While Serbia is pursuing the same aggressive policy towards its neighboring countries and blocking their EU integration process, Balkan people are still suffering the consequences of the wars waged by Serbia. Last week, a former Serbian police officer was convicted in Kosovo for the first time for sexually assaulting a pregnant Albanian woman during the Kosovo war, after that she had failed pregnancy with twins as a result of rape during the war by Vukotic. Former Serbian reservist-police Zoran Vukotic also took part in the deportation and extermination of the civilian population in Kosovo. This is the first time someone has been convicted of such a crime by a Kosovo court 22 years after the war.
On the other hand, on June 30, Serbia President Aleksandar Vucic, expressed his gratitude to the former commander of the Serbian gendarmerie, Goran Radosavljevic. Radosavljevic is on the list of people banned from entering the US since 2018 due to his criminal past. He is also suspected of involvement in the murder of three American citizens, Ylli, Agron and Mehmet Bytyqi, known as the “Bytyqi brother’s case”, members of the “Atlantic” battalion that had left United States, to join the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Instead of appearing in court, Radoslavljevic was honored by President Vucic for his contribution during the Kosovo war. The US Embassy in Belgrade has reacted to the case, stressing that he should face justice, rather than receive honors. The Humanitarian Law Center has repeatedly said that Goran Radosavljevic was the leader of the camp in Petrovo Sello, where the Bytyqi brothers were killed. The Belgrade-based organization has stressed that nothing happened in this camp without Radosavljevic’s approval.
In 2015, the former President of Serbia, Tomislav Nikolic, awarded the high profile medal, the Order of Honor “White Eagle”, to the Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Army, Lubisa Dikovic. He was the 37th Motorized Brigade commander of Yugoslav Army during the Kosovo war, which committed crimes in Drenica region in spring of 1999 and then carried the bodies to be buried in mass graves in Rudnica, Serbia. Diković and the 37th Motorized Brigade, also known as the “Raska Brigade”, have never been brought to justice in Serbia nor internationally. In contrary, Ljubiša Diković was appointed Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces in December 2011 and remained in this position until September 2018.
According to the Humanitarian Law Center, among the hundreds of Albanian civilians killed in Dikovic’s area of responsibility, more than 35 are children, dozens of Albanian women were raped, some of whom were later executed, but there were cases, when, after the rapes, Dikovic’s soldiers threw them alive into a well, as happened in the village of Qirez. The massacres of Izbica, Rezalla, Old Chikatovo, Qirez are particularly burdensome, making him responsible for the disappearance and hiding of the bodies of hundreds of executed Albanians. The remains of at least 53 of them were found in 2014 in the mass grave in Rudnica, Raska, after many years of obstacles on the part of the Serbian side to dig exactly at the site of the mass grave.
Although now it should be a completely different situation, where Serbia would admit guilt and apologize for the crimes committed by them and bring the war criminals to justice. Serbia continues to set conditions for the European Union in relation to the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, deeply believing that they were right in the past, denying also the genocide in Srebrenica. The genocide in Srebrenica was recently relativized by the Minister of Justice and Minorities in Montenegro, Vladimir Leposavic, saying that he was ready to admit that the crime of genocide was committed in Srebrenica “when this is proven without a doubt”.
Read also: Can Kosovo sue Serbia for genocide?
Read also: What happened to “Never again” and to “R2P”?
On the other hand, Kosovo has adopted in the Assembly a resolution recognizing the Srebrenica genocide. This resolution was initiated by the members of the Bosniak community in the Assembly of Kosovo. The resolution contains 6 points in which the genocide of the Serbian state in Srebrenica against members of the Bosnian people and all human rights violations are strongly condemned. The Assembly of Kosovo also invites state institutions to honor the victims of the Srebrenica genocide on July 11, the date declared by the European Parliament as the “Day of Remembrance” for the Srebrenica genocide. During this session, Serb deputies in the Kosovo Assembly left the hall as a sign of protest, denying the largest massacre in Europe since the World War II.
