[Kcc-News] Brovina a Famous Kosovo Activist (AP Nov. 29, 1999)

[Mentor Cana]

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