Kosovo’s Veterans and Ministers Are Playing with Fire
Kosovo’s war crimes court, born of its own parliament, now faces political attacks as ministers and veterans risk trading liberation’s legacy for the brittle currency of impunity.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, a court the country created, yet has never embraced, has once again lit the political fuse in Pristina.
Its latest offence? Accepting as evidence a set of documents from Serbian state institutions, including the Ministry of the Interior and the State Security Service, in the war crimes trial of former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leaders. For many Kosovars, this feels like inviting the fox to submit testimony in the trial of the henhouse massacre.
Acting Justice Minister Albulena Haxhiu, of the ruling Vetëvendosje party, erupted in outrage on 31 July, posting on Facebook1:
“This development is profoundly unacceptable. These institutions are part of a regime responsible for systematic violence, war crimes, enforced disappearances, genocide, ethnic cleansing and brutal repression against the people of Kosovo.”
Her fury is not just personal. It reflects a long-standing party doctrine: Vetëvendosje has opposed the Specialist Chambers from the moment it was proposed in 20152, refusing to vote for its creation and branding it a tool of selective justice designed to equate the victim with the aggressor. The KLA, they insist, fought a just war and any attempt to prosecute its members is an affront to that history.
What Is the Kosovo Specialist Chambers?
An EU-backed court, established under Kosovo law in 2015, to investigate and try allegations of war crimes and post-war political killings primarily involving former KLA members. Based in The Hague to protect witnesses and ensure judicial independence.
But history is not just about the past. And in Kosovo’s febrile political climate, the Specialist Chambers has become a stage for the here-and-now a tool for parties to posture, mobilise their base and rewrite the political script ahead of elections.
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