Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin has stated that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) did not have effective control and command, while emphasizing that an assessment of its organizational structure had been made. During the second day of his testimony at the Specialist Chambers in The Hague, Rubin said that Hashim Tha\u00e7i was not the military leader of the KLA and that he realized this himself during the three days he spent in Kosovo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the Specialist Chambers, Rubin was asked by Judge Barthe, \u201cHow do you know it was the military wing that had to make decisions?\u201d Rubin did not say that Tha\u00e7i had told him this. Rubin was also asked what kind of threats Tha\u00e7i was facing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI never personally saw proof from any specific source that he was threatened, but Rambouillet was a kind of tension\u2026 some things were true, others were not. He was a new person to me and it was clear to me that other members of the American delegation were saying things about the KLA or the Kosovars. That was my experience of being immersed in this internal functioning. I try to remember that someone from my team told me he was threatened, or someone told me he was scared, and in those cases I would talk to him and try to understand whether it was true or not. He never told me directly that he was threatened\u2026 I remember he told me once that it was difficult for him to enter and leave Kosovo through the mountains for safety reasons. There was a general fear, and the threats mostly came from Serbian forces,\u201d Rubin said, adding that Tha\u00e7i had told him he was moving in and out of Kosovo through the mountains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier, in follow-up questions from Tha\u00e7i\u2019s lawyer Luka Miseti\u0107, Rubin was also asked about Secretary Albright\u2019s statement that \u201cone of the reasons for not arming the KLA was to maintain NATO unity.\u201d On this, Rubin said, \u201cWe did not tell them that we could not give them weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe answer is about context. We didn\u2019t want to tell them that there was no proper organization and we didn\u2019t want to tell them that the reason we didn\u2019t want to arm them was because it takes years to develop into a proper military structure and obtain effective weapons. Because if you said that to people who were fighting for their lives on the battlefield every day, it was offensive, it was humiliating. Sometimes you choose a reason that is simpler to convey and easier to swallow or accept than to tell them bluntly that we could not give them weapons, while people were being killed, because they were not organized. We couldn\u2019t say that\u2026 We made our best judgment, we made an assessment as best we could, taking into account the KLA\u2019s organizational structure and the issue of control and command, which we believed the KLA did not have. One of the main reasons was that there was no effective control and command in the KLA,\u201d Rubin declared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rubin said he was convinced that Tha\u00e7i was not the military leader of the KLA, adding that he had personally observed how the hierarchy functioned during his three days in Kosovo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe reason I am so convinced that he was not the military leader of the KLA is that I observed this myself for three full days. It wasn\u2019t an impression formed in a moment, or from reading an article or a cable, but something I continuously saw over those three days. I witnessed the power dynamics between him and the other commanders \u2014 I mean the relationship he had with the sector commanders. Seeing it with my own eyes showed me what position or hierarchy he held in the system,\u201d Rubin said in The Hague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In questions from Tha\u00e7i\u2019s defense lawyer, Rubin also stated that \u201cthe court was established at the request of European and American leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Miseti\u0107: \u201cAre you aware of the reason why this court was created, on what basis, what were the initial allegations for which this court was requested?\u201d
Rubin: \u201cYes.\u201d
Miseti\u0107: \u201cDo you know what happened with Mr. Marty\u2019s allegations in the end?\u201d
Rubin: \u201cI think they went nowhere, there was no development of his indictments,\u201d Rubin replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the second day of testimony in The Hague, Rubin said, \u201cHashim Tha\u00e7i was an important person and the Kosovars had chosen him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c[Secretary Albright] told me that Tha\u00e7i was the person I needed to work with. That doesn\u2019t mean he was the only important person, but he was the main one I had to work with, because they thought the others would not oppose it. But you can never predict these things. It was just an impression. The process wasn\u2019t very formal. What I was trying to say was that he was important, necessary, but not the only one. We needed everyone. And the Kosovars had chosen him as the particular person. People need to understand this \u2014 that\u2019s why we worked with him, why we considered him a leader there, because they had chosen him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the day, the Office of the Specialist Prosecutor also completed its questioning of former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rubin expressed his concern about the trial process in The Hague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is an unusual way to treat a statesman who surrendered voluntarily,\u201d Rubin stated in court, testifying in defense of former president Hashim Tha\u00e7i.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the second day of testimony, Rubin shared his views on the five-year trial against former KLA leaders, saying he was troubled that the KLA Four have been held in detention for so long. \u201cThis is not justice,\u201d Rubin emphasized, while noting that he knew developments within the KLA because he had seen its leaders closely during the war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin has stated that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) did not have effective control and command, while emphasizing that an assessment of its organizational structure had been made. During the second day of his testimony at the Specialist Chambers in The Hague, Rubin said that Hashim Tha\u00e7i was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":76879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[301,296],"tags":[5928,6658,2302],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76880,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76877\/revisions\/76880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}