Kosova Crisis Center

link to alb-net

E-MAIL US

LETTERS OF SUPPORT

YugoslaviaN MASSACRES

• Serb land mines kill 2 Albanian children
• Serbs killed 23 children in room - investigators
• Investigators Uncover More Mass Graves in Kosova, Sky News Says
• Tasting their own medicine: Thousands of Serbs said to face trial for dodging Kosova war
• 300 Kosova refugees depart New York for home
• Serbian Patriarch on Milosevic, Crimes in Kosova: Comment

Serb land mines kill 2 Albanian children

Hatixhe Perteshi caresses her son Burim, 12, who is lying on a bed at Prizren's hospital Tuesday, July 27, 1999. Burim lost his right leg and suffered serious injuries to the other, after a landmine exploded on June, 19, 1999 while he was picking strawberries in a field at Duhel, a southern Kosovo village near the town of Suhareka. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

Reuters Wednesday, July 28 1999 09:59 AM EDT

TIRANA (Reuters) - Two Albanian boys were killed by land mines in the northern district of Tropoje near the border with Kosova, the Albanian news agency ATA reported Wednesday.

The boys, aged 10 and 12, were herding cattle late on Tuesday when they stepped on mines planted 200 yards inside Albanian territory by Serb soldiers during the Kosova conflict, the agency cited police as saying.

Mines planted by Serb troops during incursions into northern Albania -- which served as a base for guerrillas of the Kosova Liberation Army -- killed three people and injured 12 in the same area earlier this month.

Serbs killed 23 children in room - investigators

Reuters Tuesday, July 27 1999 03:24 PM EDT

PRISTINA, Serbia (Reuters) - Serbian forces threw a grenade into a room packed with at least 47 detained Kosova Albanian villagers, including 23 children, and then machine-gunned them, killing all but six in an attack in April, investigators said on Tuesday.

In an exhaustive 25-page report obtained by Reuters in Kosova, Human Rights Watch said Serbian security forces waging a harsh anti-guerrilla crackdown attacked a nearby village the same day, killing 23 men from one large Albanian family.

Human Rights Watch urged the U.N. war crimes tribunal, now examining mass graves across Kosova, to find and interview a Serb police officer identified as ``Lutka'' (Doll) by survivors of the alleged atrocities it investigated in the Gllogovc area.

Evidence of apparent mass killings and other outrages has proliferated since Serbian troops, police and paramilitaries were forced by NATO bombardment to leave Kosova in June.

Around 35,000 NATO peacekeeping troops now secure Kosova and hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees who were shelled and burned out of their homes have returned. An interim U.N. administration has been set up.

The inquiry by respected New York-based Human Rights Watch focused on the Gllogovc area of Kosova's Drenica region, a separatist hotbed, where it said ethnic Albanian inhabitants were ``besieged and terrorized'' by Belgrade.

It detailed alleged summary executions, arbitrary detentions, regular beatings, widespread looting and the destruction of schools, hospitals and other civilian buildings in a three-month ethnic cleansing campaign ending in June.

In the village of Poklek close to Gllogovc, police prevented a group of ethnic Albanians from fleeing their homes on April 17, forcing them into the house of a relative.

``After a few hours, the owner of the house, Sinan Muqolli, and another man were taken outside, executed and thrown into the family well,'' the report said, quoting surviving witnesses.

``Shortly thereafter, a grenade was thrown into the room, holding at least 47 persons, including 23 children under the age of 15. One man (then) raked the room with automatic gunfire, a survivor said, killing everyone inside except six people.''

A 55-year-old relative who survived the attack testified: ``The (automatic) rifle was firing for a long time. Then I heard someone outside say, 'C'mon, leave them, they're all dead.' But he saw someone alive and started shooting again.''

The exact number of dead was unknown, but the 23 children had definitely been killed, the report said, citing a list provided by Muqolli family members in a Macedonian refugee camp.

A member of the Muqolli family was a local commander for the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) at the time.

The report said a Human Rights Watch researcher visited Sinan Muqolli's gutted home on June 25. The room where the massacre was said to have occurred had bullet holes in the walls and cartridges from a large-caliber weapon on the floor.

``Surviving family members displayed a cardboard box containing some of the bones allegedly collected from the room and showed the nearby well where they claimed some of the bodies had been dumped.''

Serbian police swept into Staro Cikatovo village the same day and separated men from women and children, the report said. By day's end, 23 men from the Morina family were dead.

``The actions in Gllogovc municipality were clearly coordinated between the regular Serbian police, the Yugoslav army and paramilitaries, whom witnesses identified as having long hair and beards, with colored bandannas on their heads and sleeves,'' the report said.

``While the police were responsible for many of the beatings in Gllogovc, as well as organized mass expulsions, it is the paramilitaries who are implicated in most of the serious violence.''

The report said witnesses could consistently identify only one assailant, a deputy police chief from Gllogovc known as Lutka. They called him the main organizer of deportations in the area.

Credible allegations of mass killings emerged from other villages around Gllogovc. A local human rights activist provided a list with the names of 72 people said to have been put to death around the villages of Cirez and Baks, the report said.

``A number of witnesses claimed to have seen what they thought were members of Arkan's Tigers -- the notorious paramilitary group run by the indicted war crimes suspect Zeljko Raznatovic (Arkan), but this could not be confirmed.''

Human Rights watch said its account was meant to assist U.N. war crimes inquiries. It urged the tribunal to devote attention to the Gllogovc area and ensure witnesses were protected.

Investigators Uncover More Mass Graves in Kosova, Sky News Says

Bloomberg News Tuesday, July 27 1999 06:43 AM EDT

Rahovec, Kosova, July 27 (Bloomberg) -- War crimes investigators in Kosova have uncovered evidence of a mass grave that could contain up to 100 bodies, Sky News reported, without citing sources. The new site is believed to be one of six near Rahovec, where, according to villagers, at least 3,000 people have gone missing since the conflict, Sky said. Forensic experts are beginning to uncover evidence that could lead to further charges of war crimes, Sky reported.

A NATO peacekeeping force has launched a hunt for the people responsible for the shooting of 14 Serb farmers in the Kosovan village of Gracko last Friday.

Tasting their own medicine: Thousands of Serbs said to face trial for dodging Kosova war

Reuters Tuesday, July 27 1999 01:39 PM EDT

BELGRADE (Reuters) - A Yugoslav human rights activist was quoted Tuesday as saying the Belgrade authorities plan to put up to 28,000 people on trial for avoiding military service during the Kosova war.

Biljana Kovacevic-Vuco, head of the Yugoslav Human Rights Lawyers' Committee, was quoted by the Beta news agency as saying the move was part of a bid by the Serbian authorities to crush political opposition in the country.

``It has been assessed that, mostly under the accusation of avoiding the military call-up and fleeing abroad during the state of war, between 23,000 and 28,000 trials have been initiated in Yugoslavia,'' Kovacevic-Vuco told Beta.

``These are mainly young people...Many oppose the regime and did not want to take part in the war,'' she said.

``All opponents of the regime are threatened. They did not want to go to war, and they certainly do not want to go to prison,'' she added.

Kovacevic-Vuco said some prominent opposition figures, such as Democratic Party leader Zoran Djindjic, may not be threatened because the authorities feared an adverse reaction from the public.

Djindjic, who fled to Serbia's sister republic Montenegro during the NATO bombardment after he was publicly branded a traitor by ultra-nationalist groups, is due to appear before a military court in Belgrade Wednesday on charges of avoiding the military call-up during the state of war.

``The situation is different, however, with the less well-known, but nevertheless prominent, opponents of the regime who are in great danger,'' Kovacevic-Vuco was quoted as saying.

She called for an amnesty for all those who avoided war service, saying she was amazed that the issue had not been included among NATO's conditions for ending its 11-week bombardment of Yugoslavia.

The Belgrade authorities issued a general amnesty for people accused of avoiding the draft in Yugoslavia's 1991 war against Croatia when Zagreb declared its independence from the old Yugoslav federation.

300 Kosova refugees depart New York for home

Reuters Monday, July 26 1999 04:41 PM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Expressing excitement and concern, about 300 ethnic Albanian refugees left New York on a flight back to their Kosova homeland Monday after spending weeks in U.S. refugee camps to escape the ravages of war.

The refugees were taking the first flight of a repatriation program announced July 12 by the State Department. They were to fly from New York to Skopje, Macedonia, where they were to board buses bound for the border and into Kosova, a province of Serbia.

About 300 refugees, ranging from toddlers to the elderly, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International airport, carrying suitcases and pushing luggage carts piled with their possessions. The refugees had been housed in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Chicago.

``I'm very excited really,'' said Nora Bakalli, who arrived in the United States on May 20. ``Going back home is something that means very much to me. ... I can't wait to go back home.''

The young woman from Pristina said her parents had returned three weeks ago, and that her home had not been burned.

``They (Yugoslav soldiers) stole everything they wanted, but we still have a house standing up and that's where we want to go,'' she added.

Most of the refugees were bound for Pristina, Kosova's capital, with the rest returning to Ferizaje and Djakova, said officials with the International Organization for Migration, the agency designated by the U.S. government to coordinate the repatriation.

``I'm very happy to go back to my country, my house, to my city,'' said Donika Gashi as she prepared to board the plane home.

``I love my country,'' added Gashi, who had been in the United States for about a month. ``I feel happy, very happy, and thanks for this.''

Kushtrim Demiri, who said he was looking forward to going home, also said that while his ``home is OK, everything is robbed.'' Still, he said, ``it's my country and I have friends and everything is there.''

International Organization for Migration officials said they have been receiving more than 100 calls a day from refugees who want to return home to Kosova. Refugees seeking information on the program can call 1-800-748-4521 or use the Web site http://www.iom.int/new.htm for an application, they said.

About one-third of the more than 10,000 refugees sheltered in the United States has decided to go home, the agency said.

Serbian Patriarch on Milosevic, Crimes in Kosova: Comment

Bloomberg News Monday, July 26 1999 08:21 AM EDT

Belgrade, July 26 (Bloomberg) -- Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Pavle spoke about relations between the church and government of President Slobodan Milosevic and prospects for relations between Serbs and Albanians in Kosova. Below are excerpts from an interview he gave to Sarajevo weekly Slobodna Bosna.

``In his book (Croatian President Franjo) Tudjman says for Milosevic is a socialist. Well, whether he is a socialist or a communist, I don't know, but I know he has nothing to do with church. Milosevic doesn't go to church. Church has never been for him nor against him. Milosevic would like everything, even church, to turn in his favor. My duty as a believer is to defend the truth.

``The church doesn't have its own party, it is not a political organization. I was told in person and in writing that whatever I say about my position -- is political and that I can either support the government or the opposition. I replied that the principle is too narrow.

Every war is a misfortune, and civil wars like those in Croatia, Bosnia and in Kosova are misfortunes above all. In a civil war, a neighbor or even a relative from mixed marriages becomes the enemy. We and Albanians have to a lot to regret...there were big misfortunes and crimes. After repentance comes forgiveness.

``We have lived together for so many years, Serbs have never denied Albanians the right to the sun, the land and to life in Kosova. It is certain that for this generation it would be difficult to continue to live together, but those who come after will have better opportunities and conditions for life together.''