[AMCC-News] Macedonians accused of war crimes: Call for Hague to investigate role of hardline interior minister

[Mentor Cana]

  'The pan-European group wants the tribunal to investigate Mr Boskovski
   for "grave violations of the Geneva convention, violations of the laws
   governing wars and crimes against humanity".'

  'ECHAC says the police, army and paramilitary groups have been using the
   war with the NLA as an excuse to launch a systematic campaign to force
   ethnic Albanians out of the country.'

  'At the same time harassment of Albanians around Macedonia was stepped
   up, with kidnappings, killings and torture, it claims. It says the
   campaign reached its peak when a majority of ethnic Albanian civilians
   were driven out of the southern town of Manastir and their homes and
   businesses damaged.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,564266,00.html

Macedonians accused of war crimes

Call for Hague to investigate role of hardline interior minister

Giles Tremlett in Madrid and Nick Wood
Saturday October 6, 2001 The Guardian

The Hague tribunal will next week be sent a list of alleged war crimes
committed by the Macedonian army and police, accompanied by a request that
it investigate the hardline interior minister, Ljube Boskovski.

The chief prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunal, Carla del Ponte, will
receive at least two dozen eyewitness accounts of alleged killings,
kidnappings, torture and the systematic destruction of mosques gathered by
the European Council of Humanity, Action and Cooperation (ECHAC), which
carried out similar work in Kosovo and East Timor.

The pan-European group wants the tribunal to investigate Mr Boskovski for
"grave violations of the Geneva convention, violations of the laws
governing wars and crimes against humanity".

The allegations surfaced as Mr Boskovski comes under criticism from former
fighters of the recently disbanded National Liberation Army (NLA) for the
failure of the government in Skopje to abide by an August peace deal to end
six months of conflict.

Macedonian security forces pulled back from positions close to the old
frontline with the NLA yesterday, amid fierce international criticism.

Parliament has failed to ratify the deal or to provide an amnesty for NLA
fighters, as promised. Ratification is already 12 days behind schedule, and
there appears little chance of most MPs finding the time, or inclination,
to pass such a measure soon.

The EU external affairs commissioner, Chris Patten, visited Skopje this
week to rebuke the Macedonian regime and announced that a donors'
conference scheduled for October 15 was being postponed.

While alleged NLA crimes received coverage earlier this year, the ECHAC
report contains the first claims of widespread abuses by the army and
police. Human Rights Watch, a US group, has also denounced the killing of
six ethnic Albanian civilians in Ljuboten, five miles north of Skopje, days
before the ceasefire was signed.

Western officials have said that an amnesty will allow indictments from the
Hague to be brought against members of the Macedonian security forces and
the NLA.

"If peace in Macedonia is going to endure, the perpetrators of serious
violations on both sides must be brought to justice," said Elizabeth
Andersen, the executive director of the Europe and Central Asia division of
Human Rights Watch.

ECHAC says the police, army and paramilitary groups have been using the war
with the NLA as an excuse to launch a systematic campaign to force ethnic
Albanians out of the country.

"An ample campaign was carried out aimed at varying the ethnic composition
of the republic of Macedonia," the group says, adding that during May and
June there was a deliberate policy of shelling civilian targets in the north.

At the same time harassment of Albanians around Macedonia was stepped up,
with kidnappings, killings and torture, it claims. It says the campaign
reached its peak when a majority of ethnic Albanian civilians were driven
out of the southern town of Manastir and their homes and businesses damaged.

Although ECHAC claims Mr Boskovski was behind the campaigns, in collusion
with senior defence ministry officials, it has provided little concrete
evidence. It is appealing to the tribunal to demand documents about
meetings and communications from the interior ministry that could show what
was going on.

ECHAC says it will produce a second collection of eyewitness accounts
alleging abuse and crimes by the NLA. It says that its teams in the area in
July and August received five times as many complaints from ethnic
Albanians as from ethnic Slavs.

Human Rights Watch has investigated several cases of erious NLA abuses. In
June NLA forces detained and tortured eight elderly ethnic Slav civilians
from the village of Matejce, and subjected them to mock executions.

On August 7 the NLA allegedly kidnapped three road workers, who were
severely beaten and sexually abused for several hours. There have also been
claims of kidnappings, expulsion of civilians and destruction of Orthodox
Christian sites by the NLA.

• ISMAIL MEIDANI said police in Skopje took away his friend, Metush Ajetit,
on June 1. "Three days later they threw his body out on to the street from
a car. The autopsy showed that he had been tortured to death. There were
horrible marks on the body."

• Farmer LUAN KODRA said two planes and several helicopters appeared above
his village of Lisec on June 27. "There were no NLA people in the village.
But they started to bomb and machine-gun us. Adem Veliu, Ymer Veliu, Dorina
Elezi and Alban Daci died because of the bombs."

• Student ERDI SHAMETI, from Matec, said police took away seven of his
friends and tortured them on May 21. He said police claimed falsely to have
found arms in their car. "They were beaten for three days with truncheons
and burned with cigarettes."

• Captain ARBEN NEZIRI, an army officer from Skopje, said he was taken away
from his home by interior ministry police on June 10 and tortured. "They
want to clean Albanians out of the army and police completely."

• AGIM PJAZITIT, from Radushe, said three of his relatives and a friend
were arrested and accused of belonging to the NLA. They were not allowed to
see a lawyer. One saw a relative. "He said that the ministry of interior
police's claims that they had admitted being terrorists were false and had
come after they had been submitted to terrible tortures (beatings with
truncheons, use of electrodes, burns)."

• BESA GJINALI, a housewife from Batince, said that her neighbour Mijazi
Ibishi, a factory worker, disappeared on June 16. "We all know it was the
police. They have been threatening us for months. They want us to leave our
houses and go."