Do the right thing
I wrote last October:
There has to be strict accountability for crimes against Serbs if Kosovo is to gain high ground in its international tug of war with Belgrade. The murders in recent weeks have to be made the object of serious investigations leading to arrests and prosecutions. And those who perpetrate these crimes, or who intimidate witnesses, should be viewed as what they are: enemies of a Kosovo state seeking to gain international recognition as a willing and capable defender of the rights of all its citizens.
I confess I do not know if there have been arrests and prosecutions for the murders I was referring to 7 months ago. I’ll be grateful if someone who knows leaves a comment on this post. But in any event what I wrote bears repeating, because it is happening again: threats against Serbs south of the Ibar and an attack on a police checkpoint in the majority Albanian portion of southern Serbia.
I don’t believe in collective guilt or punishment, but I do believe in collective responsibility. People who know better need to restrain the people who commit such crimes and speak out when the restraint fails. There is nothing that can hurt Kosovo’s campaign for international recognition and its effort to be accepted in international organizations more than crimes against Serbs. The perpetrators need to be discouraged, apprehended, tried and convicted. That is what the international community expects of a country that wants to be treated as independent and sovereign.
I met last week with Kosovo’s new crop of ambassadors going abroad. They are a well-educated, talented group, several of whom I’ve known for a long time. But the resources they command are minimal. Kosovo’s moral standing is vital to them. They cannot do their jobs if people in Kosovo are doing things that disgrace the homeland.
Ah, some will say, but you forget the crimes against Albanians! No, I don’t. I remember well hearing Nekibe Kelmendi talk about the murder of her husband and sons. How could anyone forget? And there are thousands of other cases, still unsolved, unprosecuted, unpunished. I don’t excuse Serbia’s failure to pursue these cases, but I have to admit that their failure to do so will have less impact, because Serbia is already a member of the United Nations. Kosovo isn’t.
That’s not fair. Life is not fair. You still have to try to do the right thing.
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In one case, a farmer shot the Serbian owner of some land (which he was refusing to sell) as the Serb was walking through the field with a couple of friends. If I remember right, there was an argument and 1 or 2 of the friends were also injured. The Albanian farmer surrendered to the police the following day. In a reader comment at B92, an Albanian who identified himself as being from the village said the shooter was a local terror – he’d even shot his uncle once.
In another case, a Serb was leaving a bar after meeting with someone around midnight. He was shot by an unknown person as he left the building, and his son, who had been waiting for him in the car, was injured. The police recently reported that a suspect identified only by his initials and age had been taken into custody after he returned to the area. It may be indicative that no name or ethnicity was given – that usually indicates a Serb. Albanians are usually identified as such. It’s not a firm rule, though.
There was another Serb who was killed and dumped into the well in his courtyard. Maybe somebody remembers? I think it was a neighbor-neighbor or family killing.
Based on our experience in the States, where most crimes are intra-ethnic, I wouldn’t be too quick to assume that all the unsolved deaths of Serbs in Kosovo are ethnic hate crimes.
Under what was I’m sure well-intentioned advice from UNMIK, the Kosovo Police didn’t originally break down crimes by the ethnicity of the victim and perpetrator, making it almost impossible to identify how many Serbs had been killed by Albanians, or vice versa. In one of the EULEX annual reports it was suggested that this be changed as a way of improving public confidence in the force.