By DAVE CARPENTER Associated Press Writer
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- For a Kosovo schoolteacher, faith in ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova
and his pacifist policies died the day Serb police burned down his house.
Today, Agim Cervadiku believes only in the power of guns to wrench the province free of Serbia's stern rule.
Holed up with other guerrillas in a half-destroyed farmhouse in rural Kosovo, he chuckles at the mention of a
man he once revered.
``He is an admirable person, but he is without results in nearly 10 years,'' says the 38-year-old Cervadiku,
local president of Rugova's party until the Serbs' crackdown on separatists engulfed his village of Poklek last
May.
``With his politics only, Serbia will win.''
Admired in the West for an unswerving adherence to pacifism in the Balkans cauldron of hatred, Rugova is
praised by world leaders and has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. This month he will be
presented the Sakharov human rights prize in France from the European Parliament.
But at home, the soft-spoken political leader seems increasingly adrift, virtually helpless to influence the cause
of war or peace in a province where ethnic Albanians make up most of the population of 2 million.
While many still support him, Kosovo newspaper cartoons now lampoon Rugova as an intellectual wearing his
trademark silk neck scarf and a frightened look.
The guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army, no longer outcasts, have assumed a bigger role in U.S.-led
shuttle diplomacy since an October truce and threaten to eclipse Rugova's influence and once-soaring
popularity among ethnic Albanians.
Nonetheless, Rugova, while relegated virtually to the sidelines, is outwardly unshaken in the belief his policies
are correct. He says a majority of Kosovo Albanians still side with him.
After stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the KLA's existence until last summer, he insisted in a rare
interview last week that the rebels are still only ``small groups of people, quite isolated.''
Despite increased criticism, he told The Associated Press, ``I remain a strong advocate of nonviolence and
peaceful activism -- peaceful activism that has managed to create some institutions in Kosovo and a civic
society in spite of Serb domination.''
A president who has never held power, the 54-year-old Rugova may be a more accomplished academic and
author than a politician.
Born Dec. 2, 1944, in the western Kosovo village of Crnce, he was raised by an uncle after his father was
killed in World War II. Neighbors recall him as a shy boy who never played soccer and was always reading
books.
After studying in Pristina and France and earning his Ph.D. in literature, he worked as a magazine editor,
critic and researcher in Kosovo's capital, and has written 10 books of literary criticism.
As Kosovo's long-simmering Serb-Albanian tensions were coming to a boil a decade ago, Rugova burst into
prominence by promising something bold and unorthodox: independence through peaceful means.
His ideas won him election as head of the biggest Albanian party, the pro-independence League of Democratic
Kosovo, in 1989 when Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic revoked Kosovo's nearly two decades of
autonomy.
After Rugova's LDK proclaimed the self-styled Republic of Kosovo, he was overwhelmingly elected its
president in 1992 and again last March. But Serbian authorities outlawed the new state.
Instead of ruling, Rugova poured his efforts into organizing an unusual parallel state with separate schools,
medical and civic institutions.
It's an achievement he clings to in this dark year of bloodshed, when hundreds have been killed and over a
quarter-million displaced in months of fighting that began when Serb forces launched an offensive to try to
crush the KLA.
``We have proved that we are able to make it, to keep house, to keep a society,'' Rugova says. ``This is to the
credit of the people of Kosovo.''
His role now has been reduced largely to that of a symbol who speaks out about the ethnic Albanians' plight
while rarely venturing out of Pristina, the war-intact capital where support for his pacifism remains high.
Critics call him a figurehead, propped up by international officials who meet with him instead of other elected
Albanian leaders.
``As a politician he is incompetent,'' snorts Adem Demaci, a respected former dissident who purports to speak
for the KLA.
Despite the defections and lost support, there is little doubt Rugova would be re-elected if a political
settlement is reached and new elections are held next year. No other charismatic leader has emerged, and
Rugova's warm reception by world leaders stands him in good stead -- if the fighting can be stopped.
``Rugova has achieved strong ties with America and the West, and ethnic Albanians know international
assistance represents our best hope for the future,'' says Gjergj Dedaj, vice chairman of Kosovo Albanians'
parliament.
``There is no good alternative'' to Rugova, he adds.
AP-NY-12-07-98 0225EST