In an interview for KosovaPress, Krisafi said that at the time of the massacre he was in Geneva.

“Tahir Shabani, a prominent activist of the time, brought me some photos saying ‘look what happened’. I told Tahir, I know this because I have listened to the news, but, anyway, the photos were extremely touching. I called my government to get its authorization, according to the rule. Then, I called on the phone some of the heads of the international organizations headquartered in Geneva. Mary Robinson was United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Sadako Ogata was United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Brunson McKinley was Director General of the International Organization for Migration, and so on, and I asked them for meetings,” he recounts.

He said he insisted on meeting with all these leaders of international organizations, but it was strange how they were not as much concerned as Krisafi about the genocide in the village of Reçak.

“I had the impression that they sat loose on the event. They thought that these are things that happen; these are things that should not be amplified and so on and so forth. I told them, it is not a matter of amplification, it is a matter of the existence of an entire people. And it did not take long, the public became aware, the international community reached a consensus, namely, the Rambouillet meeting and then the bombing of Yugoslavia as responsible for what happened, what was happening here in Kosovo,” he told the KosovaPress.

Former Albanian ambassador to the UN Ksenofon Krisafi participated today in the scientific roundtable organized by the Intellectuals Forum on the topic “Serbian denials of crimes and genocide, destabilization for the Balkans”.

He emphasized that the Serbs have always been the aggressor, but simultaneously have adopted the mantle of victimhood.

“What has happened between the Albanians and the Serbs is almost unique. The Serbs have always been the aggressor, but simultaneously have adopted the mantle of victimhood. They have managed to manipulate the public in their favor with their skill and wickedness and put all responsibility for the conflicts to the Albanians, the innocent people. It is something that should not happen and when it’s a question of national issue we should put aside our differences and become one nation, with one purpose”, he said, among other things.

Located about 30 kilometers from Prishtina, the village of Reçak in the municipality of Shtime made a major turning point in the history of Kosovo about three decades ago.

The Serbian forces brutally killed 45 Albanian civilians on this day in 1999. The first to tell the world that a crime against humanity had been committed there was the then head of the OSCE Verification Mission in Kosovo William Walker. The serious incident in Reçak prompted an international reaction, with NATO deciding to attack Serbian military and police targets. /KosovaPress/p.s./