[Prishtina-E] [Kcc-News] 1) Kosovo: KLA Trial Backlash; 2) Comment: Kosovars Must Confront Their Demons

[Mentor Cana]

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  Kosova Crisis Center (KCC) News: http://www.alb-net.com/index.htm
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1. Kosovo: KLA Trial Backlash, By Arben Qirezi
2. Comment: Kosovars Must Confront Their Demons, By Natasa Kandic


### 1 ###

http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr3/bcr3_200307_449_1_eng.txt

Kosovo: KLA Trial Backlash

International officials in Kosovo are feeling the heat following the
jailing of former KLA rebels.

By Arben Qirezi in Pristina (BCR No 449, 31-Jul-03)

The first war crimes trial of former Kosovo Liberation Army members
threatens to inflict a serious blow to international efforts to establish
the rule of law in Kosovo.

Following the sentencing of the Llap/Lap group of ex-KLA fighters on July
16, the international police and judiciary stationed in the region have
been subjected to a wave of violence.

There were two synchronized bomb attacks in Pristina on July 20. A
rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the district court building, causing
significant damage. One minute later, an explosion outside a police station
damaged a UN police vehicle. There were no casualties.

Earlier, on July 17, a hand grenade exploded outside the police station in
Podujeva/Podujevo, northeast of Pristina, the birthplace of the four
convicted persons. Two days later, KFOR disposed of a grenade found on the
street just behind the capital's district court. On the same day, 15 UN
police vehicles were vandalized overnight in Pristina and Peja/Pec, in
western Kosovo - those in the latter daubed with the word "occupier" in
Albanian.

Local political leaders in Kosovo condemned the incidents, saying they
jeopardised the rule of law.

Although no organisation has admitted responsibility for the incidents,
they are widely believed to be connected to the outcome of the Llap/Lap
group trial.

The five-month judicial process under the British judge Timothy Clayson
resulted in four ex-KLA men being jailed for 45 years. Rrustem
Mustafa-Remi, former commander of the KLA in northeastern Kosovo, was
sentenced to 17 years, Nazim Mehmeti to 13, Latif Gashi to 10 and Naim
Kadriu to seven, for torture, kidnapping and inhuman treatment of civilians
during the Kosovo conflict in 1998 and 1999.

They were found guilty of illegally detaining and torturing 11 ethnic
Albanians and one Serb, and of executing six Albanians suspected of
collaborating with the Serb regime.

UNMIK police chief Stephan Feller said at the press conference that the
wave of attacks was clearly connected to the trial verdict, adding that the
aim was to disrupt police work and justice in Kosovo. He said UNMIK was
lucky there had been no casualties.

Another UNMIK official told IWPR they were probably warning attacks,
suggesting that there may be more if further trials were staged.

After Serb forces withdrew from Kosovo, UNMIK filled the security and
administrative vacuum, bringing in international police, foreign judges and
prosecutors to deal with issues such as organised crime, ethnic violence
and war crimes.

There are now 4,472 international police officers there, working with 6,000
local police officers trained in an OSCE-run police training facility in
Vushtri/Vucitrn.

The justice system is served by 14 international judges and 12
international prosecutors who deal exclusively with tough cases from which
local judicial personnel have been excluded on grounds of potential bias.

Despite widespread public criticism for allegedly holding
politically-motivated trials that have "criminalised" the struggle against
Serb rule, UNMIK insists it will continue to prosecute perpetrators of
atrocities and other crimes involving former KLA members.

Just before he finished his mission in early July, UNMIK chief Michael
Steiner promulgated a new criminal code for the region, giving more powers
to international prosecutors to investigate atrocities and other serious
crimes. The code also provides for more effective witness-protection, which
is one of the biggest obstacles currently hampering prosecutions.

This, however, might bring more trouble for the international authorities
in Kosovo.

Reflecting the general mood amongst Albanians, Kreshnik Gashi, a student
from Pristina, told IWPR, "No one disputes UNMIK's authority to stage war
crimes trials. However, the length of the sentence given to Remi and his
group shows its bias, because no Serb has ever been sentenced for such a
long term by international judges, even though they have been tried for
crimes which have exceeded the allegations against Remi and his group, both
in the number of people killed, and the means used to do those killings."

There are suggestions that the motives for the attacks on the
internationals are not only connected to the outcome of the trial, but also
reflect deeper dissatisfaction with the overall policy of the international
community in Kosovo.

Sahit Berisha, a history teacher in a secondary school in Pristina,
expressed the view held in some circles that the trials of the former KLA
men are just an indication of the UNMIK policy to return Kosovo to Serbia.
"These bombs are an initial reaction for something bigger which might erupt
if the international community doesn't stop pushing Kosovo towards Serbia,"
he said.

UNMIK says the spate of recent attacks will not deflect the force from its
stated policy of zero tolerance against crime. The police "will not be
intimidated by such criminal acts", Feller said.

However, UNMIK may be more vulnerable than its top officials care to admit.
The justice system relies on international personnel leant by various
governments for its work. They may prove reluctant to contribute more staff
in the future, if attacks against them persist.

Arben Qirezi is an IWPR contributor in Pristina.



### 2 ###

Comment: Kosovars Must Confront Their Demons

Facing up to the past cannot be confined to demanding justice for crimes
committed by others.

By Natasa Kandic in Belgrade (BCR No 449, 31-Jul-03)

Albanian public opinion overwhelmingly sees the recent sentencing of the
"Lap group" of former Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, members for war crimes
against Albanian civilians as unjust.

They believe it is politically motivated and will harm the prospects of
reconciliation between Serbs and Albanians.

A panel of international judges jailed the former KLA commander Rrustem
Mustafa to 17 years for ordering the murder of five Kosovo Albanians he
believed had collaborated with the Serbs, and for "failing to prevent
illegal detention" in the Lap region of northern Kosovo during the 1998-99
conflict.

Naziv Mehmeti was sentenced to 13 years, Latif Gashi to 10 and Naim Kadriu
to five.

The oldest Albanian human rights NGO, the Council for Human Rights and
Freedom, damned the sentences as an " UNMIK attempt to criminalise the
KLA's fight for freedom and equalise the liberalisation war and the
struggle for self-defence of Kosovo Albanians with Serbia's genocidal,
destructive war of occupation".

Several actions by extremists in Pristina and Podujevo since the judgment
have contributed to an impression that the international courts in Kosovo
are not accepted as guarantees of justice and rule of law.

The question is why no one in Kosovo supports the international judges'
actions and why the majority rallies behind critics of trials of former KLA
members guilty of war crimes.

Before engaging with this issue, it is important to restate that Serb
forces committed massive, brutal war crimes in the Kosovo conflict as a
result of which the Hague tribunal has indicted several top Serbian
officials.

The former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, was the first, followed
by the Yugoslav army ex-chief of staff, General Dragoljub Ojdanic, the
former federal deputy prime minister, Nikola Sainovic, and the former
Serbian president, Milan Milutinovic. All were indicted for individual and
command responsibility.

Serb crimes committed in Kosovo have also been raised during the Milosevic
trial, though it would take years to document all such atrocities.

Albanians do not object when the tribunal stages trials for war crimes
committed against Albanians. They are also right to think that justice will
not be served only through the court.

When the members of the special police and army units who perpetrated war
crimes in Kosovo are tried in Serbia, it will show the rule of law exists
here, and that Belgrade accepts responsibility for the atrocities committed
under Milosevic.

The truth is that no such trials have taken place in Serbia, although those
who are said to have ordered and perpetrated these crimes rank lower than
the Hague indictees and are accessible to the local courts.

In Kosovo, on the other hand, although there are trials of Serbs alleged to
have committed war crimes in the places previously mentioned, Albanian
public opinion remains dissatisfied with the way international judges are
dispensing justice.

At the root of Albanian dissatisfaction lies a widespread belief that
Albanians were victims and that no such status belongs to Serbian
civilians, or to Albanian and Roma civilians whom the KLA suspected of
collaboration with the Serbs.

No one in Kosovo talks about the murder and disappearances of Serb and Roma
civilians and of alleged Albanian traitors in 1998 and after the
international forces arrived.

Everybody knows that on the very day the Serbian police and the army pulled
out of Kosovo and international forces, KFOR, entered, the hunt began for
those Serbs who remained behind.

But nobody is prepared to talk about it. The remaining Serbs were seen as
war criminals. It was easy to arrest and accuse them of genocide, or of war
crimes. Every Serb murder was justified by the explanation that the victim
was a paramilitary, guilty of genocide. Serbs under arrest were convicted
before their trials started.

When UNMIK nominated its international judges, many Albanians naturally
expected them to sentence every accused Serb on behalf of the murders
committed by the Serb forces.

Trouble began when the international prosecutors started changing the
indictments of the local Albanian prosecutors, as they did with Milos
Jokic. Charged with genocide by local prosecutors, he was released by
international judges.

When Sava Matic, another Kosovo Serb, was acquitted, Albanians protested
outside the court in Prizren. They saw the freeing of a Serb as a denial of
the fact that crimes had even taken place, not as a judicial decision
relating solely to whether this man was guilty or not.

Similarly, they perceive other acquittals of Serbs by international judges
as failed justice, as another sign that the international community is not
on their side.

At heart, there is a deeply-rooted belief that all Serbs are guilty of war
crimes. This is why they feel an injustice every time one is freed by the
courts, regardless of whether there is any evidence that he committed a
crime.

Albanian antipathy towards the international judges presiding over the Lap
group trial mirrors their belief that war crimes were committed only by
Serbs, not by Albanians.

This is why no one in Kosovo recognised the trial as an important legal and
moral lecture to Albanian society. Their sentencing, in fact, showed no one
has the right to take the law into his own hands, not even former KLA men,
such as Mustafa, Gashi, Mehmeti and Kadriu.

Their trial saw the first public mention of the crimes that everyone in
Kosovo knows about but prefers not to talk about, either from fear of
revenge or because they believe the KLA men were right to kill former Serb
collaborators.

The guilty verdict of the international court under Judge Timothy Clayson
has opened a window of opportunity for Kosovo Albanians to reconcile
themselves to their recent past. Facing up to the past cannot be limited to
seeking justice for crimes committed by Serbs.

Just as Serbian society must face up to the crimes committed by the Serbian
police, army, paramilitary units and armed civilians, Albanian society must
confront its own history. Their past was also marked by crimes, committed
against Serbian and Roma civilians, as well as by murders and
disappearances of Albanians accused of cooperation with the Serbs.

Reconciliation between nations only starts when they acknowledge their own
responsibility, thus reinstating the human dignity of the victims of
political and ethnic murders. That is the reason why the sentencing of the
Lap group should be seen as a contribution to Kosovo Albanian society as it
faces up to its own past, not as an obstacle to ethnic reconciliation.

Natasa Kandic is executive director of the Humanitarian Law Centre in
Belgrade.

This is the second article in a series of pieces on the war crimes debate
in Kosovo.
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