Kosovo Tries Again to Establish War Crimes Research Institute

Pristina. Izvor: Jon Worth

Kosovo’s Justice Ministry decided last week to put together a preparatory team to analyse how to establish a new War Crimes Research Institute, after a previous attempt launched nine years ago was abolished because it did not deliver significant results.

The Justice Ministry has tasked a team of 15 people, including state officials, civil society representatives and university professors, with drafting a report by September this year on how the new institute should function.

Back in 2011, the government set up a previous version of the War Crimes Research Institute as part of the Justice Ministry, to gather, process, classify and archive information about crimes committed during the 1998-99 Kosovo war.

However, the institute was accused of failing to fulfill its mandate, although it claimed that it was making progress despite serious underfunding.

It was abolished in 2018 on the order of then Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj. The decision stated that instead of the institute, a Department of Transitional Justice would be established as part of the Justice Ministry. But this never happened.

The Justice Ministry now says that the new institute will be different, although it has not provided any detailed information about its plans.

“Of course, the War Crimes Institute will differ in format and content from the previous institute. But this will be part of a broader analysis by the preparatory team,” the ministry told BIRN by email.

Ismet Salihu, a recently-retired professor from the Pristina University law faculty who is also the former head of the first War Crimes Research Institute, said that the decision to abolish it was a mistake by former Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas who held senior positions in Haradinaj’s government.

Paradoxically, Kosovo’s politicians have repeatedly accused Serbia of committing genocide and threatened cases at international courts, but so far haven’t managed to ensure that the crimes they accuse Belgrade’s forces of committing are properly documented.

“Kosovo has failed to research and document war crimes. Closing the institute is the biggest proof of this paradoxical failure. It means it will take at least 30 years [from the end of the war in 1999] to research and document the war crimes,” Salihu told BIRN.

When Salihu led the War Crimes Research Institute, it had only six staff members, too few to carry out such a large task, he said.

“We lacked people to work on the ground. How can we research and provide evidence about war crimes committed during the Kosovo war without people to do it in the field?” he asked.

During its mandate, the previous War Crimes Research Institute published nine monographs on the scale of the killings during the war, missing persons, economic damage and the destruction of cultural heritage.

Salihu said that Justice Ministry should learn from countries like Germany, which have such mechanisms as part of government. “First of all, this institute should be staffed and funded properly. It must function as an institute of experts from different fields not as a haven for political party activists [who want jobs despite lacking relevant expertise],” he argued.

‘It is our duty to shed light on the truth’

War victims and the relatives of the deceased and missing are understandably keen to see all violations properly documented.

“This institute should document all the crimes professionally and independently,” urged Agron Limani, head of the Association for Research of the Kidnapped and Missing People.

“Its primary focus should be to investigate and document massacres in Kosovo, and list the victims and perpetrators,” he added.

Currently the only reliable list of those who died in the war is the one compiled by the Humanitarian Law Centre Kosovo and the Humanitarian Law Centre Serbia. They have verified the identities and circumstances of death of over 13,500 victims, and are also gathering additional information about thousands of victims who were killed in the immediate aftermath of the conflict.

Limani said that he thought that the new institute’s findings should form the basis for an unbiased version of history that does not “perpetuate ethnic prejudice” and is not used for political point-scoring.

“The institute should investigate all crimes committed against all communities in Kosovo and not function as a mechanism that fuels daily political consumption,” he said.

But the closure of the first institute has raised questions about the government’s ability to establish a mechanism capable of properly researching and documenting war crimes.

Nora Ahmetaj, a transitional justice researcher, echoed Limani in arguing that the new institute should examine all crimes committed during the war in Kosovo, whichever ethnic group’s members were the victims.

Previous similar initiatives have not been very successful because they started out with the wrong premise, Ahmetaj told BIRN.

“The primary focus of this institute should be to shed light on unrevealed war cases. It if it is only focused on the documentation of crimes committed against Albanians during the 1998-99 war, it will not have any importance. But I am afraid this initiative will fail like others before,” Ahmetaj told BIRN.

“I think the government should review what was done before in this field. Firstly they should have a strategy and a working plan for the crimes that this institute will document,” she said.

For Salihu, documenting war crimes remains a matter of the utmost importance, out of respect for those who died: “The victims cannot speak for themselves. So it is our duty to shed light on the truth,” he said.