http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/10/21/ramush/print.html
SALON (USA)
I, Ramush
Former Kosovar rebel and prime minister Ramush Haradinaj is a local hero. He
also faces war crime charges.
By Ginanne Brownell
Oct. 21, 2005 | Ramush Haradinaj was locked up in a jail cell in The Hague
from March until June this year, charged with heinous war crimes committed
during Kosovo's war against its parent state, Serbia, in the 1990s. Formerly
a commander in the guerrilla group the Kosovo Liberation Army, Haradinaj was
elected prime minister in December 2004. His political reign ended after
only three months, when he stepped down to face charges brought by the ICTY
(International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia).
Still, this summer, images of the darkly handsome 37-year-old loomed large
across the region. Billboards bearing his name towered over Pristina, the
capital. Shopkeepers along "Bill Klinton" Boulevard taped up fliers showing
their support for him. Across the countryside, young and old alike wore
T-shirts emblazoned with the phrase "Our Prime has a job to do here."
This fall may be the most integral time in Kosovo's history. In early
October, Kai Eide, Kofi Annan's special envoy to Kosovo, presented a report
outlining whether the perennially wartorn region had met the various
democratic and human rights standards set out by the United Nations in 2003.
It is expected that Eide's report will open the door for negotiations to
begin in November on whether Kosovo will be granted nationhood by the U.N.
Currently, conventional wisdom says it's a matter of when rather than if
Kosovo, whose ethnic population is 90 percent Albanian, will be granted
conditional independence. Says one former international official familiar
with Balkan politics: "The road ahead may be rocky, but the international
community wants it to end in some form of independence, because everyone
realizes that the Albanian majority will accept nothing else."
If so, it would be a momentous occasion for Kosovo. And for anyone who wants
to understand the embattled land, its conflicted leaders, and its tenuous
relationship with the West, perhaps the best place to begin is with the
story of Ramush Haradinaj.
The man and the myth are impossible to separate in a region that is a dense
thicket of dangerous innuendoes, rumors and propaganda. He has been
described as highly intelligent and disciplined. A native of Kosovo and an
ethnic Albanian, he is almost universally credited with leading his fragile
nation toward independence from Serbia, and doing more in his 100 days in
office than the previous government had done in three years.
But there is another side to Ramush -- his first name alone is universal
across Kosovo. He is a scrappy man who, when provoked, can lash out with
chilling results. Earlier this spring he caustically told a group of
protesters at a rally to shut up or "I'll fuck your mothers." His detractors
describe him as a ruthless military "psychopath" who terrorized his own men
and the local population into loyalty. And his ICTY rap sheet details 17
crimes against humanity including overseeing murder, rape and the
displacement of people.
Haradinaj's trial is scheduled to begin in January 2007. Provisions of his
release from The Hague in June meant that he was not allowed to contact
politicians, attend public events or speak with journalists. That time
expired in early September and now Haradinaj is planning a return to the
political scene. It could not have come at a more effective time.
Haradinaj's prime ministerial successor, Bajram Kosumi, has been hit with
corruption and sex allegations, and has had a weak support base. Earlier
this summer, it was revealed that Kosovo's President Ibrahim Rugova, who has
no heir apparent, is battling lung cancer. So there is no single figurehead
for Kosovo at the moment.
Politics in Kosovo have historically been a slippery slope of intrigues and
mudslinging, and there are no guarantees that it will be granted
independence by the United Nations. Serbs are certainly hellbent not to let
Kosovo go. Serbia's President Boris Tadic has said his nation would be open
to "more than autonomy" but it would be political suicide in Serbia to be
seen to even consider independence for Kosovo. His main concern is that
losing Kosovo might bring ultra-nationalist parties back into power. The
northern regions of Kosovo also happen to have the greatest concentration of
mineral wealth in all of southeastern Europe. And those resources are worth
fighting for.
Kosovo has long been fought over as Serbs across the Balkans consider the
region to be their holy land. Ethnic Serbs consider Kosovo the original seat
of their Orthodox church, while Kosovar Albanians claim to be the original
inhabitants. Kosovo was the place where the disintegration of Yugoslavia
began in 1989, when Slobodan Milosevic whipped up Serbian nationalism at a
speech at the historic site of Kosovo Polje, where the Serb Empire had been
defeated by the Turks in 1389. Four wars erupted in quick succession -- in
Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo -- with violence, mayhem and the birth
of the term "ethnic cleansing."
Today, Haradinaj's reputation within Kosovo and among those in the
international community has not been crippled by his upcoming trial.
Although many observers doubt that he can hold an elected position while he
awaits his trial, there is a sense in Kosovo that he could emerge as a
statesman-like figure in the status negotiations. "Ramush can play a 'Nixon
goes to China' role by pursuing ethnic reconciliation on a daily basis,"
says Scott Bates, senior fellow for national security at the Center for
National Policy. "He has the guts and street credibility to change the tone
in Kosovo."
Haradinaj's bare-knuckles beginnings were exactly what Kosovo, battling for
independence from Serbia, sought in a leader. His mix of raw intelligence
and street smarts jived with Kosovars who were looking to follow someone who
embodied the rural Kosovar spirit -- and not someone crowned with
traditional Western credentials.
The second of 10 children, Haradinaj was the star kid of the large family.
His mother, Ruki, says he was always a respectful and polite child, who from
an early age seemed to know innately what was the right thing to do. "He was
a child who felt for other people, and though I can try to take credit for
teaching him that, it would not be true -- he was born with that gift."
Haradinaj's shopkeeper father, Hilmi, was a member of the Communist Party,
and he raised his sprawling family in a part of Kosovo with strong
nationalist traditions. "Culturally, Ramush was like someone who came from
Arkansas or Tennessee, which is very different than coming from New York,"
says journalist James Pettifer, author of "Kosova Express." He excelled in
school, often being given the opportunity to lead the class in schoolwork,
and he used every opportunity to learn. "When he was very little he would
write down numbers in the dirt and then erase them and write them over again
and as he got older he would read lots of books, even when he was herding
sheep he would be reading as he walked," his mother says.
His plans after graduating at the top of his class in 1987 were to volunteer
in the Yugoslavian army for a year and then head to Pristina University to
study astronomy. That, however, was never to be, though Haradinaj did obtain
a university education by completing a law degree last year while serving in
government.
Although he impressed his superiors enough to be promoted to corporal
(something rare for an ethnic Albanian), the economic situation for the
family was becoming bleaker and Haradinaj became an economic migrant.
Working odd jobs in Switzerland, France and Italy as a nightclub bouncer, a
martial arts teacher and a security guard at rock concerts, Haradinaj also
fell in love for the first time. Joanna Carlsson, a young Finnish woman, was
his live-in love for several years and is the mother of his eldest son.
Their relationship ended around 2001, and in 2003 Haradinaj married a pretty
TV presenter, Anita Mucaj, who is the mother of his son, Gjini.
While Haradinaj was living in Western Europe, learning French and English,
back home Kosovo was simmering over with tensions as Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic kicked ethnic Albanians out of their state jobs and
refused to admit them to university. Many in the diaspora, tired of how the
Albanian leadership was preaching passive resistance, decided they must
fight for their independence and Haradinaj took up the cause, smuggling
weapons such as guns and grenades back to his parents' house on trips home.
In 1997, the nation of Albania, which borders Kosovo, fell into anarchy when
a series of pyramid investment schemes went bust. Huge caches of weapons
were thrown open to everyone, and the KLA, which had formed in 1993 and had
been up to that point involved in small-scale guerrilla warfare against the
Serbs, reaped the gold mine. The same year that Haradinaj witnessed his
brother Luan being killed in an ambush, while smuggling arms across the
mountain border between Kosovo and Albania, he proved his dedication to
Kosovo by moving back to the region and becoming a point person for the KLA.
Haradinaj would later lose a second brother in the war and a third brother
was murdered this past April in what was apparently a blood feud. The
Haradinaj home became a guerrilla compound, and in 1998, the Serbs attacked
the house and surrounding area hoping to dent the KLA operations in the
region. During intense fighting, Haradinaj was shot in the leg, arm and
lower stomach. Unable to see through all the smoke, he spoke to a silhouette
he believed to be his father, telling him to take cover. The figure was a
policeman who fired at Haradinaj. One "bullet hit me [in] the pocket where
the keys were, so [it] did not have the full effect, but it caused me 12
different holes where the pieces of metal had gone," Haradinaj later
recalled. Running into a room, he found some cheese and used it as a
compress on his leg to stop the bleeding. He continued to fight against Serb
forces until they eventually retreated several hours later.
The KLA continued to grow from a guerrilla operation to a small, organized
army. Both the United States and NATO would eventually back the KLA, a
controversial decision. At one point, the KLA was branded a terrorist
organization by the State Department and funds going to the KLA were
declared illegal. However, as the West was drawn closer and closer into war
with Serbia, the KLA was seen as the key organization for providing
intelligence.
Haradinaj moved up the ranks to become a senior commander. During a
cease-fire in 1998, he came into contact with U.S. and British intelligence
agents; realizing that Haradinaj controlled western Kosovo, they nurtured
relations with him that would prove invaluable to all parties. The West
gained important battlefield intelligence and Haradinaj made contacts that
led to his rise as a politician. In March 1999, after months of shuttle
diplomacy by the international community, hoping to get Serbia to end the
ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, NATO began a bombing campaign that would last
three months. Haradinaj, equipped with a satellite phone supplied by the
alliance, helped to pinpoint targets for bombing and continued to command
his fighting troops.
"Ramush really struck me because he was just so calm and professional and
very different from your average KLA soldier," says journalist Stacy
Sullivan, author of "Be Not Afraid, for You Have Sons in America," which
chronicles the links between U.S. Albanian �migr�s and the KLA. But
Haradinaj was also said to be a strict commander who would beat his men to
maintain discipline. A British military official told London's Observer
newspaper in 2000 he had seen Haradinaj beat two Albanian men who supposedly
had let Serb police into their home. "Someone would pass [Haradinaj]
information and he would disappear for two hours. The end result would be
several bodies in a ditch," the source stated.
The ICTY states that Haradinaj's KLA unit kidnapped and murdered 40 Serb
civilians, some of whose remains were found decomposing in a canal and had
marks of torture. Reports on Kosovo.com, a pro-Serb Web site, say that other
bodies were stuffed into wells and that Haradinaj's troops also killed
Albanians believed to have been helping Serbs. "[The Serbs] accused us of
perpetrating acts so they could justify their actions to domestic public
opinion," Haradinaj has said. "I cannot say we were perfect during the war,
we were human, [and we reacted] when they attacked our family and values."
After the Kosovo War ended in June 1999, diplomats in Kosovo claimed that
Haradinaj was persuaded to enter the political fray by British and American
intelligence, which wanted to see the KLA's support split between Haradinaj
and another former KLA commander, Hashim Thaci, a more radical and unruly
candidate. Haradinaj founded the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), a
political party that was considered to be moderate, in the spring of 2000
and began building up clout. Quickly moving his way up the ranks, Haradinaj
positioned himself to become the prime minister of the ruling coalition.
There were glitches along the way. In 2000, he was involved in a punch-up
with Russian peacekeepers and was injured in a murky attack on his
neighbors. During July of that year, in what was allegedly a drunken
squabble, Haradinaj was hit in the neck with shrapnel from a grenade and was
treated first at Camp Bondsteel and then taken by helevac to another U.S.
base in Germany for treatment. In 2001, when reports circulated that
Haradinaj was funding his party with profits from petrol and cigarette
smuggling, the United Nations forced him to shut down the smuggling
operation.
But detractors began to give Haradinaj credit as he quickly turned himself
into a polished statesman; instead of running on the obvious issue of
independence, Haradinaj tackled issues such as improving education and basic
infrastructure. "He seemed young and decisive, able to make the shift from
guerrilla leader to political leader, rather like Michael Collins of the
Irish Republican Army did in the early 1920s," says Britain's former Europe
minister Denis MacShane. At a dinner held soon after Kosovo's first assembly
elections in 2001, members were asked to mix and mingle. Haradinaj headed
straight over to a Serbian delegate, where he sat down and conversed all
evening with him about judo.
An array of Western advisors coached him on how to dress, act and master the
subtle nuances of spin. Haradinaj proved to be an able leader, lobbying
heavily to have a Serb become his minister of returns. "What was striking
was that when he became prime minister, he seemed to grow into the role
immediately," says Carne Ross, whose group, International Diplomat, advises
the Kosovar government.
Haradinaj's indictment on war crimes was not unexpected, and his reaction to
it only reinforced his newfound statesman persona. "He of course had the
option to bolt for the hills and become a fugitive, and although if he had
run he would have always found a home and a refuge, he chose not to," says a
source familiar with Haradinaj. Instead, he stood down from his role as
prime minister and told Kosovars to remain calm. However, according to an
International Crisis Group report, Haradinaj in private told colleagues a
week before his indictment, "They won't take me alive." Some say he meant it
as joke, while others say no, he meant exactly what he said.
Haradinaj declared his innocence and said he would do whatever he was asked
to do by the ICTY. But he didn't hesitate to declare that the international
community had made a grave mistake. "[The ICTY] is treating liberation
fighters the same as aggressors who destroyed entire nations and turned the
region into ruins," he said, as some of his bodyguards and ministers wept.
He also claimed he was a victim of "horse-trading" between The Hague and
Belgrade, Serbia's capital, to encourage the hand-over of Serbs such as Gen.
Ratko Mladic, who is wanted on war crimes charges in Bosnia, and still
remains at large.
Although conspiracy theorists claim that Haradinaj's indictment on war
crimes was an act of sabotage to destabilize the region, what it really
shows, observers say, is that the ICTY is an equal opportunity prosecutor:
Serbs can no longer claim they are the only ones being prosecuted, as
Croatians, Bosnians and now Kosovars have been charged with crimes.
"There is a misguided attempt by the ICTY to prosecute Serbs, Croatian,
Kosovars equally," says Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, who works for No Peace
Without Justice, a nonprofit organization, and was involved in investigating
war crimes during the war in Kosovo. Milosevic, currently on trial at The
Hague, is the ICTY's most famous catch and someone whom Carla Del Ponte, the
chief prosecutor at ICTY, fought hard to get and prosecute. Haradinaj says
he was charged solely because of his Albanian ethnicity. "If the same
accusations were leveled against a Serb, it would not be near the scale of
gravity, whether they were true or not," he says.
Of course, whether the charges of rape, murder and ethnic cleansing stick
depends upon the evidence. But in Kosovo, there are few people willing to
even acknowledge his war crimes. "We investigated cases of kidnapping,
disappearances, but we never managed to search cases related to Haradinaj,"
says Natasa Kandic, founder of the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade. "No
one from Kosovo will talk about that because all people are afraid to speak
about his indictment and his responsibility. I think you will not find
anyone to talk to you."
The U.S. put Kosovo on the back burner after Sept. 11, focusing on more
pressing issues in Afghanistan and Iraq. But it seeks to retain good
relations with Kosovo because Camp Bondsteel in central Kosovo is likely to
remain a permanent military base for jumping-off points in Eastern Europe.
There is also the feeling that though Kosovar Albanians tend to be
secular -- 95 percent are Muslim and 5 percent are Catholic -- there exists
the possibility that because of the lack of opportunities for growth and a
60 percent unemployment rate, the province could prove fertile ground for
regional Islamic terrorism. "The U.S. is feeling that the situation needs to
be resolved before it could potentially be a terrorist haven," says James
Lyon of the International Crisis Group. "It is an Islamic majority so you
have the potential."
Before his indictment on war crimes, Haradinaj's star seemed to shine bright
in the U.S. State Department. "Ramush is the kind of man Americans could get
excited about," says Whit Mason, an advisor to the Kosovar government.
"Ramush built his career on the basis of charisma and vision, which is
something that Americans expect of a politician, and [while] the other
parties were practicing mudslinging, Haradinaj practically claimed to be
apolitical, which is something the Americans found refreshing."
Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden has described Haradinaj as "a tough guy [who]
looks as if he could lift an ox out of a ditch," and this March paid tribute
to him on the Senate floor. "I want to publicly salute him for his personal
courage, for the statesmanship he has demonstrated over the last two years
[and] I wish him well," Biden said.
However, the U.S. began to distance itself from Haradinaj when Del Ponte and
her ICTY colleagues brought his possible war crimes to light. "[The
Americans] have been backing him for the long term, and they wanted him to
be one of their main vectors of influence here for the next 10 or 20 years,"
Mason says. "So they did not want him to be prime minister now, they wanted
him to deal with these charges, beat them and hoped he would come back and
be a powerful leader who is sympathetic to the U.S."
Today, there are strong feelings among Kosovars as well as international
observers that if Haradinaj is found not guilty, or even has to serve a
short prison term, he is still likely to be a political star in Kosovo. "If
the U.S. government is smart they will continue to have quiet, sotto voce
conversations with Ramush [to] keep a little bit of oil on the water as we
move through this period," says John Norris, a former State Department
official during the Clinton administration, and author of "Collision Course:
Nato, Russia and Kosovo."
"Ramush is a revolutionary and revolutionaries are capable of greatness and
brutality, and if you push them into a corner, you don't know what they will
do," says Sullivan. "If Ramush thought it was necessary to kill Serb
civilians to get his independent Kosovo, he probably would have done it. On
the other hand, when he saw that helping Serbs return was necessary for an
independent Kosovo, he made sure the Serbs were allowed to return."
Haradinaj, it seems, has done whatever it takes to help Kosovars become
independent. Judges in The Hague, who earlier this month ruled that
Haradinaj could return to politics, are reviewing an appeal by Del Ponte,
who is unhappy with the thought of Haradinaj getting involved in Kosovo
affairs. Rumors are circulating that Haradinaj's AAK party might merge with
another party, the LDK, led by President Ibrahim Rugova, to become the
Democratic Union of Kosovo. If that happens, it is believed that Haradinaj
would be the head, making the party strong and united with both the
president and prime minister of Kosovo as members. Regardless of The Hague's
decision over Haradinaj's reentry into the political life of Kosovo, what is
certain is that Haradinaj's presence and influence are still felt across the
region. That brings comfort to many and sends shivers up the spines of
others.
Serbian News Network - SNN
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http://www.antic.org/
