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What does the Hague ruling mean for the KLA? Historian Konrad Clewing speaks

2026-09-17 15:06:35Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA ANILA SHUKA
What does the Hague ruling mean for the KLA? Historian Konrad Clewing speaks
KLA supporters demand release of former leaders

Does the Hague ruling change the way the KLA should be viewed? Historian Konrad Clewing talks about individual guilt, the Kosovo war, and the limits of historical judgment.

DW: Mr. Clewing, the Special Court found Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi, and Jakup Krasniqi guilty of war crimes, while acquitting them of charges of crimes against humanity. How do you assess this decision as a historian?

Konrad Clewing: On the one hand, the court succeeded better than the prosecution in distinguishing the individual responsibility of the accused. The prosecution had requested 45 years in prison for each of the four. The court now makes a greater differentiation and arrives at very different sentences. However, for me as a historian, a fundamental difficulty remains. The court continues to work with the concept of a "Joint Criminal Enterprise". And here, in my opinion, there is a risk that individual responsibility and the responsibility of a group will merge again. And in my opinion, the decision does not take sufficient account of the special structure of a guerrilla war.

DW: In what sense?

Clewing: One point that I, as a historian, find particularly strange is this: in the Thaçi case, the court imposes an individual sentence of 15 years for unlawful or arbitrary arrest and detention. I consider this historically significant. How can a guerrilla force that cannot take anyone prisoner operate militarily?

A second point is related to the conviction of Rexhep Selim. According to the way I read the reasoning of the decision, he is attributed responsibility both for the fact that he participated in the division of operational zones and, consequently, for the illegal prisons that existed in these zones. As a historian, I see a problem here: the very fact that someone participated in the division of military zones cannot constitute a crime in itself. What is decisive is what concrete responsibility he had for the illegal prisons and the crimes committed there.

It was also interesting that during the sentencing, the judge said that the severity of the sentences should also send a signal to the international community and international jurisprudence. Of course, it is important to say: unlawful violence and murder are punished. But the goal cannot be to make partisan and guerrilla warfare practically impossible. Otherwise, even someone who resists for a cause, however just, would find it almost impossible to take military responsibility in a guerrilla war.

DW: Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister, Ivica Dacic, sees this decision as proof that the KLA was a "criminal and terrorist organization." Does this decision also give more weight to Milosevic's narrative of the war?

Clewing: The court itself says that it has not judged the legitimacy of the war. And it has not even attempted to weigh the crimes of the KLA with the crimes of Serbian forces against the Albanians of Kosovo. This decision determines the individual responsibility of specific persons. From this one cannot automatically derive a historical assessment of the entire war. Even the independence of Kosovo, in my opinion, is not affected in its legitimacy by this decision. The Albanian majority in Kosovo, after years of repression, had very strong reasons for no longer wanting to be part of Serbia. In these historical reasons, today's decision does not change anything.

DW: Germany has politically and financially supported the Kosovo Specialist Chambers. Does this decision now lead to a reassessment of the West's then cooperation with the KLA?

Clewing: First, you have to look at the chronology. The vast majority of the crimes for which they have now been convicted occurred in the spring of 1999. Before that, as far as I can see, there were only a few relevant cases. If we were to say that from then on we had to say: we will not cooperate with you because you are criminals, then we would be making cooperation conditional on one side of the war having completely clean hands. In a war, it is practically impossible to keep your hands completely clean. So here too, you have to look at the overall dynamics of the war: the chronology, the crimes of the different sides and the question of who you cooperate with in these circumstances and who you support.

What does the Hague ruling mean for the KLA? Historian Konrad Clewing speaks

Konrad Clewing is a historian of Southeast Europe at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg. He is an expert on Kosovo and the history of the Western Balkans./ DW


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