James Rubin, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State during the Kosovo War, has issued a strong appeal for the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague to “do the right thing” and acquit the former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Rubin, who testified for three days as a defense witness in the trial of former President Hashim Thaçi and others, warned that the proceedings are taking international criminal law into a “very strange and troubling place,” describing the judges’ questions as biased.
In an interview with U.S. journalist Christiane Amanpour, Rubin said he noticed a disturbing tendency from the bench during his testimony.
“The judges, to my surprise, asked me questions that seemed one-sided. They didn’t sound like questions to uncover facts… It felt as if they had already decided that the KLA was a structured organization with Thaçi at the top — which is simply not true,” Rubin stated.
The former diplomat stressed that the purpose of war crimes tribunals is to establish individual, not collective, responsibility, in order to prevent the perpetuation of ethnic conflict. He emphasized that the accused “did not have the responsibility, capability, or authority to permit or order war crimes.”
The KLA and Hashim Thaçi’s Role
Reflecting on his experience during the Kosovo War, Rubin described the KLA as an “unprepared, disorganized army.” He underlined that Thaçi, then a young man, had little control over its internal structure and functioned more like a foreign minister than a military commander.
Rubin further warned that the Balkans once again face an uncertain security environment and urged the international community to act after the tribunal’s decision:
“Then the United States, together with the Europeans, must sit down with the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia and solve this problem.”
He recalled that during the war years, intervention led by President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright helped prevent a potential genocide in time.
