Close the Special Court!

A waste of time and a waste of resources for an institution that discriminates among ethnicities in Kosovo and acts as a political actor

By Harry Bajraktari

The Kosovo Special Chamber (nominated as Special Court) has tarnished its figure by interfering with a political process: The US initiative to mediate between Kosovo and Serbia.

Her prosecutor's office made public a possible indictment against Hashim Thaci's president, while he was flying towards Washington for a meeting with Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vuciq.

Thaci immediately interrupted his trip, and by means of a public department he promised to resign if he is truly indicted. He reiterated his belief that he will prove innocent.

I have criticised Thaci in the past and have expressed my doubts about any talks with Serbia involving border changes. However, I support his statement and share his suspicion of this gross abuse by the Special Court.

Kosovo. Its establishment in 2015 was made with a decision by the Kosovo Parliament, through unprecedented pressure from the international community. Many MPs voted on the basis of information that clear evidence of war crimes existed. The Special Court began work soon afterward in 2016. There is no logic that nothing happened in all these years, and finally, a possible indictment was made public only when Thaci left for Washington to start negotiations. This indictment could have been filed three months ago. Or six months ago. Or a year ago. Or after days after talks in Washington. Especially since it was not really an official indictment, it was a request for a lawsuit. What is its publicity at this time other than a political movement? A rash act, after years of drowsiness.

I'm letting political analysts and opinionists find out why and from whom US-mediated talks were sabotaged. However, it is important to consider the role of the Special Court here.

Last year similarly, Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj was ordered to appear at The Hague. He obeyed and immediately resigned from the prime minister's post. The moment was still suspicious. Haradinaj was resisting major international pressure to annul the fee against Serbian goods. Maybe these are just coincidences, but once again the Special Court was caught committing actions that have more political effect than value to justice. It should not be forgotten that Haradinaj was already tried twice at The Hague's famous Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Like nobody else in history. And he was both recently declared innocent.

But even without such actions tarnished by politics, the Special Court remains deeply problematic and discriminated against at its core. It is designed to persecute only Albanians in a multiethnic state. This is an insult to any principle the international community has preached in our region. On the one hand, justice has failed in the persecution of war criminals who killed thousands of civilians, raped over twenty thousand Albanian girls and women, forced out over one million Albanians from their lands, destroyed hundreds of cult objects, burned and stole the entire country. On the other hand, the only group that a court now exists is a group of young people who stood up to protect their homes, families, and their freedom.

Even the very establishment of the Special Court now seems not like an attempt to bring justice, but as a political acrobat to create equality between parties, a kind of ugly expression of durability, comparing the aggressor to the victim.

We are forever grateful to the Kosovo Liberation Army for its struggle for freedom and democracy.

Members of the KLA, whose leaders are threatened by the Special Court today, did not go to Belgrade or to Serbian cities to fight and kill. On the contrary, Serbian military cars and paramilitary gangsters came to them. To their families, their lives, to commit genocide. Milosevic's regime needed a new struggle to survive and imposed a new war on them. But both the world and the young people who joined the KLA had seen what had happened in Bosnia and decided to protect their families, homes, and freedom at all costs.

While the aggressor Serbia has not condemned its war criminals, has not apologised for their crimes, and has offered no compensation for the serious damages of the war in Kosovo, she has easily walked into European integration. Her foreign minister, Ivica Dacic, has been the minister of information in the Milosevic regime. President Vuciq has been deputy leader of Serbia's fascist Vojislav Seselj and promoter of war crimes in Bosnia. The international community should be ashamed to treat these war crimes apologys as respected partners.

And it is certainly not the president of Serbia, but the one of Kosovo who is threatened with court today. Not the people who tried to commit genocide, but those who resisted them are under investigation.

What irony the establishment of this Special Anti-Albanian Court at a time when Serbia is not being held accountable for its state terrorism in the 1990s. When its leaders are not even showing any regrets about what happened. On the contrary, they are making fun of victims and their cries of justice and treating them as if they were criminals.

If the Special Court does not expand its work to include the crimes of all ethnicities in Kosovo and promises not to get involved in political issues, then Kosovo's Assembly must review its decision and, as well as the status of this court. The double standards clearly applied are an insult to war victims. If you cannot establish justice, at least don't mock them.

Harry Bajraktari is founder and editor of the newspaper Illyria (1991-1998), a leader of the Albanian-American community, philanthropy and the beneficiary of many awards, including the Honor of the Order of the Nation by the President of Albania, the President of the Presidential Medal of Kosovo for Meritas & White Presidential Call of the House for Service Amim.