[A-PAL] A-PAL Newsletter, No. 001

[kosova at jps.net]

Welcome to Albanian Prisoner Advocacy List -- Prisoner Pals Newsletter, No.
001, December 13, 1999


This report highlights the developments on the prisoner issue for the week
of December 5, 1999.


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THIS WEEKS TOPICS:
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Amnesty International: 12-year prison sentence for Kosovo doctor is
outrageous

Alice Mead: Update on Detained Minors

Reuters: U.S. asks Serbs to free Kosovo Albanian doctor

Sudee Jacquot Marsh : Personal Narrative of OSCE

BBC: Kosovans demand Serbian prison releases

Independent Digital (UK) Ltd.: Lawyer detained by Serbs vanishes

Washington Post Foreign Service: Kosovo's Youth Blamed For Brutal Ethnic
Crimes



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QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
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Flora Brovina's husband, Ajri Begu, age 48:
"It was not Flora who was put on trial, it was the medical profession. It
was a trial against all brave people, humanists, who stood in the way of the
regime."



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FULL REPORTS AND ARTICLES BEGIN HERE:
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY): 12-year prison sentence for Kosovo
doctor is outrageous

December 10, 1999


After an unfair trial, a Serbian court sitting in Nis yesterday sentenced an
ethnic Albanian medical doctor to 12 years' imprisonment on charges of
"association for the purposes of hostile activity" in connection with
"terrorism". Amnesty International believes the authorities are making an
example of Dr Flora Brovina and is calling for her release.

Although the written judgment has yet to be issued, Amnesty International's
information indicates that the charges against Dr Brovina are without
foundation.

Dr Brovina was accused of assisting the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), by
supplying medicines, treating wounded KLA fighters, and helping to supply
them with uniforms. The activities were allegedly carried out in Pristina
(Prishtina) from her clinic and the office of the League of
Albanian women, an association which she helped found in 1992. In court she
denied any connection with KLA.

Reports of the trial indicate that the evidence produced against her was
weak and consisted primarily of self-incriminating statements which she
signed under duress. During the trial she withdrew the statements and stated
that she had been interrogated 18 times after her arrest in Pristina in
April while the Kosovo conflict was at its height. Sometimes Dr Brovina was
questioned from morning to late afternoon without food. She complained that
during the period of interrogation she was suffering from angina and on one
occasion she was hit on the head by police.

Other evidence reportedly consisted of testimony from one witness,
photocopied documents and a photograph of Dr Brovina with a man in KLA
uniform, whom she stated she met by chance as he was the husband of a
friend.

During yesterday's hearing the court accepted the prosecutor's amendment of
the indictment to include stiffer penalties which apply in time of war.

According to the authorities some 1,900 other ethnic Albanians are detained
in Serbian prisons. Some have already been sentenced in unfair trials after
having statements extracted from them under torture, while others await
trials which are also likely to be unfair.



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ALICE MEAD

Update on Detained Minors

December 09, 1999

According to the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) in Belgrade, twenty five of
the Albanian children who were held for five months in Serb prisons have so
far been released.  The Albanian lawyer, Teki Bokshi, was active in
obtaining releases for nineteen of the children upon furnishing proof of
their ages.

In the process of working on the children's cases, two more Albanian boys
were discovered in Pozahrevac Penitentiary.  The prison judge has stated
that they too will be released when their birth certificates arrive.  HLC
credits international support as helping greatly in obtaining freedom for
the imprisoned children who ranged in age from thirteen to seventeen years
old.



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REUTERS

U.S. asks Serbs to free Kosovo Albanian doctor

December 09, 1999


WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - The United States urged the Serbian
authorities to reconsider the conviction of prominent Kosovo Albanian
activist Flora Brovina, sentenced on Thursday to 12 years in jail for
"terrorism."

"The United States has been steadfast in condemning the proceedings against
Dr. Brovina," said James Dobbins, U.S. special adviser for Kosovo and Dayton
implementation.

"This action is an example of the bankruptcy that faces the Serbian state
and the rule of law in Serbia. We understand that the court proceedings in
and of themselves were severely flawed. We urge Belgrade to reconsider this
conviction," he told a briefing on ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.

"We will do everything we can, both to track and inform ourselves of her
condition and to alleviate it, and ultimately to get her release," he added.

Brovina, a doctor, humanitarian worker and poet, was well-known as a leader
of women's groups distributing humanitarian aid and an organiser of protests
against Serb rule in the province, which is now under U.N. and NATO control.

The court in the town of Nis tried Brovina on a charge of "association for
hostile activities related to terrorism, carried out during the state of
war." The prosecution said she helped the
separatist Kosovo Liberation Army.

Her case was one of dozens now being brought against hundreds of Kosovo
Albanians arrested during the NATO air strikes on Serbia between March and
June this year.

Dobbins said the United States insisted that the Belgrade authorities
account for, release and return to Kosovo thousands of Kosovar Albanians
that they are holding.

The United States believes the number of Kosovo Albanian detainees inside
Serbia is at least 2,000, he added.

Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited



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PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF OSCE CONFERENCE
by Sudee Jacquot Marsh
Prishtina

December 09, 1999


December 10, International Human Rights Day, honored here in Kosova for the
first time by an OSCE sponsored International Human Rights Conference.
Yesterday was Flora Brovina’s third hearing and I didn’t know the outcome as
it wasn’t on any international news.  I watched and I was unable to get
through to Ajri Begu.  So, I only found out about her 12 year prison
sentence when I was in the crowd undergoing a security protocol for the
conference.  When I found out from a Kosovar conference attendee, I was
stunned, couldn’t believe it.  I felt like turning around and leaving, to be
anywhere else than this conference with the subject matter now feeling like
a farce.

Instead, I stayed and registered, hoping this group would at least be a
forum for addressing the issue of Kosovar citizens imprisoned or missing in
Yugoslavia for purely political reasons.  I saw many of my Kosovar women
friends who are and have been activists for human rights issues, although
none so well know as Dr. Flora Brovina.  They seemed sad but contained.

The first speaker, Bernard Kouchner, started his speech by quoting from Mary
Robinson that today was not a day for celebration.  He brought up the
atrocity of Flora’s  sentence and asked for us to stand for a moment of
silence to honor all the victims of the war and 10 year repression.  He went
on to emphasize the sad state of human rights in the world today mentioning
Chechnya and Sierra Leone among numerous other countries.

The second speaker was Daan Everts, Ambassador, Deputy Special
Representative of the Secretary-General on the UN, and OSCE Head of Mission
in Kosova.  He also was an effective speaker acknowledging the pain and
losses Kosovars had suffered during the last decade.  He talked about Flora
and her courageous work assisting women and children in Kosova.  He stated
though that a just war was not fought to win an unjust peace, and the need
to establish a culture of human rights.

The two keynote speakers were less inspiring and spent a lot of time blaming
about Kosovars responsibility to be tolerant and stop their own violence
against their ethnic minorities.  All of this acceptable when personalized
by acknowledging what Kosovars have gone through but a bit irritating when
so academic and theoretical.  It got a bit much for me, so I left.

Outside of the conference which was at the Government Building, crowds were
forming and a march was beginning.  What looked to crest at tens of
thousands of sad peaceful protesters marched and held banners up reminding
us all about those Kosovars missing or imprisoned in Serbian prisons.  Old
women with pictures of husbands and sons and young people with pictures of
fathers and brothers.  I saw Uranik at the head of one procession with a
sign saying free my mother.  He is Flora’s 21 year old son and he proceeded
over to greet me and counsel me to not give up hope.  He couldn’t enlighten
me to where his father was and I was unable to locate him in the masses of
protesters.

At 6 pm I finally was able to see Ajri Begu at his home.  He was exhausted
and pale.  He told me  that the Serbian judge had called forth the reported
witness from Montenegro to Flora’s crimes.  The witness refused to say
anything and Ajri became convinced that Flora would be released.  Instead,
the judge dropped the charge of article 136 and added the charge of 139
which is more specific to crimes during war and carries a longer maximum
sentence.  When he announced the sentence of 12 years, Ajri found himself
clapping because the whole trial was such a farce and he couldn’t stand
pretending any longer.  He reports that Flora remained strong and said
whatever she did she would do again as it was her job to heal and care for
the sick and wounded.  By that time it was 3 PM and too late for Ajri to be
allowed to visit Flora for his regular every two week half hour visit.  He
had to return to Kosova for urgent meetings the next day on financial issues
with people for the World Bank.  One of Flora’s sister, who had traveled
from Turkey for the trial, remained to try and visit Flora the next day.  A
day of  Human Rights as usual in Milosevic Yugoslavia!



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BBC

Kosovans demand Serbian prison releases

December 10, 1999


Thousands of people have demonstrated in the Kosovan capital Pristina to
call for the release of prisoners held in Serbia since the end of the war.

Holding up pictures of political prisoners and people still missing, the
protesters rallied outside the province's first human rights conference.

They called on international officials to act on behalf of the 1,700 people
they believe are being held in Serb prisons.

The head of the United Nation's administration in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner,
said the hearts of all UN staff and international delegates at the
conference were with the detainees.

He also warned that ongoing violence in Kosovo "affects all ethnic groups".

The head of the OSCE mission in Kosovo, Daan Everts, called on Kosovans to
testify against crimes committed by any ethnic group.

"The just war was not fought for an unjust peace," he said.

The case of Dr Brovina

Many demonstrators held signs calling for the release of Flora Brovina, a
human rights activist sentenced on Thursday in Serbia to 12 years in prison.

Dr Brovina, whose case has been taken on by Human Rights Watch and the US
State Department, has become a symbol for those trying to win the release of
prisoners held in Serbia.

Her son, Uranik Begu, insisted that his family and other human rights
activists would continue to press for her release.

"For me personally, this was a case against conscience, against freedom,
against the stability of the region," he said.

Dr Brovina, a 50-year-old paediatrician, was accused of joining groups "with
a view to carrying out terrorist activities" in support of Kosovo's campaign
for independence.

Her case was also raised inside the conference hall.

Mr Everts said: "I call upon all those at this conference to condemn this
and other outrages against human rights; to remember that oppression left
unchecked will not cease, and finally to remember that the role of a human
rights defender is never an easy one.

"Those like Flora Brovina who stand so bravely against oppression must be
encouraged and protected and supported," he said.

Criticism of K-For

One of the banners held up at the rally read: "The Albanian in the prisons
are hanging between life and death. Act."

"What are K-For doing here? Our children don't need the toys the world gives
them, they need their parents," one of the demonstrators, 45-year-old
Ferdeze Mullahasani, said.

"K-For could get our people back if they wanted to," said Luan Zogaj, whose
brother is jailed in Serbia.



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INDEPENDENT DIGITAL (UK) LTD.

Lawyer detained by Serbs vanishes
By Laura Rozen in Pristina

December 08, 1999


Concern is mounting for a leading Kosovo human rights lawyer detained by
Serb police and held incommunicado.

In an ominous sign that those working to uphold the law in Serbia are in
growing danger, Teki Bokshi, who was representing many of the 2,000 ethnic
Albanians held in Serbian jails, was arrested five days ago by plain-clothes
police and taken away in mysterious circumstances.

One of his colleagues received a phone call from Mr Bokshi a day after his
disappearance but the call was cut off and nothing has been heard of him
since. The Serbian Ministry of the Interior has failed to respond to
requests for information.
Mr Bokshi, a Kosovo Albanian lawyer, was working for the Humanitarian Law
Centre (HLC), a human-rights organisation in Belgrade.

The United Nations special rapporteur for human rights, Jiri Dienstbier, and
Amnesty International sounded the alarm among the international community
and human rights activists about Mr Bokshi's arrest.

Barbara Davis, the representative to former Yugoslavia for the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, said: "The special rapporteur has asked the
Serbian authorities if they would explain Bokshi's whereabouts and help
resolve his arbitrary detention. I hope this situation will not
lead to a setback for all detainees." Amnesty International said it was
"seriously concerned for Mr Bokshi's safety", and urged people to send
letters to President Slobodan Milosevic.

Two lawyers, Ibish Hoti, and Mustafa Radoniqi, were with Mr Bokshi when he
was arrested. The trio had met Kosovo Albanian detainees jailed in the
southern town of Mitrovica. They were driving the 130 miles back to Belgrade
when, 10 miles from the capital, they were ordered to pull over by a man in
a grey Mercedes that had official Ministry of Interior licence plates.

Three men, in plain clothes, got out of the Mercedes and took the keys of
the lawyers' car from the driver. They ordered Mr Bokshi to accompany them
back to his Belgrade hotel to pick up his identity documents.

When alerted, Natasa Kandic, the executive director of the HLC, issued a
request to the Serbian Ministry of Justice for information on why Mr Bokshi
was being held. Yesterday, she had still not received any information.

Ms Kandic said she received a phone call from Mr Bokshi on Saturday, the day
after his disappearance. According to Ms Kandic, Mr Bokshi said "I am here",
before the phone was cut. Ms Kandic says she doesn't know where "here" is.

For those who have met Mr Bokshi, the arrest of this most moderate figure is
a particular outrage. He is one of the rare individuals who inhabits the
increasingly narrow common ground where Serbs and Albanians come together to
fight for human rights.

Greying, mild-mannered Mr Bokshi worked side by side with colleagues from
all ethnic groups. He was instrumental in winning the release last month of
19 Kosovo Albanian children, aged 13-17, being held in Serbian prisons.

He was due to defend 28 Kosovars being held in President Milosevic's home
town, Pozarevac, tomorrow. According to Ms Kandic, the 28 were taken by
Serbian police from a convoy of refugees trying to flee the province during
Nato air strikes. "We had expected them to be released since they were all
taken from a civilian refugee column," Ms Kandic said. "But now that Bokshi
has been arrested, we don't know."

The trial of the prominent Kosovo pediatrician, leader of the Kosovar League
of Women and human rights activist Flora Brovina is also due to resume
tomorrow in the southern Serbian city of Nis. Ms Brovina's trial, which
began last month, has helped to raise international attention to the issue
of the thousands of Kosovo Albanians being held in Serbian jails, many of
whom have not been charged.

Some 300 Kosovo Albanians have been released from Serb jails since June, but
almost 2,000 are still confirmed as held. A Western official said it
appeared that hundreds more were being held by "non-state actors", who were
demanding ransom money of up to $50,000 (£30,000) per head for their
release.

The Western official confirmed that a "prisoners market" was active
north-east of Podujevo, near Kosovo's provincial border with Serbia. Ethnic
Albanians were encouraged to pay middle men to secure the release of Kosovo
Albanians, who were often not released after the payment.

© 1999 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd.



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WASHINGTON POST FOREIGN SERVICE

Kosovo's Youth Blamed For Brutal Ethnic Crimes
By R. Jeffrey Smith

Monday, December 6, 1999



VIENNA, Dec. 5-When President Clinton visited Kosovo two weeks ago to speak
to a hand-picked audience of parents and schoolchildren, he made a special
plea for ethnic tolerance by the province's youths. They should, he said, be
spared the burden of their parents' blind ethnic hatred.

But on the streets of Kosovo's major cities, human rights monitors have
discovered that children are already caught up in the cycle of enmity. Many
of the worst acts of ethnic violence in the Serbian province are being
committed by children and teenagers, with the resulting burden of tensions
and disorder falling on adults, according to a comprehensive study released
here today.

The report by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe cited
numerous cases of violence by youths, including 30 grenade attacks on
Serbian homes in the city of Lipljan in July and August by a gang of youths
between 14 and 20; the stabbing of an elderly Serbian man by a 17-year-old
on Sept. 14 in the same city; and the beating of a Serb on the main street
of the capital Pristina by five boys aged 10 to 12 on
Oct. 26.

"The future of Kosovo lies with its children," said Bernard Kouchner, the
top U.N. official in Kosovo, in a statement accompanying the report. "Yet
one of the most alarming trends documented in the report is the increasing
participation of juveniles in human rights violations. We read . . . of case
after case of young people, some only 10 or 12 years old, harassing,
beating, and threatening people, especially defenseless elderly victims,
solely because of their ethnicity."

The targeting of elderly Serbs by ethnic Albanians is another troubling
trend identified by the OSCE, which employed 75 people to collect witness's
accounts of human rights abuses since NATO forces entered the province and
Yugoslav troops began to withdraw on June 14.

The study represents the most comprehensive survey of the subject to date,
and in many cases contains far more detailed and candid accounts of
individual incidents of violence than officials of the NATO peacekeeping
force in Kosovo have been willing to disclose.

The overall picture provided by the 332-page report is of a territory filled
with "lawlessness that has left violence unchecked . . . [in which] impunity
has reigned instead of justice." The fault lies with the inability of
relevant institutions in Kosovo to follow up reports of human rights abuses
with credible investigations that can assign responsibility, the report
states.

"For anyone who wants to engage in kidnapping," it says for example, "the
chances of detection and arrest are remote."

Great pains were taken by the OSCE--a group of 55 nations, including
European countries, the United States, Canada and the former republics of
the Soviet Union--to distinguish between postwar human rights abuses in
Kosovo and what it described as the more serious, sustained and systematic
abuses perpetrated by the Yugoslav government in Kosovo over a long period
before the war ended.

The Yugoslav abuses are documented in a separate 433-page report with
chapters describing what the OSCE calls the frequent and often arbitrary use
of torture, rape, kidnapping, arson, pillaging and other forms of
persecution as instruments of Yugoslav government policy.  Serbia is the
dominant republic of Yugoslavia. Among the frequent victims of this "extreme
and appalling" violence were children, young men, women, the wealthy, the
elderly and the handicapped, the report states.

"For at least a decade, there was a systematic policy of apartheid . . . for
Albanians in Kosovo," Kouchner said. The crimes now being committed by
ethnic Albanians against Serbs, he added, "are the acts of individuals."
Moreover, the report alleges that Yugoslav government abuses are continuing,
noting the reported detention of as many as 5,000 ethnic Albanian residents
of Kosovo in unheated and unsanitary prisons in northern Serbia. Most were
bused from Kosovo near the end of the war and are facing trials on charges
related to the war.

But OSCE officials also found what they called "a disturbing pattern of
involvement" in acts of ethnically motivated violence by men dressed in
uniforms of the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), known in Albanian as
the UCK, who identified themselves as members of the group.

Before the war, the rebel group targeted policemen and other Yugoslav
security forces in a guerrilla war meant to secure Kosovo's independence
from Yugoslavia; during the war, the rebels staged raids against Yugoslav
forces with advice from the West. After the war, the rebel group was
officially disbanded, and a substantial portion of its members registered to
join a Kosovo national guard.

"The report is littered with witness statements testifying to UCK
involvement" in kidnappings, detentions and interrogations after the war,
the OSCE said. In some cases, the rebels blamed impostors, but in others,
witnesses who knew the assailants testified to involvement by the rebels in
kidnappings, illicit tax collection and intimidation or eviction of Serbs
and Gypsies in western Kosovo.

The motivation for some of the violence appears to be political. The report
"reveals that opposition to the new order, particularly the former UCK's
dominance . . . or simply a perceived lack of commitment [by citizens] to
the UCK cause, has led to intimidation and harassment," the OSCE said.
Officials of the Democratic League of Kosovo, the rebel group's principal
political rival, have been kidnapped, murdered, targeted in grenade attacks,
accused of disloyalty or told bluntly to withdraw from politics in at least
half a dozen cities--in some cases by men who claimed to be members of the
rebel group.

The motives behind other violence documented in the report are simply
criminal. The robbery of Serbs by armed ethnic Albanians is becoming
commonplace, just as it was commonplace for Yugoslav troops to stop and rob
ethnic Albanians. But ethnic Albanian shopkeepers and restaurants "appear to
be blackmailed on a regular basis," the report states. Ethnic Albanians have
also sought to extort ransom fees from relatives of some Serbs who
disappeared, even though those kidnapped had already been slain.

Businessmen have been ordered to pay illegal taxes to a provisional ethnic
Albanian government led by the KLA, and virtually all of the province's
operating factories have been brought under KLA control to ensure jobs and
profits for supporters of the provisional government.

But much of the remaining violence has been motivated by revenge for Serbian
atrocities during NATO's 11-week campaign of bombing in Yugoslavia last
spring, which drove hundreds of thousands of people out of the province.

The report notes that violence motivated by revenge has moved through three
phases. During the first stage, violence was mostly directed at suspected
participants in atrocities. Next, suspected collaborators, such as
gravediggers or those who stayed in Kosovo without being persecuted during
the war, were targeted.

Now, virtually all Serbs and ethnic Albanians who stayed behind are likely
targets of violence and retribution, due to a widespread presumption of
collective guilt. For instance, ethnic Albanians who found their power lines
cut and many of their schools destroyed in the war are now denying electric
power to Serbian enclaves and blocking access to schooling for Serbian
children.
In explaining the involvement of youths in human rights abuses, some
schoolteachers and psychologists working in Kosovo have noted that many
schoolchildren have reacted to atrocities they witnessed during the war by
becoming preternaturally aggressive, a common phenomenon in such instances.

"Many were witnesses as their parents were killed, or they watched other
people being killed," the OSCE report states. "It may take years for the
children who lived through the conflict to overcome the traumas they have
undergone."

One of the more compelling indications of some centralized planning and
organization behind at least some of the postwar murders can be found in a
shallow grave near the village of Podgradje, near Gnjilane in the sector
policed by U.S. troops, the OSCE said.

Fourteen bodies were discovered in or near the grave in July, August and
October. All are thought to be Serbs who were kidnapped in small groups from
at least three villages and killed elsewhere before being dumped in
Podgradje, a scenario that suggests careful planning and considerable
freedom of action by a well-organized and centrally directed group,
according to OSCE officials.

© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company



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Albanian Prisoner Advocacy List -- Prisoner Pals Newsletter, No. 001

###