From naidadukaj at sbcglobal.net Tue Jan 4 01:04:03 2005 From: naidadukaj at sbcglobal.net (Naida Dukaj) Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2005 22:04:03 -0800 Subject: [KAN-Info] Serb Officials Admit Involvement Message-ID: KOSOVA ACTION NETWORK January 1, 2005 INTERNATIONAL ACTION CAMPAIGN FOR RETURN OF MISSING "WE ARE ALL MISSING THEM" SERB OFFICIALS ADMIT INVOLVEMENT INTL. KAN Statement: Another 44 bodies were returned from the morgue in Belgrade to the Rahovec morgue in Kosova (full article below), however the issue is still a long way from being resolved. Hundreds of bodies remain, inexplicably, in the hands of the Serb police authorities. All bodies should be returned without delay. As they were in East Timor, Rwanda, and Bosnia, high level UN leadership fails to represent and implement the most basic human rights of people in which they have temporary stewardship over. This failure to demand justice and an end to the cover-up of the war crimes involved in the transport of bodies from Kosovo to Serbia in April, 1999, is the result of regional and international passivity and cowardice. Now, in 2005, the time has come to demand a Truth Commission, since neither the UN nor the government of Serbia nor the ICTY has fully addressed the issue of investigation into the heinous crime of the transport, burial, and alleged incineration of more than 1,000 Kosovar Albanians. Local Serbs have been coerced into keeping terrible secrets for years. Lack of justice is a source of corruption and destabilization on both sides of the border. RETURN THE KOSOVAR BODIES IMMEDIATELY! ============================================ ================= ARTICLES ================= ============================================ Balkan Briefs Thursday December 30, 2004 Serb prosecutor admits massacre during Kosovo war BELGRADE (AFP) - Some 800 ethnic Albanians exhumed from a mass grave near Belgrade following the 1998-99 war in Kosovo were the victims of mass executions, Serbia?s war crimes prosecutor said yesterday, in the first such admission from a Serb official. "In (the Belgrade suburb of) Batajnica were found the remains of people who had been victims of mass executions in Kosovo," prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic was quoted as saying by Beta news agency. Vukcevic?s statement confirmed long-held claims by non-governmental organizations as well as Kosovo Albanian officials that ethnic Albanians were the victims of mass executions during the conflict. "Following the exhumation and autopsy, it has become clear that those people were not killed by bomb explosions, but their wounds showed that they had been executed," Vukcevic said. The prosecutor said his office "will this year make public what happened there." ========================================== >From Humanitarian Law Center, Belgrade December 28, 2004 Humanitarian Law Center Research and Documentation Nata?a Kandic, the executive director of the Humanitarian Law Center The cover-up of the war crimes committed in Kosovo in 1998 and during the NATO bombardments was, above all, a police activity carried out by the most trustworthy men of the late of the head of Ministry of Interior Affairs of Serbia, Vlajko Stojiljkovic, of the former President of the Government of Serbia, Nikola Sainovic, of the one time head of the Public Security, Vlastimir ?ordevic, and the former head of the State Security, Rade Markovic. In the south of Serbia, the trustworthy person was Dragomir Tomic, a high official of the Government and the Parliament of Serbia at the time of Slobodan Milo?evic, the owner of Simpo Company today, whose understanding and support were essential for the organization and transport of the corpses from Kosovo to the area of Vranje and Surdulica. In the implementation of this "patriotic duty", from Kosovo via Bujanovac, members of the Special Operations Unit [Red Berets], local heads and chiefs of the State Security, and the director of the Mackatica factory, its owner today, took part. In Surdulica, everybody knows that, in the said factory, during NATO bombardment, corpses from Kosovo were incinerated. (full report below) ========================================== Parts of UNMIK Local Media Monitoring 28 December 2004 Body Remains of Kosovo Albanians Exhumed in Serbia to be Repatriated in January The human remains of 44 Albanians that have been exhumed in Serbia will be handed over to members of their families on January 15. A total of 836 bodies were exhumed from several mass graves in Serbia during 2001, out of which 398 have so far been handed over after the process of identification. UNMIK took over 44 bodies from the Serbian authorities in mid-December. The Forensic Medicine Institute in Orahovac will hand over these bodies to their families. There are still 3,192 people missing in Kosovo, and out of this number 2,460 are Kosovo Albanians, 523 Kosovo Serbs and 203 are members of other ethnicities. http://www.unmikonline.org/press/2004/mon/dec/lmm281204.pdf ========================================== LOCAL PRESSURE CONTINUES- PRISHTINA KAN and family groups staged a demonstration in front of UNMIK administration buildings posting photographs of missing persons ========================================== ### From naidadukaj at sbcglobal.net Mon Jan 24 02:19:53 2005 From: naidadukaj at sbcglobal.net (Naida Dukaj) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 23:19:53 -0800 Subject: [KAN-Info] International Investigation Needed Message-ID: KOSOVA ACTION NETWORK JANUARY 17, 2005 WE ARE ALL MISSING THEM CAMPAIGN KAN STATEMENT on MISSING - International Investigation Needed It continues to be of utmost importance for there to be an outside, independent investigation authorized to look into the removal of bodies from Kosovo during the 1999 NATO war. Five years (nearly six) have passed and efforts at uncovering the truth have not resulted in justice for the families of the missing, only in death threats for those promoting investigation and fact-finding. The government of Serbia, instead of doing everything possible to put an end to the cover-up of this heinous series of crimes has done nothing to apologize nor make reparations to the grieving families and not even to return the available remains in a timely fashion. The UNMIK government simply calls for dialog as it has for five years, unaware perhaps that for five years, it has not worked. The UN government in Kosovo needs to appeal directly to Kofi Annan to appoint an internationally organized investigation into the mass graves in Belgrade the possible cremation sites detailed by the Humanitarian Law Center. Human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, and others need to renew their demands that the extent of these crimes be investigated. Foreign offices in Belgrade have taken far too timid a role as well, in light of these new developments. We are calling now for NGOs to organize a petition in support of HLC's efforts, demanding a resolution of this terrible situation. ============================================ ================== ARTICLE =================== ============================================ FROM HLC REPORTS www.hlc.org BIA harassment to prevent disclosure of truth about Mackatica The Humanitarian Law Center calls on the President and Prime Minister of Serbia, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Security Information Agency (BIA) to put an end to the rampant unlawful conduct of police and BIA agents in Surdulica, Vladicin Han, and Vranje. Such behavior reached alarming proportions following the publication of a text by HLC Executive Director Natas?a Kandic? on the burning of bodies of Kosovo Albanians in the Mackatica industrial plant in Surdulica. The local BIA and police are investigating people, threatening them and organizing acts of terror, all with the aim of uncovering the HLC source and preventing people from speaking out and testifying on the burning of bodies at the plant during the NATO bombing. In their efforts to "identify the enemy," police and BIA members cited in the text as accessories to destroying the evidence of the crime, have turned in particular against people who have contacts with the media and non-governmental organizations. Their "suspects" include Anita Nikolic?, a customs officer from Vladicin Han and a victim of sexual harassment by the police officer in charge of the Strazimirovci border crossing. (Full report available through HLC) ========================================== ###