Former U.S. senior official James Rubin told the Kosovo Specialist Chambers that United Nations reports frequently failed to accurately reflect the reality on the ground in Kosovo.
Rubin was questioned about a 1998 UN report alleging the abduction of Serbian, Albanian, and Roma civilians, as well as Serbian police officers, by people believed to be members of the KLA.
“I read the UN report on Kosovo, but I was highly skeptical of it,” Rubin stated.
“UN bodies very often misrepresented the situation,” he added.
“I was aware of their reporting, but it was far from fully reliable,” Rubin emphasized, noting that he considered Red Cross reports far more credible.
Rubin also mentioned that U.S. State Department reports at the time implicated the KLA in killings, detentions, and abductions, including of Albanian civilians.
When asked about specific newspaper articles reporting arrests and killings, Rubin admitted that after more than 20 years, he could not recall exact cases—but stressed that UN reporting often distorted the truth, failing to hold perpetrators accountable.
