POLITICO.EU, 23.July 2015.By CHUCK SUDETIC –“ HashimThaçi and other members of Kosovo’s political elite who have been named in Western intelligence reports as organized-crime figures are, the diplomats say, sacrificing the best interests of the Republic of Kosovo and the Kosovars in order to protect themselves from criminal prosecution. They are doing so by defying efforts by Washington and Brussels to establish a special court to undertake prosecutions stemming from allegations that Thaçi and other commanders and soldiers of the Kosovo Albanian insurgency — the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) — were involved in about 400 cases of kidnapping, forced displacement, illegal imprisonment, and murder after NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999”. “The victims of the alleged kidnappings and murders in 1999 and 2000 were mostly members of Kosovo’s Serb, Roma, and other minority groups; but these victims also included a significant number of Albanians who were fingered as Serb “collaborators” or who ran afoul of the KLA’s commanders in other ways. Investigators have accumulated evidence showing that several of the murders were linked with the sale for profit of their victims’ organs, but are still working to amass sufficient evidence to bring indictments against individuals suspected of being involved. European Union officials as well as diplomats from the U.S. and EU member-states said the special court stands to benefit Kosovo’s people, because it will at the very least clear the air of the allegations hanging over dominant members of the government. The court, the diplomats added, might also contribute to a desperately needed cleansing of corrupt officials whose activities stifle the growth of Kosovo’s economy. The Albanians of Kosovo — the Kosovars — revere the United States of America. They also gaze with longing eyes upon their richest near-neighbor, the European Union. And with good reason. The United States and its European NATO allies, after all, carried out the 1999 bombing campaign that wrenched Kosovo from Serbia, and effectively gave it to the 1.7 million Kosovars who comprise about 93 percent of the country’s population. The U.S. and EU member-states delivered the diplomatic clout that resulted in the Republic of Kosovo’s recognition as an independent state by over 100 countries. They have also, along with American and European NGOs, given the Kosovars impressive amounts of financial, legal, and economic assistance. Now the Kosovars are seeking a lifting of EU visa restrictions, which would allow them to travel freely in Europe, as well as the conclusion of a Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU, which would set their country on course for EU membership. Given the support Kosovo has received, and the warmth ordinary Kosovars hold in their hearts for Washington and Brussels, any Kosovar leader who jeopardizes the country’s relationship with the U.S. or who acts in ways that retard or halt Kosovo’s integration with Europe is clearly risking a sharp political or popular backlash, or worse. And yet, according to diplomats who have worked in the Balkans for decades but who spoke only with assurances that they would remain anonymous, the Kosovo Albanians’ most-powerful leaders are on the brink of inflicting unprecedented damage on Kosovo’s relations with the U.S. and the EU. The foremost of these individuals, the diplomats said, is Hashim Thaçi, Kosovo’s former prime minister, now its foreign minister and deputy PM. He is the country’s most-powerful public figure. These Kosovar leaders, the diplomats say, have effectively plied their influence to prevent Kosovo’s parliament from passing a legislative package, including constitutional amendments, that would allow for the special court’s establishment. “If this doesn’t pass, United States relations with this Kosovo government and future Kosovo governments will deteriorate,” said one Western diplomat, referring to the legislative package on the court. “The United States wants to demonstrate the depth of its commitment to have these allegations heard in a credible process.” Any such deterioration would mark a sea change in a friendly relationship that began more than a quarter-century ago, when Serbia’s strongman, Slobodan Milošević, rose to power and resorted to wholesale violence to quash Kosovo’s autonomy within the former socialist Yugoslavia’s Republic of Serbia. “We are all speaking with the same voice, including all the visitors who come from Brussels to discuss changes to the visa regulations and the Stabilization and Association Agreement,” said another diplomat who has represented his European country in Kosovo for years. A U.S. warning:The victims of the alleged kidnappings and murders in 1999 and 2000 were mostly members of Kosovo’s Serb, Roma, and other minority groups; but these victims also included a significant number of Albanians who were fingered as Serb “collaborators” or who ran afoul of the KLA’s commanders in other ways. Investigators have accumulated evidence showing that several of the murders were linked with the sale for profit of their victims’ organs, but are still working to amass sufficient evidence to bring indictments against individuals suspected of being involved. European Union officials as well as diplomats from the U.S. and EU member-states said the special court stands to benefit Kosovo’s people, because it will at the very least clear the air of the allegations hanging over dominant members of the government. The court, the diplomats added, might also contribute to a desperately needed cleansing of corrupt officials whose activities stifle the growth of Kosovo’s economy.The special court would nominally be located in Kosovo and would operate under Kosovo’s own laws. But the court would have foreign prosecutors, judges, and staff and conduct its trials outside Kosovo. Holding such proceedings in the country would expose court officials and, more critically, prospective witnesses and their family members, to violence and intimidation. Gangland killings and intimidation of diplomats are hardly unusual in Kosovo; and the Kosovars’ traditional practice of blood vengeance, which demands retaliation even against family members of a violator, still trumps Western-style rule of law. The latest U.S. warning to Thaçi and other members of Kosovo’s government and assembly came on July 12, when a senior State Department official vigorously urged Kosovar leaders to effect the constitutional changes by August 1. During a series of heated meetings in the country’s capital, Priština, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland informed Kosovar leaders, including Thaçi and another former KLA commander and former prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, that a failure to meet the deadline would result in “consequences” she did not specify, said a Kosovo-based source who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the risks entailed in divulging such information. Diplomats and officials from the U.S. and the European Union states have repeatedly informed Kosovar leaders that, if they fail to see to the adoption of the amendments, the U.S. would neither veto nor otherwise block the establishment, by the United Nations Security Council, of a special UN criminal court to hear the cases. Placing the criminal cases under the jurisdiction of the UN — something Russia has demanded for years — could endanger the Republic of Kosovo’s international standing. It would create an opening for Serbia, which is close to Vladimir Putin’s Russia and has never surrendered sovereignty over Kosovo, to frustrate Kosovo’s wider acceptance as a sovereign state. Kosovo has yet to secure UN membership: Russia and China, permanent members of the Security Council, refuse to recognize its independence. Five EU member-states—Slovakia, Romania, Greece, Cyprus and Spain, with separatist fears of their own—also refuse to recognize the country. Thaçi is behaving like a caged animal” — an international official in Priština: Despite these warnings and despite explicit and repeated assurances by Kosovar leaders that the required constitutional changes would pass, Kosovo’s assembly thumbed its nose at the U.S. and EU on June 26 by voting down the amendments. Thaçi — who for years was the go-to guy in Kosovo for American, European, and UN officials — has religiously expressed public support for the special court and claims to be pressuring recalcitrant deputies in his own party to vote for the amendments. It’s one thing to say he supports the court, but the fact is he’s the one man in Priština who can make it happen, and and it hasn’t. Western diplomats speculate that his outward support is political theater and that Thaçi is working behind the scenes — intimidating members of his own political party — to delay the court’s establishment for as long as possible. Is this, diplomats wonder, because he fears being indicted? Delaying the court’s formation would — through the further loss by attrition of witnesses to crimes committed 16 years ago — weaken the evidence a prosecutor might bring against him and other potential accused. “Thaçi is behaving like a caged animal,” said a senior representative in Priština for a major international organization. “Kosovo’s people would be happy to be rid of him, but they don’t know how to be rid of him. Thaçi controls the government and economic life. There is no chance for new, young leaders to emerge. There is no hope for new businesses to succeed.”
↧