Kosova Crisis Center
link to alb-net
Gerald Ford and George Bush Claim
Clinton Should Send Ground Troops to Kosova
SAN DIEGO – As Washington, DC rumbled with more talk over Kosova, former President
Gerald Ford Wednesday said the United States and NATO “should” send in ground
troops. While Ford said he and former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George Bush support
Clinton’s decision to bomb Yugoslavia – they also say it is evident that the
administration made serious miscalculations about the size and scope of the operation. The
former presidents comments were made at the Newspaper Association of America annual
convention in San Diego.
Massacre in Gjakova, When will the
Serbs Pay for This? Kosova Exiles Document Atrocities (W. Post)
By Peter Finn and R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, April 30, 1999;
Page A1
TIRANA, Albania, April 29 – At 11:15 p.m. on April 1, a night of hard rain, Serbian
forces swept into a neighborhood of 1,300 houses beside the Krena River in the
southwestern Kosova city of Djakovica.
Moving house to house, dozens of police and militiamen, all wearing black masks, unleashed
a spasm of terror. Six hours later, at least 55 people had been gunned down, including 20
women and children who were shot when they were found hiding in the basement of a pool
hall. Many of the corpses were consumed by flames as the uniformed gunmen systematically
torched homes and buildings after killing their occupants.
Unlike many reported atrocities in Kosova, the violence in Djakovica that night was
witnessed by residents who had set up an elaborate neighborhood watch system and who are
now mapping out a detailed, murder-by-murder, house-by-house, street-by-street account of
the destruction for international war crimes investigators.
As a result of their testimony, and that of others who have since fled the city,
investigators have identified Djakovica as the site of some of the most wholesale
atrocities committed by Serbian police and paramilitarya units since the Serb-led Yugoslav
government began a massive campaign of expulsions and terror against Kosova's ethnic
Albanian population 36 days ago.
While refugees in recent weeks have told of killings, brutality and destruction across the
Serbian province, Djakovica and its surrounding villages are emerging as, in the words of
one Western official, Kosova's "heart of darkness."
The killings continue, most recently on Tuesday, when, according to refugees arriving in
Albania, Yugoslav troops forces pulled 100 to 200 men from a convoy of Kosova Albanians
fleeing villages near Djakovica and executed them in a field.
The testimony of Djakovica's survivors may prove central to efforts by the international
war crimes tribunal in The Hague as it seeks to bring charges against the civilian and
military leadership of both Yugoslavia and its dominant republic, Serbia. Witnesses are
still being interviewed. But The tribunal is already building a clear portrait of what has
occurred.
"We have numerous, independent accounts of killings in Djakovica," said one
tribunal official. "We may be looking at hundreds of dead. And that may be a
conservative figure."
Bodies Dripping Blood
In dozens of interviews with Western officials, Djakovica residents have provided both
minute details of killings in particular neighborhoods and described widespread violence
and destruction across the city. One refugee told investigators that he saw bulldozers
moving through Djakovica laden with bodies that were dripping blood. The bodies reportedly
were buried in a single grave at the city cemetery.
Another resident said he saw a the body of a young man dangling from a rope on a a pole
near the police station, while another reported seeing 30 to 40 bodies lying in the
street.
Residents of Djakovica – pronounced Jah-koh-VEET-sah – anticipated an onslaught
by government security forces once NATO bombing began on March 24, but nothing could have
prepared them for the level of barbarity that descended on the city in the ensuing weeks.
"We expected them to come," said Afrim Berisha, 45, an engineer and a
neighborhood organizer, in an interview at a refugee camp in Tirana, the Albanian capital.
"But not with this intensity."
Djakovica is a historic industrial city of dark-stained wood buildings that date to the
Ottoman Empire. The city's old town, an area of 300 stores, Turkish architecture and an
ancient mosque, bustled daily; an industrial base of textile production, metalwrok and
winemaking underlay the city's prosperity.
A month before the NATO bombing began, Djakovica, which is named after the Biblical
Patriarch Jacob, had a population of 100,000, swollen from 60,000 by refugees fleeing
Yugoslav troops and Serbian police and paramilitary units that had swept through nearby
villages. Long known as a center of ethnic Albanian business and cultural activitiy, its
population included physicians, merchants, skilled tradesmen and goldsmiths.
But government forces had other motives for focusing on Djakovica – and for using it
as a base of operations against separatist ethnic Albanian rebels who were active in
villages surrounding the city during more than a year of guerriila warfare. One Yugoslav
army base in Djakovica was a key logistics center for troops responsible for guarding the
nearby border with Albania, across which the Kosova Liberation Army, the main rebel group,
was trying to to smuggle weapons and combatants into the country. "The KLA was in the
villages around the city, but not in the city itself," said Neshti Buza, 33, a
refugee from the city who fled to Macedonia.
According to refugee accounts, tensions in the city erupted into full-scale violence on
March 20. That was the day that international monitors who had been stationed in Kosova
since the previous fall withdrew from the province because they feared for their safety.
In Djakovica, Serbian Interior Ministry policemen and antiterrorist squads began going
door-to-door, searching for young men suspected of being members of the KLA. One refugee
told Western investigators that his uncle was executed in front of his family during this
operation; others said that over a four-day period, more than a dozen men were found slain
on their own doorsteps.
At the same time, Serbian police warned residents that once NATO airstrikes began, they
would execute more ethnic Albanians. As a result, scores of residents went into hiding
after the first NATO cruise missiles struck Yugoslav military targets, emerging from
basements for only a few hours a day to collect food and water. On March 29, five days
after the NATO bombardment began, the Yugoslav army issued a general order that all
remaining ethnic Albanians must leave the city.
"They came at 4 p.m. with armored cars equipped with loudspeakers and said you should
evacuate because everyone who stays will be executed," one refugee said. Government
troops shelled the city and then fanned out to set fire to shops, homes and marketplaces.
The oldest part of the city – an ethnic Albanian district of small shops built of
dark-stained wood with large plate glass windows – was burned first, refugees said.
Active in the region, according to U.S. intelligence reports, were the Yugoslav 3rd Army's
125th Motorized Brigade, commanded by Col. Seba Zdravkovic, its 252 Armored Brigade,
commanded by Col. Milos Mandic, and its 52nd Mixed Artillery Brigade, commanded by Col.
Rudojko Stefanovic.
On April 1, the punishment of Djakovica intensified.
A Night of Gunfire
Among those who have spoken to officials from the war-crimes tribunal is that of Berisha,
whose account of the depredations in Djakovica has been corroborated by others. Berisha's
brother-in-law, Ilirjan Dushi, 35, separately confirmed the details of his story to
investigators. Their's is an account of the systematic emptying of the city's Qerim
neighborhood and the killing of dozens of its inhabitants.
Forty-five minutes before midnight on April 1, a convoy of police cars pulled up at the
edge of the neighborhood, just off Marshall Tito Street near the city's bus station.
Dozens of masked men emerged.
Running perpendicular to Tito Street is a thoroughfare called Sadik Stavaleci. A long
loop, with numerous off-shoots, runs off Sadik Stavaleci, then curves back into it. One
group of the masked Serbian militiamen occupied the loop; another group the main street
and its off-shoots. Then the killing began, according to the accounts. It would continue
for the next six hours, ending at 5:15 a.m., shortly before sunrise.
At the top of Sadik Stavaleci, a refugee from a nearby village emerged from a house where
he was sheltering and was shot and killed. Around the corner, on Sadik Pozhegu street,
Rexh Guci, 43, and his brother, a barber, also came out onto the street. They, too, were
shot dead.
But, according to survivors' accounts, the gunmen had a particular target in the
neighborhood – Besim Bokshi, a retired professor of Albanian literature, who was
general secretary of the local branch of the moderate League of Democratic Kosova
political party. Bokshi, who is now in Tirana, had fled to the nearby home of Ali Bytyci.
Bokshi's house was torched. Two doors from it, the gunmen found Fehim Lleshi, 46, who was
hiding with his wife. Both were executed, and their house was set on fire. The militiamen
then moved down the block, burning as they went.
Just below Bukoshi's house they found Hysem Deda, 77, his wife, Saja, 65, their daughter,
Drita, 33, and her six-year-old son. Drita's husband had fled, believing that the
militiamen were searching only for fighting age men and would not target women, children
or the elderly. All four were shot dead, and the house was set alight.
Around midnight, most residents of area had fled through their back yards to Berisha's
walled house on a cul-de-dac between Sadik Stavalaci and the loop. Three hundred people
huddled in the family compound, moe then 40 in the basement alone. Fourteen men, including
Berisha and Dushi, moved back and forth between the compound and the streets, watching the
police and militamen spread terror.
"We wanted to know which way to go if we had to flee," said Dushi. Many of those
who remained in their homes believed they were safe because the younger men in their
families had already fled to the hills.
Berisha watched as the masked gunmen crossed from the Deda house to a pool hall across the
street. Twenty people were hiding in a cellar in the building, mostly old people, women
and children whose male relatives had already fled. Berisha heard bursts of gunfire and
watched the building go up in flames.
The next morning, Berisha and others who surveyed the carnage walked into the pool hall.
"They were just in a pile, burned," he said of the victim's bodies. "The
only thing I could see that wasn't burned almost unrecognizable was a child's hand. It
just hung out of the pile."
One 9-year-old boy, Drene Caka, whose mother perished in the pool hall, survived the
massacre with a bullet wound to the shoulder. When the building was set aflame he fled
through a broken window. Drene, who was treated in Tirana a number of days ago, is
believed to have been removed from Albania with his father, Ali, by officials of the
war-crimes tribunal. His father, like other men in the Qerem, had fled the neighborhood
before the security forces arrived.
The Walk to Albania
After burning down the pool hall, the militiamen crossed the street to the home of Jonuz
Cana, 65, a teacher; his wife, Ganimete, 55; their daughter, Shpresa, an economist in her
early thirties; and their son Fatmir, also in his thirties.
All four were killed and their house burned. The gunmenthen continued along the loop,
called Millosh Gilic Street, burning each house up the point where the loop it turned back
into Sadik Stavaleci. In a house there, they found Hasan Hasani, his wife, daughter and
brother in law; next door, they found Hasani's borther, Adem, 45, with his son and
daughter. All seven were shot dead, but their houses were not burned because they stood
alongise houses owned by Serbs.
As the pool hall burned, the second paramilitary detachment moving along Sadik Stavaleci
began its killing spree, beginning with a cul-de sac behind the bus station. They first
killed Melahim Carkaxhiu, 36; moved two doors down and killed Gezim Berdeniqui, 40, an
architectural engineer. Skipping one house, they found Osman Dika, 70, and his sons,
Skender, 50, Blerim 37, and Albert, 23. All were executed in front of Dika's wife before
she was hustled out and told to flee to Albania. The gunmen then crossed the street and
killed Skender Dylatanhu, 34, and his 30-year-old brother.
The militiamen skipped over the next three streets, which were mostly occupied by Serbs.
At the end of Sadik Stavaleci, however, they entered the home of Myrteza Dinaj, 55. There,
Dinaj, his son, Lulzim, 24, and four male refugees from the nearby village of Herec were
shot dead in front of the women and children.
It was now shortly after 5 a.m., and dawn was approaching. The police and militiamen
returned to their vehicles without ever entering the streets between Sadik Stavaleci and
the loop where 300 ethnic Albanians were hiding. That morning – after neighborhood
men walked through charred houses to bear witness to the dead – all 300 left by foot
for Albania.
Today, Djakovica is a bloody ruin of gutted buildings and decomposing bodies.
"[Djakovica] is a Sahara," said Luljeta Morina, 32, who fled the city with her
three children. "We don't have houses. We don't have shops. We don't have schools. We
don't have factories. There is nothing."
SEQUENCE OF EVENTS SHOWN IN THE DIAGRAM* BELOW
1. One refugee shot dead.
2. Rexh Guci, 43, and brother shot dead.
3. Fehim Lleshi, 46, butcher, and wife killed.
4. Besim Bokshi, retired professor; he was able to flee, but his house was torched.
5. Hysem Deda, 77, his wife, Saja, 65, daughter Drita, 33, and her son, 6, killed.
6. Berisha compound, where about 300 townspeople hid.
7. Billiard hall burned down; 20 burned bodies found.
8. Jonuz Cana, 65, wife, daughter and son killed.
9. Hasan Hasani, his wife, daughter and brother-in-law killed.
10. Hasani's brother, son and daughter killed.
11. Melahim Carkaxhiu, 36, executed.
12. Gezim Berdeniqui, 40, executed.
13. Osam Dika, 70, and three sons killed.
14. Skender Dylatanhu, 34, and his brother killed.
15. Myrteza Dinaj, 55, his son and four refugees killed.
*This view of the Qerim neighborhood in Djakovica is a diagram based on interviews with
ethnic Albanian refugees. It is not drawn precisely to scale.
Therapists begin task of healing
psychological scars (CNN)
RADUSA, Macedonia (AP) -- The woman listened quietly as the psychiatrist asked her husband
about the family's flight from Kosova. Then Dr. Oivind Solberg put down his pen and asked
the wife a simple question: Do you have anything to add?
She suddenly collapsed in tears and slowly exposed a secret: The couple's 14-year-old
daughter was taken away for three hours by Serb paramilitary forces. The girl refused to
talk about what happened, but her parents believed she was raped.
"This was the first time they spoke openly about their fears with anyone outside the
family," said Solberg. "This is the kind of breakthrough we are looking
for."
In a refugee encampment at the end of muddy track, the first attempts are under way to
move beyond the physical and material casualties of the Kosova conflict and examine the
emotional and psychological wounds.
"These are often the hardest to heal," said Solberg, chief psychiatrist at the
Psychosocial Center for Refugees at the University of Oslo in Norway. "We can build
camps, offer food. The refugees can come out of the war. But so often the war and the hate
and the demons continue to live inside them."
Each day, Solberg and a Bulgarian military psychiatrist, Dr. Krassimir Ivanov, move from
tent to tent in the camp about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Skopje. Their
approach is gentle: initiate a general conversation and slowly get the refugees to
elaborate on their private trials.
"Have you thought about the future yet?" Solberg asked a group of teen-age boys.
"Yes," one finally shouted after several moments of silence. "I want to
kill Serbs." The others clenched their fists and bellowed their approval.
"Especially among the older boys, there is so much anger," said Solberg.
"It's understandable, of course. But if it's not dealt with, it can eat up their
lives."
He estimated about 15 percent of the 1,500 refugees the Radusa camp exhibit classic
symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, which often plagues veterans and others who
have been through war.
"There is unfocused aggression, despondency, feelings of utter frustration,"
said Solberg.
The large extended families of the ethnic Albanians _ grandparents, cousins and others
living together -- can act as a natural counseling group. Refugees can speak openly among
family without the inhibitions of opening up personal feeling around strangers.
"This is probably the best advantage we have," said Ivanov, who in Bulgaria
treats torture victims among immigrants and former anti-communist activists. "We
can't do traditional therapy here. It's too alien to the culture. So we simply use the
normal family interactions."
But the camp setting can compound the anxieties. Radusa is just 10 kilometers (6 miles)
from the Yugoslavian border. Like all the refugee compounds in Macedonia, it's enclosed by
a fence and guarded by police, whose uniforms are similar to their Serbian counterparts.
Refugees can only leave the camp with special permission.
"There are people with recurring nightmares that the Serbs will come over the border
and kill everyone in the camp. They can't eat because they are so scared," said
Solberg. "These people have been through an incredible trauma. We can't make it
better. We can only let them understand and express the voices and fears they have
inside."
For children, drawings can often better articulate their worries and hopes. Dozens of
sketches hang inside a medical tent in the camp. Some children depicted tanks and burning
homes. In one drawing, stick figures are running away leaving a trail of tears. But there
was also some resilient optimism: a family looking at a rainbow; a picnic in the hills
above the rows of white tents.
Solberg often tells the refugees a personal story. His father was a staunch Nazi opponent
in Norway during World War II. The owner of the neighboring farm was a collaborator. But
after the war in spring 1946, Solberg's father crossed the stream separating the two farms
and made peace. The neighbor returned later that day with his tractor to plow the fields
of the Solberg farm, which only had a mule.
"I can see no other way than reconciliation," said Solberg. "These people
may not be able to see it now, but I am convinced it is the only path."
Cleansing is 'virtually completed'
by Chris Stephen in Kukes
Serb forces in Kosova have completed the main part of their ethnic-cleansing
programme according to relief officials based in northern Albania.
Refugee relief staff say they can do little else now apart from "mop up",
despite fears that up to half a million refugees may still be trapped in the province.
All the main towns, including the capital Pristina, are mostly or entirely cleared of
ethnic Albanians, bringing the total number expelled since the bombing began to 630,000.
Among refugees from Prizren interviewed yesterday by aid officials were a doctor and six
nurses, the ethnic Albanian staff of Prizren's hospital. They were arrested that morning
with no notice while working with patients and ordered into a bus without time to tell
loved ones they were being expelled.
As to how many remain, and what state they are in, the aid agencies are unsure. UNHCR
official Jacques Franquin said: "We would like to know, and we don't know, and that's
the truth."
Waging War from the Bronx (ABCNews)
Recent KLA volunteers. Photo by AFP.
Albanian-Americans Fund the Kosova Guerrillas
By David Ruppe ABCNEWS.com
N E W Y O R K, April 30 — Several small offices in a predominately Italian section of
the Bronx hardly seem the place to support a guerrilla war. But Albanian-American groups
are doing just that, lobbying U.S. and foreign officials, recruiting volunteer soldiers,
and, they say, raising millions of dollars to help the mostly volunteer Kosova Liberation
Army combat Yugoslav government-sponsored aggression in Kosova. At rallies before the
United Nations and the White House, at dinners and cocktail parties, and in checks that
come through the mail, donations are collected by a half a dozen or so organizations in
the United States and then transferred to various banks overseas for the highly secretive
KLA to buy arms and equipment in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere. Precise figures on
how much has been raised are tough to pin down. “I don’t think any one of us
would know the figures,” says Gani Perolli, general secretary of a Bronx group known
as the Albanian League of Prizren. “I’m not sure anybody knows that,” says
a U.S. military source. Perolli and others leaders claim to draw donations of sometimes
millions of dollars per week from America’s prosperous Albanian community.
“It’s not unusual for some guy to come in and drop in rubber bands some
$5,000,” says Perolli. “I’ve seen people give as much as $100,000 per
person, though not every day.”
Arming the Guerrillas Armed mostly with light weapons and some vintage anti-tank and
anti-aircraft guns, the KLA, also known by its Albanian initials UCK, has proven no match
for Serb heavy armor and troops, which are believed to have driven as many as two thirds
of Kosovar Albanians from their homes, burned hundreds of villages and executed thousands
since NATO bombings of Yugoslavia began in late March. The rebels are now hoping to buy
significant numbers of modern anti-tank weapons, plus more light weapons and other
equipment to arm themselves and the large numbers of refugees joining their ranks. The
United States and other Western governments maintain a strict policy against arming the
KLA, citing a U.N. ban on arms exports to Yugoslavia and a number of other reasons.
Western leaders fear arming the KLA would provoke Russia into breaking the embargo to
flood arms into Serbia. Also, the United States has been reluctant to arm the guerrilla
group because of its reputation for terrorist-like violence and its expressed desire for
the total independence of Kosova from Serbia — a nonstarter for negotiating any kind
of peace settlement with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Furthermore, reflecting
the contentious view of most Kosovar Albanians, the KLA hopes ultimately to create a sort
of Greater Albania, unifying Kosova with Albania, part of Montenegro, and a large portion
of Macedonia that is predominately Albanian.
Worldwide Reach But while government assistance is barred, U.S. officials say there is no
law against fund-raising by private groups in the United States for the KLA. In fact, KLA
arms purchases are funded largely through donations by a sizable Albanian diaspora in the
United States, Europe, Canada and Australia, Albanian-American leaders say. While Albania
is one of the poorest countries in Europe, some Albanian communities abroad, particularly
that in New York, have reputedly done well and are quite willing to share the wealth.
“The Albanian people have opened their hearts and their wallets, and they have been
more than generous,” says Izet Tafilaj, who volunteers for various groups. “I
know of many occasions in which people have sold homes to give that money for the
cause.” Tafilaj, who has relatives in refugee camps in Albania and Macedonia, says he
himself has given thousands of dollars to help the refugees and the KLA.
Homeland Calling Orchestrating the fund-raising for the KLA is a foundation called
Vendlindja Therret, meaning “Homeland Calling,” which has offices in the Bronx,
New Jersey and throughout Europe. “They’re everywhere where there is an Albanian
population,” says Perolli. Through advertisements in international Albanian-language
newspapers and on Web pages, the foundation asks readers to make donations to bank
accounts in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the
Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. “Analysts have taken
a hard look at how much the KLA brought in and couldn’t come to grips with it,”
says the U.S. military source. “The KLA has money [pouring through] like a sieve from
anywhere there are pockets of Albanians.”
Not an Organization The KLA gained notice sometime around 1996 as an uncoordinated
farmers’ rebellion in Kosova, consisting of a few hundred members willing to apply a
militant approach to gaining independence from Serbia. By early 1999, it had developed
into a more professional, guerrilla movement reported to include as many as 7,000 trained
military members and tens of thousands of irregulars. The KLA also massed a substantial
infrastructure, including civil administration, military police wings, an information
service that runs a Web site from Switzerland, and an FM radio station called Free Kosova
that broadcasts from the province. Yet analysts say the KLA isn’t really an
organization. It appears there is no one person orchestrating the KLA’s worldwide
activities. The KLA only recently appointed political and military leaders, Hashim Thaqi
and Sulejman Selimi, and both are no older than 30. “It’s really a
movement,” the U.S. military source says. “If you want to go prove that, go try
to find its leader.” That may be hard to do. But the people raising money for the
group do find places to send the cash, or the goods that the money buys.
Erlina Muriqi, a 17-year old Bronx Columbus High School senior who joined
the KLA.
Lobbying for NATO’s Help
In addition to fund-raising, some Albanian-American groups are lobbying Western leaders on
the plight and interests of Kosovar Albanians. Since NATO began bombing Serb forces,
Albanian groups have organized a number of rallies in New York and Washington to support
NATO actions against Yugoslavia and to press the U.S. government to arm the Kosova
Liberation Army. “We believe that [NATO] should immediately arm the KLA, because they
are willing to fight for their land, they are willing to do the dirty work and we as
Americans identify with the fact that American losses ideally should be zero,” says
Gani Perolli, general secretary of a Bronx group known as the Albanian League of Prizren.
Izet Tafilaj has been working to draw attention to the abuse he says Kosovar refugees
suffer in camps in Macedonia and also to impoverished Albania’s incapacity to support
the estimated 367,000 refugees it has taken in. He says Albania’s major cities, where
large numbers of refugees are housed, do not have functioning garbage collection, sewage
systems, or water 24 hours a day. “I hope NATO and the United States take strong
steps before that too becomes another disaster, and another humanitarian crisis.”
Tafilaj’s work has personal significance. He says he has lost an uncle, aunt, and
brother-in-law to the conflict, each shot by Serb soldiers in their homes. Most of his
Kosovar relatives, including his mother, are now refugees, he says — many hiding in
Kosova or living in camps in neighboring Albania or Macedonia. Tafilaj recently offered to
bring them to the United States under the Clinton administration’s program to accept
20,000 Kosovar refugees, but he says they refused, intent on returning to their homeland.
Ismet Krasniqi, a radiologist by training who runs the Albanian American Committee for
Balkan Human Rights, has been lobbying foreign diplomats at the United Nations in New
York. He’s trying to convince their governments to block their citizens from joining
Serb forces. “KLA forces have caught Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians and Russians
all fighting with the Serbs,” he says.
U.N. Fears Ethnic Purge Of Kosova's
Prizren
River Bistrica in Prizren before the cleansing. Photo by Alb-Net Staff.
By Peter Graff
KUKES, Albania (Reuters) - Thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosova crossed into
Albania Friday with one U.N. official warning the ``final cleansing'' of the city of
Prizren was under way.
``It has been a thousand an hour for several hours,'' said Ray Wilkinson, spokesman for
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. ``We think it is five, six thousand
(since 0600 GMT) ... we've stopped counting.''
A Reuters correspondent at the scene said there were so many people trying to cross the
frontier that movement had slowed to a snail's pace.
The refugees, most from the Prizren area in the southwest of the Serbian province, were
crossing in cars, tractors and on foot. Most said they had only been evicted from their
homes by Serbian authorities in the past 24 hours.
``We have started to hear that panic is setting in,'' Wilkinson said. ``To me it seems
that this is the final cleansing of Prizren. A lot of these people are saying 'my god,
everyone is leaving ... I've got to leave'.''
One resident of Prizren who crossed at 1200 GMT told Reuters he fled because all his
neighbors appeared to be going.
``When we saw people leaving, we just got up and joined them, said Kujtim Osmani.
Over 730,000 ethnic Albanians have been expelled or have fled their homes in Kosova since
March last year -- most since the beginning of a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia
five weeks ago.
Albania is already home to over 370,000 refugees from Kosova who have swollen the
population of Europe's poorest country by more than 15 percent.
The view of Prizren from its castle before the ethnic cleansing by the Serbs
started. Photo by Alb-Net Staff.
In the capital Tirana, aid officials said seven new camps may be set up to cope with an
influx that threatens to overwhelm the hastily-arranged facilities already in place.
U.S., British, French and United Nations officials coordinating relief efforts hope to
have plans ready by the end of the week for the new camps, which they say must eventually
be capable of housing another 150,000 people.
The UNHCR says some 100,000 of these are now living either in existing camps or communal
housing facilities.
Another 100,000 or so are hunkered down in Kukes, about 30 kms (20 miles) south of the
Kosova border, hoping for the conflict to soon end so they can return home.
They have disregarded UNHCR pleas to move farther south where they can be better cared for
-- and where they would be out of range of Serbian artillery along the border.
``There are lots of sites that have spontaneously sprung up,'' said UNHCR spokeswoman
Ariane Quentier.
While Tirana and camps in the northern part of the country are now filled to overflowing,
the Albanian government says some camps to the south have lots of room.
Local police have set up roadblocks outside Tirana to stem the flow of refugees into the
capital.
The government said there was room for another 40,000 people in Durres on the Adriatic
coast and for 30,000 more in Elbasan, south-east of the capital.
NATO forces in the region have become a vital part of the relief effort, U.N. officials
said.
As part of the NATO mission, several hundred French soldiers have been dispatched to
Tirana and Durres for a job described by their commander as ``humanitarian and only
humanitarian.''
French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin began a two-day visit to refugee camps and French
troops Friday, to assess the refugee situation and aid needs in Albania and Macedonia.
In Durres, a senior NATO officer said refugees in northern Albania could be shelled by
Serbian artillery so NATO was working with UNHCR to move around 4,000 people a day away
from the border.
British Lieutenant-General John Reith, head of NATO's Albanian Humanitarian Force (AFOR),
said refugees were in danger because Kosova Liberation Army fighters were operating from
the Kukes area within range of Serbian guns across the border.
Albin Kurti and Adil Vokrri
Arrested in Prishtina (HLC)
From: Natasa Kandic, Humanitarian Law Center, Belgrade, HLC_NK@EUNET.YU, YHRF # 11
Arrests in Pristina, 29 April 1999
On 28 April 1999, Albin Kurti was arrested in Pristina, the former leader of the Albanian
Students Union and spokesman to the former political representative of the Kosova
Liberation Army, Adem Demaqi. Albins father, an official with the Kosova Parliamentary
Party, was also arrested at this time, as well as Albins two brothers, Nazmi Zeka, the
owner of the house where the Kurtis were temporarily residing, and Nazmis son. Witnesses
claim that the arrest was conducted in an extremely brutal manner. Twenty-four hours
later, Albins fifteen-year old brother and Nazmi Zeka were released; they both had visible
signs of beating.
The day before Albin Kurti was arrested, on 27 April 1999, the brother of a prominent
soccer player Fadil Vokrri, Adil, was arrested. No information has been available about
the destiny of the arrested persons.
On 25 April 1999, Adem Demaqi was taken in for questioning. According to his account, he
had been interrogated for two hours in relation to his attitudes towards the solution to
the Kosova issue.
There are other developments in Pristina, which cause a feeling of insecurity among the
remaining Albanians. The police make rounds visiting homes and compiling lists of
Albanians with permanent residence in Pristina and refugees staying with them. A number of
Serb shopkeepers refuse to sell their goods to Albanians. There are only a few Albanians
in Pristina whose telephone lines have not been cut off.
RAPE OF ETHNIC ALBANIAN WOMEN IN
Kosova TOWN OF DRAGACIN (HRW)
(April 28, 1999) Two ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosova told Human Rights Watch
yesterday that they had been raped by Serbian security forces while being held captive in
Kosova. Three other rape victims from the same village have also reported their cases to
doctors in northern Albania.
The two victims, from the village of Dragacin in the Suva Reka municipality, gave
testimony that was detailed and credible. Many aspects of their stories were corroborated
by eight other women villagers, interviewed separately. Human Rights Watch is withholding
the names of the victims at their request to protect them from government retaliation.
All of the women interviewed told how the police surrounded the village of Dragacin on
April 21. Most of the men fled into the mountains, but between 200 and 300 women
(including fifty women from the nearby villages of Mujlan and Dujle (in Albanian)), as
well as eleven elderly men, stayed behind. The security forces gathered the entire group
in a field, where they searched and then separated the eleven elderly men, including a
ninety-three-year-old man named Ymer. None of the men have been seen since, although three
of the women interviewed said they later saw one of the eleven men lying dead in a
Dragacin street.
The government security forces divided the women randomly into three private houses in the
village (the houses of Shahin T., Avdi T. and Halil T.), where they were held for three
days. During this time, the women were repeatedly threatened and harassed. One woman said
that the police held a knife to her three year-old boy, saying that they would kill him if
she didn't produce gold or money. Certain women were compelled to cook and clean for Serb
forces. Some were forced to have sex with their captors.
The two rape victims interviewed by Human Rights Watch were held in the same house, which
was crowded with frightened women and children. Women held in other houses described
similar conditions. One of the victims described how she was sexually abused on two
occasions, during one of which she was raped. At approximately 4 p.m. on her second day of
captivity, she was "chosen" from among a large group of women by a man in a
green camouflage uniform. The man took her to another house and raped her, she said.
The following day another man demanded she go with him to a different house some ten
minutes' walk away. According to the woman's account, the man did not tell her where he
was taking her or why, but instead pushed her forward with his gun when she started
crying.
The house was full of members of the Serbian security forces, she told Human Rights Watch.
They asked her questions, using a mixture of gestures and very basic words to communicate,
as the woman hardly understood Serbian. They asked her age -- twenty-three, she said --
whether she had any children, and the whereabouts of her husband. They asked her for
money. When she told them that she had none, they ordered her to take off her clothes. She
started crying and pulling out her hair, which made the men laugh. They put on some music.
After she took off her clothes, the men approached her one by one as she stood before them
naked. She told Human Rights Watch that all of them looked at her, then they left her
alone in the room with the man she believed to be their commander, and another officer.
The commander, whom she recognized as such because he had gold stars on his cap and he
issued orders to others, had ordered another the others around, reclined on his back about
ten feet away from where the victim and the officer were lying on a bed. The man on the
bed, who was nude, touched her breasts but did not force her to touch him. "I kept
crying all the time and pushing his hands away," she said. "Finally he said to
me, I'm not going to do anything. The commander just stared at us."
After about ten minutes, the other soldiers returned to the room and, still nude, the
woman was forced to serve them coffee. She was then ordered to put her clothes back on and
clean up. She picked up the dirty cups and dishes and swept the floor, she said. Then she
was returned to the house with the other women. When the others asked what had happened to
her, she refused to tell them.
The second rape victim, age twenty-nine, reported to Human Rights Watch that the police
took her away from the house where she was being held and brought her to another house.
There she was placed in a room and forced to strip naked. One after the other, five
members of the Serb forces entered the room to look at her body, but it was only the last
man who raped her, she said. While he was assaulting her, the other four entered the room
and watched. The woman also stated that someone had placed a walkie-talkie under the bed
in the room, and that throughout the ordeal the Serbian forces shouted at her via the
walkie talkie to scare her. In all, she was held in the room for about half an hour.
A doctor at the camp in Kukes where the refugees from Dragacin are currently living told
Human Rights Watch that three other women had come to him yesterday to report that they
had been raped. The doctor said that one of these women showed obvious signs of severe
emotional distress. Other women held in the Dragacin houses told Human Rights Watch that
they had seen or heard women being taken by the Serbian forces during their three days in
captivity. One elderly woman from Mujlan said that, on the third night, the police entered
the house of Avdi T., shining a flashlight in the faces of the women, many of whom were
trying to cover their heads with their scarves. They found one woman and said, "You
come with us." She returned approximately two hours later and, when asked what
happened, said, "Don't ask me anything."
On Saturday, April 24, all of the women in Dragacin were forced by government forces to
walk to the nearby village of Dujle, where they were held in the local school for two days
without food or water, although no one reported further physical abuse. On April 26, they
were taken in two buses to the village of Zhur, where they were forced to walk across the
border into Albania. Human Rights Watch has received unconfirmed reports that rapes
occurred between April 24 and 26.
Witnesses' descriptions of the uniforms - green camouflage and blue camouflage - indicate
that the incidents described above were a joint operation by the Serbian special police
(MUP) and Yugoslav Army (VJ). Some of the perpetrators also wore black ski masks.
***For further information about violations of human rights and
humanitarian law in Kosova, see the Human Rights Watch website at
www.hrw.org on the "Crisis in Kosova" page. To subscribe to Kosova
Human Rights Flashes, send an E-mail to Donalds@hrw.org.***
For further information contact:
Holly Cartner (New York): 1-212-216-1277
Jean-Paul Marthoz (Brussels): 322-736-7838
Warily, US to admit 20,000 refugees
(CNN)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- At first, the administration's message to desperate Kosovar Albanians
seeking a safe haven was clear: Don't count on the United States to take you in.
Now, anxious to ease pressure on refugee-rich, resource-poor Macedonia, the administration
has modified its initial stance and will admit up to 20,000 refugees who have relatives in
the United States. Also eligible are refugees with serious illnesses.
But officials don't see the invitation as a ticket for permanent residence.
"We anticipate their return to Kosova," Vice President Al Gore said recently.
But the administration is keeping quiet the legal reality that there is no way they can be
sent back to their homeland involuntarily.
Officials are eager for them to go back because if they remain on U.S. soil, that could be
construed as a victory for the ethnic cleansing policy of Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic, said the administration sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
That, in turn, could encourage other leaders to evict their own citizens who are
considered to be ethnically undesirable, the officials said.
As of this week, 250 Albanian-American families have made known their willingness to
receive refugees related to them. If approved, about 1,500 refugees would relocate here,
an average of six per sponsoring family.
Even if the 20,000 U.S. ceiling is reached, it would represent only a tiny fraction of the
more than 600,000 ethnic Albanians evicted this far from Kosova. Many have already been
resettled out of the region, mostly in European countries.
Whatever the final number of refugees who relocate here, State Department spokesman James
P. Rubin said every effort will be made to encourage their return. "We believe most
of them would want to do so," he said.
If that is the case, a lot of work must be done to make Kosova habitable again, as Serb
forces have burned numerous villages to the ground. Rubin said the United States and
European countries are fashioning a major reconstruction plan for the province.
Before that can happen, NATO must reassert control over the province. The administration
says it is confident the NATO air campaign will eventually force a Serb retreat and is
insisting that a NATO-led international security force be permitted to provide protection
for returning refugees.
Refugees who come to the United States will be encouraged by government-paid counselors to
return to the homeland -- assuming the administration's goals for the province are
fulfilled.
When reminded that tens of thousands of refugees from the Central American wars during the
1980s refused to return home after peace was restored, officials noted that there was no
international reconstruction effort of the kind contemplated for Kosova.
Official statements only hint at the government's inability to deport ethnic Albanians
from Kosova who wish to remain. A State Department fact sheet says: "We expect most
of the Kosovars admitted to the United States under this program will want to return and
the U.S. government will assist those who wish to do so when conditions permit."
It does not address the question of those who want to stay here.
How the Serbs 'Cleansed' Pristina
(Paris Match)
The latest edition of Paris Match carries chilling photographs of the
mass deportation of the population of Pristina. The black and white
pictures were taken by a professional photographer, Afrim
Hajrulllahu. On March 31, at about 13 hrs., the photographer took a
picture of lines of people marching down the street. They had been
given five minutes to leave their homes. Another photo taken at 14 hr.
the day before shows a Serb APC on patrol.
Two photos taken at 10 in the morning of the 31st show lines of
Kosovars as the made their way to the train station where they were
forced to take trains to Macedonia. These pictures of scenes not seen in
Europe since the Shoah are most clearly seen in the paper edition of
Paris Match. They are reproduced on the Web Site of the magazine in
smaller format.
While one might have preferred to have been able to see these picture in
larger format on the web site, having a record one of the saddest
scenes in modern European history is well worth the effort of obtaining
Paris Match.
Manics Singer Helps Kosova Appeal
The lead singer of the Manic Street Preachers is to play a number of songs in the town
where he grew up to raise money for Kosova.
James Dean Bradfield will play three or four songs accompanied only by an acoustic guitar
at the conclusion of the show at Blackwood Miners' Institute, Gwent.
The band formed in the south Wales town and it is the first time any of them has played
there for more than 10 years.