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SERBIAN MASSACRES

• Hundreds Could Lie Buried In Prishtina Mass Grave (Reuters)
• Britons reveal Kosova bodies in mass grave (Times)
• Civic order rules in "rebel Kosova stronghold" (Reuters)
• Russia threatens Kosova pullout (BBC)
• The Law of Revenge Rules (Newsweek)
• KLA Says Disarmament Deadline Met (AP)
• KLA Communique (Kosovapress)

Hundreds Could Lie Buried In Prishtina Mass Grave (Reuters)

Reuters Friday, August 20 1999 11:54 AM EDT

Prishtina (Reuters) - Hundreds of Kosova Albanians could lie buried in a mass grave in Prishtina under the noses of U.N. and NATO officials who have failed to give site sufficient attention or protection, forensic experts said Friday.

``There must be hundreds of bodies there,'' Dr Marios Matsakis, a Greek Cypriot forensic pathologist, told Reuters.

Matsakis observed the opening of one trench grave last month in which at least five bodies were buried. All had been shot.

There was at least one layer of bodies beneath the five found in the trench, witnesses said. Seven other filled-in trenches lay parallel in the immediate area but were not opened.

A number of other such trenches are visible further down the hill, which is dotted with ``normal graves'' that may have been intended as camouflage for evidence of a war crime.

Matsakis was on a fact-finding mission for Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) when he visited the alleged mass grave site on the north side of a hilltop cemetery, Prishtina's largest, in the city's western Dragodan district.

``It is unacceptable that the site has not been excavated yet,'' the forensic expert told Reuters by telephone from Cyprus. ``I would have thought teams of (forensic) experts would have come by now. I myself volunteered to do it.''

The Cypriot said hot weather and the passage of time were destroying evidence vital to identifying those buried on the site and determining the cause of their deaths.

The United Nations war crimes tribunal in the Hague is responsible for investigating suspected mass graves in Kosova. NATO-led KFOR troops provide support, including security, at the tribunal's request.

Tribunal spokesman Jim Landale told Reuters Friday that his organization was aware of the Dragodan site and planned a preliminary investigation within weeks.

``There have been reports of as many as 200 bodies buried there but of course we can't confirm that until we have conducted an investigation,'' he said by phone from the Hague.

``Once we have determined the site's value, we will plan our next step in light of the resources at our disposal.''

Rumors about a mass grave in the Dragodan area circulated first in April during the NATO bombing of Serbian security forces that led to KFOR taking control in Kosova on June 12.

Hundreds of suspected mass graves have been identified in Kosova. A number are under active investigation by forensic scientists on behalf of the tribunal.

The presence of a large, unguarded mass grave in Dragodan, if ultimately confirmed by tribunal investigators, would be something of an embarrassment given months of rumors. The site lies only a short distance from KFOR and U.N. headquarters.

Dr Fadil Batalli, a forensic pathologist at Prishtina hospital, brought Matsakis and two other PHR experts to the Dragodan site in mid-July hoping to find the body of a friend.

But, when Batalli opened the grave he was told contained his friend's remains, he found five other bodies instead, with another layer of remains, as described by Matsakis, underneath.

``When I arrived here that day, I had no thought of uncovering a mass grave, but the evidence was unmistakable,'' Batalli said. ``It is a shame that this site has not been closed off. It should be a priority for investigators.''

Reuters spoke to a number of ethnic Albanians who lived near the Dragodan site during the NATO air war.

Several confirmed that heavy earth-moving equipment as used to excavate trenches had been there earlier this year.

Habib Ajeti, 46, who lived near the cemetery with his wife and five children for most of the NATO air war, gave a chilling account of what he saw from his house one day in early April.

``I was afraid because there were a lot of police in the cemetery and I thought they might come for me. But I peeked through the fence and I saw a tractor hauling a wagon packed with bodies. The tractor came back loaded with more bodies four times that day,'' Ajeti said.

``I saw a Roma (Gypsy) take a pole with a hook on the end of it and pull the bodies off one by one like dead fish into the trench...It was terrifying. I thought I would be killed next.''


Britons reveal Kosova bodies in mass grave (Times)

War crime investigators find remains in remote site, writes Stephen Farrell
Maureen Boyle said no previous British team has had to dig so deep. Now they are evaluating how best to proceed -

BRITISH war crimes investigators in Kosova have uncovered a new mass grave on a disused firing range north of Prizren. They believe that they have found the remains of 12 victims and that more bodies may be buried up to three metres down in the thick, waterlogged soil. The remote site is thought to have been used by Serbs to dump the bodies of victims killed elsewhere. The 18-strong team, led by Detective Chief Inspector Maureen Boyle from Scotland Yard, was about to move to a new location yesterday when it uncovered what appeared to be a tangled mass of burnt human remains. They were found far deeper than any of the 260 victims previously exhumed by British forensic teams helping the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Local witnesses have said that they saw trucks carrying bodies to the dumping ground late at night, and excavators at work near the village of Ljubizda in late March, just after the Nato bombing began. Others have said they later saw vehicles removing material, and investigators were unsure if any evidence would remain. However, they soon found the bones of at least three victims scattered on the ground over a wide area. Some had been removed by animals. They also found traces of human hair and piles of clothing which seemed to have been buried and then dug up. When the investigators began digging they found four bodies - two adults and two children aged about five and eight - buried together three metres deep. One man seemed to have been decapitated by an explosion, but the causes of death will not be established until the remains have been examined at a nearby mortuary. Further digs failed to yield anything until body parts were found on Wednesday night. When the digger scooped out earth yesterday morning it uncovered the remains of what the team's forensic anthropologist believes are at least five victims. Ms Boyle said: "There is obviously something else there. We have stopped for the moment because the bodies we have now found are in water and we need to sit down with the pathologist and different experts to re-evaluate how best we proceed. No previous British dig has recovered bodies from this depth." Her team was yesterday working 15-minute shifts because of the stifling heat and overpowering smell of decay which caused even experienced forensic investigators to vomit. "The feeling among the team is that this is a very challenging task but very important and very rewarding. Conditions, especially on this site, are exceptionally difficult," said Ms Boyle who, like the rest of her team, volunteered for the investigation. Her task has not been helped by having to move house late Wednesday night because neighbouring buildings in Prizren were set alight in what may have been the latest arson attack on Serbs. Among the personal effects found was a school exercise book with a drawing of a heart with arrows through it and the motto: "Two hearts, Two arrows, Two friends." Above it was a poem in Albanian: "When you drink water, Don't spoil it, And don't forget, Your best friend." Near by lay a toddler's jumper, leggings and bootees. Among the officers at yesterday's gruesome work were body recovery experts Martin Hemingway and Alan Simpson. Both wore South Yorkshire police caps above their protective face masks. Mr Hemingway said: "There is a mass of bodies in an advanced state of decomposition that appear to have been systematically burnt and put into a very deep hole at or below the water-table near a stream. I don't think you could devise a more practical or effective way of burying people who would never be found." David Gowan, the Foreign Office Kosova War Crimes Coordinator, said that Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, was taking a "close personal interest" in the work. The British experts were the first to arrive in Kosova. Mr Gowan said: "The team has been here two months. Clearly there is a continuing and very great demand for what they are doing. A decision has not yet been taken as to how long they will be here."

Copyright 1999 Times Newspapers Ltd


Civic order rules in "rebel Kosova stronghold" (Reuters)

Reuters Thursday, August 19 1999 04:31 AM EDT

GJAKOVA, Kosovë, Aug 19 (Reuters) - The post-war message from city hall in this ethnic Albanian stronghold of Kosova is clear: ``Colonial administrators need not apply.''

Municipal officials, appointed by the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA), admit that Djakovica needs financial help to rebuild.

What residents don't want, those officials insist, is to be ruled by the U.N bureaucrats who are supposed to provide civil administration in Kosova until elections next year.

``We fought for freedom. It would be a mistake to become dependent on anyone,'' explained Mazllom Kumnova, the 54-year-old Mayor of Djakovica, who spent the last month of the war at a KLA command centre in the hills planning for peace.

``There's no reason for an outsider to do what we can do for ourselves. Our people are hard working and self-reliant. We can run our own affairs. We've proved that in the two months since the war ended.''

Large swathes of this city of about 70,000 people -- the fifth largest in Kosova -- lie in ruins as a result of punitive attacks by Serbian security forces that began after NATO bombed them earlier this summer.

Worst hit was Djakovica's historic old town district, an architectural gem in the Balkans that burned to the ground.

At least 5,000 houses in the city and its surrounding villages were destroyed over the past 18 months. A total of 1,041 former residents are still listed by ethnic Albanian authorities as missing.

Yet the city bustles not just with life, as is the case in most parts of Kosova, but with a palpable sense of civic order and pride.

Basic utilities have been restored in many areas. Neat piles of rubble excavated from damaged buildings await roadside pick-up and disposal.

The entire old town district is being cleaned up in the first-phase of a U.S.-funded reconstruction effort.

City hall has begun issuing registration plates for vehicles within the municipality, an important step to restoring order in an area where possession was 10 tenths of the law when the war finally ended.

A locally-generated plan to repair all traffic signals and signs awaits only outside funding for implementation.

Relatively few serious security incidents are being reported in Djakovica at a time when other cities in Kosova, including the capital, Prishtina, regularly report crimes of violence.

The presence of large numbers of Italian troops in the area as part of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission known as KFOR in Kosova, has been a constructive, calming influence. KLA police are generally feared and respected.

But with KFOR and the KLA everywhere in Kosova, why does Djakovica seem such a special case?

Observers say it is because the post-war population of the municipality is virtually 100 per cent ethnic Albanian.

Where cities like Prishtina and Mitrovica have struggled, with scant success, to accommodate, peacefully, significant Serb minorities, Djakovica was 98 per cent ethnic Albanian even before the war.

Mayor Kumnova, a former education administrator, reckons fewer than a dozen Serbs now remain in his domain.

The international community abhors that result but would be hard-pressed to deny that ethnic homogeneity has simplified the administration of Djakovica, at least for the moment.

Ironically, despite its size, the city is not a regional headquarters for the U.N. Mission in Kosova (UNMIK).

Instead, the municipality falls under U.N. officials based in the city of Pec, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) north.

Many international aid agencies operate in Djakovica, but government per se remains in the hands of the locals here while the U.N. struggles to organise and staff up across Kosova.

``The KLA has filled the void in the Djakovica area, for better or worse,'' said a Western government official in Kosova, who asked not to be named.

``The KLA is supposed to disband as an army by next month and I suppose it will. But it has established firm political control well before next year's elections. The KLA is running Kosova from the bottom up. The U.N. is still organising itself.''



Russia threatens Kosova pullout (BBC)

Russian participation in K-for has been fraught with difficulty
Russia is considering changing its role in the K-For international peacekeeping force, and it may pull out of Kosova altogether, officials say.
Boris Mayorsky, envoy to the former Yugoslavia, and Leonid Ivashov, the Defence Ministry's head of international co-operation, accused Nato, which leads K-For, of pursuing its own agenda.
In a joint statement they said Russian troops would leave K-For if its actions became "unacceptable" to Moscow.
They stressed, however, that this was not imminent.

Violence
The statement said Nato was not upholding UN resolutions relating to K-For's deployment and that the peacekeeping body had failed to stop violence against Serbs in Kosova.
"None of the obligations under the resolution have been applied," said Mr Mayorsky.
"Who is responsible for this? The question must be directed at the military and political leadership of the alliance."
Mr Ivashov complained that Nato was ignoring the sovereignty of Yugoslavia by preventing Belgrade's participation in solving Kosova's problems.
"The United States and Nato are trying to establish their own order in the Balkans, excluding the region's nations in the process," he said.

Serb exodus
Russia was strongly opposed to Nato's bombing campaign, but it eventually agreed to work with K-For.
Its participation in the Nato-led mission has been fraught with complications since its troops arrived at the airport of the Kosova capital, Prishtina, ahead of Nato forces on 12 June.
Moscow complained earlier this week that "ethnic cleansing" of Serbs was continuing in the province while Nato did nothing to stop it.
It said K-For troops were failing to take action to curb a Serb exodus from Kosova and to deter revenge attacks by returning Albanian refugees.
At least 35,000 Serbs are thought to have fled Prishtina alone since the beginning of the K-For mission.
The Russians say the situation will be discussed by the Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev when he meets his US counterpart, William Cohen, later this year.


The Law of Revenge Rules (Newsweek)

In a few areas, Serbs are being allowed to create their own enclaves. Around Mitrovica in the north, where the bulk of Kosova's mineral and industrial wealth is generated, between 600 and 1,000 Serb paramilitaries have entered the region in full view of French KFOR troops and with the knowledge of the U.N. authorities.

By David Rieff

The West fought the war in Kosova for the right reasons and, despite all the moral and operational ambiguities of the bombing campaign, fought it successfully. The return of the Kosovars to their homes is a tremendous accomplishment. For the first time in the post-cold-war period, ethnic cleansing was reversed. There is something magical and heartening about walking through the streets of Prishtina, Kosova's capital, and seeing young people who grew up fearful in a Serb police state finally getting a chance to behave like normal teenagers. And in the countryside, returning refugees are rebuilding their homes and their lives with impressive speed. None of this would have been possible without the air war, the deployment of KFOR troops and the establishment of what is, in practical terms, a U.N. protectorate for Kosova.

But what kind of protectorate? All the talk at U.N. headquarters in Prishtina is about creating civic institutions, establishing the rule of law and maintaining Kosova's identity as a multiethnic state. The reality could not be more different. It is not the rule of law but the law of revenge that reigns. As the Kosovars return, the Serbs are leaving, and there is very little the United Nations or KFOR can do to stem the exodus. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright doubtless had the best of intentions when she said in Prishtina at the end of July that "democracy cannot be built on revenge." But it is difficult to reconcile that notion with U.S. support for the Kosova Liberation Army — at least some of whose members are complicit in the campaign to drive out the Serbs. And there is a larger, more fundamental reality to consider: those on the receiving end of radical evil, given the chance, will repay that evil in kind. For proof, all you need to do is drive past the burning Serb houses that still are an everyday sight in Kosova and look at the hatred in the eyes of the Kosovars as they stand mutely watching the flames.

To a very large extent, what the West did in Kosova was what, in retrospect, it believed it should have done in Bosnia. It bombed the Serbs and it installed a U.N. protectorate with real power and backed by a credible military force. The problem is that Kosova is not Bosnia. For all the ways in which Sarajevo's multicultural, tolerant character could be overstated, there was a tradition of inter-ethnic harmony in the Bosnian capital, up to and including intermarriage, that war could not extinguish. It was at least as real as the ancient ethnic hatreds that were so often cited as the reason nothing could be done. But Kosova has no such mitigating traditions. As aid workers who worked in both places say wonderingly, the hatred they encounter in Kosova is unlike anything they experienced in Bosnia.

Is it too late to stop the ethnic unmixing of Kosova? U.N. authorities are in a bind. The hastily crafted Security Council resolution that governs their actions is not a realistic blueprint for governing Kosova (it also had to end the war — under terms that satisfied Russia and China). The resolution calls for the preservation of a multiethnic state, an example of pure wishful thinking. Publicly, the United Nations seems incapable of preventing the establishment of a largely Albanian state; privately, some officials concede that there is little they can do to head it off. Western authorities continue to create institutions based on the premise of a multiethnic Kosova, and pontificate piously about the future. In the meantime, a mono-ethnic state is coming into being on the local level.

In a few areas, Serbs are being allowed to create their own enclaves. Around Mitrovica in the north, where the bulk of Kosova's mineral and industrial wealth is generated, between 600 and 1,000 Serb paramilitaries have entered the region in full view of French KFOR troops and with the knowledge of the U.N. authorities. Undoing the damage caused by this will, for all the bluff talk emanating from the United Nations in Prishtina, be extremely difficult, if not impossible. And what is happening (and not happening) in Mitrovica is only one emblem of a larger dilemma. The reality is that neither the Western governments that fought the war nor the U.N. authorities have any idea of how to reconcile their wish to turn Kosova into a democratic and prosperous space with the realities on the ground. As has so often been the case with Western policy in the Balkans, our moral aspirations far outstrip our ability to carry them out.

In blood-drenched, hate-filled Kosova, the West can probably do little more than offer money and expertise, and keep its soldiers and humanitarian relief workers on station indefinitely. Without them, chaos would quickly engulf the province. But to pretend that democracy is just around the corner, as too many international officials on the ground are doing, or even to insist that the outlook is promising, is an unpardonable exercise in creating false expectations. In the long run, it is bound to be a self-defeating one as well. For when these expectations are revealed as the wishful thinking they are, the predictable result will be calls for a hasty withdrawal of peacekeepers. And that would be a catastrophe for a place that has already experienced too many of them.

Rieff is coeditor of "Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know."

Newsweek International, August 23, 1999


KLA Says Disarmament Deadline Met (AP)

The Associated Press Friday, August 20 1999 11:42 AM EDT

Prishtina, Kosovë (AP) - Kosova Liberation Army leaders say they have met a NATO deadline to turn over 60 percent of their weapons by today and are not responsible for the continued violence in Kosova.

Meanwhile, German-led peacekeepers arrested three men around the town of Orahovac on suspicion of involvement in ``serious crimes,'' NATO said. In Bonn, the German defense ministry said the men were suspected of involvement in murdering ethnic Albanians in Kosova, looting and arson last spring. The troops acted on information from the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, the ministry said.

Dutch troops have been stationed in Orahovac for weeks but are due to hand the town over to Russian peacekeepers this weekend. Ethnic Albanians accuse the Russians of favoritism to their fellow Slav Serbs.

Under an accord the KLA signed in June, the group must turn in its heavy weaponry, most of its arms and uniforms in stages to NATO peacekeepers. Disarmament must be completed by Sept. 19.

``We've fulfilled all our obligations,'' KLA military commander Gen. Agim Ceku said Thursday. NATO did not confirm the claim.

Ceku and KLA political leader Hashim Thaci condemned violence against the province's Serb minority. The state-run Tanjug agency said that since NATO arrived more than 200 Serbs and other non-Albanians have been killed and most of Kosova's 200,000 Serbs have been forced to flee.

Ceku said the KLA could have stopped the continuing violence if not for foreign interference. The international community, he said, is to blame because they prevented the KLA from filling a power vacuum that developed after the war ended.

Thaci also said crime is harming the KLA's goal of becoming the leading force in a multiethnic, democratic Kosova.

The leaders' comments came one day after unknown assailants hurled grenades and firebombs at a Serbian Orthodox church in Kosova, wounding two Italian peacekeepers.

Ethnic violence has persisted in Kosova, despite the presence of more than 40,000 NATO soldiers who arrived after the end of the 78-day NATO bombing campaign. NATO began the campaign after Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic refused to sign a peace deal and end his crackdown on Kosova's ethnic Albanian majority.

About 800,000 ethnic Albanians fled Kosova in April, May and June.

Russian officials warned today that Moscow may withdraw its peacekeepers from Kosova or change their role there if conditions become ``unacceptable.''

Boris Mayorsky, the Foreign Ministry's envoy to the former Yugoslavia, and Leonid Ivashov, the Defense Ministry's chief of international cooperation department, said Moscow will take such a step if the actions of the peacekeeping force ``take such a character that it would become unacceptable for Russia to be associated with such activities.''

They did not elaborate but stressed that there were no such conditions present now, Russian news agencies reported.

Russia had sharply protested NATO's bombing campaign and had wanted a separate zone of responsibility in Kosova. The Russians have complained that the peacekeeping effort is failing to stop violence against Serbs, and Mayorsky and Ivashov blamed NATO policies for the ongoing violence.

In Japan today, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata said more than 90 percent of the ethnic Albanians who fled have returned, and her agency is scrambling to make sure they have shelter when winter comes.

The UNHCR would like to distribute 70,000 shelter kits before October. That would enable returning refugees to at least winterize one room in their ruined homes, Ogata said.

``We are a little bit afraid that we may not make it,'' she added.

The agency is refurbishing partly destroyed public buildings as collective shelters and arranging for host families to take in returning residents. Longer-term infrastructure needs, such as the restoration of electrical and water service, are likely to remain unfilled until spring.

KLA Communique (Kosovapress)

The Kosova Liberation Army
The General Staff
For immediate release

Communique

The migration of Serbs from Kosova, the uncivil actions of a number of persons from different ethnic backgrounds against the life and the property of some citizens of Kosova, as well as attacks on various buildings have been represented as actions committed by individuals and persons affiliated with the KLA and it has been insinuated that these actions have been committed by the KLA itself. Once again we wish to affirm our conviction that those individuals that have committed these crimes are not soldiers of th KLA. Regretfully, there are individuals who, taking advantage from the current situation, attack the life and the property of other individuals.

In many cases, such actions have been committed to distract the attention of the international community from what is really happening in Kosova. Such actions are intended to throw a shadow over the extraordinary efforts of the people of Kosova to build a normal life and a democratic and a multiethnic society. Also, due to such uncivil actions, the serious and continuous efforts of all the KLA effective to become a part of these processes have not been properly appreciated. While the KLA rejects these accusations and forcefully condemns these actions, at the same time, it invites all the Kosova citizens that belong to the Serb and other minorities not involved in crimes committed against other people, to stay in Kosova, so we altogether could work for the building of a safe future for all its citizens.

The KLA is the army of all the citizens of Kosova. The KLA belongs to all the people of Kosova. The KLA considers that its mission, in close cooperation with other authorities, is to guarantee security and protection for all the citizens of Kosova. During the war, we did respect to a letter all the international conventions on war, and in no case have we failed to respect the rights of the innocent civilians, regardless of their ethnic background. It is a duty and an obligation for all the KLA effective to respect the human rights and the international conventions that regulate them even in peace time. The KLA invites all the citizens of Kosova, regardless of their ethnic background to stay in Kosova so that they can contribute to the building of free and democratic society based on respect for human rights, tolerance, and diversity. The General Staff of the KLA assures all the citizens of Kosova that the KLA is an institution that belongs to all the people of Kosova, that its soldiers and officers are committed to the establishment of peace and ethnic harmony in Kosova. The KLA will do whatever is necessary so that the cooperation with the international authorities in their mission is fruitful and contributes to the peace and security in Kosova.

Gen. Agim Çeku Chief of General Staff Prishtinë, August 18, 1999