Kosova Crisis Center

KCC NEWS
FREE KOSOVA
Regions
culture
NGO's
links's
about alb-net.com
mailing lists
alb-net.com bookstore
KCC archives
home

link to alb-net

E-MAIL US

LETTERS OF SUPPORT

SERBIAN MASSACRES

 Updated at 4:20 PM on June 16, 1999

The KLA Appeals to Doctors

Prishtinė, June 16, (Kosovapress)
Despite the lack of medical assistance from the many trained medical professionals in the Kosovar community, with the help of the KLA and the brave and professional work done by the few who volunteered, a major disaster was averted during the war.

We have reached another stage which can be considered the opening of Kosova including its hospitals. In order to avoid a general humanitarian catastrophe which is still threatening our people, we appeal to all medical personnel to return to the country and their place of work. Although medical facilities have been destroyed by Serb criminals, with the help of the international humanitarian associations they will be completely replaced with modern equipment.

By not showing up now will forever brandish who failed their people in need.

We take this opportunity also to inform the expelled population to only return to areas that are firmly under the control of KFOR or the KLA for there remains a great risk of land mines and booby traps in Kosova. The Secretary of Health of the KLA pleads that only after the KLA has cleared an area of its mines should people return to their homes.

News Briefs, June 16 (KosovaPress)

June 16, (Kosovapress)
Podjevė: Attempting to return to their homes, Ekrem Bajram Gjata (b. 1969), from Bajēina and Brahim Mehmet Hoti (b. 1953), from Bradashi, died after stepping on Serb mines.

Podjevė: Yesterday as Serb forces were leaving their positions in Besiana they gravely injured Vehbi Hashim Ahmeti (b 1962) and Murat Rrahim Fazliu (b. 1949). Their lives are not in danger. These same troops gravely injured Idriz, Nebih and Vehbi Behluli from Podjeva. Meanwhile Ismail Shaban Statofci (aged 75) from Batllava was killed.

Prizren: 250 Kosovars held by Serbs in Prizren have been transported secretly to the Prokuples Prison in Serbia.

Malishevė: In the village of Llazicė, in the district of Foniqėve, 82 year old Ramadan Rexhė Foniqi, from Llazica was killed in his home. The victim of Serb torture was half buried on the front step of his home.

Prishtinė: In an area close to Prishtina, according to a CNN crew, 100 Kosovars have been discovered killed and thrown into four wells. The killed were murdered just before the arrival of KFOR troops to the town, highlighting the tragic shortcoming of the agreement which allows mass murderers and rapists to leave without fear their criminal acts unpunished.

Yesterday in Gjilan, at 17:00, 16 children were injured by a hand grenade thrown by Serb Dragan Sopic in front of the village's mosque.

The bodies of Rexhep Rexhep, from Tankosiq and Saqip Hoxhės, from Sllatinė e Epėrme were found today. They were killed two months earlier by Serb police but the location of their bodies could not be confirmed until today. French troops have left Gjilan to incoming American troops.

Komoran: In the village of Sankoc yesterday, three bodies were discovered. They were buried yesterday.

Lipjan: Yesterday, Ibush Hasani, from the village of Gadime, killed close to the village was buried.

Magurė: In Zborc close to Blinaja, Xhavit Kozhani from Ribari i Madh was killed.

Lipjan: In Bregut tė Zi and Kraishtės, in a place called "Livadhe" an unidentified body has been found.

Lipjan: Today the first food aid arrived in Shalė tė Drenicės. A contingent of a convoy, comprising of three trucks filled with flour, sugar, cooking oil and salt made its entrance into this ravaged region. The food was dedicated for those civilians living in the open in the mountains of Berisha for the last two months. In the village today, a Los Angeles based humanitarian organization, AMS and the French Doctors without Borders arrived to set up permanent offices.

Komoran: Civilians who have been hiding in the mountains and gorges of Berisha have begun to return to their homes. A large group of them on foot or in tractors lived under plastic covering because their homes have been burned down by Serb forces.

Gjilan: Ten people, 8 of whom were children were injured today on a road in Gjilan when a Serb soldier threw a grenade into a crowd watching the withdrawal of Serb troops.

Prizren: Three people have been injured in Zhur, a neighboring village of Prizren by a booby trap set by Serb forces.

Kukės: After the departure of Serb forces and the entry of KFOR troops in Kosova, many deportees have ignored pleads by the international community and have begun to return to their homes which are not yet cleared of dangerous mines set by Serb forces specifically set to injure Kosovar civilians.

Bllacė: Two Kosovar refugees, as they were trying to enter their village in Kosova died after stepping on mines close to the Kosova-Macedonia border.

Krushė e Madhe: Dutch soldiers have discovered 20 burned bodies in Krushė tė Madhe, reported the Dutch news agency, ANP. Dutch troops have learned about the site from KLA troops and they have begun to guard the house. Investigators are expected to reach the site in the coming hours to begin to collect evidence for the War Crimes Tribunal.

Gjakovė: Mass graves have been discovered throughout Gjakova. KFOR troops coming from Prizren were informed of the location of a large grave in the Maja quarter of the city. Witnesses have also reported finding three bodies in the same neighborhood, adding there were many more in a large number of sites in the city, buried in shallow graves. Many of the inhabitants of this district have said they witnessed a number of new graves beginning to appear at the end of April.

Shefki Hamėz Krasniqi (aged 32) from Gllavica of Shtime, fell last night into a mine field laid near his village. His tragic death is a grime testimate of the dangers that exist in Kosova, especially in territory formally under the control of Serb forces. Once again, the KLA, NATO and the UNHCR pleads with civilians to not rush home and wait for security forces to clear their villages of the many dangerous explosives littering Kosova.

Italians discover two mass graves (KIC)

Prizren, 16 June (KIC) - Italian soldiers, serving under KFOR found
yesterday in the village of Korenica near Prizren, discovered two mass
graves. One of them contained 120 bodies of Albanians massacred by
Serb troops.

Kosova and Macedonia agree to open political offices in Shkup and Prishtina (Radio21)

Kosova and Macedonia agreed today to open political offices in Shkup and Prishtina, the prime minister of Kosova Interim Government, Hashim Thaēi confirmed today in a press conference in Shkup after his meeting with the prime minister of Macedonia, Ljubēo Georgievski.

Mr. Thaēi considered the meeting as especially important for the future of Kosova, Macedonia and the Balkans. He confirmed talking with Mr. Georgievski about the situation in Kosova, Macedonia and the Balkans, about the new ideas for a new life, a new political phylosophy of coexistence and cooperation with each other, "saying no to the phylosophy of conflict which depends to the past".

The prime minister of Kosova also confirmed that he talked with his Macedonian counterpart a little bit for the past and much more for the actual situation in Kosova and the Balkans and about the future.

"We agreed to built the relations between Kosova-Macedonia on the basis of the mutual interests. We fully agree on the concept of a new life and a new society in the Balkans, on the democratization of the Balkan society, out of militarizion. We talked about the democratization of the borders and we agreed to open political offices in Shkup and Prishtina", Mr. Thaēi said.

Kosova prime minister declared that a new phase will begin in Kosova after the war.

Macedonian prime minister Ljubēo Georgievski confirmed in the same press conference that he talked to his Kosova counterpart about the situation in Kosova, "the past and the future and the duties we have ahead like the deployment of NATO troops in Kosova, the return of the refugees".

"It is very important the settlement of the new administration in Kosova", Mr. Georgievski declared.

Macedonian prime minister talked to Kosova prime minister about the general life in the future, the economical and the general prospects of the Balkans.

He said that more intensive contacts will be held between the government of Macedonia and the Interim Government of Kosova on the basis of pact for stability in the region.

Not Even Hope Flowers in a Village of the Dead (NY Times)

By IAN FISHER

KRUSHA E MADHE, Kosova -- Ajrulah Ramadani woke up early Tuesday in Albania, packed a small plastic bag of clothes and came back to Kosova. He is a relatively prosperous man who lived here on a farm with his three brothers and their families -- 43 people in all -- and he wanted to see if anything was left.

The first person he met was Hamit Hoti, 85. Hoti's hands held a cane, his feet rested on the fallen gutter of his house. The house had no roof. The dried-up body of a dog, a bullet hole in his side, lay a few feet away.

"Are you safe?" Ramadani, 39, asked the old man. "Do you recognize me? I am Shaban's son."

Hoti looked confused.

"I don't recognize the young people anymore," he said. "I am blind. I am an old man. Are you safe?"

"Yes, thank you," Ramadani said. He offered a cigarette. The two men smoked.

"I was hiding like a dog," Hoti said. "I was running. For two days I was hiding anywhere I could in the fields and other houses -- without food, without water.

"I don't know where my family is," he told Ramadani. "Have you seen any of my family?"

"I just came from Albania," Ramadani said. "Lots of your family is there."

Hoti wavered somewhere between tears and a smile.

"It's enough for me to know they are safe," he said. "Thank you very much."

Ramadani said: "We won. We won. We won."

Then he met Xhelal Duraku, 35, who had been hiding in a nearby village until Tuesday. They walked up a grassy hill, thick with wildflowers, then down a small slope. They smelled rotting flesh.

Duraku climbed down the slope, which abutted the top of another roofless house, and pulled two charred watches from a cinder block. The watches belonged to the two men in the mounds of dirt at his feet. A shoulder bone poked from a mound.

Duraku said two of his relatives -- Isa Duraku, a teacher, and Nuhi Duraku, the director of a cooperative farm -- were buried there by other villagers, who told him where the watches were hidden.

He said his relatives were killed by Serbs in a massacre in this village -- where as many as 150 people died, human rights officials say -- and their bodies partly burned. In the house below lay an ash pit of bones, which a German soldier who walked by later said seemed to belong to a goat. Down the hill, near the main road, is a graveyard with recently plowed dirt, some 10 by 20 yards in size.

"I don't know how it all happened," Duraku said. Like Ramadani and his family, he fled while the killings were going on.

Ramadani went down the gravel road toward his house. A rotting body of a cow lay crumpled next to a destroyed car. A frightened Rottweiler poked his head out of a school, the windows smashed, the filing cabinets ransacked, and then went back inside.

Ramadani walked up a slope and peered around a wall to see his house.

"My bulldozer is here," he said. "I had three trucks." He looked again. "Ah, the trucks are gone. Also the tractors aren't here. Only this bulldozer -- no -- one tractor is here.

"I bought this piece of land from a Serb 10 years ago. I paid 800,000 German marks. Now they have come back and look what they did."

He spat. The two houses where he and his brothers and their families lived were barely standing. Both roofs were gone, the windows were smashed out and carbon licked the paint around the frames. The ground was spattered with red roof tiles.

A skinny dog jumped from the basement. Ramadani looked happy.

"Meca, come here!" he said, and the dog came and he scratched her head. "Meca!"

He lit another cigarette. He started to go up his front porch, spilling over with burned shoes, but thought better of it. It might be booby trapped. Tears filled his eyes. His brothers' laundry was still on the line. A sock hung on a tree.

He wiped his face and said his next step was to let his family, living in someone else's apartment in Albania, know that nothing is left.

"What can I do?" he asked. "I will tell them the truth. I will tell them everything I saw."

Jubilant Kosovar Refugees Begin a Trek Toward Home (NY Times)

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

MORINI, Albania -- More than 5,000 Kosovar Albanian refugees began a jubilant exodus back home on Tuesday through this mountain border crossing controlled jointly by the Kosova Liberation Army, the rebel group that fought Serbian forces in Kosova, and NATO peacekeepers.

"Never in my life have I been so happy," said Opoja Piraj, 36, who had come through the same crossing on April 2 devastated and terrified after Serbian police expelled him from his house in northern Kosova at gunpoint.

Wildly honking cars, trucks and tractors filled with exuberant adults and children waving two-fingered victory signs -- a stunning contrast to the tears and shock of the refugees' arrival here three months ago -- snaked up a crumbling mountain road to a re-entry that was, at least on Tuesday, remarkably speedy because of the participation of the rebel forces.

Although the guerrillas' central role at the border was awkward for the German NATO troops, who are supposed to be protecting both Kosovar Albanians and Serbs, the Germans acknowledged that the rebels made the re-entry of the refugees, most of whom were stripped of all identity papers by the Serbs, efficient and trouble-free, for now.

On Tuesday afternoon, as armed German soldiers stood by, a 23-year-old member of the rebel group, dressed in blue trousers, a blue sweater and Nikes, stopped each car at the border, asked not for identity papers, but quickly took down in a spiral notebook the Albanian names, dates of birth and places of residence of the people inside -- essential information for NATO, refugee agencies and future aid to Kosova.

"He can do it faster than we can do it," said a Lieutenant Colonel Eder, who was in command of the German forces at the border crossing, and said that rebel leaders were at that moment meeting with German authorities in the nearby Kosovar town of Prizren to determine how to divide up authority at the border. On Tuesday evening, the colonel said that the arrangement reached at the meeting was that "NATO takes over the border, but we will use the rebels for administrative things, like writing down the names. It's very hard for us to write down the names."

In essence, this was exactly the same operation that had gone on all day, although NATO was to raise its flag over the post on Tuesday night. "Perhaps they saw if they cooperated with us it will be easier," said Bujar Bajraktari, who described himself as the rebel commander in charge of the border post and who kept a close watch on the proceedings here on Tuesday.

The NATO-rebel cooperation was evident in a conversation in German that Bajraktari had on Tuesday afternoon with Eder, who told Bajraktari that NATO wanted the rebel lists of the returning Kosovar Albanians so that NATO could give them to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The border opened in chaos to the news media on Sunday, was closed to the media and refugees for part of Monday because of the presence of armed Serbian troops just a few miles up the road in Kosova, but opened again at 6 p.m. Monday.

Although there were some Albanian policemen at the border crossing, their role was to open the first gate and let every car up to the rebel-NATO checkpoint without asking questions. It fell to the rebels to separate out the Kosovar Albanians from the local Albanians in this anarchic border region, where recreational gunfire from nearby Albanian villages rings out all day.

Many local Albanians have slipped through the border since Sunday to loot homes in Kosova before the refugees themselves return. On Tuesday, the rebels were preventing the local Albanians from crossing into Kosova, on the orders, they said, of the Albanian police. The rebels were also checking the cars of local Albanians crossing back from Kosova into Albania, and roughly questioning those whose cars contained large boxes and packages.

They were able to distinguish one kind of Albanian from the other by dialect, license plates, or both. There was not a single Serbian authority at the Morini crossing, even though the NATO peace agreement calls for a "Serbian presence" at the borders as refugees re-enter. "We don't mind a Serbian presence as long as they have no say in who gets in," said Kris Janowski, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Janowski said that the refugee agency, which has repeatedly warned returning Kosovars about rushing back too soon before land mines and Serbian troops are cleared, said that he would prefer the return to be "a bit slower," but that it was going smoothly for now.

Aid workers said on Tuesday morning that they wanted to wait three weeks before starting to move the nearly half million refugees out of Albania. But refugees, reacting to the news of people dancing in the streets of Prizren, NATO's growing presence in Kosova, and the cars leaving Kukes on Tuesday, were packing up in the camps near here on Tuesday night.

"We saw that a lot of people are going," said Nazlije Gashi, 59, who was riding with her family in the back of truck toward the border and home. "So we decided to go with them."

NATO Must Stop Russia's Power Play (Wall Street Journal)

By Zbigniew Brzezinski

Slobodan Milosevic's somewhat conditional but hardly face-saving surrender is undeniably a success for NATO and for the U.S. Failure to prevail would have been a disaster, disrupting the alliance and globally discrediting America. But victory has already had an unwelcome complication: Russian troops occupying the airport in the Kosovar capital of Prishtina. What's more, the way NATO conducted this war raises serious concerns about future conflicts.

The Clinton administration deserves credit for having done several things right. It recognized that force had to be used to compel Mr. Milosevic to terms. It persevered in the effort, and was very successful in keeping the NATO coalition together. It did not succumb to Russian entreaties to stop the bombing.

Writing on this page on May 24, I argued that the two issues defining either success or failure were whether all armed Serbs would have to leave Kosova, and whether all of Kosova would be placed under de facto NATO control. That now seems likely, unless the administration caves in to Russian-Serbian collusion in establishing a separate zone for the Russians.

It is also important to note that there are strong hints in the United Nations mandate that Serbia's sovereignty over Kosova may be not only nominal but eventually terminal. The document refers more than once not only to "autonomy" but also to "self-government" for the Kosovars, noting that KFOR (the U.N.'s name for the predominantly NATO force) would be responsible for "facilitating a political process designed to determine Kosova's future status, taking into account the Rambouillet accords."

At the same time, the militarily indecisive and morally compromising manner in which the 80-day bombing campaign was conducted leaves a residue of longer-term concerns, beyond Kosova itself, that will have to be seriously addressed. Foremost among them are Russia's role in the crisis, the world's perception of the American way of war, and NATO's combat command procedures. The Kosova crisis raises concerns regarding each.

Russia's conduct does not deserve the high praise that the Clinton administration has showered on the Yeltsin leadership. Perhaps some of the praise was tactical, designed to isolate Mr. Milosevic. The fact remains, however, that Russia's conduct was malicious and much of it involved deliberate collusion with the Belgrade sponsor of ethnic cleansing. The sudden deployment of Russian troops into Serbia had to be coordinated by Moscow and Belgrade, and its obvious aim was to force a partition of Kosova, on Mr. Milosevic's behalf. That means that Russia's role in the Group of Eight discussions regarding Kosova has been duplicitous. To obscure all of that and to reward Russia with a major role in Kosova is to fuel further Russian ambitions. The bottom line is that Russia's good behavior should be rewarded; its hostile conduct should neither be propitiated nor be cost-free.

Boris Yeltsin's power play in Prishtina, therefore, must not be allowed to stand. There are many nonviolent ways of isolating the Russian troop contingent at the airport and of preventing their resupply by air--such as simply floating balloons around the airport so that no unilaterally arriving Russian air transports can land. Failure to apply pressure decisively will mean that Mr. Milosevic and Mr. Yeltsin will have succeeded in de facto partition.

The second major issue growing out of Kosova is that the American way of war smacks to much of the world as a new technological racism. The high-tech standoff war was waged as if its underlying premise was that the life of even one American serviceman was not worth risking in order to save the lives of thousands of Kosovars. Just consider how the public would feel if some policemen, reacting to thugs throwing children into a swift river, confined themselves to merely arresting the thugs, on the grounds that any attempt at rescue might risk a policeman's life. Gloating over the ultimate "score" of 5,000 Serbs killed to zero Americans simply reinforces the global perception of a troubling moral standard.

This new way of war may also set a dubious and even dangerous standard for the future. The definition of success in warfare should not be determined by the avoidance of any casualties. If the stakes, both political and moral, are imperative enough to warrant the use of force, then necessary force should be used to achieve the ends. A war fought at no political risk and at no human cost may prove to have set a paralyzing precedent for any future American president.

Finally, some serious thought will have to be given to whether NATO's governing mechanisms, which require political unanimity in setting war aims, are conducive to a truly effective war-fighting command. The awkward experience of the unnecessarily prolonged bombing campaign underlines the urgent need to review and revise NATO's decision-making procedures. A clearer distinction will have to be drawn between the requirements for basic unanimity in committing NATO to action, and the need for a military command authority endowed with the discretion to execute that commitment by military means. The Normandy landings never could have been carried out under the procedures NATO followed in Kosova.

The outcome of the conflict demonstrates that NATO is Europe's only effective security system and that the American-European connection remains central to Europe's stability. That makes it all the more important that the Kosova experience be assessed in a constructively critical fashion.

"NO BOUNDARIES" ALBUM, TO BENEFIT THE REFUGEES OF KOSOVO RELEASED (Epic Records)

On June 15, 1999, Epic Records released No Boundaries—a unique compilation created for the benefit of the refugees of Kosova.

The 16-track album will feature rare, live and previously unreleased special versions of songs by some of the most popular and acclaimed artists on the international music scene. The artists confirmed to appear on No Boundaries are Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine, Alanis Morissette, Neil Young, Oasis, KoRn, Black Sabbath, Indigo Girls, Ben Folds Five, Peter Gabriel, The Wallflowers, Sarah McLachlan, Bush, Tori Amos, and Jamiroquai.

Pearl Jam's version of "Last Kiss," the 1964 hit by J. Frank Wilson & the Cavaliers, will be the first single from No Boundaries. The single arrives in stores June 8 and includes the B-side "Soldier Of Love," a live version of the song first recorded by Arthur Alexander. "Last Kiss" and "Soldier Of Love" were released initially as the 1998 Pearl Jam Fan Club Christmas single and distributed free to fan club members only. Both tracks are included on No Boundaries.

Pearl Jam manager Kelly Curtis says: "Pearl Jam is proud to offer this small contribution to help improve the appalling conditions of the refugees suffering from this human rights tragedy in Kosova."

In advance of the album release date and based on projected sales of No Boundaries, Epic Records will make an initial donation of $1,000,000 to be distributed among three international aid organizations—CARE, OXFAM, and Doctors Without Borders—all of which are working now to provide food, shelter, medical care and other basic needs to the Kosova refugees. Further donations derived from worldwide sales of No Boundaries will be made to these organizations.

"This album is the first collective response by the international music community to the crisis in Kosova," says David Glew, Chairman of the Epic Records Group. "No Boundaries is an outstanding collection of music, created in support of a vital cause."