Berishaj after The Hague ruling: Kosovo will not allow the verdict to be used against it

The ruling by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague against former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi and KLA commanders for war crimes has raised questions about the message the court has sent to Kosovo, Serbia and the Western Balkans, as well as whether the judgment represents a new blow to peace in the region.

In an interview with Croatian broadcaster HRT, Kosovo’s ambassador to Croatia, Martin Berishaj, described the sentences as draconian. He also questioned the credibility of some of the testimony on which the verdict was based.

Berishaj stressed that the Hague Tribunal should not be confused with the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, which are based in The Hague.

According to him, the two institutions have nothing in common. He said the Kosovo Specialist Council, based in The Hague, was established by the Kosovo Assembly with a three-quarters majority.

The ambassador also noted that this was a first-instance ruling that has not yet become final. Commenting on the reactions following its announcement, he said there was widespread outrage in Kosovo.

“We must not underestimate the emotions that have arisen among citizens,” Berishaj said.

He rejected claims that the KLA was a criminalized organization, stressing that the proceedings concern individual rather than collective responsibility.

According to Berishaj, Kosovo’s citizens have not forgotten the crimes committed during the war or the fate of the Albanians who were killed and whose bodies were taken to Serbia in an effort to conceal the crimes.

“The Kosovo Liberation Army did not fight outside Kosovo. It defended its own homes, its own life and the lives of its families,” he said.

Berishaj said that, in the long term, the verdict would not serve the policies of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, although Vučić could, in his view, exploit it during the election campaign. He described this as an attempt to relativize guilt or division, adding that the wind currently at the back of Serbian politics ahead of the elections would die down very quickly. Berishaj reiterated that this was only the first ruling and not the final one.

He said Kosovo would continue its serious dialogue with its allies, first and foremost the United States, and would not allow the judgment to be used to strengthen such a policy in the long term. Berishaj also rejected the claim that the ruling calls the legitimacy of Kosovo’s independence into question.

According to him, such a theory has no basis in either fact or law. Berishaj recalled that Kosovo declared independence in 2008 and that the International Court of Justice found that its declaration was not contrary to international law.