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KOSOVO-SERBIA-POLITICS-JUSTICE
Kosovo seeks to punish denial of Serb war crimes
PRISTINA, April 12, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The Kosovo government said Friday it
was drafting a law to punish the denial of war crimes committed by Serb
forces, following several declarations by Serb officials.
Kosovo deputy prime minister Enver Hoxhaj said the government intended to
“punish such declarations by Kosovo Serbs.”
In Serbia itself, President Aleksandar Vucic charged Wednesday that
conclusions of an international probe into the killing of 45 Kosovar
civilians in the village of Racak in January 1999 were “fabricated”.
For Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, “President Vucic’s denial of
Racak massacre reveals the dangerous reality of Serbian nationalism.
“There can be no reconciliation without accepting the truth of the past,”
he said in comments posted on Twitter.
Serb officials maintain that the fighting in Racak, southwest of Pristina,
involved guerilla fighters from the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
The killings were a factor that led to a NATO intervention in Kosovo that
forced Serb forces to withdraw from what was then a Serbian province.
Kosovo President Hashim Thaci reacted to “shocking declarations by
officials in Belgrade” by saying they “augured badly for reconciliation” that
has been urged upon both sides by the international community.
In early April, Haradinaj sacked Minister of Local Governance and
Administration Ivan Teodosijevica over “hateful language” after he questioned
a massacre in Racak.
Teodosijevic had also called the killing of Kosovo Albanian civilians in
Racak “a fabrication” by “Albanian terrorists who invented everything”.
Two weeks earlier Haradinaj sacked another Kosovo Serb, deputy minister of
justice Vesna Mikic, who said the NATO bombing campaign was “genocide against
the Serbian people”.
More than 13,000 people died during the Kosovo conflict, of which around
11,000 were ethnic Albanian Kosovars and 2,000 Serbs.
BSS/AFP/BZC/2030HRS