Democracy School

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There will be many more. For starters, Thaci still has to deliver the K.L.A. and its weapons, which is far from a done deal. Says an officer at KFOR headquarters: "This thing could go tits up tomorrow if you get a couple of rogue K.L.A. commanders who'll say, 'Hey, we are not playing.' " And once the K.L.A. troops and their weapons have been surrendered, Thaci will need to pull off the even more difficult trick of turning the K.L.A. into a political force. While it is one thing to run a rebel army in the mountains, it will be another to oversee the rebuilding of an entire nation. K.L.A. managers, for instance, have always been dogged by charges of financial corruption. If Albanians start to feel that Western aid money is disappearing into K.L.A. pockets, Thaci may be done for. He'll also have to fight off electoral challenges from Rugova and Surroi, both of whom have better democratic credentials. But even Surroi admits that Thaci has a play to make in postwar Kosovo. "He has the ability to maneuver within his own environment. He was extremely good at it in the K.L.A.."

In the end, Thaci's greatest hurdle may be his own character. The isolated region of Kosovo where he was born, Drenica, is known for its hardheaded individualists. Those same rural traditions--"a Drenica person opens his heart to no man," says a longtime friend--have given Thaci a secretive, lone-wolf personality ill suited to democratic politics. At dinner that reserve undercut his every attempt to sound Western and humanistic. When asked what his plans were for the Serbian civilian minority that remains in Kosovo, he assured us its inclusion was important to rebuilding the province. "We're not interested in building parallel, segregated elements," he said. But when pressed repeatedly for an explanation of the retaliatory violence against the Serbs by rebel Albanians in recent days, he flashed a momentary glimpse of his old ruthlessness. "We will certainly have no mercy for those people," he said in a cool and determined voice. Then, remembering his audience, he added, "They will face the court and justice immediately." In the Balkans, just about everyone calls himself a democrat. It will be some time before we know just what kind Hashim Thaci intends to become.