Kosovo Protection Corps

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The Kosovo Protection Corps ( Albanian  T rupat e M brojtjës së K osovës , English Kosovo Protection Corps ) was actually founded by KFOR and UNMIK in 1999 as the successor organization to the UÇK . According to the Western founders, it is civil disaster control, according to the Albanian Kosovars it is the core of a future Kosovar army . This ambiguity is also reflected in the Albanian name: it can be translated as protective corps or defense corps . Until March 2006, Agim Çeku was the commander of the protection corps, his successor is General Sylejman Selimi .

On January 20, 2009, the TMK was formally dissolved and has since operated under the name Kosovo Security Forces .

Strength, armament and organization

The basis was an agreement between the former commanders of the UÇK guerrilla force and KFOR . As a result, the Kosovo Protection Corps has a maximum strength of 3,000 active members and 2,000 reservists, plus up to a hundred civilian employees. Ten percent of the members should come from the national minorities of Kosovo . Parts of the KLA equipment are made available to the protection corps; a significant part of the protection corps comes from the ranks of the UÇK, which was dissolved in September 1999, the rest from the civilian population. The Kosovo Protection Corps is subordinate to the UN Special Representative for Kosovo and is under the supervision of KFOR. It has 2,000 different weapons available. Of these, 200 can be used to fulfill various tasks, the remaining 1,800 are kept in the KFOR armories .

Different objectives

The western founding fathers wanted a civil protection corps in the style of the French Unités d'instruction et d'intervention de la sécurité civile , a kind of civil protection for Kosovo, and set this orientation in the agreements. Their aim was to subject the more radical elements of the KLA to some kind of control.

The Albanian Kosovars see the Kosovo Protection Corps as a potential defense force and the core of a future Kosovo army. In spring 2004, for example, it became known that the Kosovo Protection Corps had drawn up its own military strategy for Kosovo. The newspaper Zeri reports from Pristina . The Kosovo Protection Corps therefore proposed the establishment of a Kosovo army with 10,000 soldiers and 20,000 reservists. The focus of the planning was on quick reaction units.

reputation

The reputation of the protection corps is doubtful, as the following examples show:

  • After the war, UNMIK complained about illegal tax collections, extortion of protection money and cigarette smuggling by members of the Kosovo Protection Corps.
  • In 2001 the Macedonian police accused the Kosovo Protection Corps of supplying weapons to Albanian irregulars in Macedonia.
  • In February 2001 there was a bomb attack on a train near Niš, 11 Kosovar Serbs died and 35 were injured. In connection with this, a member of the protection corps was arrested but was able to escape under unclear circumstances.
  • In July 2001 UNMIK and KFOR suspended five high-ranking Albanian commanders from the Kosovo Protection Corps. They were investigated for threats to international stability and suspected war crimes .
  • In May 2003 the regional commander of Kosovska Mitrovica and two of his officers from the Kosovo Protection Corps were released. They were suspected of being linked to the demolition of a railway bridge in Zveçan .

"The TMK tied a number of radical and criminal elements that had joined the UÇK and was therefore also controversial at the UN," is how the Frankfurter Rundschau describes the troop's reputation. "We take note that the Kosovo Protection Corps generally complies with the stipulated regulations, but nevertheless we call on the members of the Corps to distance themselves from any extremist or criminal act," said a statement by the NATO defense ministers on December 18, 2001 .

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