[NYC-L] Burning Albanians, we heard this all before

[Isa Blumi]

Twice before--in 1999 and then again in 2001 when
Public Radio Minnesota did a report--I brought to your
attention, among others, the fact that Serbia
systematically burned hundreds if not thousands of
bodies to destroy evidence of murder and a program of
"ethnic cleansing." Now Natasha Kandic is pushing the
issue at great risk to her own safety with not one bit
of support from the LDK/PDK travesty that festers in
Kosova today. Do we not have the ability to mobilize
any bit of outrage as human beings, let alone
Kosovars, in response to the fact that this has
happened and not one mainstream media outlet has
covered the story. Just think of it, of its parallels
to World War II. That our friends in the State
Department has in its program the policy of sitting on
this story as well..."not helpful to the current
situation" only compounds the insult to Kandic and
those few people who reported this story--all on death
lists today. This "burying" of this story, which that
bombastic prick Solanas and his entourage in Brussels
belittle with their pompous air of superiority, stands
for a lurking wave of intolerance and systemic state
oppression that awaits continental Europe.
Brown-skinned people and Muslims will become the new
victims of the European arrogance that had let the
Balkans fester for generations. 

And Kandic's unacknowledged efforts among Kosovars who
were collectivly targeted by this policy is all about
the current situation...it is about a society that
looks the other way, makes excuses for the unexcusable
and now with Eide's report saying Kosovars are
incapable of taking the necessary steps, along with a
recent Cato "report" which stoops to cheap rhetorical
ploy of accusing Muslim Albanians of cleansing Jews
from Kosova as well:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4038

should there not be some mobilization of Kosovars in
the places where they have access to politicians, news
agencies/outlets? Is the New York Community, let alone
those in Switzerland, Germany, Austria etc. so inept
that it cannot get this story onto the "big screen?"

I say this all with my own ready-made answers as to
why nothing will be done. And to just anticipate the
"why don't you do something about it..." well
physically I am not living anywhere near a community
to look eye-to-eye on this matter, a secondly, I write
history, my days of making it are over.

Instead of trying to belittle my contributions in
academic and policy journals, call others as
hysterical or even suggest that I, or anyone else are
bigots and homophobes, something that I will address
privately to Jeton, it may be helpful to contemplate
what happened in 1998-1999 on a larger level; what
sticking Albanians into furnaces should say about what
is the "real" picture and why the UN, Cato institute
and a growing number of otherwise sympathetic people
think is an internal Serbian problem is of fundamental
importance to how humanity functions in this world. It
is about arresting the developing scourge of religious
fanaticism in Kosova, instigated in closed-off corners
by Wahhabis and Evangelicals, as well as the
unmitigated racism, criminality and spiritual
corruption that infects Europe's and the US's
political and economic elite. The horrors of Niger are
far more traumatic than anything Kosovars could have
felt at one level--those callous statistical
abstractions used by social scientists and
analysts--but if one were to really scratch the
surface of what the following is saying, Kosovars were
reduced to ashes and no one, not even those targeted
for such destruction, can muster an organized word of
collective outrage.


http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr3/bcr3_200504_553_1_eng.txt
Investigation: Serbia: More Mackatica Body Burning
Revelations 

New eyewitnesses are helping to piece together a crime
that still awaits justice.

By IWPR reporters in Surdulica and Belgrade

Eyewitness accounts obtained by IWPR contain dramatic
new evidence of how police working for Slobodan
Milosevic burned truckloads of ethnic Albanian corpses
in a factory in southern Serbia during the 1999 NATO
conflict.

IWPR sources have presented fresh testimony on the
chronology of the crime, the way it unfolded and the
key role played by the police in both the burnings and
the cover-up that followed.

Their accounts will increase pressure on the courts to
resolve the mystery surrounding who these people were
and who ordered their incineration.

Natasa Kandic, director of the Humanitarian Law
Centre, HLC, first revealed the grisly secrets of the
Mackatica aluminum complex, near Surdulica, in the
Pcinj district of southern Serbia, last December.

In an article in daily Danas newspaper on December 24,
2004, she said the factory's blast furnaces were used
to burn the bodies of Albanians killed in Kosovo on
May 16 and May 24, 1999 - during the NATO conflict.

An IWPR source - a shift worker in the factory - says
the whole affair started with the unexpected arrival
at night of a number of unknown trucks.

"Trucks with mysterious freight kept entering the
factory with their lights off. Third-shift workers,
like myself, were sent home at the factory entrance,"
the source said.

The IWPR source confirmed seeing the bodies arrive on
two separate occasions, "at the middle and end of May"
in 1999.

"No one told us what was being transported and none of
the workers had access [to the place of burning]," he
told IWPR. "But I know many people who took part in it
and saw some of it myself. 

"Direct participants confirmed to me what I had seen.
Bodies were brought to the factory and burned there. I
was not the only one who watched it.

"I was not present at the very act of the burning of
the bodies but I could see the trucks being unloaded.”

A second IWPR source, whose status and occupation we
cannot disclose, confirmed the shift worker's version
of events, saying he also witnessed the bodies being
unloaded. This source added that the bodies were
transported from western Kosovo, mainly from Prizren,
Djakovica and Pec, and surrounding villages.

"When the trucks left [after the burning] so-called
'cleaners' took over and checked whether any body
parts or their personal belongings had fallen onto the
tarmac by the entrance to the plant,” he said.

"For days afterwards, you could smell burned flesh in
Surdulica. I know what this smell is like, as I have
been on all the battlefronts in [the former]
Yugoslavia."

This second source said Mackatica was chosen as a site
because it was close to Kosovo, only around 170
kilometres from Prizren, and was relatively anonymous
- few people few people outside the factory even knew
it had blast furnaces.

Kandic’s Danas article said both incinerations took
place around midnight under tight security provided by
the police's Special Operations Unit, JSO, then based
at Bele Vode, near Vranje, in southern Serbia.

It said the then JSO commander, Milorad “Legija”
Ulemek, now the prime suspect for the 2003 murder of
Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic, escorted one
convoy of bodies to the site and was present as they
were burned in "furnaces numbers four and five".

According to the HLC, top police officials - some of
whom are still at their posts - organised the
burnings, while other trusted Milosevic officials
organised the subsequent "cleansing of the terrain".

NEW INFORMATION ON ROLE OF MILOSEVIC’S POLICE IN THE
CRIME

A third IWPR source, a former inspector in Milosevic's
secret police, was active at the time of the events at
Mackatica, and has assured IWPR that the police
possess "precise and systematised information" on how
the bodies were burned at Mackatica.

"There is clear data on this in local police archives,
marked 'strictly confidential'," this source said,
referring to the two burnings.

"The people who participated in the whole action were
staying at the Theranda Hotel in Prizren. Such a job
had been prepared for a long time and could not be
completed in a day or two.

"The local public and secret police know everything
but this is being concealed also because current as
well as former police officials and ordinary
operatives were involved.

"Everything is contained in the police documentation -
from the code name of the action to the list of people
who stayed at the Theranda Hotel and worked on the
'sanitation of the terrain', to those who loaded the
trucks and drove them to the Mackatica factory, where
Legija and his team took over the whole thing.

"It is also known exactly who drove and who escorted
the trucks with the bodies, who was in charge of
covering up the action at the factory itself and who
directly handled the furnaces during the burning."

"The names of those who were later in charge of
eliminating the traces at the factory and those whose
job it was to conceal the truth from the local public
are also known. Finally, there is a list of
politicians who were familiar with all of this, when
the action was being planned."

The former police officer claimed he knew most of
these names himself but was fearful of divulging them
publicly. 

Along with all those who possessed direct knowledge of
the burnings, he had encountered strong pressure to
keep quiet.

"All those in any way connected to the events at
Mackatica in May 1999 are being exposed to threats,
pressures and blackmail," he said.

"I fear for my safety and for that of my family," he
said. "The participants in the crime in Mackatica
would know it was me who revealed the secrets, which
they are doing their utmost to hide."

IWPR's first source, the shift worker at Mackatica,
says several other witnesses who saw the trucks with
bodies entering the factory are still out there.

"Other people know what was done, although everything
was done for the operation to be carried out in the
utmost secrecy," he said.

They were all subject to threats and blackmail, he
added, to prevent the story from getting further out.
In spite of that, this source said he was ready to
testify in public.

IWPR has also spoken to a fourth direct source on the
events at Mackatica. This source did not want either
his residence or job divulged but insisted he was
present at both burnings in May 1999.

"Everything took place after midnight, but I remember
there was a clear sky and moonlight," he said. "I saw,
for a few minutes and from a distance of about ten
metres, bodies being unloaded from a truck and
transported in a large factory push-cart to the part
of the factory where the furnaces are located."

This source said he "knew for sure" that some of the
bodies were or women and children. He insisted he did
not participate in the burning.

None of IWPR's sources was able to estimate the exact
number of bodies unloaded and burned at Mackatica,
though one said they had been transported in "more
than ten trucks," which suggests a large number.

THE LIST OF NAMES BEHIND THE BURNINGS 

In her article in Danas, Kandic cited several of
Milosevic's most trusted associates as key figures
behind the operation.

She named ex-police minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic; a
former deputy prime minister Nikola Sainovic; the then
head of the public and state security Vlastimir
“Rodja” Djordjevic, and Radomir Markovic, former chief
of secret police.

Sainovic, charged by the Hague war crimes tribunal for
crimes committed in Kosovo in 1999, voluntarily
surrendered to the authorities in spring 2003. He was
released in mid-April 2005 pending trial.

Markovic is currently in jail in Belgrade's central
prison, facing criminal proceedings. Stojiljkovic,
also on The Hague's list of persons indicted for
crimes in Kosovo, committed suicide on April 11, 2002.

Among all the names Kandic mentioned, the most
interesting was that of Djordjevic. One of four
generals wanted by the Hague tribunal for war crimes
in Kosovo in 1999, he was born in Koznica, only miles
from Mackatica.

Djordjevic is known to have been a key figure in the
area whose word was virtually law. He kept all the
local power structures, especially the police, under
his control.

After the Milosevic regime fell on October 5, 2000,
Djordjevic reportedly fled the country and is believed
to be hiding in Russia.

THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR STARTS TO INVESTIGATE

For several months, after the publication of the
groundbreaking article in Danas, neither the
authorities nor the courts in Serbia reacted publicly
to any of the grave claims that it revealed.

However, in mid-April 2005, Vladimir Vukcevic, the
special state prosecutor for war crimes, visited
Surdulica.

Acting on Vukcevic's request, the investigating judge
of the district court in Vranje, the deputy special
prosecutor and a team of specially trained court
experts also visited Mackatica.

Vukcevic told B-92 radio he had talked to witnesses,
but stressed that most things were still in the stage
of "complete secrecy, owing to the serious nature of
the procedure". The prosecution was awaiting the
result of forensic reports, he said.

Detailing the extent of the investigation thus far, he
added, "The blast furnaces at the Mackatica complex
were inspected, as were the places where waste is
deposited." He underlined that only experts' findings
would confirm whether traces of human remains were in
the waste.

Vukcevic did not conceal the fact that his decision to
personally oversee the process implied a lack of
confidence in the ability and willingness of the local
police to investigate the case.

He also said he regretted that a special police unit
had not yet been set up to investigate such war crimes
and help the prosecution team.

An IWPR source close to the police in the Pcinj
district confirmed that the special war crimes
prosecutor's initial field work in Mackatica had upset
members of the local police force.

"The police of the Pcinj district still operates
according to the same principles and mostly with the
same people as it did in 1999," this source said.

IWPR has also learned that the case would never have
come to light at all if one former and one active
operative from the Security and Information Agency,
BIA - successor to the State Security, DB - had not
sent Kandic the evidence.

Zoran Stosic, head of the regional DB at the time of
the Mackatica case, was dismissed just over a month
ago as general inspector of police in Pcinj district
and replaced by Vujica Velickovic, also a key figure
in the regional police over the past decade.

IWPR's third source, the former secret police
inspector, reiterated that local police records
contained exact data on the entire affair. "All it
takes is political will for it to be disclosed," he
said.

A WALL OF SILENCE IN SURDULICA

Surdulica is a small town of around 10,000 people,
some ten km from the motorway that runs from Belgrade
to Skopje. It is less than an hour's drive either to
Bulgaria, or to Macedonia and Kosovo.

People in Surdulica whom IWPR interviewed either did
not want to speak about the body burnings, or defended
them. No one denies something happened, but in the
town itself, where the hard-line nationalist Serbian
Radical Party is in power, there is a conspiracy of
silence.

In the cafe in the centre of town, a large piece of
graffiti proclaims "Serbia for the Serbs".

"So what if they did burn Shiptars [a derogatory name
for Albanians]?” one man said. "They deserved nothing
better. Why don't you write about the crimes against
Serbs in Kosmet [a Serb nationalist expression for
Kosovo] today?"

A shop saleswoman was more conciliatory. "Hardly
anyone dares to speak publicly about it," was all that
she would say on the grim events in the nearby
factory.

But the arrival in Surdulica of the special state
prosecutor for war crimes suggests that however much
the local population wants to a draw a veil over the
affair, the judicial authorities are determined to
confront this painful issue.

Whether justice will ever be done for what happened at
Mackatica remains to be seen. 

Bruno Vekaric, spokesperson for the war crimes
prosecutor, said it would not be easy. The facts that
the crimes were committed long ago and that the police
and justice ministry were far from cooperative were
just some of the obstacles they faced, he told IWPR. 

The reporters who contributed to this report are
members of BIRN, IWPR's newly localised Balkan
Investigative Reporting Network. 

AND 

For your reference, this is what I sent to this same
discussion forum in 2001

 I request that everyone reading this, take the time
to actually understand what I am writing and read the
entire message.  Following my brief tirade, I will
provide you with two articles, the first from AP
reporting on the NPR (National Public Radio) story
aired last week and the second, reporting the OSCE’s
response. (Organization on Security and Cooperation in
Europe one of the two pillars of the administrative
body governing Kosova today).  I wish to give you some
background so when you do decide to take action, which
any human being (Muslim, Catholic, Leftist, Serb,
Albanian or Palestinian) will feel compelled to take,
you can adequately address the pertinent issues at
play.  
When I was working for Kosovapress during the war, we
were trying to push the story of Serb attempts to
destroy evidence of massive human rights abuses by
shipping the bodies of its victims in Kosova to
Serbia-proper for disposal.  We had a witness report
to us, from his hideout in Italy, how he drove a
refrigerated truck on several occasions from a Serb
military base outside Prishtina to a smelter inside
Serbia.  Despite the top-secret atmosphere he was
compelled to investigate just what he was transporting
and arranged for his friends to help him open the back
of his truck and then flee Serbia (knowing full well
his life was in danger).  Inside he found the
refrigerated truck packed with bodies, he surmised
that he was taking these bodies to a smelter where the
to bodies would be burned.  That is before NATO
bombing!  Throughout the war I was pestering NATO, US
military officials and journalists to watch for such
activities, clearly the Serbs learned from Bosnia and
recognized they needed to destroy evidence that could
lead to their indictment.  Sure enough, throughout the
war, we were receiving reports of the burning of whole
families inside homes, the detailed effort to avoid
mass graves whenever possible, burying people (using
Roma gravediggers) in individual graves (the
international war crimes tribunal in the Hague does
not count individual graves, that is why apologists
for Serbia constantly site the Hague statistics which
only counts bodies identified in mass graves.)  There
were also frequent “leaks” to the media thanks to the
brave work of Kosovars and sympathetic elements inside
NATO of mass graves discovered by satellite.  That
these graves were eventually emptied suggests the
bodies were disposed of in some way.  That was during
the war.  Again, during the Kumonova meetings to end
hostilities I was screaming mad as I was receiving
reports from inside Kosova that while Serb negotiators
stalled at Kumanova (remember the talks would be
delayed for many days) Serb teams worked night and day
to empty as many mass graves as possible.  We
supposedly have video tape of one dump truck carrying
bodies away from a site, I know people watched from
neighboring hills and forests, witnesses are around
who could testify, clearly there are some Serbs who
want to talk. When we returned to Kosova, I
immediately pressed journalists coming in to go to
Trepca because we knew they were burning bodies there.
 The few journalists who attempted were turned back by
first Serb paramilitaries who guarded the roads well
after they were supposed to have left, and then by
French troops.  Eventually, with enough pressure, but
about two to three weeks after the French (and Serbs)
secured the area, a few journalists were allowed to
visit some parts of the site.  Of course they reported
nothing conclusive.  I asked the former head
prosecutor of the tribunal, when she came to Pristhina
after the war ended about what I had been trying to
get journalists to report, she could not reveal what
evidence the court was going to use against those
indicated but added (and this was a clear sign to all
of us that the court knew about these activities) that
“destroying evidence is an admission of guilt.”  

            This leads us to today [2001] and what I
think is a very brave gesture by a man with no real
interest in helping Kosovars.  A journalist for NPR,
Montgomery is his name, has risked his life to travel
in Serbia and interview those who actually
participated in burning human bodies in Trepca.  I
know a bit about Montgomery and I know he does not
love Kosovar Albanians, he did this because there is a
story, a disgusting travesty which could potentially
shake the foundations of the last two years.  Of
course, the OSCE and the UN are actively engaged in
shutting this news out.  Why?  They have spent the
last year and a half demonizing Kosovar Albanians,
accusing them of conducting “ethnic cleansing in
reverse” when they fully know that the overwhelming
majority of the Serbs who were administrating Kosova
for Belgrade, left with the Serb military.  The
international community, (remember China, France and
Russia are actively against Kosova’s independence for
their own reasons) has worked towards delegitimizing
Kosova’s claims to independence, and the news of Serbs
committing mass murder and then burning the bodies
would be such a compelling argument for Kosovars to
live independently from the Serb state that such
information had to be repressed.

            I am bringing this issue to you today for
one simple reason.  This is a second chance for
Kosova. Montgomery has risked his life to get the
story out and now the OSCE is pulling out the stops to
suppress it by saying French teams “looked at the
mines.”  French forensic teams have an interest in not
finding evidence people, it is scandalous that this
international body would resort to such a level of
cover up to deflect a potential earth-shaker.  It is
like the allies suppressing news of concentration
camps during World War II.  If the world got wind and
were properly stimulated, this could get Kosova back
on the agenda.  Montgomery has given Kosova that
second chance, a chance that neither Rugova, Thaci nor
any other Kosovar has been able to give.  We Kosovars
lost the game because, as I warned almost two years
ago, we are not fighting the PR war.  Very few
influential people wanted to listen to me back then,
they were too important and had their own ambitions. 
Now most of them are finished, but Kosova is also a
dead issue. Kosova’s independence is not going to
happen unless we take to the streets.  This is our
last chance.  

Those reading on the various lists did not get my
point in the last message about the need to protest
Serb nationalist gestures by two players in the NBA. 
Instead of getting together and writing letters of
protest, contacting the media, etc., most elected to
fight petty little battles about whether or not it was
acceptable to be associated with Muslims or if we
should be communicating in one language or another. 
That last task was easy compared to this one.  You
clearly did not catch on.  Let me make this as clear
as possible.  IT IS UP TO ALL OF YOU IN THE WEST, IN
YOUR COMFORTABLE DIGITALIZED WORLDS TO GET OFF YOUR
ASSES AND MOBILIZE!  DON’T LET A CNN-ARTICULATE
MORALITY/WORLD VIEW KEEP YOU FROM FIGHTING FOR YOUR
COUNTRY”S FREEDOM!!   If you do not take advantage of
this opportunity, this will be the last chance to
lose.  I purpose that all of us  abandon the petty
ego-trips, rally around the idea of Kosova being free,
and get to the streets, set up daily protests in front
of the UN and Serb consulates in the US, Australia and
Europe.  How can there be people marching against the
Turkish state after 85 years (The Armenian issue),
kids throwing stones and dying in Palestine, people
still fighting in Chechneya and tens of thousands
protesting against Abortion rights and Kosovars cannot
organize to demand their independence!  There should
be a person standing in protest for every hostage
still in Serb prisons, that makes more than a
thousand, every day until they are free.  How can
Kostunica be allowed to travel with these people still
in prisons, being auctioned off to the family with
50,000 DM!!???.  Do not feel powerless.  Look what
several hundred anti-globalization protesters can do,
look at the press they get when they get within fifty
miles of Davos.  And here are the Kosovars, content
with being vilified as drug dealers and terrorists. 
This is your chance to do justice to the sacrifice of
hundreds of thousands of our ancestors who died for
their dignity over the centuries.  If not for them,
then for your own self interests.  It is in your own
self interest because what we have now is the utter
lack of dignity, the world does not recognize our
right to self-determination, to justice, to freedom
and security.  All that silly debate about one’s faith
and Albanian/Kosovar identity means nothing if you
cannot stand up and defend honor and demand to have
your fellow Kosovars’ life treated equally as a
Europeans.  Are you content with the idea that Serbs
or Russians can burn our bodies to hide the fact that
they tortured and murdered us?  Are you happy with
being polluted to death, to be ignored and not
permitted to travel?  If we cannot mobilize public
opinion about the fact that the great powers are
trying to cover up the incineration of human bodies,
after “WORLD GENOCIDE DAY” was just observed in
Europe, then I swear, I will never take up the cause
of Kosova again.  I have spent too many days of my
life fighting this battle, often alone.  I no longer
want to go to conferences throughout Europe and be the
only one fighting, arguing and ultimately screaming
for Kosova.  I have tarnished too much of my academic
career with associations of being a “terrorist” and
“radical” to continue this alone.  People are already
tired of me because to them, Kosova is finished, a
done deal.  I want to see this issue brought to the
surface so I can go to Berlin, Florence and London and
point to the newspapers, to the streets outside.  ACT
RESPONSIBLY FOR ONCE DAMNIT!!.  DO THIS RIGHT!!! 
There are Jewish organizations that will have to
support our fight just because of the nature of the
crimes and the people who are covering it up, there
are members in the US Senate and Congress who have
supported our cause and will publicize this if you
articulate the arguments for them, most of all, you
have to get the press involved who will always want a
good story.  You get their attention by taking to the
streets, and I do not mean some pathetic dozen kids
carrying misspelled banners that lasts two hours, but
thousands, every day.

            And for those of you in Kosova right now,
there should be a day-long strike organized
immediately.  All those disgusted by what has
happened, no matter if you are American, German,
Kosovar Albanian or Serb, you should participate in
protesting the burning of human bodies and then its
cover up by the international community.  The Kosovar
newspapers and radio programs should universally call
on a one-day strike, screw the OSCE sanctions, if you
are intimidated by threats of your radio show being
closed down, if you do not want to lose your job, then
you just answered the question for the world, there is
a price for your freedom, and a pretty low one at
that.  I am especially addressing all employees of
NGOs, the OSCE and UNMIK.  You should organize to not
show up for work, close Kosova down!!!!


This is the opportunity, it has come from an unlikely
source, the Serbs themselves.  The men who burned
human bodies for Serbia’s political leaders felt
disgusted by what they did and risked their lives
talking to Montgomery, the least you could do is do
this last, desperate act to save Kosova from itself. 
Do not wait for Thaci, Rugova or Haradinaj,  they will
not be there, Kouchner, Albright and Clinton are gone,
it is up to everyone single one of you.  Please, look
at what the world should know about what happened and
look at what the OSCE and UNMIK are trying to do to
silence it.

 

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, MOBILIZE!


Friday, January 26 6:03 AM SGT 
Report: Serbs Burned Victims' Bodies
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Special forces loyal to former
Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic burned the bodies
of hundreds of ethnic Albanians in a blast furnace
before pulling out of Kosovo ahead of NATO troops,
says a National Public Radio report airing Thursday. 

Men involved in the clandestine operation, which was
intended to cover up atrocities that could lead to war
crimes charges, said up to 1,500 bodies were burned at
the Trepca lead refinery, the report says. 

That accounts for about half the Kosovo Albanians
still missing more than a year and a half after
Milosevic's forces pulled out of the province. 

The men, identified only by their first names,
described how bodies were unearthed from freshly dug
graves later identified by NATO satellites gathering
evidence of possible Serb atrocities in Kosovo. 

Because they were too big to fit in the furnace, the
bodies were first put in a grinder used for ore
processing before being placed on the furnace conveyor
belt, said one man involved in the operation. 

Milosevic is under indictment by the U.N. tribunal at
The Hague, Netherlands, for alleged involvement in the
Kosovo atrocities. Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal's
senior prosecutor, failed in three days of talks that
ended Thursday to convince the new Yugoslav leadership
to agree to his extradition and trial. 

Milosevic pulled his forces out of Kosovo in mid-1999
in exchange for an end to months of NATO bombing, as
part of a Kosovo peace treaty. Although the ethnic
Albanian majority province formally remains part of
Serbia, Yugoslavia's larger republic, it is run by the
United Nations and a NATO-led peacekeeping force. 

A man identified only as Dusko, a member of Serbia's
special forces, told NPR the campaign was an attempt
to hide evidence of atrocities - whole villages
destroyed and their inhabitants killed. 

``I think our people understood that, sooner or later
... The Hague Tribunal might come into Kosovo,'' he
was quoted as saying in the script, made available to
The Associated Press. 

Others said the bodies - mostly men, but also
including women and children - were transported at
night in refrigerated vehicles to Trepca's Zvecan lead
refinery just outside Kosovska Mitrovica, about 20
miles north of Pristina, Kosovo's capital. 

The blast furnaces ``burned at extremely high heat,''
said one of the drivers, identified as Branko. ``And
that's where the bodies got destroyed.'' 

About 120 of the bodies disposed of this way came from
Izbica, near Mitrovica, said the documentary. After
the bodies were dug up, NATO spy satellites captured
the rows of freshly opened graves and they became part
of the tribunal's evidence against Milosevic. 

``This was a horrible scene because there were so many
- like a factory assembly line - but with bodies,''
Branko was quoted as saying of the mass burnings. 

##########################

Saturday, January 27 5:23 AM SGT 
Kosovo Mass Burnings Alleged
By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic's forces burned bodies of victims of Serbian
atrocities in Kosovo in a campaign to destroy the
evidence of crimes, the State Department said Friday. 

Information obtained by the U.S. government beginning
in 1999 confirms there were massive killings ``and
there were attempts to burn bodies and otherwise cover
up evidence at places throughout Kosovo,'' spokesman
Richard Boucher said. 

In a documentary aired Thursday that used interviews
from men who said they were involved, Minnesota Public
Radio and National Public Radio news reported up to
1,500 bodies were burned at a lead refinery in Trepca.
That would account for about half of the ethnic
Albanians in Kosovo still missing more than a year and
a half after Milosevic pulled out of the province
under U.S. and NATO pressure. 

``The information that we had and continue to have
corroborates the broad outline of the campaign by
Milosevic's forces to destroy evidence of their
crimes,'' Boucher said. 

Asked specifically about Trepca, Boucher said, ``We
knew that this was one of the places that we were
concentrating on, where there was activity going on.
But if we were actually able to say in our report,
`They burned bodies at this site,' I don't know.'' 

Earlier, a spokeswoman for the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe said investigators
had found no evidence that would substantiate the
report that elite forces loyal to Milosevic burned the
bodies in a blast furnace at Trepca. 

``Our people have had a report of this, but they found
no evidence to substantiate it,'' OSCE spokeswoman
Claire Trevena said. 

Along with the United Nations and NATO, the 55-nation
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
plays a key role in running the Serbian province of
Kosovo. 

Trevena said a French forensic team with sophisticated
equipment that was called to search for remains of any
bodies at Trepca found nothing there. 

Boucher said the United States, in May and June 1999,
briefed the international war crimes tribunal for
Yugoslavia in The Hague, The Netherlands, ``on the
Serb campaign to destroy the evidence.'' 

Boucher added: ``It's a fact that we know of and that
we've reported on in the past.'' 

On Thursday, the Bush administration said through
Boucher that it was disappointed Yugoslavia did not
work out an agreement with the chief U.N. war crimes
prosecutor to put Milosevic on trial for war crimes. 

``These things need to be worked out, and the
obligation flows from the government to the
tribunal,'' he said. 

Chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte rejected Yugoslavia's
position. Still, she said in Belgrade she remains
``cautiously optimistic'' that Milosevic would be
extradited to the Netherlands for trial on charges of
involvement in atrocities by Serbian troops against
ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. 

He was indicted nearly two years ago, but like several
other Serb leaders accused of war crimes in the
Balkans, he has not faced trial. 

In 1999, senior French police officials in Kosovo said
the furnace at Trepca stopped operating shortly after
the start of the crackdown on Kosovo's ethnic
Albanians in late March 1999 and remained unused after
Milosevic's forces pulled out. 

Ashes at the site examined by the team also showed no
traces that would back up the report, they said. 

In Thursday's radio report, the men, identified only
by their first names, said bodies were unearthed from
freshly dug graves that were identified by NATO
satellites after the French study was done. 

At The Hague, Graham Blewitt, the U.N. tribunal's
deputy prosecutor, said tribunal investigations at the
Trepca mine ``couldn't confirm'' bodies had been
disposed of by burning but suggested it was extremely
difficult to arrive at a definite conclusion. 





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