Half a million people turned out for the funeral procession of the former president of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, who died of lung cancer on January 21, 2006. The chain-smoking, 'Gandhi of the Balkans'  was a writer who entered politics in the late 1980s and helped set up the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK). Initially a hero for his passive resistance to Serbian rule, Rugova lost credibility after the 1995 Dayton Agreement, but made a comeback and became president in 2002. He lies buried at the top of the Parku Varrezat e Dëshmorëve (Park of Martyrs).