After the Night by Fred Abrahams Of all the coffees one has in the Balkans, some stick in the memory, floating above the haze of sugar and smoke. Such is my 1997 conversation with Xhevat, a former political prisoners from Kosovo. The meeting took place in Tetovo, but the talk was of Prishtina. The Kosovo students were holding their non-violent demonstrations to support education, sometimes greeted by violence from the police. Rugova too was trying to convince them to stop provoking the situation. Xhevat sipped his coffee, sat back, and uttered the memorable phrase: "There is no question," he said. "After the students comes the night." I appreciated his concern and the importance of the students' peaceful attempts to shake the scene. After the failed education agreement, patience with non-violence was wearing thin, and this youthful activism needed support. But I didn't know how dark the night can be. Xhevat certainly did. Nothing illustrates his point better than this week's conviction of Albin Kurti, who led those demonstrations and then joined the armed revolt. Fifteen years. From devoted pacifist with rock star hair to defiant KLA activist with a prisoner's shave. Very dark indeed. Albin embodies the spirit of Kosovo's youth who crave a better life -- groping for a way to make a contribution in a complex play. And he represents the failure of the West to address the incendiary issues in Kosovo before they burst into flame. It is easier to bomb a dictator than to support a student, I guess. When the demonstrations failed, it was only a matter of time before the violent approach took hold. Nothing illustrates this predictable evolution better than Albin. In fact, a pacifist like Albin was thrust into a situation in which pacifism fit the time like a square fits a circle. How to tell students, workers, intellectuals to endure more abuse without offering any way out? Non-violence in Prishtina after Prekaz, Likoshane, and Qirez? The student union's books on Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. were burned by the police. Now Albin will spend time behind bars. Ironically, the court found him guilty of "terrorist activities" for his political work with the KLA and of organizing "illegal" student demonstrations in 1997-1998, that historical moment of dusk. In the court's eyes, there was no distinction between the two. There will be time to think and read in Pozarevac. To consider pacifism and the geometric realities that surround it. Might he have been more effective then and now as an independent defender of human rights? And what ideals will guide him when freedom returns? The sentence is long, but even prison cannot stop the turning of the earth. Like everyplace else, after the night comes the day. (The author is a human rights activist at Human Rights Watch and has worked extensively in Kosova.)