In the village of Gllogjan in the municipality of Deçan, Ramush Haradinaj, a fighter of the Kosovo Liberation Army, commander of the Dukagjin Operational Zone, and leader of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo party was born. He is one of the most well-known and successful commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Due to police persecution, he was forced to emigrate to Switzerland in the early 1990s, where he lived for almost 8 years, performing odd jobs. He became involved in the underground movement at the time, committing himself to armed struggle from the beginning. Together with his brother Luan, he was one of the first fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army to operate in the field. During the years 1996-1997, Haradinaj participated in organizing units of the Kosovo Liberation Army in the border areas of Albania, such as Kukës, Morinë, Tropojë, Vlanë, etc. In 1998, he was appointed commander of the Operational Headquarters of the Dukagjin Region (later, the Dukagjin Operational Zone). During the conflicts, he was wounded several times: in the battle of May 6, 1997, in the battle of March 24, 1998, in Gllogjan, and in the battle in Carrabreg (June 1998), among others. The first frontal attack in the Dukagjin region by Serbian occupying forces took place in Gllogjan, aimed at eliminating the Haradinaj family on March 24, 1998, just a few days after the attack on the Jashari family in Prekaz, Drenica. Under the leadership of Ramush Haradinaj, who was seriously wounded, the Kosovo Liberation Army fighters managed to win this battle after many hours of fighting against Serbian police and military forces. Throughout the war, he successfully led dozens of battles throughout the Dukagjin region. After the war, with the transformation of the Kosovo Liberation Army into the Kosovo Protection Corps, he was appointed Deputy Commander of the Kosovo Protection Corps, with the rank of Major General. In April 2000, he retired from military life and founded the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo party, and was elected its leader. On December 3, 2004, he was elected Prime Minister of Kosovo. On March 8, 2005, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted him, and on the same day, Ramush Haradinaj resigned as Prime Minister of Kosovo to voluntarily surrender to the Hague Tribunal. The legal process against him, in both instances, lasted for nearly 8 years, and at its conclusion, he was acquitted of all charges brought by the Hague Tribunal prosecution. Upon returning from The Hague, he continued to reorganize the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo. In the parliamentary elections of 2014, he was elected as a deputy to the Kosovo Assembly. In 2012, for his merits in the struggle for freedom, the President of Albania honored him with the Order of “Gjergj Kastrioti-Skënderbeu.” (In the photo: Ramush Haradinaj)
Text: Encyclopedic Dictionary of Kosovo – Vol. I , Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, Prishtina, 2018, page 474.
Photo: © https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramush_Haradinaj
Graphic processing: AHCF
