- Date of the event
- Place
- Llaushë (Skenderaj)
- Evidence status
- Evidence status: Documented. Supported by contemporaneous documents, institutional reports or independent studies that corroborate one another.
On 28 November 1997, at the funeral of the teacher Halit Geci in Llaushë (Skenderaj), three masked, uniformed UÇK fighters appeared before the mourners and addressed them. HRW calls this the group's first public appearance.
According to HRW, citing Tim Judah, Rexhep Selimi, Mujë Krasniqi and Daut Haradinaj appeared before some 20,000 mourners [1] [2]. Accounts of the teacher's death differ in detail: “killed by a stray bullet during fighting with Serb police” (HRW) or “killed two days before by Serbian forces” (a witness at the ICTY) [3].
Historical context
1996–1997
After Dayton, disappointment with international inaction turned into a search for new paths: student protests, underground networks and, at the end of 1997, the first public appearance of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Read the chapter “The crisis of peaceful resistance and the KLA's first public appearance”Sources
- [1]Fred Abrahams, Benjamin Ward. Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo. 2001-10-26. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- [2]Tim Judah. Kosovo: War and Revenge. Yale University Press, 2000. https://books.google.com/books/about/Kosovo.html?id=TDmwQgAACAAJ. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- [3]Tribunali Penal Ndërkombëtar për ish-Jugosllavinë (ICTY). Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milošević, Transcript, 28 February 2002. 2002-02-28. IT-02-54. https://www.icty.org/x/cases/slobodan_milosevic/trans/en/020228IT.htm. Accessed 2026-09-16. — T. 1232
- [4]James Pettifer. The Kosova Liberation Army: Underground War to Balkan Insurgency, 1948–2001. Hurst Publishers, Londër, 2014-01. https://hurstpublishers.com/book/the-kosova-liberation-army-2/. Accessed 2026-09-16.