Eurasia Press & News
President Hashim Thaci’s uneasy relationship with the Kosovo Specialist Chambers has gone through many phases over the past five years.
Accusations from the prosecution in The Hague last week that Thaci has been seeking to undermine the ‘Special Court’ are only the latest chapter in a story that has seen him go from advocate to critic.
The court was set up to try wartime and post-war crimes allegedly committed by Kosovo Liberation Army fighters from 1998 to 2000. It was established under strong pressure from the US and the EU, and from the outset has been highly unpopular among Kosovo Albanians, who see it as an attack on the righteousness of the KLA’s struggle againt repressive Serbian rule.
Kosovo politicians like Thaci argued however that it would be a way to fulfill the young state’s obligations to its Western supporters while proving that the KLA fought a just war for liberation.
