http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/09/international/europe/09kosovo.html?th
Kosovo Chief Resigns and Surrenders to Hague Tribunal
By MARLISE SIMONS
Published: March 9, 2005
ARIS, March 8 - Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj of Kosovo unexpectedly
resigned Tuesday and agreed to surrender to the United Nations war
crimes tribunal in The Hague, which said it had indicted him for
actions as a guerrilla commander fighting Serbian forces during the
1998-99 war.
Mr. Haradinaj's decision to step down and answer war crimes charges
came as a shock in Kosovo, a Serbian province of close to two million
people where he became prime minister in December and remains a
popular war hero.
In a statement, he said he was "innocent of any crime" and felt
"insulted by this process."
"I feel they are taking me from my job at a time when I am giving the
maximum for my country," he said, adding that he "never believed" he
would have to leave office, but was accepting it for the country's sake.
His case is the latest in a series of developments involving senior
officials who have turned themselves in to The Hague tribunal, which
deals with crimes from the 1990's wars that tore Yugoslavia apart.
At the United Nations tribunal, prosecutors released no details about
the charges, but it was widely known in Kosovo that tribunal
investigators questioned him twice in November, just before he became
prime minister. According to reports there, investigators focused on
the killings of Kosovo Serb civilians and Albanian "collaborators,"
carried out by men under his command.
Mr. Haradinaj, 36, a former Kosovo Liberation Army chief and the most
senior Kosovar to be indicted so far, said the charges against him
were based on "Serbian lies."
In Kosovo, which is under United Nations administration, NATO
increased its 18,000-member peacekeeping contingent overnight by 1,000
more troops, fearing that the announcement could revive confrontations
between the Kosovo Albanians and the Serbian minority.
The Kosovo Liberation Army was a Western-backed ethnic Albanian force
that fought Serbian troops in the late 1990's in the province, until
military intervention by NATO ended the conflict in 1999. The United
Nations estimates that up to 10,000 Kosovo Albanians were killed.
Despite the end of open hostilities, tensions are high. Last March,
for example, 19 people were killed during riots when Albanians
attacked Serbs and other minority members.
For the tribunal in The Hague, the surrender from Kosovo comes at an
unusually busy time. Since October, six high-ranking former Serbian
and Bosnian Serb officers have arrived to face war crimes charges. The
latest was no less than the former chief of the Serbian army, Gen.
Momcilo Peresic, who surrendered to the United Nations prison on
Monday. Just days earlier, the court had taken custody of a former
Bosnian army commander, Rasim Delic.
The officers, from opposing sides in wars that took more than 200,000
lives, have gone to The Hague as a result of economic and political
pressure from Europe and the United States. All entities of the former
Yugoslavia - including Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo - now want
to talk about their future in Europe, and the European Union has made
cooperation with the tribunal a condition for any talks about closer ties.
At the same time, the war crimes tribunal itself has been under
pressure to step up its pace. The United Nations Security Council,
which created the special court, has demanded that it concentrate on
the highest ranking suspects only and will close down its work by 2008.
For Kosovo, the stakes are particularly high. The Serbian province
hopes to begin talks this year on independence, which has the backing
of a huge majority of its people. One price to be paid, it appears, is
the surrender of Mr. Haradinaj.
The NATO secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, hinted Tuesday at
that price. "Kosovo is entering a crucial period during which it will
be judged on its progress meeting the standards set by the
international community," he said in Brussels. "Cooperation with the
tribunal is one of those standards."
Mr. Haradinaj has had a wide-ranging career which includes a stint as
a platoon commander in the Yugoslav Army, and later as an immigrant,
working as a carpenter, security guard and martial arts teacher in
Switzerland. During the Kosovo separatist rebellion against Serbia, he
gained a reputation as a tough guerrilla fighter and zone commander in
the Kosovo Liberation Army. He was also widely vilified in Belgrade,
where the authorities have charged him with several hundred killings
and kidnappings.
His office said he would travel to The Hague on Wednesday. The deputy
prime minister, Adem Salihaj, is to take his place until Parliament
approves a new prime minister.
On Tuesday, Mr. Haradinaj said his indictment was a "result of the
trade-off that some have made with the Serbian government" to make
sure that Belgrade would extradite high-ranking Serbian war crimes
suspects.
Tribunal officials have declined to comment. The office of the
prosecutor confirmed the indictment, but gave no details.
At the United Nations jail near The Hague, Mr. Haradinaj will join
some 50 prisoners - including his longtime enemy, Slobodan Milosevic,
the former Serbian president - as well as three of his own former
comrades.
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