I run a nonpartisan think-tank, so, for the most part, I don’t offer public opinions because that’s the nature of the job. I’m taking a break from those duties today to let the Albanian Kosovar refugee take the keyboard.
The ruling on Sept. 16 by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a project run by The Hague, gave 81 years of combined prison sentences to four Albanian Kosovars who led the revolution against Serbia’s ethnic cleansing campaign. In the late 1990s, Serbia, led by Slobodan Milosevic, waged a war to cleanse Kosovo of its 90% Albanian population. The Kosovo Liberation Army was the guerrilla group created to fight back.
The four men, including former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, were found guilty of the KLA’s actions in allegedly killing 96 individuals, torturing 303, wrongfully detaining 385, and treating an additional 49 people cruelly.
I’m not writing this to complain about the punishment handed out by the court. That is between those four men and their lawyers to decide if they want to appeal the decision.
What I’m upset about is the abysmal level of accountability for the 8,600 Albanian civilians slaughtered by the Serbian forces during the conflict. They also displaced over 1 million people by burning their homes, imprisoning and torturing civilians by the thousands, and sexually assaulting an estimated 20,000 girls, boys, women, and men.
To date, only five individuals have been held accountable with prison sentences amounting to a total of 107 years. The math isn’t mathing. Four Albanians got 81 years for the killing of 96. Six Serbs got 107 years for terrorizing a country in an effort to empty it. Slobodan Milosevic died during his trial at The Hague. Instead of finishing the trial, The Hague just moved on without a verdict.
So, Kosovo handed over its president to The Hague. Who’s leading Serbia? Aleksandar Vucic. This guy would outrank Darth Vader in the Empire. He was Milosevic’s Minister of Information during the conflict. His restriction of the free press during the conflict, having to approve everything printed or broadcast, would make North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un proud.
He’s an old pro at ethnic cleansing since Kosovo was his second war. There’s a 1994 video interview of him saying he went to Sarajevo as a volunteer. Thirty-plus years later, there’s an Italian investigation alleging Serbian forces brought foreigners who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to shoot civilians from the hills of Sarajevo. The highest cost was reserved for the shooting of children. You read that right. A premium price for the wanton murder of children.
There’s another video of Vucic holding a sniper rifle in a Jewish cemetery, a known position for those shootings. Croatian journalist Domagoj Margetic and Serbian Lawyer Cedomir Stojakovic have been pressing for investigations. Vucic claims it was an umbrella. An umbrella! So far, those with the might to do something are buying it.
They have given Vucic and those who committed the autocracy in Bosnia and Kosovo the reassurance that courts will only punish those who cooperate, and never the criminals who refuse. The Kosovo Specialist Chambers were created by the Kosovo Assembly hoping to find fairness at The Hague. It handed over its president. Serbia’s Milosevic died before a verdict, and his minister of information is now the country’s president.
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To bring this full circle, I am angry because I was there and witnessed it firsthand. The Serbian forces came through my village, killing all the disabled who couldn’t run. They burned our homes, barns, and killed our animals, so those who made it had nothing to come back to. Many of those who could run were massacred in an ambush at Studime. No one was held accountable, and it doesn’t look like anyone ever will.
Where is the justice? There are only the lessons taken by Vucic. He’s taking victory laps as Europe gives him the excuse that “both sides were bad.” His genocidal dream for Kosovo is alive, and Serbia’s buildup of troops at the Kosovo border is the evidence.
Dr. Ferki Ferati is a U.S. citizen living in Erie, Pennsylvania. He relocated to the United States as a 16-year-old refugee from Kosovo in 1999.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
