[Prishtina-E] The Albanian Victims of War -- Where Are They Now? by Alice Mead

[kosova at jps.net]

The Albanian Victims of War -- Where Are They Now?

By Alice Mead
(Special to Zeri, Prishtine 4/1/ 2002)

By July 6, 2001, approximately 800 bodies -- many of them women, children,
and the elderly -- had been found in mass graves in Serbia. On July 6th,
2001, the Serb Minister of the Interior, D-- Mihajlovic told CNN: "We want
to identify the victims and return them to their families. No one in Serbia
will sleep in peace until the truth is found out and justice done."

There must be a lot of insomniacs in Serbia by now, as there are in Kosova
but for different reasons. Because, except for the three American brothers
who, with the help of the FBI and $15,000 in shipping fees, and have now
been returned to New York, the Albanian families in Kosova have no idea what
has happened to this point with the remains of their loved ones.

Initial questioning of UNMIK officials in the judicial pillar revealed only
that the bodies were in the MUP morgues in Belgrade, where they were being
checked for identification. In other words, the bodies were in the hands of
those responsible for their deaths. The Serb special police are doing the
autopsies and identity checks. UNMIK is involved in some part of the
investigation, but it's not clear how.

In April, 1999, barely two weeks into the NATO war, a diver investigated a
freezer truck floating in the Danube River. When he pulled open the back
door, he was shocked to discover bodies of women and children. The discovery
was officially hushed up for two years -- until April, 2001. The bodies had
been removed from hastily dug graves near Gjakova, Suhareka and Prizren.
Another group of bodies was found in Lake Perucac in southern Serbia in
1999. They were removed from the lake and reburied. The bodies found in the
Danube freezer truck were reburied in Batajnica. Other graves were found in
the yard of the Belgrade police training compound.

Once Milosevic was taken to the Hague for trial, in April, 2001 rumors about
the grave sites resurfaced and spread quickly, and a series of mass graves
was then discovered. Three weeks later, on April 25, 2001, CNN in a
follow-up story reported that over 200 Yugoslav army officers had reportedly
been charged with war crimes during the war in Kosova. However, officials
refused to tell reporters what the penalties were or what convictions might
mean or even where these trials might take place.

After that, there was silence. No one advocated for the rights of the
Albanian families to have the autopsies done in Kosova. No one told them of
their right to prosecute the criminals involved in these killings, which
violate every international treaty and civil law. Nor did any officials --
in either UNMIK or Serbia -- deal publicly with the crime of repeatedly
covering up these crimes, removing bodies, reburying them, hiding evidence,
and so on.

The question that needs to be addressed is: Who killed these people and then
went through such an elaborate process to hide their bodies in Serbia, even
in Belgrade itself? No one has asked this for the people of Kosova or
Serbia. And no one has volunteered an answer.

The silence was briefly broken in June, 2001, when a squabble broke out
between the Interior Minister Mihajlovic and Chief of the Yugoslav army,
Pavkovic. The latter was in charge of the Third Army VJ which was the lead
military unit in the Kosova war, and he is a close ally of President
Vojislav Kostunica. Pavkovic claimed ignorance of Kosova war crimes.
Mihaljovic accused him of lying. Helsinki Human Rights Watch in Belgrade
commented: "We now have nationalism in democratic disguise. Why does
Kostunica keep Pavkovic? It's because he likes his backing."

>From the extraordinary report published by Human Rights Watch called "Under
Orders," the answer starts to emerge in Chapter 3.

"The Yugoslav Army, Serbian police, and paramilitaries were all responsible
for war crimes in Kosovo. In general, however, paramilitaries appear to have
been more extensively involved in the most violent abuses, specifically the
executions and rapes....But paramilitary forces were not operating on their
own. On the contrary, paramilitary units were operating in close concert
with the police, army, and secret police.... In general, it appears that the
Yugoslav Army was in command during the war, although top officials of the
Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs exercised significant influences over
the campaign. The army controlled the main roads and borders, facilitating
the ethnic cleansing. The police and paramilitaries were more directly
involved in expulsions and the destruction of villages....this section (of
the report) identities the key political and military leaders in Serbia and
Yugoslavia, who have the highest level of responsibility for the war crimes
committed in Kosovo. These people either directed the campaign against the
ethnic Albanians or in full awareness of the events, did nothing to stop it.
They can be held legally accountable for both."

If Mihaljovic was not involved in orchestrating these crimes, he is now very
involved in the process of collecting evidence to convict those who did. Due
to the highly political nature of the Ministry of Justice, the secret
police, the special police, and so on, he must be a very worried person.

Meanwhile, in Prishtina, how can it be that UNMIK has no criminal
investigative department, no FBI, as it were? How can it take one year to
identify bodies, many of whom had their ID documents with them? Why does
this have to happen in secret? Who from Kosova made the agreement to let the
bodies stay in the police morgues in Belgrade and for how long? Where is the
transparent process of justice that is needed to restore basic dignity and
civil rights in Kosova? UNMIK has a missing persons department. It has 42
employees. But you cannot make an appointment to discuss this situation. In
fact, you cannot go there and find out what is going on at all. You are
simply informed by two young soldiers -- one from Egypt and one from
Scandinavia -- "the director isn't here." Is that what they say to the
mothers of the missing?

If so, then that's too bad. Because the truth is: No one in Kosova or Serbia
will sleep in peace until justice is done.


Alice Mead is an American author and a human rights activist.


Ky shkrim mund te ribotohet me kusht qe te theksohet autori dhe gazeta Zeri,
Prishtine.