repression and ethnic raids carried out by Serbian guerrilla warfare are well known in the history, and to achieve the start of the Rambouillet negotiations, which closed positive despite the resistance of the KLA representatives to sign a document in which it has guaranteed the independence of Kosovo, but not its full independence.The opposition, however, was overtaken by the United States. The American policy supporting the KLA urged the Kosovar delegation, and its first representative Thaçi, to sign the agreement, while the Serbian delegation abandoned the negotiating table, arguing that Kosovo's autonomy masked its independent region. 

After the war in Kosovo, Thaçi founded the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and, from March 1999 until January 2000, he became the Prime Minister of the provisional government of Kosovo. In the parliamentary elections, 17 December 2007, the PDK is the first political force in the country and it was the elected Prime Minister Thaçi to proclaim the independence of Kosovo. Following his inauguration, the new President of the Republic has said he wants to serve all its citizens without distinction. It questioned the reliability of Thaçi; his nickname leaves little to the imagination and the shadows of his past linked to hover crime on the history of a region that is now shaking Europe in the fight against jihadist terrorism. 

Despite the President intends to him eradicate this evil, recent intelligence sources suggest that these roots are long and deep that Kosovo is the DAESH nursery. Moreover, according to data from the Ministry of Interior in Pristina, Kosovo would become one of the parties in Syria to fight beside the black Caliphate, with the risk that Kosovo will become a dangerous operational central and of recruitment of orphans of the Balkan wars, the sons of rapes and violence in the ex - Yugoslavia, educated by Wahhabi Sunni preachers to be ready to Jihad and sow terror in Europe.

About the Author:

Federica Fanuli (TR RID : M-9093-2015) was graduated with honours in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Salento and she has obtained a Master's Degree in Political Science, European Studies and International Relations from the same university. As a Foreign Affairs analysts, she is an editorial board member of the Institute of Global Studies, a columnist at The Sunday Sentinel, an editorial board member of Cosmopolismedia.it and Editor-at-Large at IndraStra Global. She can be reached at her Linkedin Profile.