William Walker, former head of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM), has called for war crime investigations into Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic. He has also questioned the timing and motive of , the announcement of the war crime indictment against President Thaci.
Walker, who witnessed one of the most brutal massacres of the Serbian regime in Kosovo, the Reçak massacre that left 45 Albanian men and boys killed and their bodies thrown in a ditch, spoke to Kosovo’s public broadcaster RTK on Thursday.
He said that Vucic is also responsible for war crimes in Kosovo because he was Milosevic’s minister of information.
“He was a minister in a government that ordered the Serbian security forces to do what they did in Kosovo during 1998-99, a result of which was also the Reçak [massacre],” Walked stated.
In January 1999, Walker went to the scene where dead bodies lied, and stated that the massacre was “a crime against humanity”.
President Vucic, then Minister of Information in the Milosevic government, has denied the massacre ever took place, and accused Walker of fabricating it: “It was all fabricated by that global fraudster, scammer and swindler, Walker”.
The massacre was one of the factors that led to the 1999 NATO bombing campaign which ended the bloody two-year war between Kosovo and Serbia.
Walker said he was “disappointed” and “somewhat alarmed” that prosecutors in The Hague will investigate only alleged crimes committed by Albanians.
”Lately I have been very disappointed and somewhat alarmed because I think the Special Prosecutor’s Office having only the mandate to look at the Albanian side, the Kosovo side of the violence that took place, I find it a very unequal operation. Yes, there were war crimes committed, certainly, during and after the war, but in my opinion the vast majority of those we committed under the guidance and governance of Belgrade, not of the KLA,” he stated.
He said the timing and the motive of the announcement of indictment against Thaci by the Specialist Chambers was questionable.
