A roadside bomb went off this morning next to the motorcade of Kosovo “president” Ibrahim Rugova, reports AP/The Guardian. Rugova was on his way to meet the EU Commssar Javier Solana, to discuss the next Albanian occupation government after the resignation and surrender of “Prime Minister” Ramush Haradinaj. Solana’s message of support to the Albanians is in itself very interesting, but that’s a topic for another time.
“Unfortunately there are still people who want to destabilise Kosovo. I condemn this act and the people who do things like this should be stopped,” Rugova is quoted as saying by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Rugova also mentions this is the second time in a year he’s been a target of an attack. That is technically true: on March 12, 2004, someone threw a grenade at his house. Then, as now, no one was seriously hurt. Then, as now, Rugova condemned the attack as directed “against Kosovo,” perhaps to steer blame away from his political foes in the KLA and towards the Serbs. Back then, five days after the attack on Rugova, organized Albanian mobs swept through the province in an unprecedented pogrom that erased several Serb villages off the map, destroyed another two dozen churches and monasteries, and displaced nearly 4000 people.
So if this roadside bomb is a message, who was it aimed at – Rugova, or the Serbs?