[ALBSA-Info] Families Discuss Milosevic With Rage

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Families Discuss Milosevic With Rage

By FISNIK ABRASHI

  
RACAK, Yugoslavia (AP) - Libade Azemi will forever be haunted by the sight of 
her decapitated husband, one of 45 ethnic Albanians killed and mutilated in 
this village during Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on Kosovo. 

``He deserves worse than what he did to my husband,'' Libade, 51, said Friday 
from the balcony of her small brick house - just a few yards away from the 
spot where Milosevic's forces hauled away her husband in 1999. 

There is a palpable sense of relief in Kosovo that Milosevic is finally 
before the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, to face 
justice for atrocities committed here. But there is also rage and grief over 
the carnage that Milosevic's crackdown left behind. 

His forces swept through this village on Jan. 15, 1999, carrying out 
executions at point-blank range and beheading or otherwise mutilating the 
bodies. Forty-five ethnic Albanians - 42 men and boys and three women - were 
slain. The youngest was 13; the oldest, 75. 

In the village of 2,000 people, it boiled down to this: 63 children lost a 
parent. Twenty-five women were widowed. 

The bodies of 23 men, all shot at close range, were tossed into a ditch. 
Others lay scattered around the village, their heads smashed, with brains and 
organs missing. Some victims were shot in the back, suggesting they were 
gunned down while trying to run away. 

Even with Milosevic in The Hague, there was no sign of jubilation Friday in 
this village nestled in gentle foothills about 18 miles southwest of 
Pristina, the provincial capital. 

``It is not only him who is responsible - there are lot of others wandering 
freely in Serbia,'' Libade said. 

The tribunal cited the Racak killings in its May 1999 indictment of Milosevic 
and four members of his inner circle. The court charged the former Yugoslav 
president and his aides with crimes against humanity and violations of the 
laws and customs of war for atrocities in Kosovo, and is building a genocide 
case against Milosevic for war crimes committed in Bosnia and Croatia in the 
early 1990s. 

The Racak blood bath gave the United States and other backers of military 
intervention a powerful rallying point for NATO's 78-day bombing campaign 
that punished Belgrade for its crackdown in Kosovo. 

For Ramiz Ymeri, 64, the massacre marked the beginning of the end of 
Milosevic. 

``From that day, his misdeeds became known around the world. He started going 
down,'' said Ymeri, caressing a brown gravestone marking the remains of his 
20-year-old son. 

``There are more people who should pay for this, not only (Milosevic),'' he 
said. ``There was lot of room on that plane that took him there I heard. 
Others should have been with him.'' 

Other villagers share his desire for revenge. 

``I would kill him straight away,'' said Ymer Mustafa, 31, a shopkeeper. ``He 
should be killed not only for what he did in Kosovo, but also in Bosnia and 
elsewhere. I hope his nightmares are going to come true.''