Kosovo MPs Declare ‘Liberation War’ Just and Fair

The Kosovo Assembly discussing the resolution on the KLA. Photo: BIRN.

MPs on Friday voted overwhelmingly in favour of the resolution defining the KLA’s war as a just struggle against Serbian forces for Kosovo’s liberation, after more than 11 hours of sometimes heated parliamentary debate the previous day.

“Kosovo’s liberation war, led by the KLA, aimed at Kosovo’s liberation… with a defensive and liberating character, respecting the correct and highest standards of war, directed exclusively against military, police and the occupying administration of Serbia in Kosovo, was the armed war of the people of Kosovo, which is protected and cherished by all citizens and institutions of the Republic of Kosovo,” the resolution says.

It also says that former KLA members played a decisive role in bringing freedom and independence to Kosovo’s people and therefore must have state support, and pledges that within six months, parliament must approve a law to protect the KLA’s values and its war for liberation.

The parliamentary session was called after an appeals court on Monday upheld a verdict convicting ten former fighters from the KLA’s ‘Drenica Group’ of war crimes including murder and torture.

Among those convicted was the former general commander of the KLA, Sylejman Selimi, who went on to become Pristina’s ambassador to Albania and head the Kosovo Security Force.

During the parliamentary session, Assembly chairman Kadri Veseli criticised the verdict.

“Justice and truth cannot be separated. It is known who the victim was and who the aggressor was. The aggressor and the victim can never be equal,” Veseli said.

This resolution was supported by governing and opposition parties – the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK, and the NISMA (Initiative for Kosovo) party.

But the opposition Vetevendosje (Self-Determination) party abstained and proposed another draft seeking to protect ‘KLA values’ as well as repealing legal provisions enabling the establishment of a new Hague-based Special Court which will try KLA members for crimes committed during and after the war.

However NISMA leader Fatmir Limaj, who was acquitted of war crimes by the Hague Tribunal, criticised the parliamentary session as a flagrant interference in the justice system.

“Today we are making another mistake after many we have made…We know that this session damages and doesn’t help those people,” said Limaj, who was a KLA commander in the Pashtriku area during the war.

Vetevendosje MP Rexhep Selimi, another former senior figure KLA figure, meanwhile described the session as “hypocrisy”, saying that MPs who voted to establish the Special Court had no right to speak in parliamentary about the convictions of former KLA members.

Thursday’s parliamentary debate was sometimes marred by personal insults and derogatory language, as MPs heatedly talked about other lawmakers being ‘patriots’ or ‘traitors’.

NISMA MP Zafir Berisha accused President Hashim Thaci, the KLA’s former political leader, of “devaluing” the war through the decisions made by his administration.

“I propose that the first point of the resolution to be: Thaci declared a traitor,” Berisha said.

The debate deteriorated as verbal clashes between opposition Vetevendosje and governing party MPs almost led to physical clashes.

While Vetevendosje’s Glauk Konjufca was making a speech criticising the PDK, PDK MP Nuredin Lushtaku approached the despatch box to remonstrate with him.

Assembly chairman Veseli and other MPs then intervened in order to prevent a physical clash between the two men.

In a separate development on Friday, EU prosecutors in Kosovo withdrawn charges of mistreating of two girls during wartime against three former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Sulejman Selimi, Ismet Haxha and Shekfi Hyseni.