[NYC-L] [Kcc-News] In-Depth [HRW] Report Documents Milosevic Crimes: New Statistics Show Direction from Belgrade (fwd)

[Mentor Cana]

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 http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/10/kosovo1026.htm

In-Depth Report Documents Milosevic Crimes
New Statistics Show Direction from Belgrade

  "This report implicates the former leadership of Serbia and
   Yugoslavia in numerous atrocities. The 1999 Kosovo campaign
   was clearly coordinated from the top, and some of these people
   still hold important positions today."

       Elizabeth Andersen
       Executive Director
       Europe and Central Asia division

(Pristina, Kosovo, October 26, 2001) Former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic and his inner circle of political and military leaders are
responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo,
Human Rights Watch said today, three days before Milosevic's next hearing
at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

The 593-page report released today, "Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo,"
uses innovative statistical methods and comprehensive field research to
document the torture, killings, rapes, and forced expulsions committed by
forces under Milosevic's command against Kosovar Albanians between March 24
and June 12, 1999, the period of NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia.
More than 600 victims and witnesses of atrocities were interviewed for the
report.

"This report implicates the former leadership of Serbia and Yugoslavia in
numerous atrocities," said Elizabeth Andersen, Executive Director of Human
Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia division. "The 1999 Kosovo campaign
was clearly coordinated from the top, and some of these people still hold
important positions today."

War crimes committed by Serbian and Yugoslav security forces did not occur
in isolation, the Human Rights Watch report says. Three chapters of the
report document abuses committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army, which
abducted and murdered civilians during and after the war, as well as
violations by NATO, which failed to minimize civilian casualties during its
bombing of Yugoslavia. A background chapter analyzes Kosovo's recent
history and the international community's failure to stop what is dubbed a
"predictable conflict."

"For a decade the international community tolerated human rights abuses in
Kosovo in the name of regional stability," Andersen said. "This report
stresses the importance of promoting human rights before a conflict erupts,
as well as accountability for past abuses to halt the cycle of violence."

"Under Orders" breaks new ground in the depth and breadth of its
documentation, including detailed case studies of dozens of villages, a
statistical analysis of the abuses, photographs of perpetrators, a
strategic overview of the Belgrade government's offensive, and the
organizational structure of the Serbian police and Yugoslav army, both
controlled by Milosevic.

A statistical analysis of executions in Kosovo, prepared in collaboration
with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS),
reveals the coordinated nature of the offensive. Three distinct waves of
killings suggest the executions were not the result of random violence by
government forces. Rather, "they were carefully planned and implemented
operations that fit into the [Belgrade] government's strategic aims," the
report concludes.

Witness and survivor testimonies in village after village describe how
Serbian and Yugoslav troops systematically burned homes, looted businesses,
expelled civilians, and murdered those suspected of participating in or
harboring the KLA, including some women and children. At some sites,
witnesses reported that bodies were removed to conceal the crimes. This
cover-up was apparently confirmed in 2001, when seven mass graves were
discovered in Serbia proper containing the bodies of Kosovar Albanians.

Rape and sexual violence were also components of the campaign, the report
says, used to terrorize the civilian population, extort money from
families, and push people to flee their homes. Human Rights Watch
documented ninety-six cases of rape and sexual assault in Kosovo, although
the total number of sexual assaults is certainly much higher. Human Rights
Watch has urged the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) to include rape charges in the indictment against Milosevic.

A chapter entitled "Forces of the Conflict" details the various government
troops involved in the conflict, as well as key members of the KLA.
Important commanders in the Serbian police and Yugoslav Army, all listed in
organizational diagrams, include:

Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic, former Chief of the Yugoslav Army General Staff
Col. Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, former head of the Yugoslav Army's Third Army
Maj. Gen. Vladimir Lazarevic, former head of the Third Army's Pristina
Corps Vlajko Stojiljkovic, former Serbian Minister of Internal Affairs Col.
Gen. Radomir Markovic, former head of Serbia's state security service (SDB)
Col. Sreten Lukic, former head of Serbian police in Kosovo Col. Gen.
Vlastimir Djordjevic, former head of Serbia's public security service (RJB)
Lt. Gen. Obrad Stevanovic, former head of Serbia's police department

Despite his direct involvement in the 1999 campaign, Nebojsa Pavkovic is
currently chief of the Yugoslav Army General Staff. Sreten Lukic is
currently chief of public security in the Serbian police. Ojdanic and
Stojiljkovic, both indicted by the ICTY for crimes in Kosovo, are still at
large, as are two other Kosovo-related indictees, Nikola Sainovic, former
Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister, and Milan Milutinovic, still the President
of Serbia.

The report also documents violations by NATO and the KLA. NATO bombs killed
approximately 500 Yugoslav civilians between March and June 1999, and NATO
did not take adequate steps to minimize this number, the report concludes.
NATO's use of cluster bombs, although halted in the course of the conflict,
is also criticized in the report.

Human Rights Watch also charged the KLA with committing serious abuses in
1998, in the course of fighting that led up to the NATO bombing. KLA abuses
during this period included abductions and murders of Serbs and ethnic
Albanians considered collaborators with the state. Elements of the KLA are
also responsible for post-conflict attacks on Serbs, Roma, and other
non-Albanians, as well as ethnic Albanian political rivals.

As many as one thousand Serbs and Roma have been murdered or have gone
missing since NATO bombing ceased on June 12, 1999. Criminal gangs or
vengeful individuals may have been involved in some incidents since the
war, but KLA members are clearly responsible for many of these crimes. By
late-2000 more than 210,000 Serbs had fled Kosovo; most of them left in the
first six weeks of the NATO deployment. Those who remain are concentrated
in mono-ethnic enclaves.

The international community's slow response after the bombing campaign is
partially to blame for the post-war violence, the report concludes. The
United Nations and NATO failed to take decisive action from the outset to
curb the forced displacement and killings of Kosovo's non-ethnic Albanian
population, which set a precedent for the post-war period. Two years after
the war, a functioning judiciary system has not been established and an
atmosphere of impunity persists.

The report welcomes Milosevic's April 2001 arrest and his subsequent
transfer to the ICTY. But Human Rights Watch urged further action by the
Serbian authorities and the international community to hold accountable all
those responsible for crimes committed during the war in Kosovo, as well as
during the wars in other parts of the former Yugoslavia.

"Holding Milosevic accountable is a first step," Andersen said. "But he is
only one on a long list."

The report "Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo" is available online at
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/.

The release, the table of contents, and the executive summary are available
in Albanian at
http://www.hrw.org/albanian/kosovo2001/kosovo1026-alb.htm and in

The release, table of contents, and executive summary are available in
Serbian at http://www.hrw.org/serbian/kosovo2001/kosovo1026-serbian.htm

For more information on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo,
please see:

Key documents on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia at
http://www.hrw.org/europe/fry.php

Kosovo: Focus on Human Rights (HRW Focus Page) at
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/kosovo98/index.shtml

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