After his retirement in 1986, Hoxha had withdrawn from public life and was notorious for refusing to grant interviews to the press. However, he continued to throw his support behind popular movements in Kosovo. In 1989, Hoxha supported the 1989 Kosovo miners' strike at the Trepça/Trepča Mines protesting against political attacks from Serbia aiming at the erosion of Kosovo's self-government. In 1990, Hoxha became a supporter of the Democratic League of Kosovo and its leader Ibrahim Rugova, in its struggle for an independent Kosovo. In 1998, Hoxha, together with other members of the Association of Veterans of the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War, threw their support behind the armed struggle of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In a 1998 meeting with the political representative of the KLA in Pristina, Adem Demaçi, Hoxha declared that if he were a young man, he would not wait a minute to join the KLA. He supported the NATO intervention during the Kosovo War.