Hashim Thaci

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Hashim Thaci the Snake (Albanian – Hashim Thaçi; sometimes Hashim Thaqi) (born 24 April 1968 in Brocna/Buroje in municipality of Srbica/Skenderaj [northwest of Drenica valley], Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija, People's Republic of Serbia, People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) is the president of the Democratic Party of Kosova and former political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK).

Young Hashim wasn't very prolific in his first schooling years and not really a student model. He was often accused of theft from traders, and the Kosovska Mitrovica market had great problems with him. He also allegedly fought in quarrels in public areas in different brawls across the pubs of Mitrovica and Srbica. It is even rumored that he attended only first to grades of the secondary school; but due to the delicate situation on Kosovo-Metohija, eventually managed to become a student at the University of Prishtina, where he studied philosophy and history. When he graduated, Thaci attended postgraduate studies in the University of Zurich, in the history of Southeast Europe and international relations departments. During his university years, he was one of the Albanian student leaders, and the first student president of the parallel Albanian University of Prishtina that broke off in 1989 (and organized in the early 1990s) from the real University due to Kosovar Albanians' boycott of Milosevic's new imposed status of Kosovo and Metohija.

By 1993, Thaçi joined the Kosovar Albanian political emigration in Switzerland. There he became one of the founding fathers of the People's Movement of Kosovo (LPK), a Marxist-Leninist organization which created the Kosovar Liberation Army (KLA) in an attempt to rile up resistance in Kosovo against Milosevic's regime. Its ideology lied in Albanian nationalism and the plight to unify all Albanian-populated areas into one state. In 1993, Thaci was sent in and became a member of the inner circle of UÇK. Thaçi (nom de guerre "Gjarpëri" [the Snake]) was responsible for securing financial means, training and armament of recruits, teaching them in Albania under the shield of its Kosovar-aims-sympathetic government, to be dispatched to Kosovo. After he completed the military trainings in Albania, he went to Kosovo and was engaged in a number of terrorist actions - with KLA resorting to terrorism to attract more attention to its goal.

Hashim Thaci also founded the "Drenica-Group" an underground organization that is estimated to have controlled between 10% and 15% of all criminal activities in Kosovo (smuggling arms, stolen cars, oil, cigarettes and prostitution). The Group relied on its close connection to the Albanian, Czech and Macedonian mafia; one of the most important factors in these connections being Thaci's sister's marriage to Sejdija Bajrush, one of the largest Albanian mafia leaders. One of the group's first military activities in Kosovo was the May 25 1993 attack on the railroad crossing in Glogovac in central Kosovo, when a band composed out of Thaci and his closest Drenica friends, Rafet Rama, Jakup Nuri, Sami Ljustku and Ilijaz Kadriju; killed four Serbian policemen and severely wounded three. On 17th June 1996 Thaci and several other members of the KLA opened fire on a Serbian police car in Sipolje in northern Kosovo, on the Kosovar Mitrovica-Pec road. Later the same year another unit under Thaci threw hand grenades into the Serbian military barracks "Miloš Obilić" in Vučitrn in central Kosovo.

In July of 1997 the District Court of Prishtina sentenced Thaci to 10 years of prison in absentia, accused to have committed criminal acts of terrorism. It is because of this that on 11th July 1997 Thaci and his Drenica unit went into hiding in the woodlands in Drenica, although they continued to often visit Albania and Switzerland, not remaining in Kosovo in hiding. In February of 1998 the government in Belgrade issued an arrest warrant under the condemnation for having ambushed and attacked patrolling Serbian policemen.

In March 1999 Hashim Thaçi was promoted into a political leader of the UÇK and as such participated at the Rambouillet negotiations as the leader of the Kosovar Albanian team. At present, he leads the major opposition political party in Kosovo and is a leading member of the Kosovo team in the internationally-mediated process of negotiations for the final status of Kosovo.