From mentor at alb-net.com Tue Nov 2 11:51:12 1999 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Tue Nov 2 11:51:12 1999 Subject: [Kcc-news] Press-Release: RELEASE KOSOVAR POLITICAL PRISONERS FROM SERBIA (fwd) Message-ID: JOIN US IN A WORLD-WIDE RALLY DEMANDING THE RELEASE OF THE ILLEGALLY DETAINED AND ABUSED ALBANIAN PRISONERS WITHIN SERBIA -------------------------------------------------- SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1999 -------------------------------------------------- The Kosova Action Network is sponsoring a world-wide rally to free the Kosovar Political Prisoners on November 20, 1999. It is estimated that over 5,000 Albanians are being held in Serbian prisons. It is difficult to estimate numbers held with any accuracy. The lack of cooperation by the Serb authorities regarding the numbers and conditions of the prisoners only increases the anguish, uncertainty, and indignation of their relatives. Their physical and psychological degradation places their lives in prison at permanent risk. During the brutal Serb offense against the Albanians of Kosova, many civilians including children, women, and men including doctors, professors, lawyers, and students as well as individuals involved in humanitarian and political activities, were illegally captured and sent to prisons within Serbia simply because they are ethnic Albanians. They were arrested under 30-day martial law warrants that expired on June 15, 1999. The imprisoned have not undergone any trial or court procedure to justify their imprisonment. In order to bring stability to Kosova, we urge you to join us in a world-wide rally demanding their release. The world-wide rallies [November 20, 1999] coincides with the day U.N. celebrates it's 10th anniversary of the UN Child Convention. A petition has been prepared to distribute and also to accept signatures of supporters around the world. In Kosova, over 50,000 signatures have been collected. You may print the signature form online at: http://www.khao.org/appkosova-petitionsign.htm or contact us for a copy. Let's end the suffering and start the healing. RALLIES TO TAKE PLACE IN U.S.A. Alaska, California, Chicago, New York, Florida, Michigan, Texas RALLIES TO TAKE PLACE OUTSIDE THE U.S. Albania, Australia, Canada, Germany, Kosova, Sweden, Scandinavia CONTACT US FOR MORE INFORMATION! http://www.khao.org/appkosova.htm Tel: (714) 478-3587 * Fax: (714) 898-0740 * E-mail: kosova at jps.net From mentor at alb-net.com Mon Nov 8 19:00:09 1999 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Mon Nov 8 19:00:09 1999 Subject: [Kcc-news] Political Trial in Serbia: International Community Called to Monitor Message-ID: POLITICAL TRIAL IN SERBIA International Community Called to Monitor (New York, November 8, 1999) -- The upcoming trial of a prominent political prisoner from Kosovo should be monitored by diplomats and members of the media, Human Rights Watch said today. The trial will begin on November 11 in the Serbian city of Nis. Dr. Flora Brovina, 50, was arrested by Serbian police in civilian clothes in front of her Pristina apartment on April 20, 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. She is charged with committing terrorist acts against the Yugoslav State, according to Article 136 of the Yugoslav criminal code. The courts in Serbia are often controlled by the government. Defendants, especially Kosovar Albanians in political cases, are often denied due process. Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned that Dr. Brovina will not be granted a fair trial. A pediatrician and poet, Dr. Brovina was the founder and head of the League of Albanian Women. She is charged with providing food, clothing, and medical supplies to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), as well as planning terrorist acts. During the war, her clinic provided medical services to women and children still in Pristina. Dr. Brovina was originally held in Kosovo's Lipljan prison, where other prisoners have told Human Rights Watch about regular beatings and maltreatment by prison guards, including a cordon of baton-wielding police that met all new detainees. On June 10, two days before the entry of NATO into Kosovo, she and hundreds of other prisoners were transferred to prisons inside Serbia. Dr. Brovina is being held in Pozarevac prison, where she has been visited by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), her lawyers, and her husband. However, her husband has not been able to meet with her alone and has had to speak Serbian, which can be monitored, rather than their native Albanian. Conditions in Pozarevac prison are better than in Kosovo, but Dr. Brovina has had difficulty obtaining medicine for her weak heart, her husband, Ajri Begu, told Human Rights Watch. Dr. Brovina's trial will be held in the Nis municipal court on November 11. Human Rights Watch called on diplomats in Yugoslavia and representatives of the international community, as well as journalists, to monitor the trial. "It was a great mistake that the fate of Kosovar Albanian prisoners was not a part of the agreement between NATO and Yugoslavia that ended the war," said Holly Cartner, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division. "Now, at least, the international community should monitor the trials to make sure that they meet international standards." The Yugoslav government has acknowledged that approximately 1,900 Kosovar Albanians are being held in thirteen different detention facilities in Serbia. All of them have been visited at least once by the ICRC. But some known detainees do not appear on the government's list, such as Albin Kurti, the well-known student activist and former KLA political representative, who is currently in Pozarevac prison. Kosovo-based human rights groups claim that more than 5,000 Kosovar Albanians are currently missing, in addition to those in detention. It is not known whether these additional 5,000 people are in detention or dead. Photographs of Flora Brovina and Albin Kurti are available on the Human Rights Watch website at: http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/kosovo98/ For further information contact: Fred Abrahams (+32-75) 528-890 Alexandra Perina (+1-212) 216-1845 From mentor at alb-net.com Wed Nov 10 16:13:13 1999 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Wed Nov 10 16:13:13 1999 Subject: [Kcc-news] PRESS-RELEASE: Petition to Release Kosovar Political Prisoners from Serbia Message-ID: PETITION FOR THE RELEASE OF ALBANIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS HELD IN SERBIA ASSOCIATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS http://www.khao.org/appkosova.htm http://www.khao.org/appkosova-petitionsign.htm OCTOBER 22, 1999 We the undersigned demand that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro) immediately release the thousands of persons being illegally detained in Serb prisons. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, estimates that over 5,000 Albanians, illegally taken by Serb forces from Kosova as the war ended, are being held in Serb prisons in degrading and inhumane conditions, they have been physically abused, they have been denied access to family and lawyers, and there is little chance to their receiving a fair, public trial. These details are supported by Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. I support the release of the of the Kosovar Political Prisoners. Please take the time to SIGN the petition online at: http://www.khao.org/appkosova-petitionsign.htm to support the release of the illegally detained Kosovars currently being tortured and killed in Serb prisons. Sincerely, Naida Dukaj kosova at jps.net (714) 478-3587 From mentor at alb-net.com Fri Nov 12 12:09:26 1999 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Fri Nov 12 12:09:26 1999 Subject: [Kcc-news] Kosovo's horror can't be denied; Kosovo doctor on trial in Serbia Message-ID: 1. Kosovo's horror can't be denied 2. Kosovo doctor on trial in Serbia --- Kosovo's horror can't be denied http://www.thestar.com/thestar/editorial/opinion/991112NEW02_OP-BARTHOS12.html THE SERBS dragged Afrim Imeraj, 2 years old, from his home in Kosovo and butchered him on the spot. They hanged Argjend Demijaha, 5, from a tree. They shot Rita Vejsa, 2, and her brother Arlind, 5. And Diona Caka, 2. And Rina Haxhiavdija, 4. Most of these Kosovar Albanian children didn't end up in a mass grave. But so what? Their hasty murders, not their hasty burials, are why Canada went to war on March 24, and why Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president, is wanted as a war criminal. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, a United Nations court, has charged him with crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in killing five of these children, and more than 300 other people. Some ink has been spilled in the press recently on the difficulty that U.N. investigators are having locating the ``mass'' graves that many expected to find once the Kosovo war was over. Much has been made - particularly by those who believe Canada had no business making war on Serbia - of the fact that suspected mass grave sites at the Trepca mines or in Ljubenic have failed to disgorge the bodies that were thought, wrongly, to have been disposed of there. The Americans, some critics say, cynically duped Canada and the rest of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into believing the Milosevic regime was worse than it turned out to be. No mass graves means that there was no Serb genocide against Kosovars and thus no justification for the war, the argument goes. Tell that to Afrim, Argjend, Rita, Arlind, Diona and Rina. All of Kosovo is a crime scene, just as Chechnya is being turned into a crime scene today. Much of it is a burial ground, pocked by hundreds of ``small'' mass graves, many with 5 or 10 bodies, but some with 100 or more. Does the want of a few truly horrific common graves make such a difference? For the number crunchers out there, here are the only statistics that matter, from a report to the Security Council on Wednesday by the U.N.'s chief prosecutor in Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte: To date, the U.N. has probed 195 grave sites where 4,266 bodies had been reported buried. The investigators dug out 2,108 full corpses, half the number they expected to find. That's about 10 per grave. Partial corpses, and there were many, weren't counted. In all, the Kosovars have reported a total of 11,334 deaths. There are 324 sites left to investigate, and more are being discovered. If the U.N. teams continue to locate bodies at roughly the rate they have been, they'll have identified 6,000 or so when their work is done, not counting incomplete bodies. So where are the rest? Burned. Buried in unmarked graves. Dissolved in acid. Ploughed deep into fields. The Serbs have some experience getting rid of corpses. ``There were also a significant number of sites where the precise number of bodies cannot be counted,'' Del Ponte told the Security Council. ``In these places steps were taken to hide the evidence. Many bodies have been burned. The figures themselves may therefore not tell the whole story and we would not expect the forensic evidence in isolation to produce a definitive total.'' This does not sound like pimping for NATO. It sounds like a tough-minded Swiss prosecutor, calling it as she sees it. Her job is not to compile a census of death. It is to bring the killers to justice. Whether 11,000 Kosovars were murdered, or 6,000, or 2,108, the Milosevic government did its best to ``cleanse'' Kosovo of 2 million Albanian Muslims last March by launching a premeditated and furious campaign of terror, murder, rape, arson and plunder that devastated the region and drove 1.4 million from their homes. The Milosevic regime already had killed 2,500 in the year before, and tens of thousands in Bosnia before that. Its capacity for crimes against humanity was notorious. That NATO was braced for a much higher death toll and stiffened its spine accordingly, was understandable. That it may have been only partly right, is excusable. That NATO should be accused of painting the Milosevic regime in too-dark colours, is risible. U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen in particular has caught flak for his comment on May 16 that ``100,000 military-aged men missing ... may have been murdered.'' But it's a bum rap. They were missing. They might have been murdered. Many may have been. And Cohen went on to specify that at that point there were just 4,600 reports of killings. But for most of the war NATO stuck to a relatively conservative guesstimate of 10,000 dead that still looks credible in the light of Del Ponte's findings. Like any war, the Kosovo conflict must be re-evaluated once passions cool. There is much to criticize NATO for, not the least of which was its reluctance to deploy ground troops. Did some NATO politicians go overboard in calling Kosovo a genocide, another Holocaust? Undoubtedly. Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, not 6,000. But Kosovo was undeniably a crime against humanity. And that gave the United States, Canada and their allies every right to intervene, though without the U.N.'s approval because two Security Council members, Russia and China, blocked that avenue for their own cynical reasons. NATO drew the line at allowing Milosevic to wage war unopposed against Kosovo's civilian population, and turning yet another chunk of Europe into a no-go zone for any tribe but his own. Canadians couldn't stomach that, and rightly so. If Kosovo is bereft of ``mass'' graves today, it is in part because we said No to monstrous criminality. Gordon Barthos' column appears on Fridays. His e-mail address is gbartho at thestar.ca --- http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_515000/515364.stm Thursday, November 11, 1999 Published at 08:19 GMT World: Europe Kosovo doctor on trial in Serbia Albanian women and children received medical care from Dr Brovina An ethnic Albanian doctor goes on trial on Thursday in Serbia, accused of assisting the Kosovo Liberation Army. The US has joined Serbian human rights activists and independent lawyers in voicing fears that Flora Brovina, aged 50, will not get a fair trial. Dr Brovina, a paediatrician and poet, provided medical treatment to Albanian women and children who remained in the Kosovo capital, Pristina, during the war. Serbian authorities say she gave food, clothing and medical supplies to the Kosovo Liberation Army, and planned terrorist acts against the state. Dr Brovina was one of thousands of people arrested in Kosovo after the start of Nato's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia on 24 March. She and hundreds of others were transferred to jails inside Serbia two days before the Nato-led peacekeeping force entered the province. Heavy pressure US State Department spokesman James Rubin said: "As far as we can tell, the only thing she has done is to provide paediatric and medical services to women and children in Pristina during the conflict. "We want to express our concern over the apparent abuse of the legal system in this case and others, and condemn Serbia's actions as a continued demonstration of Serbia's disregard for international norms of behaviour." Serbian human rights activists and independent lawyers say that Yugoslav judges are under heavy pressure from the government, and that Kosovo Albanians are often denied due process. Dr Brovina is being defended by a Serb lawyer, because the authorities did not send the indictment to her Albanian attorney. The BBC correspondent in Belgrade, Jacky Rowland, says some 2,000 Kosovo Albanians are being held in Serbian jails, according to official figures. But Kosovo-based human rights groups believe the true figure may be much higher, she says.They claim an additional 5,000 are missing. James Rubin said Washington was especially concerned about dozens of women and children among the thousands of people still being held in Serbian prisons - particularly by a report of a four-month-old baby born in prison. He added that prisoners who have been released complained of beatings and shortages of food and medical care. Dr Brovina's son has said his mother has become partially paralysed because of her treatment in prison. From mentor at alb-net.com Fri Nov 19 13:13:18 1999 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Fri Nov 19 13:13:18 1999 Subject: [Kcc-news] REMINDER: World-Wide Rallies Saturday, Nov 20, 1999 (fwd) Message-ID: ____________________________________________________________________ RELEASE THE KOSOVAR POLITICAL PRISONERS FROM SERBIA NOW! Sign the petition at: http://www.khao.org/appkosova-petitionsign.htm ____________________________________________________________________ PRESS RELEASE KOSOVA ACTION NETWORK ? USA SPONSORING WORLD WIDE RALLIES NOVEMBER 20, 1999 The Kosova Action Network has sponsored a world-wide rally to free the Kosovar Political Prisoners on November 20, 1999, the same day UN celebrates it?s 10th anniversary for the Child Convention. We voice our concern for the adults, however, we are terribly disturbed by the imprisonment and ill-treatment of the Kosovar children within the jails of Serbia. The prisoners, many of them civilians detained without official charges, were mainly arrested during the conflict, then hastily transferred from Kosovo to 13 different prisons in Serbia on June 10, 1999. Human rights groups say they have little chance of receiving due process or a fair trial. They have been beaten and tortured and are held in inhumane conditions. The youngest of prisoners, besides a baby born in a cell to a twenty year old mother, is a five year old girl, imprisoned with her fourteen year old brother. There are over a dozen women and minors between the ages of thirteen and seventeen [http://www.khao.org/appkosova-wmnmnr.htm]. Others include children, women, and men including doctors, professors, lawyers, and students as well as individuals involved in humanitarian and political activities, were illegally captured and sent to prisons within Serbia simply because they are ethnic Albanians. There will be rallies in Alaska, California, Chicago, New York, Florida, Michigan, Texas, Utah, Albania, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Kosova, Sweden, Switzerland, Scandinavia Everyone should participate. Show support and help release the Political Prisoners from their terrible situation. There will be petitions available to sign there as well and info sheets on how you can help towards their release. Visit the Association of Political Prisoners - Kosova website for more information www.khao.org/appkosova.htm ================================ For those of you in New York, the Rally info is: PLACE: Front of United Nations (UN) Building TIME: 11:00 a.m. CONTACT: Naida Dukaj [Tel: 714/478-3587; E-mail kosova at jps.net] From mentor at alb-net.com Mon Nov 29 11:06:07 1999 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Mon Nov 29 11:06:07 1999 Subject: [Kcc-News] Brovina a Famous Kosovo Activist (AP Nov. 29, 1999) Message-ID: Taken without permission for fair use only. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991129/aponline014808_000.htm Brovina a Famous Kosovo Activist By Danica Kirka Associated Press Writer Monday, Nov. 29, 1999; 1:48 a.m. EST PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- Flora Brovina knew she was being followed in the days after NATO started bombing Yugoslavia. Her orphanage, her peace marches and her knitting workshops were deemed threatening to Slobodan Milosevic's government. The Kosovo pediatrician refused to stop working even as the circle closed around her. She delivered a baby just two hours before eight plainclothes policemen snatched her from the threshold of her apartment building in Kosovo's capital, Pristina. Now she is among this province's most famous prisoners, one of thousands of ethnic Albanians accused of aiding the Kosovo Liberation Army in its armed campaign for independence from Yugoslavia's main republic, Serbia. Their imprisonment despite the end of the fighting last June is thwarting plans to rebuild this troubled province, clouding hopes of reconciliation between Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and Serbs. "Without a solution for this problem, there's never going to be a stability and peace in Kosovo," Kosovare Kelmendi, a lawyer with the Humanitarian Law Center, a nongovernmental organization that monitors human rights. "You can be sure of that. No way." Brovina is one of 1,712 ethnic Albanians - men and women ranging in age from 13 to 73 - known to be held in Serb prisons. Many were seized from refugee convoys fleeing the province during NATO's air campaign. Just before peacekeeping forces moved into the province, Yugoslav authorities transferred them to Serbia. The prisoners are now in a legal limbo, in part because agreements signed between NATO peacekeepers and Milosevic's government to end the air campaign contain no reference to them. A U.N. resolution that followed put the United Nations in charge of Kosovo, but recognized Yugoslav sovereignty. That left them without an official government to intervene on their behalf and permit them to considered prisoners of war. Brovina, whose trial continues in the Serb city of Nis on Dec. 9, has come to be a symbol of their frustrations. She stands accused of fomenting terrorism by allegedly organizing, among other things, the making of sweaters and masks for members of the KLA, which the Serbs considered terrorists. She also is accused of providing them with food, clothes and shoes. The case of the 50-year-old mother of two has been singled out by the U.S. State Department, Human Rights Watch and by Kosovo's ethnic Albanians. She has become a rallying point for the struggle to free all Albanian prisoners transferred from Kosovo to Serb jails. International human rights groups and members of her family fear her trial won't be conducted fairly. "She's going to be tried for terrorism, and the government that is going to try her is run by criminals," said her son, Uranik, noting that Milosevic has been charged by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. "The government accused of terrorism is trying the humanitarian worker." When her trial began Nov. 11, Brovina denied the terrorism allegations and said her group, the League of Albanian Women, provided relief aid to women and children in war-torn areas. At a hearing Thursday, a "key witness" for the prosecution was to appear with what prosecutors said would be firm evidence of Brovina's involvement with the KLA. The witness, however, didn't show up and the session was rescheduled for Dec. 9. After hiring a Belgrade-based ethnic Albanian lawyer, her family has also hired a Serb lawyer, himself a refugee from Kosovo, who might have a better chance of successfully defending Brovina. "I don't think I've done anything wrong, and I cannot forget the returning smiles to children's faces," Yugoslavia's private Beta news agency quoted her as saying on the first day of her trial. "What have I done wrong if I was saving the children?" At the trial, the prosecutor offered a photograph, seized in Brovina's home, that shows her smiling with her hand over the shoulder of a uniformed KLA fighter. Brovina said the picture meant nothing. Brovina, who was transferred out of the province two days before NATO-led troops entered Kosovo, is being held in Pozarevac prison, 30 miles south of Belgrade. Her husband, Ajri Begu, said she has had difficulty obtaining medication for her weak heart. Begu, an economist and banker, believes his wife is being held as a bargaining chip, a prominent hostage to be traded by Milosevic's government for concessions. She faces 10 years in prison, but Begu said much more is at stake. "It is not a trial against Flora," he said. "It is a trial against freedom of speech, against freedom to organize - against freedom itself." ? Copyright 1999 The Associated Press