Ex-inmate eyes Kosovo presidency

Brovina: Independence "inevitable"

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- Prominent ethnic Albanian activist Flora Brovina was in a Serbian jail a year ago. Now she is campaigning to become president of Kosovo.

The jailing of the 50-year-old paediatrician and women's rights activist for 12 years on terrorism charges became a rallying point for people in Kosovo, where the majority of the population is ethnic Albanian.

Two years ago, when Milosevic's brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo inspired the NATO bombing campaign, Brovina refused to leave despite the threat of arrest by Serb police.

She helped delivered a baby just two hours before eight plainclothes policemen snatched her from an apartment building in Kosovo's capital, Pristina.

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Now it remains to be seen if the leader of the League of Albanian Women which provided relief aid to women and children can make it to the country's top political post.

In an interview with Reuters news agency she says an independent Kosovo is her ambition but she hopes equality policies can persuade the minority Serbs to share her dream.

Brovina, candidate of the Democratic Party of Kosovo of former guerrilla leader Hashim Thaci, said: "I personally insist that all citizens must be equal and not divided into a first and a second class."

The rhetoric echoes international officials hoping the vote will bring a more multi-ethnic Kosovo.

Arrested during NATO's 1999 bombing to end Belgrade's repression of Kosovo's Albanians, Brovina was freed last year with the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in a popular uprising.

She had served a year of the 12-year sentence imposed at a trial her supporters considered a sham. Brovina has urged Kosovo's beleaguered Serbs also to vote for the new 120-seat assembly to be set up after the November 17 election, which in turn will elect a president. She says the poll is a great opportunity for them too.

"Serbs are citizens of Kosovo and they have to be part of Kosovo," Brovina, elegantly dressed in black and showing little sign of the hardships of 19 months in jail, said.

Popular among many Kosovo Albanians, she faces a tough fight for the largely symbolic post of president against the better-known veteran political leader Ibrahim Rugova.

Brovina insisted that despite her time in prison and atrocities committed against ethnic Albanians, she did not seek revenge. Serbs too were victims of Milosevic, she said.

Many Serbs oppose the vote, saying not only is it a step to independence, their living conditions are so poor they should boycott the poll.

Brovina said independence was inevitable, a "life or death" issue for Kosovo.

But she argued it would be good for Serbs too as it would bring an improved economy and better living standards.

Fearing Albanian reprisals, about 180,000 Serbs fled Kosovo after government forces withdrew following 11 weeks of NATO bombing. Many of those remaining, numbering about 100,000, live in enclaves protected by NATO-led peacekeepers.

Brovina, 51, vowed to fight such "ghettos."

"An independent Kosovo will guarantee the minorities equality," she said.

But Brovina accused Belgrade's new leadership of continuing to manipulate the province's Serbs.

Milosevic may be awaiting trial at the U.N. war crimes court in The Hague for atrocities in Kosovo, but "Milosevic's system is still in power in Belgrade," she said.

Reuters contributed to this report.