TWO DECADES ON, KOSOVO’S GUERRILLA BOSS THACI MAY FINALLY FACE TRIAL

ANALYSIS Two Decades on, Kosovo’s Guerrilla Boss Thaci May Finally Face Trial

The indictment filed by the Specialist Prosecutor charging Kosovo President Hashim Thaci was a long-awaited move that follows two decades of investigations into alleged wartime wrongdoings.

MARIJA RISTIC | BIRN | BERLIN

It was no coincidence for Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, the former guerrilla chief charged with crimes against humanity and other war crimes during and after the war in Kosovo.

On Wednesday he boarded his plane to Washington, flying to the US for a long-anticipated meeting with his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, and the US Special Envoy, Richard Grenell, to discuss future of Kosovo-Serbia relations.

As he prepared his briefing points somewhere in the skies over Europe, the press release from the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office announced that he was the first person about whom it is publicly known that an indictment has been filed for a range of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, enforced disappearance of persons, persecution, and torture.

The indictment comes after the veteran warrior-turned-politician, who has maintained a grip on decision-making in Kosovo since the war there ended in 1999, ousted the government of his opponent Albin Kurti after months of struggle, installed a new puppet government in its place and was ready to finalise a “deal of the century” with Serbia and his US allies.

In the past year, Thaci has also tirelessly met with diplomats, powerful friends, politicians and lawyers in order to remove a potential problem overshadowing his agenda for the last five years – the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a Hague-based hybrid court set up to try former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, which Thaci led during the struggle against Serbia’s oppressive rule.

The pressure was immense, and the Hague-based prosecutor, who has otherwise remained confidential about who would be put on trial, said he had only issued “this public notice of charges because of repeated efforts by Hashim Thaci to obstruct and undermine the work of the KSC … in an attempt to ensure that he does not face justice”. According to prosecutor Jack Smith, Thaci and his close allies “put their personal interests ahead of the victims of their crimes, the rule of law, and all people of Kosovo”.

The indictment, filed on Thaci’s 52nd birthday, on April 24, alleges that he and others are responsible for nearly 100 murders. The other crimes alleged in the indictment involve hundreds of known victims of Kosovo Albanian, Serb, Roma, and other ethnicities, and include Kosovo Albanian political opponents.

The indictment interrupted Thaci’s trip and led him to cancel the Washington meeting, but only after a pre-trial judge confirms the April submission from the prosecution can he be put behind bars to await trial.

This may happen tomorrow. Or it might be as late as this autumn. The pre-trial judge has six months from the April 24 date of the filed indictment to confirm it, reject it, or request changes.

History student who wrote

Kosovo’s history

The Kosovo President has established himself as a shrewd tactician able to out-manoeuver opponents and has dominated Kosovo’s politics since the war ended – from being its first prime minister to foreign minister to president. He and his Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, have held a grip on almost every aspect of political life in former Serbian province for two decades.

Born in 1968 to a farming family in the central village of Buroja in the Drenica valley, Thaci was the seventh of nine children. He studied history at the University of Pristina and, by the late-1980s, was involved in the underground People’s Movement of Kosovo, LPK. This was an illegal political formation in the former Yugoslavia, a one-party state ruled by the League of Com munists of Yugoslavia until 1990.

Founded in 1982, the LPK sought to unite Kosovo with neighbouring Albania, then also a communist state. Due to his LPK activities, Thaci fled Yugoslavia in 1993 and obtained political asylum in Switzerland, where he became a founding member of a related organization, the KLA.

He frequently travelled back to Kosovo, crossing the border illegally, to work on organising the KLA’s structure on behalf of the LPK. Most senior KLA members came from the now defunct LPK.

By 1997, Thaci was leading the KLA’s political arm and so played a pivotal role in articulating the political ambitions of Kosovo Albanians in what was now an armed fight against Belgrade rule.

NATO’s intervention in 1999 in the worsening conflict, and a bombing campaign targeting Serbian positions, brought the war in Kosovo to an end, as Serbia withdrew its forces. With Kosovo now administered by a UN mission, UNMIK, Thaci agreed to disband the provisional government and played a key role in decommissioning and dissolving the KLA as well.

In late 1999, he was elected head of the new Party for Democratic Progress, soon renamed the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK. From then on, Thaci became one of the most relevant interlocutors for international diplomats, especially when it came to ensuring that everyone adhered to international policy in Kosovo, including the former KLA factions under Thaci’s control or influence.

He was briefly in opposition from 2001 to 2004 but returned as prime minister in January 2008. Soon after, on February 17, 2008, he read out Kosovo’s declaration of independence, endorsed by the majority of the Kosovo assembly, so becoming one of the most important figures in Kosovo history. The PDK went on to win three consecutive elections, in 2007, 2010 and 2014. Thaci served as prime minister twice, between 2008 and 2010 and between 2011 and 2014.

To meet the constitutional rule that stipulates that the head of state cannot hold other public posts, as President, Thaci resigned from the PDK leadership. He was succeeded by his close ally, the former chairman of the assembly, Kadri Veseli, now also indicted for war crimes.

From Ponte’s memoirs to organ trafficking allegations

Public opinion about Thaci’s political achievement is sharply divided. To many Kosovars he is the founder of Europe’s youngest state. For others, he is a corrupt politician who has prevented Kosovo’s transformation to democracy. For the international community, he was almost always a trusted partner.

For Serbs, he was always a war criminal, responsible for the persecution of the Serbs in Kosovo, leading to his first war crimes indictment before courts in Serbia.

Serbia’s arrest warrant for Thaci issued in early 2000 was never taken seriously internationally, due to Belgrade’s obvious bias. After the war ended, the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, ICTY, began releasing indictments against various leaders, army officers, police and soldiers from all the countries of the old joint state. But Thaci got away. His name was never on the lists, despite rumours that he was being investigated.

The failure to investigate KLA leaders only came into focus after the former ICTY chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, published her memoirs. In them, she said that “the investigation of the Kosovo Liberation Army fighters appeared to be the most frustrating of all the investigations done by the ICTY”. Del Ponte was also the first to openly speak out about the witness intimidation

problems that she and her team faced in these cases.

In her book, Madame Prosecutor, published in 2009, she wrote: “Witnesses were so afraid and intimidated that they even feared to talk about the KLA presence in some areas, not to mention actual crimes”. She added: “Those willing to testify had to be transferred to other countries with their entire families and many states were not willing to accept them.”

After the war in 1999, Kosovo lacked a proper police force and the NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo, KFOR, and the UN mission, UNMIK, couldn’t ensure security. “I am convinced that UNMIK and even KFOR officers were afraid for their lives and the lives of their missions’ members. I think some of the ICTY judges were afraid that they would become a target for the Albanians,” Del Ponte wrote.

On the basis of her memoirs, an enquiry was established led by Swiss rapporteur Dick Marty. January 2011 marked the start of what was probably Thaci’s most difficult time in politics, when the Council of Europe adopted Marty’s damning report. It accused the KLA leadership, including Thaci, who was then prime minister, of involvement in “organ trafficking, abductions and mistreatment of detainees” during the 1998-99 war in Kosovo.

The report and subsequent EU-led investigations led to the creation of a new court, the Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office, tasked with dealing with the crimes allegedly committed by the KLA against civilians and alleged collaborators with the former Yugoslav regime.

New prosecutors are following different strategy

What is clear from the statement issued by prosecutor Smith, in the absence of the full ten-count indictment, is that this prosecution has followed a different strategy to its predecessors at the ICTY.

ICTY prosecutors charged former KLA members mostly for isolated crimes, focusing on certain events and then trying to prove the connections between the indicted and the specific crime. It led to problems with witnesses, especially as they often changed their testimony. Documentation was also poor, considering the guerrilla nature of the KLA. The result was an inability to provide conclusive evidence proving the “command responsibility” of those on trial.

Prosecutor Smith and his team, many of whom are veteran prosecutors from the ICTY, are focusing instead on large-scale campaigns of murder and persecution – and are trying to prove not that as a KLA leader, Thaci was not only responsible for war crimes but also for crimes against humanity. Crimes against humanity refer to crimes committed in the context of widespread or systematic attacks against civilians or identifiable parts of the civilian population, and can be committed in peace time, not just during conflicts, like war crimes.

The indictment alleges that Thaci, Veseli, and the other charged suspects are criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders. The crimes alleged in the indictment involve hundreds of known victims of Kosovo Albanian, Serb, Roma, and other ethnicities and include political opponents. They also include enforced disappearance of persons, persecution, and torture.

The scale of the crimes attributed to the former KLA leadership was initially revealed in 2014 by former prosecutor Clint Williamson. According to his team, certain elements of the KLA intentionally targeted minority populations with acts of persecution. These included killings, expulsions, inhumane treatment, abduction and illegal detention in camps in Kosovo and Albania, destruction of religious sites and ethnic cleansing of certain areas.

Williamson claimed that there was evi

Europeans Offer to Host Serbia-Kosovo Summit in Paris

With a planned meeting in the White House on Saturday derailed by the indictment of the Kosovo President, France and Germany have indicated their willingness to host a summit in Paris.

MILICA STOJANOVIC | BIRN | BELGRADE

Serbia’s President, Aleksandar Vucic, said that the public will be informed “probably on Monday or Tuesday” about a new date for the resumed Belgrade-Pristina dialogue and for the summit that probably will happen before that. He added it is not up to him to reveal the date, which he knows, but the European Union representatives.

“Pristina announced the date, although we were asked to keep silent. I know the dates, but as an honourable person, I cannot tell the public about something that is the job of the EU and certain members – France and Germany,” Vucic said in Brussels, Tanjug news agency reported.

Vucic was due to meet his Kosovo counterpart Hashim Thaci on Saturday in Washington as well as the US envoy for the Kosovo- Serbia dialogue, Richard Grenell.

However, after the Kosovo Specialist Prosecution indicted Thaci for war crimes and crimes against humanity on June 24, the US meeting has been put on hold until further notice.

On Thursday, the French embassy in

Kosovo tweeted that France and Germany expected the dialogue to resume soon, and that German “Chancellor [Angela]

Merkel [and French] President [Emmanuel] Macron remain ready to host a sumdence also showing that in 1998 and 1999, the KLA was engaged in a sustained cam paign of violence and intimidation directed at its Kosovo Albanian political opponents, which included extrajudicial killings, intimidation and torture.

Day in court for victims, or political persecution

The announcement of the indictment came as a bombshell in a region already troubled by instability and turmoil that have increased during the recent pandemic. The EU and US separately issued statements supporting the work of the prosecution and arguing that such indictments are path towards reconciliation in the region. But for politicians in Kosovo, the move to indict Thaci was just politics, and was unjust.

Former PM Ramush Haradinaj, who was himself summoned by the prosecution last year as a suspect, said: “The KLA conducted a pure war, which resulted in freedom and the establishment of the Republic of Kosovo. We trust in the innocence of President Thaci, Mr Veseli and all other comrades.”

PDK head Veseli, the other person named in the indictment, was the first to respond to the announcement by the Specialist Chambers: “The accusations are completely without basis. It is also not true that we threatened the court,” he said.

“I’m worried that the true motivations of the prosecutor are political. Having in mind the timing, a couple of days ahead of

mit in Paris”. German Ambassador to Kosovo Christian Heldt tweeted: “Our governments stand ready to be helpful with proposed meeting in July.”

On June 17, while the US meeting was on schedule, Thaci told Voice of America that a “summit is expected to be held in Paris in the third week of July”.

On July 1, Germany takes over the Presidency of the Council of the EU from Croatia and the stalled Kosovo-Serbia dialogue will be one of priorities of the new presidency when it comes to the Western Balkans.

When announcing the US meeting on June 15, Grenell tweeted that “If either side is unsatisfied with the June 27 discussions, then they will go back to the status quo after they leave Washington”. In his statements, he often highlighted that the focus of the meeting would be

economic issues. the White House meeting … people are right to suspect this was not a coincidence,” Veseli added. International human rights groups like Human Rights Watch said that the indictment of Thaçi and other former KLA leaders would advance justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during and after the 1998-1999 Kosovo war. But they warned that a key challenge to justice remains witness protection, which has plagued so many war-crimes trials of former KLA members, both in Kosovo and at the ICTY. “This indictment is a positive step for justice as these alleged crimes have hung over Kosovo for two decades,”Lotte Leicht, European Union director at Human Rights Watch, said. “After years of demanding justice, victims from all ethnic groups may finally get to have their day in court,” she added.

Who at the end will get their day in court remains to be seen. Hopes and stakes are high, both for Kosovo’s already polarized society, which has lurched from one crisis to another in the last five years, but also for the victims both in Kosovo and Serbia. They have been waiting for this for more than 20 years, in anxiety and with high expectations.

Meanwhile, the most spoken-about person in Kosovo today, Thaci, remains silent. He is nowhere to be found. He cancelled his US meeting – but when and how he will return to Kosovo is yet to be confirmed. His office on Wednesday insisted he would be back in Pristina on Thursday, without specifying his location.

We must make sure the coronavirus is not succeeded in the Western Balkans by another, even more dangerous virus – one with which this region is all too familiar.

Opinion

Nationalism May Well Haunt a Post-Pandemic Balkans

MARIJA DJORIC | BIRN | BELGRADE

History shows us that, in times of crisis, individuals turn to the community they belong to. This is shown also in the example of the COVID-19 pandemic, when people retreated to the borders of their countries, just as a wounded beast retreats to its cave, where it is safe.

Take the example of Serbia, to which almost half a million people have returned from abroad since the start of the pandemic. Something similar happened in the rest of the region, and the entire world as well.

In this constellation of sociopolitical relations a strengthening of nationalist rhetoric, has also occurred, additionally inspired by the migration crisis.

The division between “Us” and “Them” as categories is always a good foundation for strengthening extreme nationalism, which already represents a heavy burden from the past, carried on the backs of all the peoples of the Western Balkans.

The COVID-19 virus pandemic has shown no differences between nations, religions, races, rich and the poor. In the face of this invisible enemy, we are equal in misfortune.

An example of how adverse circumstances sometimes connect the unconnectable was witnessed in Bosnia, where its three-member Presidency released a joint statement calling on the citizens to show solidarity and trust in institutions.

The coronavirus seemed to have succeeded in Bosnia where everybody else in the Western Balkans had failed in the last 30 years – to override national tensions and make humanity prevail over cheap political points. It seemed too good to be true – but the fact is that the Western Balkans did put nationalism in a state of hibernation – at least for a while.

But there is a saying in the Balkans, that “everything that’s nice is short-lived”, and so it was in the case of nationalist passions. As the pandemic subsides, everything has returned to normal and nationalism sees a fresh surge of aggression, in the form of anti-migrant sentiment.

Migrants have emerged as the new threat to national survival, creating anxiety and a feeling of vulnerability among the population. The old metaphor about the Balkans as a “powder keg” still rings true.

The curse of small differences has marked the Balkan mentality map and written the gloomy history of our peninsula – with not so many lessons learned from the past. Perhaps the Latin slogan “nome

Illustration. Photo: Unsplash/Branimir Balogovic nest omen” best captures the spiritual and political state in which we have been stranded for centuries. Namely, (according to Halilĺnalcik) the name “Balkans” etymologically derives from the word balk, which translates as – mud.

The Balkan nations have indeed for centuries been trapped in a muddy “quagmire”, from which they are still struggling to escape. This particularly refers to the Western Balkans, which faces myriad political challenges. Nationalism, weak institutions, civil wars, economic and social crises, societies in transition and violent extremism are just some of the issues pushing us deeper into the “mud” in which we are helplessly trapped.

In the forthcoming period, we can expect a surge in nationalist tendencies as a consequence, among other things, of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nationalism is one of the most controversial phenomena not only in the Western Balkans, but in the global context. To understand it, we must first perceive it within space and time, like any other sociopolitical phenomenon.

The modern nationalist ideology emerged in the cradle of the French Revolution; the term itself was first used by Augustin Barruel, an anti-Jacobin priest. It found a foothold in the 19 th century national liberation movements, when great nations like Germans and Italians were united.

National movements also showed their emancipating character, in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, once dubbed the “prison of the peoples”. But nationalism in the Balkan context during the

20 th and 21 st centuries has shown its more “demonic” side, and is considered a generator of civil wars and violence and thus a largely negative phenomenon..

To understand nationalism, it is necessary to understand the nation as its constituent category. Ernest Renan argued that a nation is defined by its “past and present,” while the future remains uncertain. It is possible to discern this “spiritual principle” in defining the nation in the case of the Balkan peoples. In the space of just a few decades, amalgamated nations, like the Yugoslavs, emerged, which then quickly disintegrated and led to the formation of new identities.

It is not uncommon that in the same family, people declare themselves as belonging to different nations, which additionally complicates the “Gordian Knot”.

This problem is very present in Montenegro, which is currently facing a significant identity crisis. The answer to the primordial ontological question –who am I? – can hardly be given in the Western Balkans precisely because many people have so-called “torn identities”.

A nation is a political category and this is its fundamental distinction from other related phenomena such as people, or ethnicity. But, on the other hand, this creates significant potential for political manipulation.

The essential issue with the nationalist ideology is not only the determination of one’s nationality (because this is a private matter), but also the fact that nationalism is predominantly a state-building ideology.

In the Western Balkans, where socalled “ethnic” borders often do not coincide with “territorial” ones, it forms the basis of many political tensions. It should be borne in mind that national identities in this region are often volatile, amorphous and fluctuating, due to the sociopolitical situation.

The pandemic showed how, in the times of crisis, “birds of a feather flock together”, as when over half a million people returned from abroad to Serbia alone. Crises expose a person’s face and reveal one’s true essence – and it is not much different with states. The survival instinct sometimes brings out the worst in individuals and collectives.

National egoism has prevailed worldwide, and the Balkan nations have realized that they have only themselves and perhaps their neighbours to rely on.

In the coming days, we can expect a surge in nationalist passions in the Western Balkans, due to two current phenomena:

The first reason will be the migrant crisis and its impact on Western Balkan countries, with Serbia and Bosnia being especially affected. Fake news plays a major role in creating a negative climate for migrants, but there are also real incidents with migrants as offenders.

Another reason for the intensification of nationalist sentiment will be the upcoming elections in the Western Balkans; parliamentary, provincial and local elections in Serbia, early parliamentary elections in Northern Macedonia, regular parliamentary elections in Montenegro and regular local elections in Bosnia.

It is an unwritten rule that parties resort to nationalist in election campaigns to divert attention from real domestic political problems.

Peoples in the Western Balkans have a wealth of past experience with nationalist ideology that brought them no good. Let’s hope that we have learned some history lessons, and turn to our mutual economic interests that can connect us and ensure prosperity in the post-pandemic time.

The Balkans is connected by a system of communicating vessels. If our neighbour experiences hardship, the crisis is bound to strike us, too. As Ernest Hemingway wrote, in For Whom the Bell Tolls, quoting John Donne: “No man is an island, entire of itself.”

We are all part of a greater region, and we influence each other. This is why all of us in the Western Balkans must make sure that coronavirus is not succeeded by a much more dangerous “virus” that we have seen all too often in our recent history: extreme nationalism.

Analysis

Kosovo’s negotiators must not be under any illusions when they come to seal a deal with Serbia.

Five Things Kosovo Must Know Before Doing a Deal with Serbia

VISAR XHAMBAZI | BIRN | PRISTINA

Following the election of the new government in Kosovo, the US special presidential envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Richard Grenell, has taken a proactive and assertive approach to the talks, increasing the likelihood of a final deal in which the US plays a significant role.

Representatives of Kosovo and Serbia were supposed to meet at the White House at the end of the month. Grenell was blunt in his statement that, “If either side is unsatisfied with the June 27 discussions then they will go back to the status quo after they leave Washington.”

The political climate in Kosovo is currently one of deep polarisation. Nonetheless, the Kosovo delegation must take into account the following five crucial points before the next rounds of negotiations.

Meanwhile, Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti on Thursday cancelled an eagerly anticipated trip to Washington to meet Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic and resume stalled negotiations with Serbia over the future status of the former Serbian province whose independence Belgrade does not recognise.

Hoti canceled his trip after the Hague-based Specialist Prosecutor’s Office filed a ten-count indictment with the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, KSC, accusing Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, Kosovo politician Kadri Veseli and others with a range of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, enforced disappearance of persons, persecution, and torture during the Kosovo war.

A final deal does not guarantee UN membership for Kosovo

A final deal with Serbia will put Kosovo in a better position internationally and will lessen the obstacles to membership in international organisations. However, it does not guarantee UN membership for Kosovo.

Russia and China are both UN Security Council permanent members with veto powers. These countries do not recognise Kosovo, so even if Kosovo and Serbia reach a deal, this will not automatically translate into UN membership for Kosovo.

Consequently, the Kosovo delegation should demand concrete steps on how to overcome potential vetoes from Russia and China. Grenell is not a neutral envoy

Kosovo is the most pro-American country in the world and has welcomed the US re-engagement in the region. However, there is enough evidence to show that Grenell is not the best pick to handle these negotiations. A man of controversy, he has no experience working on the Balkans.

Grenell has served the interests of authoritarian and corrupt politicians such as Viktor Orban in Hungary and Vladimir Plahotniuc in Moldova, without reporting these activities as required under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act, FARA.

Moreover, his tenure as US ambassador to Germany stirred much criticism, amid accusations, he was biased and undiplomatic. Grenell’s track record gives good reason to be sceptical of his ability to fulfill his role as the US Envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue and also begs the question of whether Grenell can act as an unbiased intermediary.

Kosovo must push for a comprehensive deal, not just any deal

A deal that does not tackle all open issues with Serbia is destined to fail. Serbia has not demonstrated it is ready to deal with its past. In fact, President Alexandar Vucic declared that Serbia is willing to give up potential EU integration

if that is the only benefit for Serbia from the negotiations on Kosovo.

Serbia wants to gain more from these negotiations, potentially a land swap. Serbia expects Kosovo to make major concessions while Belgrade itself has yet to acknowledge, let alone apologise, for the devastating effects of the Kosovo war, including the massacre and rape of civilians and widespread damage to property.

A formal letter of apology would be a starting point to resolve deeply rooted issues. The deal should also include guarantees that Serbia will remove reference to Kosovo from its constitution, a formal letter of recognition and an expression of willingness to open an embassy in Kosovo.

The deal must be in full accordance with

Western liberal values

Kosovo does not have to compromise on its borders, provide extraterritoriality for the Serbian Orthodox Church, or establish an Association of Serbian Majority Municipalities with executive powers.

Kosovo is a multi-ethnic state with a progressive constitution which defends and promotes the rights of ethnic minorities. Giving executive powers to municipalities based on ethnicity violates the multiethnic nature of the country. In addition, transferring autonomous powers to a church is in violation of the secular nature of the republic.

Most importantly, a sustainable final deal with Serbia must be based on solidarity and human rights consistent with Western values, and not based on ethnic lines and changes to current borders.

Refusing to sign a deal is not the end of the world

The Trump administration’s eagerness to finalise a deal or the fear of lost momentum are not reason enough for Kosovo to sign a deal. At a time when Trump’s foreign policy is motivated by his reelection prospects, Kosovo should be especially wary of a deal proposed by the US.

If the Kosovo delegation is pressured into signing a deal which they consider to be biased or unfair towards Kosovo, they must refuse to do so.

Refusal to sign a deal does not necessarily mean a deterioration in relations between Kosovo and the West. Kosovo must be persistent in its demands and defend what is best for the country’s national security and wellbeing. Kosovo’s independence is irrevocable, but its functionality is at stake. No deal is better than a bad deal.