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The Kosovo Liberation Army or KLA (Albanian: Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës or UÇK) was a Kosovar Albanian guerilla group which sought the independence of Kosovo from Yugoslavia in the late 1990s.

Its campaign against Serbian security forces precipitated a major Yugoslav military crackdown which led to the Kosovo War of 1998-1999. Military intervention by Yugoslav security forces and Serb militias within Kosovo prompted an exodus of Kosovar Albanians and a refugee crisis that eventually caused NATO to intervene militarily in order to stop what was widely identified (by NATO nations, human rights organizations, the EU, and western media) as an ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing.

The conflict was ended by a negotiated agreement that requested UN to take over the administration and political process, including local institutional building and determine the final status of the region.

History

Doctors, teachers, and other educated leaders expelled by the Serbian government in the 70s and 80s became commanders of units of the rebel group. Its program was to create an Albanian national republic within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by armed resistance, and to eventually join with Albania.

In February 1996 the KLA undertook a series of attacks against targets that included police stations and Serb government offices in Western Kosovo. The Serbian authorities denounced it as a terrorist organization and increased the number of security forces in the region. This had the counter-productive effect of boosting the credibility of the embryonic KLA among the Kosovo Albanian population.

The Serbian government was initially uncertain about how to react to the KLA. The Ministry of the Interior (MUP) simply ceased patrolling large areas of Kosovo, while the Yugoslav Army (VJ) often ignored KLA activity. Ibrahim Rugova's "shadow government" also faced a dilemma; it was unwilling to endorse the KLA's violent tactics but was wary of losing support to the radicals. Its position worsened after the KLA assassinated a number of Albanians regarded as "collaborators" with the Serbian government.

In fact KLA outgrew its numbers and reorganized itself swiftly in bigger formations into brigades with a central command structure and training organization. It established a General Staff (Shtabi i Përgjithshem) of between 16-20 members and divided Kosovo into 7 military operational zones, commanded semi-independently by Local Commanders operating under pseudonyms. The size of the KLA at this point according to KLA Spokesman, Jakup Krasniqi, was over 30,000 men strong, while estimates ranged between 20,000 and 50,000.

The KLA also established a political arm, the Drejtoria Politike, led by prominent Kosovo independence activist Hashim Thaçi. Strategic bases, the Supreme Headquarters, hospitals, radio “Kosova e Lirë” and news agency “Kosovapress” were stationed and defended in the Berisha Mountains.

The KLA built training camps and bases in the safe haven of north-eastern Albania, even establishing its own military academy (the Akademia e Ardhshme Ushtarake) where ethnic Albanians, formerly Yugoslav Army officers, trained new recruits. According to Serbian accounts, the primary KLA training camps in Albania were Labinot, near Tirana, Tropojë, Kukës and Bajram Curri near the Yugoslav-Albanian border.

The KLA continued to rely principally on small arms but expanded its arsenal to include SA-7 and FIM-92 Stinger shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles, as well as light artillery such as mortars.

By February 1998, the KLA had been removed from the United States State Department's terrorism list.

Full-scale war broke out in Kosovo in March 1999. The Serbian and Yugoslav forces launched an offensive against the KLA. Its commander, Sylejman Selimi, a political appointee with no formal military training, was removed in May 1999 and replaced with Agim Çeku, an ethnic Albanian who had previously served in the Croatian Army as brigadier-general. After Çeku's appointment, the KLA began to take a much more aggressive stance by attacking Yugoslav security force units and forcing them into the open, where they were made easy prey for NATO aircraft.

Foreign volunteers

The KLA included in its ranks foreign volunteers from Sweden, Belgium, the UK, Germany, the US , and France . 30-40 Volunteers from the Croatian Forces International Volunteers Association also participated in training KLA troops .

The KLA usually rewarded after service its international volunteers with a passage home, as a gesture of thanks.

Foreign support

In 1996 a British weekly newspaper, The European carried an article by a French expert stating that "German civil and military intelligence services have been involved in training and equipping the rebels with the aim of cementing German influence in the Balkan area. (...) The birth of the KLA in 1996 coincided with the appointment of Hansjoerg Geiger as the new head of the BND (German secret Service). (...) The BND men were in charge of selecting recruits for the KLA command structure from the 500,000 Kosovars in Albania." Former senior adviser to the German parliament Matthias Küntzel proved later on that German secret diplomacy had been instrumental in helping the KLA since its creation.

James Bissett, Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania in 1990, recalled in 1992 and retired from Foreign Service to eventually take a job as the head of an International organization in Moscow, helping the Russian Government establish a new immigration agency, writes that "...as early as 1998, the Central Intelligence Agency assisted by the British Special Armed Services were arming and training Kosovo Liberation Army members in Albania to foment armed rebellion in Kosovo. (...) The hope was that with Kosovo in flames NATO could intervene ..." According to Tim Judah, KLA representatives had already met with American, British, and Swiss intelligence agencies in 1996, and possibly "several years earlier" and according to The Sunday Times, "American intelligence agents have admitted they helped to train the Kosovo Liberation Army before NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia" .

Aftermath (post-1999)

When the war ended, NATO and Serbian leaders agreed to a peace settlement that would see Kosovo governed by the United Nations with the KLA being demilitarized. The KLA was, however, not a signatory to the peace accords. KLA agreed to be transformed and disarmed .

NATO sought to bring it into the peace process with a promise to establish a 3,000-strong Kosovo Protection Corps drawn from KLA ranks and charged with disaster response, search and rescue, assistance with de-mining, providing humanitarian assistance, and helping to rebuild infrastructure and communities. The KPC's operational sectors were very similar to those established by the KLA, illustrating the continuity between the two organizations. The KPC took over the former Yugoslav Army barracks; each zone had its battalions established there.

Ex-KLA members also made efforts to spread insurgency into neighboring regions . A new insurgent group called the Liberation Army of Presheva, Medvegja and Bujanoc, consisting of KLA veterans and local ethnic Albanians, began operating in the Presheva Valley in southern Serbia in 2000-2001.

In the Republic of Macedonia, a new organization also named UÇK (this time standing for "National Liberation Army" in Albanian) took up arms against the Slav-dominated government.

In early 2002, Greece was on stand-by after pro-Albanian activities had again crossed over the border; these incidents however, attracted little international attention.

The KLA legacy remains powerful within Kosovo. Its former members still play a major role in Kosovar politics.

Its former political head Hashim Thaçi is now the leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo and the Prime Minister of Kosovo since January 2008, one of the province's leading political opposition parties.

The KLA's former military head, Agim Çeku, after the war became Prime Minister of Kosovo. The move caused some controversy in Serbia, as Belgrade regarded him as a war criminal, though he was never indicted by the Hague tribunal .

Ramush Haradinaj, a former KLA commander, served briefly as Prime Minister of Kosovo before he willfully turned himself up to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague to stand trial on accusations against him for war crimes and was aqquited of all charges.

Fatmir Limaj, one of the senior commanders of the KLA to also went through a trial process in The Hague, and was acquitted of all charges in November 2005 . He is now a key member of the opposition.

Haradin Bala, an ex-KLA prison guard, was sentenced on 30 November 2005 to 13 years’ imprisonment for the mistreatment of three prisoners at the Llapushnik prison camp, his personal role in the "maintenance and enforcement of the inhumane conditions" of the camp, aiding the torture of one prisoner, and of participating in the murder of nine prisoners from the camp who were marched to the Berisha Mountains on 25 or 26 July 1998 and killed. Bala appealed the sentence and the appeal is still pending.

Yugoslav stance

The Yugoslav authorities regarded the KLA a terrorist group and claimed that the KLA comprised only a few hundred radicals. During and after the war the Yugoslav and later Serbian state and media have also called KLA a “Marxist-Leninist” revolutionary movement, a “fundamental Islamic” organization, a "Mafia-funded" organization, etc.

The Serbian government maintained, in a report, that the KLA had killed and kidnapped 3,276 civilians of various ethnic descriptions including some Albanians. According to the report, from January 1 1998 to June 10 1999 the KLA killed 988 people and kidnapped 287; 335 of them civilians, 351 soldiers, 230 police and 72 unidentified. By nationality, 87 of killed civilians were Serbs, 230 Albanians, and 18 of other nationalities. The report continues that following the withdrawal of Serbian and Yugoslav security forces from Kosovo in June 1999, all casualties were civilians, the vast majority being Serbs.

See also

• Kosovo Protection Corps
• Military of Kosovo
• Kosovo Police Service
• KFOR
• Albanian Armed Forces
• Kosovo War
• Serbian-Albanian Conflict

References

1. UNDER ORDERS: War Crimes in Kosovo - 4. March-June 1999: An Overview
2. Conflict In The Balkans: The Overview; Nato Authorizes Bomb Strikes; Primakov, In Air, Skips U.S. Visit - New York Times
3. "Unknown Albanian 'liberation army' claims attacks", Agence France Presse, February 17, 1996
4. http://www.iwpr.net/?p=bcr&s=f&o=248236&apc_state=henibcr5b891da66b3662d9a16bf0d86e537b3b
5. http://www.aimpress.ch/dyn/trae/archive/data/199904/90420-001-trae-tir.htm
6. http://www.cfiva.org/cfiva/history/index.cfm
7. http://www.cfiva.org/cfiva/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=showItem&newsID=13
8. FALLGOT, Roger (1998): "How Germany Backed KLA", in The European, 21 September-27 September. pp 21-27.
9. KUNTZEL, Matthias (2002): Der Weg in den Krieg. Deutschland, die Nato und das Kosovo (The Road to War. Germany, Nato and Kosovo). Elefanten Press. Berlin, Germany. pp. 59-64.
10. James Bissett
11. JUDAH, Tim (2002): Kosovo: War and Revenge. Yale University Press. New Haven, USA. Page 120
12. The Hague, 21 April 2006 - Appeals Chamber
13. MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base using a web.archive.org copy of 2 April 2007
14. ^ .Victims of the Albanian terrorism in Kosovo-Metohija (Killed, kidnapped, and missing persons, January 1998 - November 2001)
    Žrtve albanskog terorizma na Kosovu i Metohiji (Ubijena, oteta i nestala lica, januar 1998 - novembar 2001)

General references

• "KLA Action Fuelled NATO Victory", Jane's Defence Weekly, 16 June 1999
• "The KLA: Braced to Defend and Control", Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 April 1999
• "Kosovo's Ceasefire Crumbles As Serb Military Retaliates", Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 February 1999
• "Another Balkan Bloodbath? Part Two", Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 March 1998
• "Albanians Attack Serb Targets", Jane's Defence Weekly, 4 September 1996
• "The Kosovo Liberation Army and the Future of Kosovo", James H. Anderson and James Phillips, 05/13/1999, Heritage Foundation, Heritage Foundation (Washington, USA)

External links

• KPC/TMK Official Site
• The KLA: braced to defend and control Jane's
• Kosovo's Army in Waiting TIME
• KLA-NATO Demilitarization and transformation agreement.
• IISS: "The Kosovo Liberation Army" - Volume 4, Issue 7 - August 1998
• KOSOVAPRESS Ex-KLA News Agency, now close to the Democratic Party of Kosovo
• GOVERNMENT OF SERBIA (2003): White Book on KLA (Part 1, Part 2)

• Irregular military
• History of Kosovo
• National liberation movements
• Albanian separatism