By Arban Abrashi
Minister of Labour and Social Welfare
Spokesperson, Kosovo Government

We deserve to integrate with the European and Atlantic families of nations.

Chuck Sudetic’s “The bullies who run Kosovo” (July 21), which reports to address the situation in Kosovo and the current debate in the Parliament over establishment of Special Chambers, is based on gross speculation. It references anonymous sources and exaggerates circumstances, using the most inflammatory characterizations. The article comes at a time when the government of Kosovo is working closely with Parliament to pass legislation that will enable Special Chambers to hear allegations of criminal activities committed during and in the immediate aftermath of Kosovo’s war of liberation.

Sudetic makes the egregious and even racist assertion that “gangland killings and intimidation of diplomats are hardly unusual in Kosovo; and the Kosovars’ traditional practice of blood vengeance, which demands retaliation even against family members of a violator, still trumps Western-style rule of law.”

Further, citing an unnamed former European ambassador, the piece offers a laundry list of alleged corruption and organized crime activities in Kosovo. However, Sudetic fails to provide proof for the serious charges leveled. He implicates the government of Kosovo and its foreign minister in these deeds.

Likewise, loosely referencing an anonymous former diplomat, the piece flatly declares that “Washington would likely stop encouraging American and other Western investors to do business in Kosovo and might cease advocating for the country’s recognition by other states and for Kosovo’s further integration into the European Union.” Both actions stand in bold contradiction to long-established partnership between Kosovo and the U.S. We Kosovars are proud the United States has been and remains a strong, consistent supporter of Kosovo’s independence. It has played a key role in building our new institutions and in helping Kosovo to make its way in the international community.

Similarly, in a most irresponsible manner, one designed to also compromise Kosovo’s European Union aspirations, Sudetic asserts that a recent increase in the number of illegal Kosovar migrants smuggled to Hungary’s border with Serbia may have been “warnings from Kosovo’s underworld leaders to the EU of the havoc they can cause the EU if Brussels does not back off on the court issue.”

The article has not a single named source but highly offensive accusations against Kosovo leaders who are working hard to protect the good name and reputation of the Kosovo Liberation Army by establishing an internationally sponsored legal instrument. The article complicates the Government’s commitment to establish the Special Court. Hence, the government of Kosovo rejects vehemently the charges leveled in Sudetic’s piece.

Kosovo only became a state seven years ago. Despite the genocidal policies of Slobodan Milošević, Kosovo’s leadership has been engaged in a process of normalization of relations with former foes in Belgrade. In recognition of its progress in building a functional democracy based on the rule of law, the European Union is on the verge of concluding the first formal step of accession for Kosovo, the Stabilization and Association Agreement. We will not be detracted by those like Chuck Sudetic who continue with the old anti-Kosovar propaganda that seeks to depict the entire society and our leaders as unfit for the integration into European and Atlantic families of nations.