Kosovo Truth Commission’s Future in Doubt After Thaci’s Indictment

But President Thaci resigned in November after being indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, raising questions about whether or not others will carry forward the initiative to set up the committee.

Artan Murati, an adviser to Kosovo's acting president, Vjosa Osmani, said that the issue has not been discussed yet.

"An evaluation of the work and mandate of the preparatory team must be done before proceeding further," Murati told BIRN.

There is no clarity yet about what exactly the commission aims to achieve, while questions have been raised about whether Kosovo Serbs, who have a different view of the conflict from the country's ethnic Albanians, will be involved in the process.

Kushtrim Koliqi, one of the members of the preparatory team, told BIRN that the team's work isn't finished yet and a meeting with the acting president is needed to work out how to continue.

"While we are working on preparation, a broader political dialogue should start in parallel because this process needs political support. Political consensus is a must [if we want] to go ahead," Koliqi said.

'It cannot create reconciliation'

Zenun Xhemajli, who lost his four sons in the war, at his house in the village of Rracaj. Photo: Serbeze Haxhiaj/BIRN.

Zenun Xhemajli, 78, who lives in the village of Rracaj in Kosovo's Gjakova/Djakovica municipality, said he has lost hope that the truth about what happened to his four sons will ever be established

In August 1998, two of his sons, Muharrem, who was 27, and Ilir, 25, were stopped by a Serbian police patrol near their village and taken away.

Less than a year later, on April 27, 1999, his two younger...