On September 16, after more than two years of trial, The Hague will give Kosovo a verdict on four of its most notorious wartime figures: Hashim Thaçi, Rexhep Selimi, Kadri Veseli and Jakup Krasniqi. They are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity – charges to which they have pleaded not guilty. But away from the courtroom, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty travelled across Kosovo – from the villages of Drenica, where the war and the KLA are still part of everyday memory, to the cities where a generation born after the war watches that history from afar – to hear what September 16 means to them.
About two thousand kilometers from The Hague in the Netherlands is the village of Burojë i Skënderaj, the birthplace of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi, now in custody in The Hague for almost six years. For Kadri Thaçi, a fellow villager and close to the former president’s family, the verdict expected on September 16 is not simply a court decision. After more than two years of trial, that day the Special Court A few kilometers further, in the heart of Drenica, is Likoci i Drenasit. The two villages are close to each other, but Likoci has a special place in the history of the KLA war.
Although he hopes for their release, the mere thought of a possible sentence weighs on him. For him, the charges against Thaçi do not match the man he knew. He describes the former KLA leader as “a very gentle man, a very good man, a very loving man” and says that, since childhood, he was “special” in the village. Now, almost six years after Thaçi, Selimi, Veseli and Krasniqi have been in custody in The Hague, in Burojë the process has become part of daily conversations among fellow villagers. Not far from it is the car wash of Nusret Kadriu, a KLA veteran. As a comrade-in-arms of the accused, the 45-year-old says that he has constantly followed the process, which has been very emotional for him. He was still young and had just started working as a music teacher when he decided to join the KLA.
Now, more than two decades later, he feels that he too is being tried alongside the four accused in the Specialist Chambers in The Hague. Both Kadriu and his fellow villager, Dritani, are convinced that September 16 will be a day of celebration. Dritani, who has lived in Austria for decades, says that the Wednesday of the verdict will find him in The Hague, outside the Kosovo Specialist Chambers. Convinced that the four accused will be found innocent, he will set off with the idea of celebrating with other members of the diaspora who had fled Kosovo due to the 98-99 war. But, although certain that they will be found innocent, for him this court, in itself, is “unfair and evil.” The Specialist Court was established in 2015, following investigations launched into allegations of serious crimes committed during and after the war in Kosovo. The process of its creation was linked to the 2011 Council of Europe report, led by Swiss senator Dick Marty, and to the subsequent investigations of the EU Special Task Force.
The aim was for these allegations to be investigated and, if there was sufficient evidence, prosecuted in an independent process protected from the interference and pressure that could accompany sensitive cases in Kosovo. But, like Dritani, skepticism towards this court is also expressed by citizens in Suhareka, where a large part of the families have a direct connection to the diaspora. In relation to the number of inhabitants, this municipality has one of the highest percentages of people living outside Kosovo. For many of them, the departure had begun even before the war. Jemin Buzhala, from Budakova, is one of them. He has lived in Italy for 18 years and is optimistically awaiting the decision on September 16. “We are waiting for it with joy. The departure of the KLA, plus the arrival of the joint international forces… we achieved what we wanted,” says Buzhala, adding that he is convinced that Kosovars will have reason to celebrate on September 16 as well.
Hasan Selimi, from Suhareka, has also lived in exile since 1977. But although he had gone to Switzerland in his early 20s, the now 70-year-old says he has been constantly informed about the war in Kosovo and the trial in The Hague. “There is no reason for them to be punished. But if politics decides, and not justice, then that is another matter,” says Selimi. The indictment against Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi includes six counts of crimes against humanity and four of war crimes. According to the Prosecution, the alleged crimes, including murder, torture, persecution, imprisonment and enforced disappearance, were committed by members of the KLA against hundreds of civilians and persons not taking part in the fighting, in several locations in Kosovo and northern Albania, from March 1998 to September 1999. They have pleaded not guilty to these charges. In the Hague indictment, Llapashtica in Podujevo is mentioned as one of the locations where, according to the Prosecution, detainees were held during the war.
According to the indictment, from November 1998 to March 1999, at least 52 people were held in a facility near the Llapi Operational Zone Headquarters, without due process of law. Burim Muçiqi was eight years old when the war in Llapashtica began. He remembers the morning of December 24, 1998, when the shelling began at around seven o’clock and his family took refuge in a basement. School was interrupted and the villagers, children and the elderly, set off towards Popova, another village in Podujeva. Today, he follows the process in The Hague with the memory of those days, convinced that the accusations against the former KLA leaders are unfounded. Just a few meters from his house is the house that once housed the Llapi zone headquarters. It was burned down during the war in Kosovo, but the owners have rebuilt it to have a similar appearance.
The doors and windows are where they were, while the color of the house is the only major difference in this building. KLA veteran Muharrem Muçiqi stands in front of this house as he talks about how he remembers the war in this area. He says that in Llapashtica there was constant pressure from Serbian forces even before the KLA was established there. According to him, the arrival of the soldiers brought greater organization to the area, while he himself joined the KLA on May 20, 1998.
This house in Llapashtica now does not even have a plaque indicating that the Llap Zone Headquarters was located there. In other parts of the village, there are no numerous KLA symbols or flags, as in the Drenica area. However, Muharrem and other residents say they are waiting for the release of the accused in The Hague. He believes that “justice” can only be said to exist if they are found innocent, while their conviction would be an “injustice” motivated by political goals. His stance on the Special Court is not unusual in Kosovo. Data from the Group for Legal and Political Studies shows that Kosovo citizens have given this court an average of 2.56 points out of 5, when asked how much they trust it to deliver justice fairly and independently.
Many other citizens across Kosovo, who declined to speak on camera about the subject, said they expect Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi, and Jakup Krasniqi to be released. Since their arrest and transfer to The Hague in November 2020, several protests have been organized in Kosovo and abroad in support of the former KLA leaders.
Meanwhile, despite following developments in The Hague, many members of the Serbian community in Kosovo have refused to comment publicly. They said they fear the tensions and reactions their statements might provoke.
But Jasmina Živković feels no fear. When she thinks of the Special Court, she feels only disappointment. Now 27 years old, she has been seeking to learn what happened to her father, who is among the estimated 1.600 people missing from the last war in Kosovo. Her family, she says, reported the case to KFOR, UNMIK, the Red Cross and other international institutions operating in Kosovo at the time. She had hoped that the Special Court and the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office would help solve the cases of missing persons. But the timing of her father’s disappearance – September 28, 1999 – put the case outside the time frame of the current indictment, which covers alleged crimes from March 1998 to early September 1999. For that reason, she does not expect the September 16 ruling to change much for her personally. Zivkovic says she has lost hope that this process will shed light on her father’s fate and believes the trial has been more about political clashes than about the victims. (REL)