[ALBSA-Info] Fwd: [Kcc-News] Human Rights Watch: Serb gang-rapes in Kosovo exposed (fwd)

[ERI Budo]

>From: Mentor Cana <mentor at alb-net.com>
>To: Kosova Crisis Center News and Information <kcc-news at alb-net.com>
>Subject: [Kcc-News] Human Rights Watch: Serb gang-rapes in Kosovo exposed 
>(fwd)
>Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 07:11:27 -0500 (EST)
>
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>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 13:11:44 -0500
>From: Skye Donald <donalds at hrw.org>
>To: donalds at hrw.org
>Subject: Serb gang-rapes in Kosovo exposed
>
>EMBARGOED UNTIL 00:01 AM GMT
>TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 2000
>
>SERB GANG-RAPES IN KOSOVO EXPOSED
>
>(New York, March 21, 2000) -- Commanding officers bear criminal
>responsibility for a pattern of gang-rapes by Serbian and Yugoslav
>forces in Kosovo during the NATO bombing campaign, Human Rights Watch
>said in a report released today.
>
>Human Rights Watch documented 96 cases of rape by Serbian and Yugoslav
>forces against Kosovar Albanian women immediately before and during the
>1999 bombing campaign, and believes that many more incidents of rape
>have gone unreported.
>
>The report said that rapes were not rare and isolated acts committed by
>individuals, but rather were used deliberately as an instrument to
>terrorize the civilian population, extort money from families, and push
>people to flee their homes.  Virtually all of the sexual assaults Human
>Rights Watch has documented were gang rapes involving at least two
>perpetrators.
>
>The 37-page report is the first to combine all credible reporting on
>rape during the Kosovo conflict, and includes a map of all documented
>incidents of rape in Kosovo.
>
>"These are not occasional incidents committed by a few crazy men," said
>Regan Ralph, executive director of the Women's Rights Division at Human
>Rights Watch. "Rape was used as an instrument of war in Kosovo, and it
>should be punished as such. The men who committed these terrible crimes
>must be brought to justice."
>
>Human Rights Watch said its research did not confirm the allegations
>that Serbian and Yugoslav forces had set up "rape camps" in Pec or
>Djakovica. The organization criticized NATO, the U.S. government, and
>the British government for spreading unconfirmed information about rape
>while the NATO bombing campaign was underway.
>
>Since the end of the war, rapes of Serbian, Albanian, and Roma women by
>ethnic Albanians -- sometimes by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army
>(KLA) -- have also been documented.  Human Rights Watch condemns these
>human rights violations and continues to document post-conflict abuses
>for future reports.  However, rapes and other crimes of sexual violence
>committed since the NATO-led troops entered Kosovo are beyond the scope
>of this report.
>
>The report says that rapes in Kosovo took three basic forms: rapes in
>women's homes, rapes during flight, and rapes in detention.
>
>In the first category, security forces entered private homes and raped
>women either in the yard, in front of family members, or in an adjoining
>room.  In the second category, internally displaced people wandering on
>foot and riding on tractors were repeatedly stopped, robbed, and
>threatened by the Yugoslav Army, Serbian police, or paramilitaries.  If
>families could not produce cash, security forces told them that their
>daughters would be taken away and raped; in some cases, even when
>families did provide money, their daughters were taken away.  The third
>category of rapes took place in temporary detention centers, such as
>abandoned homes or barns.
>
>The majority of rape cases were evidently committed by Serbian
>paramilitaries, who wore various uniforms and often had bandanas, long
>knives, long hair, and beards.  These paramilitary formations worked
>closely with official government forces, either the Serbian Ministry of
>Interior or the Yugoslav Army, throughout Kosovo. In several cases,
>victims and witnesses identified the perpetrators as Serbian special
>police, in blue or blue camouflage uniforms, or Yugoslav Army soldiers,
>in green military uniforms.  Several rape victims actually reported the
>crimes to Yugoslav military officers.
>
>Human Rights Watch called on the International Criminal Tribunal for the
>former Yugoslavia to indict not only the perpetrators of rape, but also
>their commanding officers.
>
>"Women in Kosovo are waiting for justice, and so far none of the Kosovo
>indictments have included sex crimes," said Regan Ralph, executive
>director of the Women's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. "The
>sooner there are investigations and prosecutions, the sooner these women
>can begin to rebuild their lives."
>
>Human Rights Watch was able to interview six rape victims in depth, and
>their testimonies are contained in this report.  Human Rights Watch met
>two other women who acknowledged that they had been raped but refused to
>give testimony. Human Rights Watch documented six cases of women who
>were raped and subsequently killed. The ninety-six cases also include
>rape reports deemed reliable by Human Rights Watch that were compiled by
>other nongovernmental organizations.
>
>Human Rights Watch believes that the actual number of women raped in
>Kosovo between March and June 1999 is much higher than ninety-six. Due
>to strong social taboos, Kosovar Albanian victims of rape are generally
>reluctant to speak about their experiences, and those who remained in
>Kosovo throughout the conflict may not have had an opportunity to report
>abuses.
>
>For the full text of the report, please visit the Human Rights Watch
>website at http://xmail.hrw.org/embargo/ user name hrwrape, password
>crisis99
>
>Testimonies from rape victims in Kosovo are attached.
>
>
>TESTIMONIES OF RAPE VICTIMS FROM KOSOVO
>
>Women and girls were pulled from lines of refugees and sexually
>assaulted, sometimes in front of other refugees. B.B., a twenty-two year
>old woman from Mitrovica told Human Rights Watch:
>
>It happened while I was in line with the people. It was April 14th when
>we left our house and on the 15th we were walking near Djakovica... We
>met Serb paramilitaries. ..They approached my uncle and separated him.
>They took his gold and his money from him.  Then they came up to me...He
>took my hand and told me to get in his car. ... He told me not to refuse
>or there would be lots of victims.  He swore  at me and said, "Whore,
>get in the car..." He told me not to scream and to take off my clothes.
>He took off his clothes and told me to suck his thing. I did not know
>what to do.  He took my head and put it near him.  He started to beat
>me.  I lost consciousness.  When I came to I saw him over me.  I had
>great pain.  I was screaming and scratching the ground from the pain.
>Another man came with a car and he got over me.  The other man with the
>car asked the first one why he was treating this whore so good.  I was
>crying from the pain and he was laughing the whole time.  The second one
>got off me and told me to put on my clothes.  I couldn't find them.
>Just as I got dressed another one came and took me to another place a
>couple of meters away and he started with the same words and did the
>same things the first one did.  He kept me there for several minutes and
>then told me to wear my clothes so I [looked like I did when I left the
>line].  He told me not to tell anyone or they would take me for good and
>shoot my family.  The men wore masks.  They wore camouflage clothes and
>they were carrying weapons and knives on their belts.  They said that
>they were paid to do this.  I begged him [the first rapist] to kill me
>but he didn't want to.
>
>Z.T., a twenty-three-year-old woman, was being held in a house in
>Drenica by special Serbian forces.
>
>I was held in a room full of women.  The police came, and gestured for
>me to come.  A policeman made me take off my clothes and he found a note
>that I was hiding in my underwear on which I had my husband's telephone
>number in Switzerland.  He tore up the note and started swearing at me.
>I went back to the group of women and the same policeman came back and
>said, "come here."  He took me far away from the other women and did
>whatever he wanted with me.
>
>A group of twenty-seven women in the Drenica region were held by Serb
>paramilitaries in a small barn. -V.B., a twenty-one year old, was seven
>months pregnant when she was gang raped by Serb paramilitaries:
>
>They put us in a small barn with hay in it. Then the four men came into
>the barn and slammed the door and pointed machine guns at us.  They
>asked for gold, money, and whatever we had.  We gave whatever we had.
>But they were still torturing us.  They would take a girl, they kept her
>outside for half an hour, and after that they would bring one back and
>then they would take another.  Then they took me. I was pregnant.  I was
>holding my son.  They took him away from me and gave him to my mother.
>They told me to get up and follow them. I was crying and screaming,
>"Take me back to my child!" They took me to another room.  It was so bad
>I almost fainted.  I can't say the words they said.  They tortured me.
>Because I was pregnant, they asked me where my husband was... One of
>them said to another soldier, "Kick her and make the baby abort."  They
>did this to me four times-they took me outside to the other place. Three
>men took me one by one.  Then they asked me, "Are you desperate for your
>husband?" and said, "Here we are instead of him."
>
>In Pec, six armed and uniformed Serb men entered a house two days before
>NATO entered the city. Before murdering six members of her family, the
>men raped one of the women, a twenty-eight year old mother. Her
>sister-in-law witnessed the rape and the murders:
>
>They were wearing military clothes and had black scarves on their
>heads.  They took my sister-in-law into the front room, and they were
>hitting her and telling her to shut up.  The children were screaming,
>and they also screamed at the children.  She was with the paramilitary
>for one half- hour.  She was resisting, and they beat her, and the
>children could hear her screaming. I could only hear what was going on.
>I heard them slapping her.  The children did not understand that they
>were raping her.  After they raped my sister-in-law, they put her in
>line with us and shot her.
>
>For further information, contact:
>In Washington, D.C.:      Martina Vandenberg (w) 202-612-4344; (h)
>202-387-2032
>In New York:                 Joanne Mariner  212-216-1218
>                                     Fred Abrahams  212-216-1270 (on
>current abuses)
>In Brussels:                    Jean-Paul Marthoz 322-732-2009
>
>350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor
>New York, NY 10118-3299
>Telephone: (212)290-4700
>Facsimile: (212) 736-1300
>E-mail: hrwnyc at hrw.org
>
>
>
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