Confession of war crimes caused huge scandal in Kosovo
Acting First Advisor “Prime Minister” of Kosovo Shkelzen Gashi lost his post after admitting on television on the Kosovo TV channel T7 that militants of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) killed a thousand Serb civilians.
This was reported by Balkan media, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
Shkelzen Gashi paid for admitting war crimes
“Today I fired my political adviser Shkelzen Gashi,” the acting deputy wrote on his Facebook profile. "Prime Minister" of Kosovo Albin Kurti. “Some of his statements yesterday had devastating consequences for the effective functioning of the current government. I think it is better if the debate in which he is involved does not take place from the position of my adviser. I am grateful to him for his contribution. I appreciate critical opinion. There are many things we agree with in the present, and there are many things we disagree with in the past. Mr. Gashi is not an easy conversationalist. I understood this from the current situation.”
The scandal that shook Kosovo society, more precisely the elite of the Albanian separatists and the ordinary people involved in its affairs, occurred after the recent speech of Shkelzen Gashi on the air of the “Frontal” program on the Kosovo TV channel T7.
"The crimes were committed by armed UCK members against Serbian civilians," Gashi stated. "The murders of innocent civilians were not committed by people from the creative unions ( that is, it is known who did the killing – ed. ).... There is reason to believe that a thousand Serbian civilians were killed."
UCK fighters pose with Serbian heads
UCK militants pose after the massacre of an Albanian loyal to Belgrade
The ex-adviser spoke out in defense of the report of the Special Rapporteur of the Council of Europe, Dick Marty, rejected by the prosecutor's office of the Special Court for the Kosovo Liberation Army in The Hague.
Gashi said that Marti is not “anti-Albanian” but is simply telling the truth.
These words of Gashi provoked a flurry of indignation, especially among former field commanders and UCK militants, many of whom became the political, bureaucratic and business elites in the “Republic of Kosovo”.
The ex-party in power established by the militants - the Democratic Party of Kosovo, to which the “president” of the region Hashim Thaci belongs, or rather its youth organization, even held a protest against Gashi’s words: unable to take to the streets due to quarantine, about a thousand of its supporters in 21:00 they turned on the lights in the windows and started the so-called march of the “Kosovo Liberation Army” at full power.
“Publicist Shkelzen Gashi was a guest on public television, mentioning, among other things, non-Albanian civilian victims and their right to justice, as well as the personal responsibility that must be taken by former UCK members who committed crimes during and after the Kosovo war,” reacted to the attacks against Gashi, which united such sworn enemies as Kurti and the KDP, the Kosovo Foundation for Humanitarian Law. – After the show, Gashi was publicly criticized for his views by individuals, representatives of various organizations and associations, as well as political parties, which contributes to the spread of a culture of impunity in society, obstructs the transitional justice process in Kosovo and denies the right of victims and their families to justice. We remind you that the rule of law and justice for all civilian victims in Kosovo must be and remain a priority for Kosovo society."
"Gashi's resignation will remain in Kurti's biography as a cowardly act," analyst Blieron Baraliu commented on Albin Kurti's decision on his Facebook profile. "How we long for the holy conscience of Adem Demaci ( a controversial Kosovar writer and politician who steadfastly advocated for Kosovo's separation from Serbia, a former political representative of the UCK , and later a supporter of Albin Kurti's "Self-Determination" movement, while also defending non-Albanian minorities from ethnic cleansing and oppression – ed. ) to enlighten these turbo-folkloric temperaments to the lofty values of our nation, saying: 'Albin is a coward who has finally surrendered to the dictates of the mindless.'"
The most interesting thing is that Shkelzen Gashi has been talking about the crimes of Kosovo separatists for several years; back in 2011, he wrote an article about the crimes of the UCK, where he said that this armed separatist formation is responsible for the missing and its own secret prisons, demanding punishment for militant leader. He subsequently published information about missing Kosovo Serbs, Bosniaks, Montenegrins and Roma.
Admission of war crimes sparks massive scandal in Kosovo