Odalovic: KLA killed more than 3,000 people, no one held accountable for crimes against Serbs

President of the Serbian Government Commission on Missing Persons Veljko Odalovic said today that nothing would be the same after September 16, when the verdict against four former KLA leaders—Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi, and Jakup Krasniqi—is scheduled to be delivered in The Hague, stressing that horrific crimes had been committed against Serbs.

“An atmosphere is being created ahead of September 16 in which this is being treated as ‘D-Day.’ They are threatening to burn everything if these men are convicted. In many places, they will try to exert pressure to secure their acquittal,” Odalovic said, TV Most reported.

According to him, the evidence had been presented, the facts were undisputed, the crimes had occurred, people had been killed, and prisons had existed.

“None of the acts with which this group is charged in the indictment has been invented, fabricated, or staged. Everything has been documented. All the elements required for a conviction are there. We will see how the court proceeds. It bears a heavy burden of responsibility because after September 16, nothing will be the same,” Odalovic told K1.

He added that this would be the first judgment with multiple dimensions.

“One of those dimensions is to distance society from the KLA and allow the real truth about what happened to be heard. The second is that someone will be held accountable for crimes against Serbs and other non-Albanians,” Odalovic said.

He pointed out that the judgment would also have an impact on the current political landscape among Albanians in Kosovo.

Odalovic recalled that more than 3,000 people had been killed by members of the KLA and said that no one had been held accountable for those crimes against Serbs.

“The indictment includes only 103 names, while 3,000 people were killed. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Forty-three illegal detention facilities have been investigated, while there were 145 of them in Kosovo. There is not a single word about the ‘Yellow House’ in the indictment, even though the entire court was established to determine the facts and examine evidence gathered precisely from international sources and the Hague Tribunal. It was supposed to provide answers about what happened in Albania in those ‘Yellow Houses’ and how it was possible for Serbs held in illegal detention facilities to be transported across Kosovo and Metohija and taken to Albania in the presence of 50,000 international peacekeepers,” Odalovic said.

He added that 50,000 troops arrived on June 10, 1999, following the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement and the adoption of Resolution 1244, and that 250,000 Serbs were expelled before their eyes.

“The expulsion of the Serbian people from June 1999 through 2004, as well as what is happening today, has taken place under the full mandate and auspices of international security forces—civilian, military, and police. They are responsible. Everything was burning in 2004, and they watched. Today, Kurti is doing what he is doing, and they are watching. They are merely keeping records,” Odalovic said.
According to him, the most dangerous aspect was that tensions were simmering in Kosovo, parts of western North Macedonia, and parts of Albania.

Speaking about missing persons, Odalovic said that, while working on the issue, he had found numerous documents in the archives of international organizations.

“One day, around noon, we received a call asking us to organize media crews so that we could go together to Lake Radonjic because 41 bodies had been found floating in the lake. We went there and took international television crews as well as our own. At the scene, we saw the bodies floating, we saw the execution site—we saw everything. These were the bodies of people who had been held in prisons, killed, and thrown into the lake. Then we all went our separate ways. The next morning, I asked some colleagues why there was nothing about it anywhere. They said: ‘You know, we all sent our reports, just as your television crew sent its report to you, because we all filmed the same thing, but they did not allow any of it to be broadcast anywhere.’ We all saw it, we all photographed and filmed it, but not a single word reached the outside world,” Odalovic said.

He added that this case, which was not an isolated one, demonstrated what he described as the hypocrisy of the West’s conduct during the 1990s.

Speaking about the Ibar Bridge and Pristina’s announcement that it would open the bridge to traffic tomorrow, Odalovic said that the Serbian population in Kosovo could potentially be endangered by such a move. He recalled that this had so far been prevented thanks to the French KFOR contingent and, above all, the self-organization of people in the north.

“Twice, a mob set out across the bridge. The first time was during the wave of violence in 1999 because they intended to clear out all the villages and burn the area where the Serbs lived. They were stopped then. The second time, a situation involving the drowning of Albanian children was staged, and the mob again set out. We had casualties while defending the bridge. The bridge is a symbol of defense, and this is an extremely dangerous moment. That is why warnings are coming from all sides that this is dangerous. In what follows, Serbs could potentially be seriously endangered,” Odalovic said, Tanjug reported.

He added that if Thaci were convicted, the Serbian population could become a “target,” which he described as a major danger.

“Instead of focusing on those assessments, KFOR is awkwardly trying to explain what it is doing at the Ibar Bridge, how it is deploying its forces, devising some new strategy—all sorts of nonsense... The point is that, by fully opening the bridge, they now want to portray the entire area as territory over which they exercise full control,” Odalovic said.