Haradinaj in the Hague

The decision that Ramush Haradinaj, the former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and later prime minister of Kosovo, should again stand trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague has shocked and disappointed most Kosovo Albanians.

Haradinaj is due to retake the stand on Thursday, and will face six war crimes charges for murder, cruel treatment and torture, allegedly against civilians and prisoners of war during the Kosovo war of 1998 and 1999. This battle pitched the totalitarian Serb regime of Slobodan Milosevic against what Belgrade saw as the renegade Serb region of Kosovo.

Most people in Kosovo, however, do not believe the judges' claim that fresh evidence and new witnesses against Haradinaj have surfaced, thereby making a second trial necessary. Instead, overriding public opinion is that this trial is an political gesture towards Serbia, as the international court seeks to display a veneer of impartiality. In the opinion of many in Kosovo, you can't apply the same standards to both the perpetrators and the victims of attacks.

Justice for all?

Thomas Brey heads the Balkan office of the German dpa news agency, and has encountered similar viewpoints in several other countries that made up the former Yugoslavia. He acknowledges that the far more powerful Yugoslavian army committed many crimes and injustices.

"The key question, though, to be posed in the case of Croatia, Bosnia or indeed Kosovo, is whether other war criminals - Albanians in this instance – are therefore justified in committing all manner of atrocities without facing punishment," Brey said. "That's just not on, if there were individual crimes committed on the Albanian side, then clearly these must be punished as well."

For Behxhet Shala, head of the local Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms NGO, Kosovo Albanians are prepared to let war crimes be identified as such and be tried in court. However, Shala posits that the real problem lies with the international justice system, which selectively chooses who should stand trial.

"People should also stand trial for crimes against Albanians; justice must be the same for all," Shala said.

The Hague losing its sheen

Decisions reached in the Hague by the ICTY are being received with increasing skepticism in Kosovo, although the organization was widely held in high esteem in the years immediately after the Kosovo war. International institutions once had a strong reputation but people in Kosovo now tend to think that the court is often politically influenced. Critical comments from the court's former chief prosecutors, Louise Arbour and Carla del Ponte, have helped cement this perception.

"These impressions were formed during the trial against Slobodan Milosevic, which could only be half-completed before the defendant's death because it was constantly delayed," said journalist and member of the Club for Foreign Policy think tank in Pristina, Adrian Arifaj. The former Yugoslav dictator Milosevic, who had insisted on defending himself, kept finding new reasons to delay his trial.

Arifaj also points to the subsequent acquittal of former KLA member Fatmir Limaj, a controversial decision in the eyes of many Kosovo Albanians, especially as he has since become a prominent politician in the ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo party, and is often considered the right hand of Prime Minister Hashim Thaci.

"But even the [first] trial against Haradinaj was met with reservations," Arifaj added. The ICTY chief prosecutor at the time of Haradinaj's acquittal, Carla del Ponte, said she suspected widespread intimidation of witnesses.

Top-down justice

Even the convictions against several of Milosevic's closest allies for their role in the conflict in Kosovo fail to quell the dissatisfaction.

"It's true that not just Milosevic, but also five of his closest colleagues appeared before the ICTY. But nobody who actually committed an atrocity against an Albanian has ever appeared in court in the Hague," Adrian Arifaj said.

Arifaj was referring to a desire shared by many Albanians in Kosovo, namely that the court should be trying those people who really have blood on their hands. However, this goes against one of the ICTY's core principles. Under UN guidelines, the court prioritizes towards the top of the chain of command. Under international law, ordering a war crime is just as illegal as committing one and people who plan atrocities or set them in motion are subject to the toughest penalties, not the soldiers who carry out the orders.

Putting aside this prioritizing, and the persistent suspicions in Kosovo that trials like Haradinaj's are motivated by outside parties - in this case, Serbia – the slow-moving nature of the ICTY's work is another cause for frustration. Many prosecutions had to be abandoned, more often than not after several key witnesses disappeared.

"Key witnesses were murdered or lost their lives in suspicious circumstances," NGO leader Behxhet Shala said. "It's the international representatives who have done nothing to safeguard the so-called protected witnesses. They promised witnesses new identities and asylum in a neutral country, and then failed to deliver on any of these promises."

Author: Auron Dodi / msh
Editor: Susan Houlton