What hides behind the crocodile tears for Thaçi in Tirana and Prishtina

By Ylli Pata

The harsh verdict for Kosovo’s four leaders — presidents, prime ministers, parliament speakers and ministers — by the court in The Hague has triggered a “nuclear” reaction in the Albanian milieu.

A reaction that clearly expresses clear opposition to that reasonless verdict which sentenced Hashim Thaçi and his associates to 81 years in prison.

In this reaction, what stands out is the brilliance of the young generation, which has given the Prishtina protests and those of the diaspora a gravity that Kosovo seemed to have lost.

The gravity of a people that cannot accept a verdict which has nothing to do with matters of justice, nothing to do with matters of crimes, but simply with political calculations.

Most of the young people who filled the squares with their optimistic dynamism, with the national flag reinforced not only as a metaphor, but first and foremost as a stance, were born after the Kosovo war. They are heirs of parents and relatives who experienced genocide, and most have a history with the KLA war.

Some as fighters, and most as direct supporters of the war — some by cooking, hosting them in apartments, clothing them, financing them, and many by refusing to cooperate with the occupier.

The KLA is not only a success story, but it has never been a cause separated from the people. After the war it became clear that various media and political circles, which had their own petty interests, wanted to portray the Kosovo Liberation Army as merely a power project. These circles, to this very day, have clearly formulated their thesis according to which “the KLA was not an army, was not liberating, and was not of Kosovo.”

The reaction of the youth, uncontaminated by this narrative of the early post-war years, when the seed of the feuilletons against the KLA was sown, showed that in reality all these millions spent on this narrative have failed. Definitively so, since people view the KLA and its fighters as their conscience, the proudest part of their perception.

Meanwhile, besides the popular perception, which is very important — especially as it has strongly brought back the flag and national symbols in Kosovo — there is also a political side to it.

Seeing this reaction, quite a few political parties in Tirana and Prishtina are shedding crocodile tears together with their media circles.

But in truth, it has been these political circles which, through their involvement, helped and facilitated what happened in The Hague.

Concretely, Albanian politics across all regions has not been united on the issue of defending the values of the war, its commanders, and the rhetoric honoring this entire epic.

Different is the situation in Balkan countries faced with such accusations and narratives. In Croatia, the entire politics of the country — whether the center-right HDZ, the left-wing Social Democrats, or other center and fringe parties — has never had a divisive rhetoric toward the values created by the war for the country’s independence against Slobodan Milošević’s machine.

For Croats, that war is sacred and untouchable, and that is how they treated the defense of their commanders at The Hague Tribunal.

Serbia, which is the mother of all evils in the Balkans, is in unison across all parties and groupings within the country to defend their national version of the war narrative. Meanwhile the entire so-called “Serbian world” — that is, those living abroad — are in unison with Belgrade. This was also shown by the honor they bestowed even upon the terrible Ratko Mladić.

While among us, the Albanian political class — from Tirana, Prishtina, Skopje or Tetova, all the way to Montenegro — has been part of active involvement in the game that began with the Dick Marty case against Hashim Thaçi.

Not only has there been no unification against these accusations, but a scramble to benefit politically from those European circles that pushed this process.

Concretely, this concerns the strong German role against Hashim Thaçi, where many Albanian political actors, seeing this power, set out to gain its complicity.

In Prishtina, Albin Kurti is the biggest beneficiary, but there are as many others as you like — from Vjosa Osmani and many other names who harshly attacked Hashim Thaçi when he entered the process with the Americans to close the conflict with Serbia. Meanwhile in Tirana, Sali Berisha, Ilir Meta, but also many other factors made the big noise. In Skopje likewise VLEN and others who seek to take supremacy from Ali Ahmeti by all means.

All this energy spent against the KLA has in reality not brought anything major in strategic terms, even though some have achieved electoral successes.

Albin Kurti has indeed won all elections so far, because there has been no rich political field, as well as European support; meanwhile today he stands exposed, as he tries to dodge his powerful allies who got involved in this process.

It seems we are entering a belated season of a political process for the values of the war, which in the streets of Kosovo and other cities around the world has shown its power.