[kcc-news] 10 Kosova Villagers Executed

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10 Kosova Villagers Executed 


By R. Jeffrey Smith and Peter Finn

Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 22, 1999; Page A1 



SRBICA, Yugoslavia, March 21 – Yugoslav special forces troops searching
door-to-door over the weekend for supporters of ethnic Albanian separatists
detained and executed 10 men here on Saturday, including a father and his
four sons, witnesses said. 

The alleged executions – supported by physical evidence at two locations –
were among many visible signs today of the toll of a two-day government
offensive in central Kosovo. Scores of homes billowed black and gray smoke
in nearly a dozen villages in the region as the fighting swelled the number
of new refugees to an estimated 44,000. 

The primary goal of Army and Interior Ministry troops, including special
forces units in white uniforms with black masks, apparently is to push the
Kosovo Liberation Army and its supporters out of the Drenica region. But it
remains unclear whether the action was a prelude to heavier fighting
throughout Kosovo or a contained action against the KLA's heartland
territory. 

NATO has threatened immediate airstrikes to punish atrocities or to compel
the Yugoslav government to accept a Western-drafted peace accord that
provides for the swift deployment of up to 28,000 NATO troops to enforce a
cease-fire in Kosovo. But so far Belgrade has not given any hint that it
might shift its position or refrain from targetting civilians. 

According to the accounts of three witnesses in Srbica, a city of 20,000
residents, special forces units on Saturday detained Ali Gashi, his four
sons and three neighbors and marched the men, their hands clasped behind
their heads, at gunpoint up a hill overlooking the city and then into a
gully. After a 20-minute discussion among the troops, witnesses said, the
men were executed. 

The witnesses said a unit of Interior Ministry troops removed the bodies
with surgical gloves. Today, pools of blood and bits of skull and brain
matter were still splashed across mud and leaves at the site. A surgical
glove lay discarded near the scene. 

Other witnesses recounted the execution on Saturday of two other men –
Muhamed Fazlia, 29, and his cousin, Musli Fazlia, 23, – in a nearby
farmyard after special forces found them hiding in a house where relatives
had sheltered them. The men and their families had fled shelling of their
home village to the east of Srbica a week ago. According to three
witnesses, the men were shot in their heads as they stood with their arms
raised. 

Villagers from across the region gave accounts of harassment and beatings
that indicate that the Belgrade regime's rhetoric about standing up to NATO
has percolated to the lowest ranks of the military. A 16-year-old boy from
the destroyed village of Lausa and an 18-year-old from Srbica who fled to
Mitrovica today said they were arrested and beaten by troops at the Srbica
police station. They said the troops taunted them, asking, "Where is NATO
for you now? Where are your [foreign] verifiers?" 

The boys, among an estimated 200 men arrested in Srbica, said the troops
cursed President Clinton. A KLA guerrilla officer, encountered on a highway
near Srbica, said that some civilians who fled the area reported that they
were told to "leave for Albania and look for Americans to protect you." A
13-year-old girl in Srbica watched as her brother and mother were beaten by
soldiers who promised to "massacre you" and "burn you all." 

Government forces appeared to be taking casualties. One soldier said 50
soldiers had been killed in heavy fighting. Serb officials said that four
Serbian policemen were shot dead in an ambush tonight in Pristina, the
capital of the province. 

Seven villages around Srbica were shelled today and six villages that were
shelled yesterday were still afire. Artillery fire echoed in the hills and
smoke climbed above the emptied village of Donji Prekaz where shattered
houses smoldered, their front doors ajar. The village of Polijance, at the
edge of Srbica, was in flames, and tanks sat on a overlooking crest. When
reporters drove toward the village, a warning shot rang out, halting them. 

Throughout the day, tanker trucks shuttled to and from areas of heavy
fighting, refueling tanks and other armored vehicles. Interior Ministry
jeeps and large cargo vans were seen leaving the area where troops had
conducted house to house searches. 

The region has been the scene of previous ferocious fighting. Almost
exactly a year ago, a military assault on the family compound of a KLA
leader in Donji Prekaz helped radicalize Kosovo's ethnic Albanian
population and sharply intensified the conflict. Villages in the region
were burned last summer and fall before the government agreed in an October
deal with NATO to withdraw its army units from villages, to reduce its
Interior Ministry troops' presence and to halt the use of heavy weapons in
the countryside. 

The current assault differs from previous fighting in one respect: Army
units, which previously kept clear of some of the worst fighting in Kosovo,
are now paired with Interior Ministry troops. The army's engagement appears
to reflect a new and more compliant Army leadership installed by Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic at the end of last year. 

Residents of Srbica said the army began searching houses here Saturday
morning. According to witnesses, one reason eight of the men who were later
shot may have been targeted was because KLA calender-posters were found in
their homes. Others whose homes were searched said troops repeatedly
demanded to know if they had met senior KLA officials. Police accused men
in black jeans with pockets on the thighs of wearing the combat trousers
favored by the KLA. 

About 9:30 a.m., witnesses said, the eight men who were later shot were
rounded up and forced to march with their hands over their heads to a
wooded area near the local hospital. Witnesses identified the men as Gashi,
54; his four sons, including 18-year-old twins; Ramiz Geci, 30; Januz
Kaleci, 60, and his son. They said the men were directed to a gully. Then,
about 20 minutes later, five Serbian soldiers stood on a slight incline
above the gulley and shot the men. 

Shortly after, witnesses said, more Interior Ministry troops arrived and
removed weapons from the back of a Jeep as well as a video camera. A
prosecutor later arrived and the bodies were removed by a team wearing
surgical gloves, the witnesses said. 

As one witness walked through the blood-stained grass today, he began
shaking as his eyes filled with tears, and he turned away. Another witness
wept as she said, "I can never forget what I saw." A third witness shook
his head and said, "I knew all of them." 

In a second alleged execution, which occurred about 250 yards away, troops
in Yugoslav special forces' white uniforms and black masks burst through
the gate of a family compound of three houses about 10 a.m. Saturday, three
witnesses said. They kicked in one house's front door, which shows the
marks of their boots. Two soldiers ransacked the house and stole foreign
currency, the witnesses said. 

In another house in the compound, a television set's screen had been
smashed and debris was scattered. After the ransacking, two masked soldiers
ordered one woman outside. "Where are the men?" they asked the woman,
witnesses said. "Where are the terrorists?" They held a gun to her head and
shot in the air. 

The woman denied there were men in the compound, witnesses said. But, in
fact, five families, as well as the owners, were staying in the three
houses. All five families had fled shelling outside Srbica. When the Serbs
found two men, the Fazlia cousins, they forced them and an older male
cousin into the yard with their hands above their heads. 

They returned to the woman and struck her for lying to them, witnesses
said. At close range and without warning, they then shot the Fazlia
cousins, said three witnesses who saw the shooting. The soldiers spared the
older cousin who is in his 50s. Police forces removed the bodies within 10
minutes, the witnesses said. 


© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company 


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