Kosovo Liberation Army

LEADER: Hashim Thaci

YEAR ESTABLISHED OR BECAME ACTIVE: 1996

USUAL AREA OF OPERATION: Albania; Serb province of Kosovo; Macedonia

OVERVIEW

The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was an Albanian guerilla group that operated in the late 1990s in the former Yugoslavian province of Kosovo, an ethically Albanian area then effectively under Serb control. It played an important part in the NATO war on Yugoslavia in 1999, and although it was meant to disband under the terms of the subsequent peace accords, its former members continue to exert a powerful role in Kosovo on both sides of the law.

HISTORY

Modern Yugoslavia was created from the post-World War II wreckage of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, by the wartime communist resistance leader, Josip Broz (better known as Tito). It comprised a federation of six republics—Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia—and two autonomous regions within Serbia—Vojvodina and Kosovo. The federation was an ethnic patchwork, roughly split on religious lines. Slovenians and Croats are Roman Catholics; Serbs and Macedonians Orthodox Christians; and Muslims—generally descended from those Slavs who converted to Islam during the 500-year-long Ottoman occupation—were spread out across the federation, particularly in Bosnia, parts of Macedonia, and the autonomous Serb province of Kosovo. Nevertheless, these splits were approximate and Muslims lived in Serbia just as Croats lived in Bosnia.

Tito maintained his policy of "brotherhood and unity" in Yugoslavia by suppressing overt signs of ethnic nationalism among the different Yugoslav peoples, and for the duration of his Presidency-for-life, his policy worked. When he died in 1980, however, Yugoslavia started to come apart. The key figure in the break up and the hostilities that followed was the Serbian politician, Slobodan Milosevic. He encouraged, and then exploited, Serb nationalism within Serbia and among Serb minorities in other republics to extend his influence. He also stripped Kosovo and Vojvodina of their autonomy, taking control of their votes in the rotating presidency that had replaced Tito's rule.

Deeply suspicious of Milosevic's growing power and the impact of his nationalism, Slovenia and Croatia seceded from the Yugoslav federation in 1991. Slovenia gained its independence after a 10-day conflict, but Croatia became embroiled in a vicious war as the sizeable Serb minority, backed by Milosevic, carved out its own state and brutally cleansed it of Croat civilians. Croatian forces fought back, also expelling Serb citizens, in a struggle that would last until 1995. When Bosnia declared independence in 1992, a conflict there would play out along similar lines. That, too, would be fought until 1995.

In the middle of all this, Serbia had increased its repression of Kosovo amid fears that it too would secede. An unofficial referendum in September 1991 had seen 90% of the population turn out, and 98% back the creation of an independent "Republic of Kosovo." (The Serbian government declared the referendum illegal and the results null and void.)

Milosevic had already had Kosovo's President Azem Vllasi arrested in November 1989, and imposed a state of emergency from March 1989, but in 1990 he imposed a systemic policy of economic and cultural apartheid on Kosovo's ethnic Albanian population. Most Kosovars worked in state-owned industry, but were replaced by Serbs; Pristina University, in the province's capital, was purged, with 22,500 of its 23,000 students expelled, and 800 lecturers sacked. With 80% of Kosovo's population unemployed, more than a third of adult males moved overseas in order to support their families back home.

Previously, Kosovo's leaders in exile had called for a campaign of peaceful resistance, having noted the brutal events in Bosnia and Croatia and the overwhelming power of Serb forces. But in April 1996, four simultaneous attacks in different parts of Kosovo were carried out on Serbian civilians and security forces by a previously unknown organization calling itself the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Initially, it was suspected to be the work of Serb agent provocateurs, who could then use the attacks as an excuse for further repression of the province. In actuality, it was a group of radicalized Albanians from western Kosovo. Their basic strategy was simple: to provoke Serb forces into committing reprisals on the Kosovan population. This, they hoped, would compel the wider international community—shamed by their belated intervention in the Bosnian conflict—into intervening in Kosovo.

Despite the initial ambivalence of the wider world, the nascent KLA's cause received a boost in June 1997 when Albania moved into a state of civil insurrection following the collapse of its economy. Arms dumps across the country were looted, and many weapons ended up over the border in Kosovo, particularly in the west. Over the course of the following year, a guerilla war broke out in western Kosovo, with the KLA launching a series of attacks against the Serbian authorities. The Serbs responded by deploying the paramilitary police of the Serbian Interior Ministry, which had gained a reputation for brutality during the Bosnian war. A militia, under the control of Arkan, a notorious Serb warlord, also became embroiled in the emergening conflict.

By the summer of 1998, the KLA had effective control over Kosovo's western quarter and claimed a force of 30,000—although this was almost certainly an exaggeration. The Serbian government responded by launching an offensive against the KLA, and largely forced them back over the Albanian border. However, this was followed by indiscriminate violence against Kosovan Albanian villages that the Serbian forces claimed were harboring KLA rebels. In a reprise of the Bosnian and Croatian conflicts, Serb forces "ethnically cleansed" villages, burning people out of their homes and killing civilians.

This, to an extent, had been the KLA's intention. Serbian excesses were reported across the world, prompting international outrage while at the same time boosting the ranks and coffers of the KLA from Albanians overseas. The KLA, from being a rag-tag force of a few hundred radicals, came to number many thousands, with too many members for its training camps to cope. Its arsenal came to incorporate light artillery and anti-aircraft missiles, while the porous Albanian border enabled them to launch daring border raids.

Throughout late 1998 and early 1999, the guerilla conflict continued to escalate, with KLA forces attacking both Serb military and civilian targets, and Serb forces retaliating in kind. Incidents of brutality by the Serbs—such as the mass killing of 45 civilians in the village of Racak—increased pressure on the rest of the world to intervene. When full-scale war broke out in March 1999, NATO responded by launching air raids on Serb positions and, later, on its capital, Belgrade. The KLA, initially repelled by a strong Serb offensive, played a small part by attacking Serb positions and forcing them into the open to enable NATO planes to attack them. In 10 weeks of conflict, NATO flew 38,000 sorties.

NATO and the KLA allied to fight Serbian forces despite the previously stated position of the United States (a NATO member) that the KLA was a terrorist group. The United States reluctantly agreed to the air raids because of international pressure led by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but refused to send in troops to fight on the ground.

Milosevic responded to the air attacks by dramatically increasing the Serb-led campaign of ethnic cleansing. Within a week of the conflict starting, 300,000 Kosovo Albanians had fled into Albania and Macedonia, and by April 1999, the UN reported that 850,000 had fled their homes.

Finally, in June 1999, completely isolated internationally and with the country scarred by bombing and global condemnation, Milosevic accepted a Finnish-Russian brokered peace deal, bringing an end to the KLA-instigated war. Kosovo was to be overseen by a UN force—KFOR—incorporating NATO troops.

International attention had been focused on Serbian attrocities before and during the war, a consequence of Serbia's brutality in earlier conflicts. Once peace was restored in Kosovo, however, the KLA was accused of a variety of crimes. This included the widespread burning and looting of homes belonging to Serbs, Roma, and other minorities; the destruction of Orthodox churches and monasteries; and harassment of remaining minorities after KFOR's intervention. Human Rights Watch estimates that up to 150,000 non-Kosovan minorities were forced out of the province and that, as of July 2001, 1,000 people still remained unaccounted for.

Under the terms of the peace deal, the KLA—which was not a signatory—was meant to disband, but to appease its members, a 3,000 strong Kosovo Protection Corps drawn from its ranks was established. Many KLA members were not pleased with this. Many became involved in Kosovo's extensive criminal network and their activities came to include racketeering, smuggling, people-trafficking, and drugs. Albanian immigrants also exert a powerful influence on organized crime in other countries, and KLA members have been accused of joining their ranks. In London and Milan, for instance, Albanian gangsters run the cities' vice trades, and Kosovar Albanian women—illegally smuggled into the country, and often against their will—make up large parts of the ranks of prostitutes.

LEADERSHIP

HASHIM THACI

Hashim Thaci was a Kosovar student leader who returned from living in Switzerland in 1998 to fight with the KLA. Only 30 years old at the time of the NATO-led war, he attracted admiration for his articulation and uncompromising stance as political leader of the KLA.

After the war Thaci declared himself prime minister of a provisional Kosovan government. Thaci was accused of ordering the murders of at least half-a-dozen senior KLA members to consolidate his rise to power. These claims were refuted and were probably part of a campaign to discredit Thaci by his political oppoents. Thaci has also been accused of using his self-appointed government as a racketeering operation. When UN police raided his elder brother's apartment in January 2000, they found $250,000 in cash.

Moreover, in April 2001, Serbia asked the UN War Crimes Tribunal to file charges against Thaci for atrocities they allege he committed during the conflict. Thaci, as of 2005, has been investigated, but never indicted. Nevertheless, in January 2004, the Tribunal secretly indicted four former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) members, including Fatmir Limaj, a senior aide to Thaci.

As of 2005, Thaci was the leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo.

Other former KLA members have sought to make their mark in politics. Its former political head, Hashim Thaci, is now the leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo. Nevertheless, in a region where unemployment still runs high, criminality remains an attractive option.

PHILOSOPHY AND TACTICS

The Kosovan Liberation Army was a nationalist irregular armed force, fighting for the secession of Kosovo from Serbia. Its aim, as set out by its political leader, Hashim Thaci, was to create "a liberated, independent Kosovo, and naturally, the democratization of Kosovo." Thaci maintained throughout that it was an army and not an "organization," and should be recognized as such. It never mixed its stated aims with any kind of political philosophy.

The group's tactics evolved over the KLA's short life. In its early stages, it set out to provoke Serb forces into action, which would draw attention to the situation within Kosovo to the outside world. As it grew in force and stature, it was able to launch intermittently successful attacks against Serb positions to force them out of large parts of western Kosovo.

However, the KLA was never a real match for Serb regular forces. When full-scale war broke out in March 1999, western Kosovo was soon overrun by the Serbs, leading to the creation of a huge refugee crisis. The KLA's role during the conflict was largely confined to "hit and run" tactics: striking hidden Serb military positions.

Post-war, the KLA's tactics came to resemble a brand of vigilantism: making reprisal attacks against Serb-civilians and forcing out the non-Kosovan minority.

OTHER PERSPECTIVES

"At the start of the crisis there were two main objectives," the playwright and peace campaigner Harold Pinter told Confederation of Analytical Psychologists in London on June 25, 1999. "To restore substantive autonomy to Kosovo and to ensure that the Yugoslav government respected the Kosovars' political, cultural, religious and linguistic freedoms … The Serbs had specifically agreed to grant Kosovo a large measure of autonomy. What they would not accept was NATO as the international peacekeeping force, or rather, an occupying force, a force whose presence would extend throughout Yugoslavia. They proposed a protectorate under United Nations auspices. NATO would not agree to this and the bombing started immediately."

Pinter believed that NATO had been duped into action, and intimated, as many on the left had done, that the KLA were CIA-backed provocateurs. He went on to say that America's intention was to "make Kosovo into a NATO—or rather American—colony."

KEY EVENTS

1996:

Attacks on Serb military on civilians by group claiming to be the Kosovan Liberation Army.

1997:

Collapse of Albanian government leads to extensive weaponry falling into KLA's hands.

1998:

Upsurge in skirmishes between the KLA and Serb forces.

1999:

Racak village massacre.

1999:

NATO-led war on Serbia; KLA plays a minor role.

1999:

KLA officially disbands under the terms of the peace agreement, but continues to assert a big influence within Kosovo.

"The KLA is the big winner in NATO's war against Milosevic," wrote Mark Almond, lecturer in modern History at Oxford University, in July 1999. "Its leaders are now determined not to lose the peace. Even as NATO troops moved into Kosovo, the KLA was rushing its forces ahead of them to seize the political initiative … A motley group of cheerleaders from State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin to the Wall Street Journal's editorial writers has endorsed the KLA and especially its youthful self-proclaimed prime minister, Hashim Thaci, as the way forward for Kosovo. There can be little doubt that Thaci intends to lead Kosovo in the future and has a very good chance of doing so. Whether the West should rejoice at the prospect is another question." Almond went on to discuss the KLA's alleged role in drug-running and investigated its links to Albanian organized crime.

"Of course," he points out, "banditry and national liberation have gone hand in hand on all sides in the Balkans for as long as anyone can remember-and elsewhere as well…. In all likelihood, the fragile Balkans are witnessing the establishment of another mafia statelet. The Kosovo tragedy thus continues."

SUMMARY

Starting as a rag-tag irregular force to help bring the focus of the world onto the crimes of Serbia in the province of Kosovo, the KLA, within a matter of years, succeeded where Bosnian and Croat forces failed, namely bringing large-scale Western intervention into their conflict with Serbia. Although the KLA built a considerable force they were always outnumbered and outmatched by Serbian forces, and needed outside intervention to achieve victory over the Serbs. Its effective dissolution in September 1999 marked the entry of a number of its former members into organized crime or politics, in some cases both.

SOURCES

Books

Glenny, Misha. The Balkans 1804–1999: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers. New York and London: Granta, 2000.

Malcolm, Noel. Kosovo: A Short History. New York: Macmillan, 1998.

Parenti, Michael. To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia. New York and London: Verso, 2001.

Periodicals

Almond, Mark. "Our Gang: Kosovo Liberation Army." National Review July 26, 1999.

Web sites

HaroldPinter.org "Speech to Confederation of Analytical Psycologists." 〈http://www.haroldpinter.org/politics/politics_serbia.shtml〉 (accessed December 14, 2005).