This is not about organ trafficking

I’ve now had a chance to at least skim the charges against Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veseli, and other KLA leaders indicted by the Specialist Chambers in The Hague. While triggered by the Marty report, the Specialist Chambers have adopted an expansive definition of the crimes they were investigating. I can’t even be sure from the redacted indictment whether it includes charges related to the organ-trafficking Marty alleged without, he himself admitted, sufficient evidence to stand up in court. If those crimes at the “yellow house” in northern Albania are included in this indictment, they are a small part of the whole.

What the court has done is to charge the KLA leadership with being a joint criminal enterprise that intentionally committed many and widespread war crimes and crimes against humanity. The victims were non-combatant civilian “opponents,” whose ethnic identity is not specified but clearly include Albanians as well as Serbs.

There will be many people in Serbia and some in Kosovo who rejoice at this indictment. The crimes, sometimes according to the indictment itself committed in the aftermath of Serb abuses against civilians, were apparent at the time of the war and in its aftermath. What the prosecutor seeks to show is that the criminality was not spontaneous or undisciplined behavior but rather an organized, concerted effort directed by the top KLA leadership.

Many of the details are redacted in the public version of the indictment, but some will presumably become public as the court proceeds with witnesses and other evidence. The defense will deny the charges. We’ll then all have a chance to judge for ourselves the validity of the prosecutor’s portrait of the KLA,

But what is already clear is the one-sided character of this judicial effort. Holding people accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity has to be welcomed, but to do it for the KLA and not the Serbian security forces, which killed many more civilians than the KLA, is cockeyed. It is difficult not to see the current charges as part of a dramatic American tilt in Serbia’s direction and against Kosovo. While the Specialist Chambers pre-date President Trump, the current prosecutor was a Trump selection.

There were already three trials of Serbs at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia involving Kosovo. Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died before his was completed. In the two others, six high officials of Yugoslavia and Serbia were convicted. They too were charged with a joint criminal enterprise, one aimed against Kosovo’s Albanians that explicitly sought to change the ethnic composition of the population.

If I read the Specialist Chambers’ mandate correctly, it does have jurisdiction over Serbian perpetrators in Kosovo during the period 1 January 1998-31 December 2000, though the Serbian parliament, unlike the Kosovo Assembly, has not agreed. The prosecutor’s claim to being fair would be much stronger if he had filed charges as well against Serbian commanders active in Kosovo during that time. There are commanders who were directly responsible for war crimes in Kosovo, and for the murder of three American Albanians in Serbia shortly after the war, who are still enjoying prominent positions in Serbian politics and the security forces.

Whether Serb or Albanian, those charged are innocent until proven guilty, at least in court. But in the public mind the KLA will be tarred by these proceedings while the Serbs will be seen in Kosovo as getting off. Even those Albanians who opposed violence at the time–and were potential victims according to this indictment–will feel compelled to defend resistance to Serbian abuses. The political impact in both Serbia and Kosovo could be substantial. Let us hope it will be in favor of greater mutual understanding and reconciliation, but I have my doubts.