Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism: Vol. 9, No.

2, 2009

Interview with Dr Muhamet

Hamiti, Charge d’A¡aires of the
Republic of Kosovo to the UK

Dr Hamiti is the first diplomat of the Republic of Kosovo to serve in the UK since
Kosovo’s declaration of independence in February 2008.1 In an exclusive
interview with SEN’s Vivian Ibrahim, he discusses the years preceding Kosovo’s
independence, its nine years of United Nations administration and the euphoria
that has existed since last year. Dr Hamiti also provides an insight into present-day
relations with Kosovo’s immediate neighbours, the European Union and the UK.
He concludes by discussing his role since undertaking his diplomatic post in
October 2008.

SEN: Let us begin, Dr Hamiti, by discussing March 1999, when NATO (North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation) forces entered Kosovo. This marked the beginning
of almost a decade of international UN administration over Kosovo.

Hamiti: Yes. NATO started its air campaign against Serbian targets and the
Serbian war machinery in both Serbia and Kosovo during March 1999. A year
earlier Serbia had embarked on full-scale aggression against the people of Kosovo.
Serbia was intent on ethnically cleansing the people of Kosovo, the overwhelming
majority of whom are ethnically Albanian.

SEN: Could we clarify from the beginning what percentage of the population are
of other ethnic heritages, for example Serb, Roma, etc?

Hamiti: We have not had a proper census for over 28 years but conservative
estimates put ethnic Albanians at ninety-two per cent, so eight per cent should be
non-Albanians. The majority of those belonging to these minority communities
are Serbs but we also have Turks, Romas and Slavic Muslim populations, which
we call Bosnians.

Milošević’s Serbia was intent on ethnically cleansing Kosovars and had launched
an operation to this effect in 1998. Kosovar Albanians had resisted the occupation
through peaceful, political means since the 1990s but the Serbian state machinery
embarked upon an ethnic cleansing campaign and killed whole extended families
in 1998 and in 1999. This included the well-known massacre in Raèak in mid-
January 1999, which triggered a more responsive approach on the part of the
international community, the EU and NATO. But what we had in 1999 was the

333
Interview with Dr Muhamet Hamiti

Rambouillet peace talks on Kosovo, spearheaded by the Contact Group of six

countries: that is the USA, UK, Italy, Germany, France and Russia. The aim of the
talks was the conclusion of a peace agreement for an interim solution between
what was then Yugoslavia (comprising Serbia and Montenegro) and a Kosovo
delegation representing the ethnic Albanian majority population of Kosovo. The
Rambouillet talks in Rambouillet and Paris in February and March 1999 were
torpedoed by Serbia, which was not seeking a political solution. It was not looking
for peace. The Kosovar delegation signed up to the compromise deal offered by
the international community. On the other hand, Serbia, at the height of its hubris
as an occupier – a state that, in Kosovo, was waging its fourth war of aggression
against its fellow federal entities in less than a decade – called the bluff of the
international community’s serious efforts to bring a peaceful end to the Yugoslav
crisis.

SEN: There is, of course, a lot of controversy surrounding the actual

events in Raèak and those deaths in January 1999. What was the impact of Raèak,
and particularly its portrayal by the media on international intervention in
Kosovo?

Hamiti: Raèak was one among a series of concerted Serbian military and
paramilitary actions against Albanians – mostly unarmed civilians, actually.
As far as the controversy in Raèak is concerned, [it] is a fabrication by the Serbs
but the reality is that more than forty civilians were slaughtered in a joint action
of the Serbian army and paramilitary police. The world was there to see it actually.
The OSCE (the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe) monitors
on the ground and the media broke the news and conveyed the unmediated images
of slaughtered Kosovar Albanian civilians lying on the ground, with some of the
bodies mutilated in a barbaric way. The top Serbian leadership involved in Raèak
were tried and convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) earlier this year; each of them were sentenced to up to 22
years’ imprisonment. The former Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia (as it was
called back then), Nikola Sainovic,2 as well as the Chief of Staff of the Military
and the Chief of Staff of the Police – that is, Serbian military and police generals –
were all convicted of having engaged in a joint criminal enterprise against the
Albanian population of Kosovo in the first half of 1999. Therefore, because the
ICTY has convicted them of war crimes and crimes against humanity, this should
bring the so-called controversy of Raèak to an end.

SEN: Moving on slightly to UN resolution 1244, which put Kosovo under

international administration. Through what means did Kosovo manage to assert its
identity and national feeling in those ten years or so?

Hamiti: Actually, in political and cultural terms, Kosovo had always been
different from the rest of Yugoslavia. In fact the name of the state, ‘Yugoslavia’,
alienated Kosovo because it means the land of the southern Slavs: the Kosovar
Albanians are a non-Slavic people. Now in terms of the culture, identity and

334
 Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism: Vol. 9, No. 2, 2009

values, the Kosovars were in many ways people who wanted to reconnect with the
West, who wanted to retrace their authenticity back in time; not for nostalgia but
simply to reassert their identity in a new environment – that is, the post-Cold War
context in Europe. The 1990s were the years in which the Kosovars built their own
state, although under Serbian occupation. When I speak of ‘state’ I refer to what
the English-speaking world would understand as an underground state. The people
[. . .] had elected a president and a parliament twice, we had a fully operational
education system up to university level, health and welfare systems of our own, as
well as a financial system. As such this was a state that was lacking only in the
power of law enforcement. After a long political and ultimately armed struggle, in
the wake of the NATO-led humanitarian intervention that spared us outright
genocide, we got our freedom on 12th June 1999 and an international administra-
tion was deployed in Kosovo under UN Resolution 1244. With the UN- and
NATO-led missions – two components of a very robust international presence – in
place, the Kosovars could recover and rebuild after a long period of occupation,
persecution and divestment. From 1999 to 2008 – almost a decade – there was a
heavy international presence, which, by and large, was very useful in this early
stage. I am referring here to the civilian presence; it enabled us to erect our own
democratic structures, our own state system and to create a society in which we
had a fully functioning state, lacking only in the classical sovereignty powers that
were with the UN administration.

This was also very useful because it gave us a period to recover from the physical
devastation and psychological wounds caused by the war. But in many ways this
period was too long: during the last years of its existence, it began to create a
culture of dependency in our country. The Kosovars had fought long and hard for
independence and we were facing a situation where this ubiquitous international
presence, with decisive powers in some areas of the economy (i.e. finances, but
also security and foreign relations), had the upper hand as it were. We had an
elected government of Kosovo accountable to, and responsible to, the people of
Kosovo, but we had at the same time an unelected layer of government in the form
[. . .] of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
[The UNMIK] had decisive powers in certain areas, including [the power] to
administer up to one third of our budget – the budget that we collected from our
own revenues. So the people grew impatient and wanted to see resolution of the
status, because this was such an impediment to our future prospects in terms of our
growth, prosperity and peace of mind. We wanted our status resolved, and this day
finally came on 17th February 2008.

SEN: You talk of the overwhelming desire and expectations of the population
over a period of nearly a decade; how was it that February 2008 actually came
about?

Hamiti: Public opinion had been prepared for that; we were co-ordinating our
steps towards declaring independence with our allies in the West. A comprehen-
sive international process had taken place in order to determine the status of

335
Interview with Dr Muhamet Hamiti

Kosovo from 2005 to 2007. This process involved the Contact Group – the six
countries that I mentioned earlier – and was conducted by the former Finnish
president Martti Ahtisaari, who was the UN Secretary General’s special envoy for
the status of Kosovo. At the end of that process, we had a comprehensive package
commonly referred to as the Ahtisaari package. This lay down the key provisions
for the independence of Kosovo, initially supervised. At the end of the negotiating
process, President Ahtisaari concluded that independence itself was the only
viable solution for Kosovo. The Ahtisaari package also contained unprecedented
rights and privileges for minorities, first and foremost for Serbs living in Kosovo.
In co-ordination with the overwhelming majority of the international community,
we embraced the Ahtisaari package even though it was indeed a compromise: the
package was not the ideal solution the Kosovo Albanian leaders would have
written into the constitution of our state had we not entered into negotiations with
Serbia and the international community to determine the final status of Kosovo.
The package contains many concessions to the Serbs, a lot of painful
compromises, but we were prepared for this; the public knew that this was going
to happen. There was some impatience about the pace of things taking place, but
all of us were keen to see a smooth transition from an uncertainty of status to a
certainty of status, namely independence for our country.

We co-ordinated our independence moves closely with our allies and scheduled
the declaration of independence in parliament for 17th February 2008. Therefore,
this was a CDI and not a UDI – that is, a co-ordinated declaration of independence
and not a unilateral declaration of independence. The results of this co-ordination
were considerable. We saw a largely smooth transition to independence other than
the few isolated incidents that have occurred since 2008. The people were,
naturally enough, excited about what was coming: ethnic Albanians, not only in
Kosovo but all of them including those in Albania, Serbia, Montenegro and the
large diaspora in the West. It was a historic day for us, which has resonance with
28th November 1912 when the declaration of the independence of Albania was
made as the Ottoman Empire was crumbling and the Albanians living under its
rule were fighting for their freedom and independence in their own lands. In fact,
the Albanian independence movement was born in Kosovo: in June 1878, the
League of Prizren was established in the southern town of Kosovo [. . .]
Independence for Kosovo was a fulfilment of our long desire for freedom and
independence. In personal terms, the independence day filled me with joy, which I
could not fully bask in because I was busy with the President of Kosovo, Dr Fatmir
Sejdiu, and other leaders in the day’s official and popular ceremonies and
festivities. I wish I could have spent the day with my beloved wife, Vjosa, and
our two lovely children, Era and Ag – our twins, a girl and a boy, who were born in
freedom in September 2004 and would from then on live in their independent
country. Independence is our heritage. Freedom and democracy are our legacy; we
leave them to our children now – for good.

SEN: How would you describe the popular mood one year on? Has the initial
euphoria waned?

336
 Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism: Vol. 9, No. 2, 2009

Hamiti: There was jubilation in 2008 and there was jubilation in 2009. What does
this mean? It means that people are still very excited about what we have achieved.
They wish to see more in the way of progress, especially as far as the economy and
jobs are concerned. But, in the run up to independence, people had not been misled
into thinking that independence would bring paradise, as it were, to Kosovo. No, they
were told it was a prerequisite, a very existential turning point for our future. It
enabled us, through a long international process, to actually place Kosovo on the
political map of the world; indeed, not only political but cultural, economic and so on.
A year after the momentous event, people are aware that while you can never fulfil all
the expectations of all the people, we have begun on the road in pursuit of that.

SEN: You mentioned the international community. Fifty-eight UN nations

recognise Kosovo’s independence. Of the permanent members of the Security
Council, three recognise Kosovo (UK, France and the USA) while two – Russia
and China – do not. How do you account for this, and what measures are being
taken to encourage other countries to recognise Kosovo?

Hamiti: Let me begin by saying that twenty-two out of twenty-seven EU members

recognise Kosovo, which is the majority. Similarly, seven out of the G8 countries
recognise Kosovo, which is seven great economic powerhouses of the world,
excepting Russia. [With regards to Russia and China,] Russia has been more
vociferous in its opposition to Kosovo’s independence; China has expressed its
concern over the declaration of Kosovo but it has not said, as far as I can tell, [that
it] opposed independence. There are variations or shades of tone in their position
vis-à-vis Kosovo.

Of course, Kosovo is a unique case for many reasons. We were part of an eight-
member Federation of Yugoslavia – which was more of a confederation in actual
terms. Seven of them are now fully fledged independent nations, including
Kosovo. Serbia has also regained its own separate nationhood in the process.
Serbia wanted to redefine its dominant position in the former Yugoslavia by
subjecting the other fellow federal entities to its whims. None of the Slavic entities
of the former Yugoslavia – indeed not even Montenegro, which was the closest to
Serbia in terms of language, ethnicity and religion – wanted to remain together
with Serbia in a redefined Yugoslavia. Moreover, they went to great lengths to part
ways with a Serbia that had turned itself into an aggressor against other fellow
former entities in the Federation.

SEN: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) set a deadline of 17th April 2009 for
submissions by states concerning the legality of Kosovo’s independence. What
were the arguments put forward by the Republic of Kosovo?

Hamiti: The ICJ process will perhaps last a while, and this was actually the reason
why Serbia initiated the process before the UN General Assembly (which then
referred the issue of the legality of the declaration of Kosovo’s independence by
the Kosovo authorities to the ICJ). Serbia knows it cannot reverse the process of

337
Interview with Dr Muhamet Hamiti

recognition of Kosovo’s independence. It can only slow the process down. The
ICJ will produce an advisory opinion, not a binding one. Kosovo was a member of
the Federation, just like Serbia and the other fellow constituent entities; therefore,
given that Yugoslavia was dissolved, Kosovo had the right to choose its own
political fate, which is what we did. Serbia had embarked on a process of ethnic
cleansing and half of the population of Kosovo was deported from their home in
the spring of 1999; 12,000 Kosovars were killed. Last but not least, we had almost
a decade-long international presence, which deprived Serbia of sovereignty over
Kosovo; Kosovo was ultimately out of the orbit of Serbia in every aspect. During
that period we built our own democratic institutions and the world saw that
Kosovo was a viable state, [with] the right to be a country, united with neither
Serbia nor Albania. Kosovo and Serbia can be together under one roof – the
European Union – as sovereign nations, on a par with each other, at peace with
each other. An unrepentant Serbia cannot join the Euro-Atlantic structures,
though. A Serbia that continues to be in denial over its genocidal policies in
Kosovo and elsewhere cannot and should not be able to become part of a shared
community of values, such as the EU and NATO. Kosovo is well placed to embark
upon this road to full integration into the EU and NATO.

SEN: What policies and measures have been implemented by the new government
since independence with regard to building a cohesive national identity or
consciousness?

Hamiti: It was a national consciousness that built the Kosovo state, and not the
Kosovo state that built this consciousness.

SEN: By what measures, though, do you mobilise and sustain it?

Hamiti: What the Government of Kosovo is doing is this: trying to implement

policies that will re-establish the very fabric of our society. The long occupation of
Kosovo and the war in the 1990s greatly damaged the very fabric of Kosovar
society. The independence of Kosovo has brought great peace of mind to all the
citizens of Kosovo; now they can share in the common values – cultural,
civilisational and economic – that Kosovo has. Kosovo is a democracy that gives
all the communities their rights and privileges to serve their identity, to pursue
their own interests in terms of their values, and to promote their own culture,
language and such. We, as a Government, [are] reviewing the school curricula . . .

SEN: The implementation of new educational policies seems particularly

important, given that approximately forty-five per cent of the population is under
the age of twenty-five.

Hamiti: Probably more than that. We [. . .] have an education system that is crucial
for our country. Our youth are taught in a way that is in keeping with the practices
that are implemented in the Western world, and in particular in Europe. This will
allow them to promote their own values as well as pursue the interests and values

338
 Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism: Vol. 9, No. 2, 2009

of modern times. So, the young population of Kosovo will be able to draw upon
the best practices, while also being able to promote their own distinct identity and
values.

SEN: To return to the topic of Europe and the EU, what are Kosovo’s interests in
being part of the EU? Surely the economy must be an important factor?

Hamiti: It is not only economic. Kosovo is a state, a country and a nation in its
own right, including its ability to become a sovereign actor in the international
community. It has had its own identity since ancient times: Kosovo was, during
Roman times, an administrative unit called Dardania [Ancient Kosovo]. [This]
new history of Kosovo is being written and published [. . .] we have been, since
ancient times, [and] under different administrations, a polity of sorts, a unit in our
own right. We now want to become part [of the] Western canon of values again.
The long Yugoslav rule from 1912 to 1999 had forced Kosovo into dominant-state
cultural and ideological patterns that were alien to the Kosovars: pan-Slavic,
Yugoslav and communist ideologies. Therefore, this freedom of 1999 was not only
freedom from Serbian/Yugoslav occupation, but also freedom for Kosovo to
promote its own cultural identity, multilayered as it is, and reconnect with the
mainstream European cultural canon. We have a constitution and laws that are in
keeping with EU laws and we are implementing a lot of policies in education and
the economy in a way that a lot of others have not been able to do [. . .] The
enthusiasm is there because the desire for EU integration is huge. [All] layers of
society desire to embark on this long process of EU integration. Being part of the
shared values of the EU is very important – as important as being an EU member –
and this would mean that we would become part of a larger market too.

SEN: And as for NATO?

Hamiti: It’s both: [NATO] is a powerful military as well as political alliance.

Being a small nation, we want to be able to consume but also to contribute to the
shared values and ideals of this alliance, which, in the eyes of the people of
Kosovo, is the saviour of Kosovo.

SEN: With regards to Kosovo’s relationship with Albania, considering that ninety
per cent of Kosovars would identity themselves as ethnic Albanians, why is there a
necessity for an independent Kosovo?

Hamiti: We have a lot in common in terms of our shared ethnic, language and
cultural ties, but Kosovo has now fulfilled its national goal of becoming a state of
the twenty-first century: we don’t want to go back to a notion of an ethnically
homogeneous state of the nineteenth century. That idea [was what] our neighbour,
Serbia, tried to impose on the rest and unleashed all the evil that it did. [Kosovo]
opted for independence because we had a leadership that was visionary and
realistic at the same time. We wanted our own rights promoted – we wanted our
own freedom, we wanted independence to enable us to govern our own affairs

339
Interview with Dr Muhamet Hamiti

without being hampered by the rest – but we did not want to go back to those ideas
of the past of creating homogeneous ethnic states. We now live in an era when the
idea of nationhood is not necessarily exclusively built on this ethno-centrist
ideology [. . .]

SEN: Kosovo has a sizable Serb minority community; the Serbian president, Boris
Tadić, visited Kosovo on 17th April, the deadline of the ICJ. What do you
envisage for your future relations with your other bordering neighbour, Serbia?

Hamiti: I was part of the negotiating process that led to the determination of the
status of Kosovo. During that process we did something that would have been un-
thought [of] elsewhere. We proposed a treaty of friendship and co-operation with
Serbia. The Serbian leadership, including Tadić, who was the key figure, refused
this. Indeed, we had problems in Kosovo with our own people who asked, ‘Why
do you ask for a treaty of friendship with Serbia, which has never asked for
forgiveness for what it has done to Kosovo?’ So we have been very generous in
our offers to try and accommodate the sensitivities of our former occupier in a way
that a lot of people would have had difficulties in understanding. And Serbia has
refused. Tadić was in opposition to Milošević for power in Serbia during the
1990s, but never actually distanced himself with regards to Milošević’s policies
over Kosovo. So in terms of their ideology, published and stated in Belgrade, they
do not differ considerably from each other in relation to their Kosovo policies.
They may portray themselves as democratic and even as a liberal democracy, but,
when it comes to Kosovo, the current government in Belgrade sometimes mirrors
the image of Milošević in his worst days.

[In his recent visit,] President Tadić of Serbia addressed a letter to the International
Civilian presence in Kosovo. He stated that he would not make a political speech
during his trip to Kosovo – however, he did. We knew how he would behave; he
did not surprise us. If he continues to behave this way, he may well not be allowed
to enter Kosovo.

SEN: Let us talk about your role in the UK. Could you tell us more about your role
since arriving here in October 2008 and your relationship with the British
Government?

Hamiti: The British Government has supported Kosovo for more than a decade
now. The UK Government was a strong supporter for [Kosovo’s independence]
and an active participant in the international efforts, political and military, to bring
an end to the Kosovo crisis. London contributed considerably to NATO action for
the liberation of Kosovo in 1999. They have continued their support during the
past decade, including for the solution that we have come to for Kosovo now:
independence for our country, initially supervised by the international community.
Independence has brought peace of mind to the people of Kosovo, while providing
generous protection for minorities, including the Serbs; although they make up
only five or six per cent of the population, their language is an official language,

340
 Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism: Vol. 9, No. 2, 2009

just like Albanian. The Serbs are over-represented at the national and local levels;
they have asymmetrical rights in their own majority areas in terms of education,
welfare etc. This is the kind of package that the UK has helped us to come to as a
solution and resolution for Kosovo and now the bilateral relation between the UK
and Kosovo is extremely good. [This relationship has] developed a lot, but I
believe that, at the end of the day, [it] will be of mutual benefit for the people of
Kosovo and the UK. There is a lot of affection in Kosovo for the UK, and here,
indeed, I have also seen a lot of affection for the people of Kosovo and their
struggle. We need to build on this and translate it into concrete co-operation in
terms of the economy, education [and in] cultural areas.

SEN: And, more specifically, your role in the UK?

Hamiti: It is an honour for me to be here. I am the first Kosovar to serve as an

official diplomat to the UK. I have worked hard in the last six months to
make Kosovo’s presence felt here. I have been meeting a lot of my colleagues
from recognising and non-recognising countries. I have met a lot of people
from civil society here, including academia and think-tanks. We are trying to
establish a permanent presence for the Republic of Kosovo here. In the meantime,
our short-term goal is to get the message across that Kosovo is a fully fledged
state; that her independence has brought peace to south-east Europe and that
further international recognition will bolster Kosovo, the region and, indeed,
Europe.

SEN: In what ways have you been able to establish contacts with the substantial
diaspora in the UK?

Hamiti: We have a large community. Some [have been here] for at least twenty
years, some for the last ten years. (The last wave, as it were, of people who came
here in large numbers was in the spring of 1999, at the peak of the war in Kosovo.)
However, it is interesting that, from over 5,800 Kosovars who came in 1999, close
to 4,000 have returned home – the majority.

SEN: Since independence was declared?

Hamiti: Even before. There is an incredibly strong bond between Kosovars and
their homeland. Still, there is a large number of Kosovars here who have made a
significant contribution to the society at large, including the UK economy. Now
many of them are actually nationals of UK, or have dual nationality, so I want
them to promote this linkage. We believe in their right to live here, to make a
contribution to this great society and nation, and at the same time to contribute to
Kosovo, the new nation that needs all the loving care that it can get.

SEN: Dr Hamiti, thank you very much for the interview.

Hamiti: Thank you.

341
Interview with Dr Muhamet Hamiti

Notes
1
Interview conducted on 1st May 2009. The views expressed here do not represent the
views of SEN.
2
On 26th February 2009, the ICTY sentenced Sainovic to 22 years in prison having found
him guilty of deportation, forcible transfer, murder and persecution.

Dr Muhamet Hamiti was born in Dumnicë village, of the Podujevo

municipality in Kosovo, in 1964. He earned his BA in English language
and literature at the University of Pristina in 1987, his MA in English
literature at Zagreb University (Croatia) in 1990 and his PhD in English
literature (with a thesis on the prose fiction of James Joyce and Joseph
Conrad) at the University of Pristina in 2006. In the 1990s, Hamiti was an
independent scholar at the University of East Anglia and at Birkbeck
College, University of London. Hamiti taught English literature and theory
of literature at the University of Pristina from 1989 to 2008. He is the author
of a monograph book on English literature, a range of literary essays, as
well as literary translations from and into English. From 1991 to 1999, Dr
Hamiti worked at the Kosovo Information Centre (KIC) – Qendra për
Informim e Kosovës (QIK) – as editor-in-chief for the English service. He
edited and translated into English a number of publications that the KIC
published during those years relating to the Kosovars’ struggle for freedom
and independence. Hamiti was affiliated with Ibrahim Rugova’s Demo-
cratic League of Kosovo (LDK), the first non-communist party in that part
of the world, and was a media advisor and spokesman to the President of
Kosovo, Dr Ibrahim Rugova, from mid 2002 until his death in January
2006. From 2006 to 2008, Dr Hamiti served as a senior political advisor to
Rugova’s successor to the presidency of Kosovo, Dr Fatmir Sejdiu. Dr
Hamiti has been Chargé d’Affaires a.i. of the Republic of Kosovo to
London since October 2008.

342