The Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives, chaired by Congressman Eliot Engel, criticized the Hague- based Specialist Chambers’ approach to war crimes committed in Kosovo and the European Union for not conditioning Serbia’s accession with bringing war criminals to justice.
The comments came after a mass grave believed to contain the remains of Albanians killed during the 1998-1999 war were found in Serbia near the border with Kosovo.
Through its Twitter account the House Committee on Foreign Affairs wrote that even though Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic promised to bring perpetrators to justice for the murder Bytyqi brothers- US citizens of Albanian origin, “that has never happened”.
The three Bytyqi brothers – Ylli, Agron and Mehmet – were American citizens of Albanian origin who joined the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), and were arrested by Serbian forces after the war ended, when they crossed the unmarked Serbia-Kosovo border, in 1999. They were executed on July 1999.
At the same time, the world forced Kosovo to create a Special Court to investigate a questionable report of organ trafficking during the war. No evidence was found to back up these allegations made by European Parliamentarian Dick Marty.https://t.co/k2tk73rAhG
— House Foreign Affairs Committee (@HouseForeign) November 18, 2020
“Regardless of the brutality carried out by Belgrade, it has not been pressed seriously by the international community to prosecute perpetrators of war crimes in Kosovo,” reads the reaction by the Committee.
“At the same time, the world forced Kosovo to create a Special Court to investigate a questionable report of organ trafficking during the war. No evidence was found to back up these allegations made by European Parliamentarian Dick Marty,” it says.
The Committee says that the Special Court has jurisdiction over war crimes committed during the Kosovo war “*regardless of ethnicity*”.
“BUT, it only pursues ethnic Albanians for crimes against other Albanians and other Kosovar citizens,” it says.
According the US Committee on Foreign Affairs, justice must not be a prism through which images of only one ethnicity can pass.
“Right now, it seems that’s happening in Kosovo with the Special Court, and something has to change,” the reaction reads.
It adds that anyone who commits war crimes regardless of ethnicity should be brought to justice.
