[A-PAL] newsletter

[Alice Mead]

     A-PAL NEWSLETTER-ALBANIAN PRISONER ADVOCACY
                                    MAY 21, 2001

            2ND ANNIVERSARY OF THE DUBRAVA MASSACRE
     Two years later: The lack of justice surrounding this horrifying 
incident is an international disgrace.

In remembrance of the Dubrava massacre at Istok, Kosova which took 
place on May 22 and May 23, 1999, we remind readers everywhere of the 
terrible suffering these prisoners endured. The ICTY investigation 
report has not yet been released. The Association of Political 
Prisoners in Prishtina and the Peja group of Dubrava prison survivors 
are staging demonstrations in Istok and Prishtina this week, 
demanding the release of the remaining 139 Albanians still in Serb 
prisons. Until some form of true justice for this horrible war crime 
takes place, the survivors cannot forget what happened. Listed below: 
The Albanian prisoners, falsely tried and falsely accused of 
terrorism, are still being guarded by some of the same men who tried 
to slaughter them at Dubrava.  I have visited 70 Dubrava survivors 
staging a week long hunger strike in front of the prison last fall. I 
also visited the mass grave nearby where investigators had left 
behind a disgraceful mess of blankets, shoes, pants, and upturned 
soil. The report on Dubrava done by Human Rights Watch should be 
published in two months, according to Fred Abraham.

"In a nearby village named Rakos, the war crimes tribunal has 
reportedly found 97 bodies in a mass grave, thought to be the bodies 
of inmates from the prison. Investigators from the tribunal at The 
Hague have exhumed the site, and they have also investigated what 
happened at the prison. But they have not yet released any public 
findings." (NY Times article included below)

       DUBRAVA MASSACRE SURVIVORS STILL IN SERB PRISONS
Bedri Kukalaj-age 23. Shot in the jaw and eye. Belgrade Central 
Prison. Starving, unable to eat. Sentenced to 10 years. Request for 
humanitarian release ignored.
Nait Hasani-age 36. Wounded in the chest. Belgrade Central Prison.
Xhavit Kolgeci-age 27.  Nish Prison. Sentenced to 11 years.
Milazim Kolgeci-age 40. Nis prison. Sentenced to 12 years.
Aslan Lumi-age 48. Nish Prison. Sentenced to 12 years.
Besim Rama- age 36. Nish Prison. Sentenced to Nish Prison.
Ismet Berbati-age 36. Nish Prison.
Besim Zymberi-age 33. Belgrade Prison. Sentenced to 14 years. Very 
poor health. Request for humanitarian release ignored.
Agim Recica-age 38. Belgrade Prison. Sentenced to 13 years.
Ejup Salihu-age 27. Belgrade Prison. Sentenced to 5 years.
Luan Mazreku-age 23. Nish Prison. Sentenced to 20 years without 
evidence. Case is up for appeal.
Bekim Mazreku-age 23. Nish Prison. Sentenced to 20 years. Case up for appeal.
Idriz Asllani-age 48.
Dubrava Prisoner-Disappeared May 16, 1999-Professor Ukshin Hoti
****************************************************************
November 8, 1999
Stench of Horror Lingers in a Prison in Kosovo
By CARLOTTA GALL-New York Times
DUBRAVA, Kosovo -- The high, red brick walls of Dubrava prison tell 
little. Like the modern police buildings outside, they bear signs of 
bomb damage from NATO attacks in May this year, but that is only half 
the story.
Just inside the prison walls there are piles of abandoned clothes, 
drenched by months of rain but still giving off a stench of human 
corpses. The smell pervades the prison buildings inside, a reminder 
of the horror that gripped the prison for five days in late spring, 
when NATO bombing and the Serbian rampage against Kosovo's Albanians 
combined to turn this prison into what a former prisoner and Spanish 
peacekeepers who now guard the buildings depict as a site of 
murderous mayhem.
Naser Husaj, a former public prosecutor from the nearby town of Pec 
and at the time one of Kosovo's most prominent political prisoners, 
was in Dubrava prison in May. Returning to the prison for the first 
time since his release a month ago, he described a terrifying ordeal 
in which prisoners were trapped first by NATO bombing, which killed 
at least 23 prisoners, and then by masked Serbian police forces, who 
killed more than 100 other Albanian inmates in running battles raging 
through the prison for two days.
"They were taking advantage of NATO's action," he said of the Serbian 
guards. "They wanted to kill us all." The blood and smell of death 
remain, nearly six months later. Bedding and clothes are strewn all 
over the extensive grounds where prisoners dragged them out to sleep 
outside in an attempt to avoid the NATO air strikes. And in the 
basements of the buildings, the blood lies still sticky on the floor, 
bullet holes scar the walls, and impact marks of grenade explosions 
crater the floors.
Husaj, founder of the Kosovo Albanian nationalist party Balli 
Kombetar, was serving a five-year sentence imposed by the Serbian 
authorities, for heading what they branded a "fascist quisling" 
organization. He spent three years in Dubrava from 1995 to 1998, then 
a year in a Serbian prison, before being brought back to Kosovo 
during the NATO air campaign. Released at the end of his sentence 
last month, he returned this weekend to the prison for the first time 
and told his story.
"The first attack started on May 19," he said of the NATO bombing. 
"They hit pavilion C, a cell block, and three people were killed. On 
May 20 there was no bombing, and then on the May 21 at 8 a.m. we 
heard a plane. The guards ran away, and we ran out into the middle of 
the grounds. They were hitting blocks all day." He said all the 
guards had left the compound, including the watchtowers, though some 
remained outside and kept strict security around the prison.
Some prisoners who were already out of their cells for regular 
cleaning or cooking duties then freed other prisoners from their 
cells. Some 20 people were killed that day, he said, pointing out a 
bomb crater that still stank of human flesh where several people had 
been killed. They carried the bodies up to the far end of the grounds 
and laid them out by the sports field. That night the entire prison 
population, some 900 men, slept in the grass up by the sports fields, 
which is inside the prison compound.
The next morning at 8 a.m. the guards returned to just the 
watchtowers, and ordered the prisoners to assemble in a long line in 
rows of four to prepare to be transferred to another prison. Husaj 
was standing at the back to one side with several fellow political 
prisoners when suddenly the guards opened fire.
"They started to shoot with a machine gun at the prisoners," he said. 
"They threw grenades over the prison walls, and another machine gun 
was shooting from a hole in the wall," he added, pointing out the 
spot. "Seventy people died in that shooting." Husaj explained the 
shooting as Serbs using the NATO bombing as an opportunity to take 
revenge and exact punishment on the Albanians, and pass it off as a 
NATO atrocity.
But it is not clear whether the guards had full control over the 900 
prisoners who were now freed of their cells. The Spanish peacekeeping 
soldiers guarding the prison confirm Husaj's account. But the 
incident may have begun as a prison riot, they said, and it was clear 
from makeshift weapons found later that some of the inmates attempted 
to fight.
"I turned and ran down the slope and into that building, block B," he 
said. "Who could escape just ran." But they were unable to leave the 
compound. Hundreds of prisoners fled into the buildings, hiding in 
basements and cells, and later bringing in the wounded.
For the next 36 hours, anarchy reigned as masked policemen moved into 
the grounds, seeking out and attacking prisoners with automatic 
weapons and grenades. Prisoners barricaded themselves into rooms and 
basements, seizing wooden bars, metal pipes and pieces of glass as 
weapons.
In the basement of the cultural center, under insulated heating pipes 
and industrial washing machines, the weapons still lay around: a 
spade, metal spikes, wooden bars and stretches of metal piping, 
wrapped with rags for a better grip.
Pools of dried blood still stained the floor, amid discarded clothes. 
Two small round craters from a hand grenade pockmarked the cement 
floor.
"We thought they wanted to kill us all," he said, describing the 
state of terror of most prisoners. Only a small percentage of the 
prisoners, from one block, were hardened criminals, he said; the rest 
were Albanians picked up for minor crimes or for political reasons. 
Some prisoners trying to escape were shot climbing the walls, he 
said. Others finished it for themselves. "That day four people went 
crazy and hanged themselves in their cells," he said.
Husaj himself was nearly killed when three masked policemen spotted 
him on the steps of the restaurant building. They fired a grenade, 
which hit the entrance wall. He stumbled bleeding down to the 
basement, where scores of others were sheltering, and slept that 
night in a tiny inner laundry room.
The police stormed the building the next morning. "They came in 
masks, with grenades and machine guns," he recalled. "They attacked 
the building with rocket-propelled grenades and shot through the 
windows straight into the basement."
The stench of death from the basement is still overpowering. The 
green linoleum floor is still sticky with blood, which has been 
smeared around in an attempt to clean it. Husaj moved quickly in the 
dark, showing a familiarity with the underground rooms. But even he 
gagged as he showed where he saw six people gunned down in one 
corridor.
"Let's get out of here," he said, his face white and gaunt in the 
shadows. After that, the Serbs shouted that the prisoners, holed up 
in the basement, had five minutes to surrender or they would be 
killed. The prisoners then gave themselves up, walking out with their 
hands on their heads, and they were later transferred to Lipljan 
prison in central Kosovo. As they left the, police counted those 
missing. It came to 154, he said.
Reliving his ordeal, Husaj said he was still not sure what was more 
terrifying, the fear of being trapped in the prison when it was being 
attacked by NATO planes, or the fear of Serbian police troops who 
chased him and tried to kill him.
"We were afraid of both," he said. "The prison blocks were not so 
strong, and if NATO hit them they could kill 300 people at once. And 
then if NATO hit them, the guards might shoot us again."
"The Serbs killed us like chickens," he went on. "They used the 
bombing as an excuse."
There is also ample evidence that the Serbian guards killed a large 
number of inmates when they reasserted control. When they arrived in 
June, Spanish troops discovered one body in the prison, whom they 
nicknamed Frederico. He had been lying there at least a month, and 
his throat had been cut, they said. The basement where he had been 
found was where the prisoners had taken the wounded, Husaj said.
In a nearby village named Rakos, the war crimes tribunal has 
reportedly found 97 bodies in a mass grave, thought to be the bodies 
of inmates from the prison. Investigators from the tribunal at The 
Hague have exhumed the site, and they have also investigated what 
happened at the prison. But they have not yet released any public 
findings.
"It was necessary to come here," Husaj said as he was leaving. "But 
you must not think too much about what happened, otherwise you go 
crazy."

Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
The Original Article may be found at:
http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+iib-sit 
e+64+0+wAAA+Kosovo
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