Actaza against former KLA elites is incorrect, unilateral

Anna Di Lelio

-Nasuf Abdel, from Balkan Insight 

Amid surprise for US presidential elections and frightening news about COVID-19, I was losing the opening of the trial of the former General Staff of the Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo's Specialised Chambers. Now that I'm focused on it, I wish I had completely lost it.

The truth is I believe in international justice and what I read and understand is a big blow to my faith in it.

Start from the beginning: Kosovo Specialised Prosecutor's Act on Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselin, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi on November 4th. Charges of war crimes against humanity and war crimes under international law are serious. However, I will not address the merit of these crimes because I am not an investigator, a prosecutor, or a defense attorney.

However, I've found much to say about shaping these crimes in the Narrative into the sector called “Forecast”.

This title already sounds oruelian, after reading the first lines: “in 1989, in the context of growing tensions and skims (disproportions) throughout the former Yugoslavia, Kosovo's status as an autonomous province has departed. After that, Kosovo Albanians overwhelmingly supported a referendum on independence...”

The opening words of the indictment are a typical example of the language used by the Prosecutor's Office throughout the entire document. It is an extremely vague and vague language that brings excessive use of wrong terms and the Persian form.

“Skima”? Scism is a division between opposing parties or the formal division of a church in two churches. In 1989, Yugoslavia's Socialist Federal Republic has faced, not scism, but a deep constitutional and political crisis that led to war. Kosovo's autonomy is not “removed”. Serbia's Assembly did this by force.

The words “behind this” extend a cover over three years of events: widespread peaceful protests by Albanians in Kosovo, including hunger strike by violent miners; emergency status declared by the Yugoslav presidency; mass imprisonment of Albanians and torture of Kosovo's Parliament before its breakup; and the removal of all Albanians from work, hospitals, schools.

The clearly specialised prosecutors are flawed in history, but not ask them to read history books. Reading the work of their colleagues at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) would be sufficient. Let's take this part from the 2005 trial of this court in the case against KLA leader Fatmir Limaj, and two others, “Pjesa III-A. Political context in Kosovo and KLA exit”. There are all the facts to be mentioned.

Another good reading is the 2011 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for who is in the Serbian Army and Serbian political leadership (former President Milan Milutinovic and five others). In this judgment, “Partea III. Historical context” is based on serious and proven reports of organisations “Human Rights Watch” and “Amnesty International” and special UN rapporteurs Tadeusz Mazowiecki.

The armed conflict with Serbia, recognised by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (The War of Milutinovici and others, Paragraph 820), deserves only a mention in the indictment of Specialised Chambers and that as a clash between the two rival sides. Facts differ. Since the first part of 1998, Serbia had engaged police, regular armies, militias, special forces and the formation of Bosnian genocide volunteer veterans in Kosovo. At that time, The KLA was a group of several hundred poorly armed individuals.

The war began in March 1998, when Serb troops slaughtered 83 Albanians in Drenica. Only a few were KLA fighters. This event alarmed the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Louise Arbour, who Serbia was committing war crimes. By the summer of 1998, there were hundreds of thousands of displaced Albanian civilians. Only then. The KLA increased in number and consensus.

This indictment portrays a war in which each action by Serbian security forces was a direct operation against the uprising. This is a lie with facts, because massacres, violations and displacement occurred even where there was no KLA active. Where he had it, the response was unproportionate.

The fact is that Serbia's leadership constituted a joint criminal enterprise aimed at changing Kosovo's ethnic balance, as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia concluded.

According to Specialised Prosecutors, <x0-elements around” for crimes allegedly committed in the Kosovo War are not the facts confirmed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, but the will of the Kosovo People's Movement “to co-ordinate the actions of armed units in Kosovo”.

Joya, the Kosovo People's Movement came up under the name KLA KLA a clear inaccuracies under Limaj's trial and others, and continued to build a joint criminal enterprise to eliminate “opponents” and control Kosovo territory.

Who were these opposers? Co-workers of the Yugoslav state and its forces and people who did not support the KLA and the Kosovo Interim Government, including members of the Democratic League of Kosovo, Serbs, Roma and other ethnicities.

How do we know the KLA had those goals? From their conjecture. This is the point where the confession of specialised prosecutors becomes strange. It says that during NATO bombings, <x0 KLA soldiers and a large number Kosovo Albanian civilians Moving from Kosovo to Albania” (the interpretation of letters is made by the author of the text, it does not exist in the indictment). But this has been the line of protection of all Serb war criminals who have been convicted. It's not a fact.

The facts are that NATO has not intervened against Serbia to cover up the plot of the Kosovo People's Movement/ U n CK; (but the facts are that) most KLA soldiers remained in Kosovo and that about 800,000 Albanian civilians were expelled from Serbian security forces in a campaign where thousands were killed and violated.

According to the indictment of specialised prosecutors, after the war ended, “a large number The soldiers of the KLA and Kosovo Albanian refugees returned from Albania and settled in areas that were formerly controlled by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” (reforming letters was done by the author of the text, does not exist in the indictment).

This is a partial truth, expressed in a tilted language that represents bias. Sounds like Albanian refugees and KLA soldiers invaded Kosovo. Should they stay in Albania? They returned home, and the Yugoslav forces in Serbia did the same.

Suppose specialised prosecutors wanted to rewrite the history of the Kosovo war. They failed terribly by any standard of evidence. Unfortunately, their parallel universe is the framework in which KLA leaders, now on trial, will be tried. That's some justice!

Anna Di Lelio legalizes international relations and security at New York University and New York New School.