More than twenty years after the war in Kosovo, there are still about 1300 missing persons as a result of the war in 1999. This number includes some 1000 Kosovo Albanians and 300 Kosovo Serbs. Additionally, allegedly 20 000 women have been subject to sexual violence as a weapon of war during 1999 war in Kosovo. Due to shame and stigma, only a fraction of that has reported sexual violence after the war in Kosovo.
War has ended in Kosovo on the 12th of June 1999 with the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement between Jugoslav Army and NATO. In one hand, Serbia continues to stir the situation in Kosovo in several fronts at the same time keeping the Kosovo conflict high on the Serbian national agenda as well as keeping it as a back garden problem of the EU. Kosovo in the other hand has done utmost to move from the war and see itself progress in relation to the EU.
One of the aspects of this continuation of confrontation and ongoing conflict is the defense politics. Serbia has flirted with so called “Russian humanitarian center in Nis” and Russian military aid, undermining NATO efforts for bringing Serbia up to speed with NATO standards. Serbia remains the only noon NATO country in the region, hence, is using that position as leverage between NATO and Russia. This has implications with Kosovo as well, heaving in mind the diplomatic and practical opposition of Russia against Kosovo in the United Nations and other diplomatic forums.
The other aspect is dealing with its violent past. After 20 years of post war EU efforts to help Serbia move from Milosevic politics, it seems almost impossible for Serbia to move past its history. In 2017 Serbia started hiring war criminals to teach in military and police academies and still considers war criminals-national heroes.
In November 2020, in Serbia (Kizhevak) was discovered the fifth place as a mass grave of Albanians killed during the period 1998-99 in Kosovo, where it is believed that about 17 bodies are buried. These bodies have been hidden in the efforts to cover up war crimes and crimes against humanity of Serbian forces committed in Kosovo. Earlier, graves with a total of 941 bodies were found in Batajnica, Perucac, Petrovo Selo and Rudnica.
The issue of missing persons is part of the agenda of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue under the auspices of the EU and the solution to this problem was included in the agreement signed in Washington on September 4, but apparently the Serbian government does not intend to provide information on mass graves of Albanians in Serbia.
Belgrade officials and police officers who displaced hundreds of bodies of slain Albanians from Kosovo to Serbia and hid them in mass graves have never been prosecuted in their own country. While in Kosovo from October 1999 to June 2020, a total of 35 Albanians, only 4 Serbs, and one Montenegrin were convicted of war crimes by local and international judges who operated in Kosovo. These statistics were released by the Kosovo Law Institute, which says that UNMIK, EULEX and local justice institutions have failed to uncover war crimes.
Serbia´s ultimate goal is to change the narrative over the war on Kosovo. Feeding the paradigm that Kosovo is a failed state, Albanians committed as much crimes as Serbs and Serbian actions in Kosovo are justified- are some of the narratives pursued from political elites in Belgrade and pushed in social media twitterati controlled by the Government of Serbia. Serbian media remains under heavy censorship of Serbian Government report most of Human Rights organizations.
Recently, Serbia is strengthening its military equipment (including Chinese weapons-grade drones which are already exported and used in conflicts Middle East and North Africa) with funding from Russia and China, which in Kosovo is considered as a threat to the region and Balkans. Also worrying is the fact that Serbia has spent over 1.1 billion euros or 2.4 percent of GDP on arms supplies. This tactic of arming oneself by Russia and China and on the other hand of being financed by the West has often been used by Serbia to demonstrate state domination in the Balkans.
Serbia’s attitude towards Kosovo’s independence remains unchanged before Serbian but also Serbian foreign policy is focused in two directions: not to increase the number of countries that have recognized Kosovo (or undermine the recognition of Kosovo`s Independence) and to maintain the international climate for dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade.
