Monument to the 37th Brigade in Serbia, Kuçi Criticizes Its Glorification

Professor Gurakuç Kuçi has reacted to the unveiling in Raška of a monument dedicated to the Yugoslav Army’s 37th Motorized Brigade, a unit that he says is linked to the killing of around 1,400 Albanian civilians during the war in Kosovo.

Kuçi said the ceremony, which was also attended by Serbian officials, sends a message glorifying crimes and undermines efforts to clarify the fate of missing persons. In his assessment, such actions contradict claims of reconciliation and the normalization of relations in the region.

In his response, Kuçi emphasized that while Kosovo is searching for the missing, Serbia is honoring a brigade linked to their killing and concealment.

He wrote that Serbia has erected a memorial to the Yugoslav Army’s 37th Motorized Brigade, whose members bear responsibility for the killing of around 1,400 civilians in Kosovo.

According to Kuçi, while excavations are underway in Kalludër e Vogël, in northern Kosovo, to find the remains of Albanians who disappeared as a result of Serbian crimes, Serbia is not only arresting as “spies” people who provide information about the missing and mass graves, but is now also erecting monuments to formations linked to these crimes.

The monument in Raška was unveiled during a ceremony attended by Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Ivica Dačić, as well as the brigade’s former commander, Ljubiša Diković.

In his speech, Dačić said members of the unit had served “with honor,” describing Serbian fighters as “war heroes, not war criminals.” He added that the monument should remain for future generations as a “silent teacher of history.”

Kuçi questioned what version of history was being passed on to future generations in this way.

According to him, such commemoration subjects the crimes and their perpetrators to a collective amnesty. The message being conveyed, he argued, is that anyone who commits crimes against Albanians will not only go unpunished by Serbia but may even be honored as a hero.

Data from the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade show that around 1,400 civilians were killed while the 37th Brigade was active in Drenica. The file related to commander Ljubiša Diković documents seven crimes in which brigade members participated and more than 450 Albanian civilians were killed.

In Izbicë, after Albanian men were separated from the women and children, more than 100 of them were executed, most of them elderly.

At least 41 Albanian civilians were killed in Rezallë on April 5, 1999. Many years later, the bodies of 27 victims were discovered in the mass grave at Rudnica in Serbia, while another ten people remained missing.

On April 17, 1999, 27 Albanian civilians were killed in Çikatovë e Vjetër. The remains of 20 of them were also found in Rudnica.

In Qirez, Serbian forces detained, raped and abused women and girls, some of whom were pregnant. Five rape victims, along with three elderly women, were killed and their bodies thrown into wells.

In Shavarinat, more than 100 detained Albanian men were executed in groups near mining pits. Another thirteen prisoners were taken for forced labor near sites where bodies were being handled and subsequently disappeared.

In Vërboc and the surrounding villages, 92 Albanians were killed. In Baks, eight men were captured, beaten and robbed before being executed.

Dozens of Albanian civilians were killed in Lower Studime. The victims included 12 members of the Gërxhaliu family, five of them minors. The 37th Brigade had provided artillery support for this operation.

In Lower Zabel and Gllanasellë, civilians were forcibly taken away, killed or disappeared, while their remains were transported to Rudnica.

The remains of a total of 52 Albanian civilians were identified in this mass grave. Of these, 27 were from Rezallë, 20 from Çikatovë e Vjetër, four from Lower Zabel and one from Gllanasellë.

Military documentation shows that the 37th Brigade was responsible for what was called “battlefield cleanup.” The unit’s structures were aware of the victims’ bodies, but they were not identified or returned to their families.

The bodies were removed from Kosovo and transported around 100 kilometers into Serbian territory, where they remained concealed in a mass grave for nearly 15 years.

Kuçi emphasized that instead of making the documents available and helping to clarify the fate of missing persons, Serbia has classified the files concerning the brigade’s activities. Even after requests submitted by Kosovo and the Humanitarian Law Center, these materials remain sealed.

Just a few weeks earlier, Snežana Paunović, a minister in the Serbian government and deputy leader of Dačić’s party, had said that if she had been in Slobodan Milošević’s position in 1998, she would have “ethnically cleansed Kosovo.”

Dačić did not distance himself from the statement. Instead, he defended Paunović and shifted the discussion away from the idea of ethnic cleansing itself to the words that had been used.

According to Kuçi, the same Dačić who defended the use of ethnic-cleansing rhetoric against Albanians is now attending a ceremony dedicated to a brigade linked to massacres, expulsions, disappearances and the concealment of Albanian victims’ bodies.

He said this demonstrates that the glorification of crimes and the idea of ethnically cleansing Albanians are not isolated incidents. On the contrary, according to him, they are part of a state policy that mobilizes Serbian society through the message that people who carry out “heroic” actions against Albanians will not face prosecution.

Kuçi concluded that following these overt actions by Serbia, neither the Serbian side nor international mediators can speak seriously about reconciliation or normalization. According to him, this cannot happen as long as a candidate state for membership in the European Union erects monuments to criminals, defends statements advocating ethnic cleansing and refuses to open archives related to the missing.