The parallel state and peaceful resistance

From a locked Assembly to the Kaçanik Constitution

On 23 December 1989 the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) was founded, led by Ibrahim Rugova. Within months it had become the dominant political force among Kosovo Albanians. On 2 July 1990 the Albanian delegates of the Kosovo Assembly, barred from entering the building, proclaimed on its steps a Constitutional Declaration describing Kosovo as an equal unit within the Yugoslav federation.[1][2]

On 5 July 1990 the Serbian Assembly suspended Kosovo's Assembly and Executive Council. On 7 September, at a secret session in Kaçanik, the delegates adopted the Constitution of the Republic of Kosova. Serbia adopted its new constitution on 28 September 1990, reducing the provinces' autonomy to a largely symbolic form.[1]

Emergency measures and mass dismissals

In the summer of 1990 Serbia passed laws allowing it to take over Kosovo's institutions and enterprises under “special circumstances”. Radio Television Prishtina and the newspaper Rilindja were shut down, and tens of thousands of Albanians were dismissed from jobs in administration, hospitals, education and enterprises — often after refusing to sign declarations of loyalty to the new order.[1][2][3]

Human-rights organizations, including the Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms in Prishtina, documented arrests, police ill-treatment, house searches and political trials throughout the 1990s. These records are an important source, but they are read alongside international reports and later court documents.[3]

Schools in homes, volunteer clinics and the three-percent fund

When Albanian pupils and teachers were barred from teaching their own curriculum in state buildings, the parallel education system moved into private houses, basements and premises donated by families. The University of Prishtina, too, continued teaching outside its own buildings. Built on the sacrifice of teachers and families, this experience became one of the strongest symbols of peaceful resistance.[1][3]

The Mother Teresa Humanitarian Society organized aid and volunteer health services, while the parallel institutions were financed mainly by voluntary contributions from workers in the diaspora and in Kosovo, known as the three-percent fund. The government in exile, headed by Prime Minister Bujar Bukoshi, coordinated the collection and distribution of these funds.[2][3]

In September 1991 a referendum, declared illegal by the Serbian authorities, endorsed Kosovo's independence; the organizers reported very high turnout and support, but these are the organizers' own figures. Albania was the only state to recognize the Republic of Kosova. On 24 May 1992 parliamentary and presidential elections were held, and Rugova was elected president; the elected Assembly was never allowed to convene.[1][2]

Reconciling blood feuds

In 1990–1992 a broad movement led by the folklorist Anton Çetta, joined by students, intellectuals and clergy, mediated reconciliation between families caught up in blood feuds. The gathering of 1 May 1990 at Verrat e Llukës drew a huge crowd and became the movement's emblem.[1][3]

Reconciliation was more than a moral act. It strengthened social cohesion at a time when a state built on the exclusion of Albanians offered no credible justice. The number of reconciliations achieved varies between sources and memoirs, so no exact figure is given here.

What peaceful resistance achieved — and its limits

Rugova's strategy aimed to avoid a war that, in the LDK leadership's assessment, would hand Belgrade a pretext for mass violence as in Croatia and Bosnia. It preserved Albanian-language education, built political legitimacy, documented human-rights abuses and kept the Kosovo question in front of Western diplomats.[3][2]

But peaceful resistance had no means of forcing Belgrade to negotiate. The CSCE long-term missions left Kosovo in 1993 when the Yugoslav authorities refused to extend their mandate. At Dayton in November 1995, the Bosnian peace agreement left Kosovo out — a moment that led many Albanians to question the premise that patience would be rewarded internationally.[3][4]

Voices calling for more active forms of resistance grew louder within Albanian society. Among them was Adem Demaçi, released in 1990 after nearly three decades as a political prisoner, who became one of the best-known critics of passive waiting.[3]