Picture of the Day - Blerim Shala to Head Preparations for Kosovo Status Talks
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Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Picture of the Day - Blerim Shala to Head Preparations for Kosovo Status Talks
Picture of the Day - Blerim Shala to Head Preparations for Kosovo Status Talks
Originally uploaded by kosovareport.
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Serbs Tried To Cover Up Massacre;
Kosovo Reprisal Plot Bared by Phone Taps
By R. Jeffrey Smith
The Washington Post
January 28, 1999
RACAK, Yugoslavia, January 27, 1999
The attack on this Kosovo village that led to the killing of 45 ethnic Albanian civilians 12 days ago came at the orders of senior officials of the Serb-led Belgrade government who then orchestrated a coverup following an international outcry, according to telephone intercepts by Western governments.
Angered by the slaying of three soldiers in Kosovo, the officials ordered government forces to "go in heavy" in a Jan. 15 assault on Racak to search out ethnic Albanian guerrillas believed responsible for the slayings, according to Western sources familiar with the intercepts.
As the civilian death toll from the assault mounted and in the face of international condemnation, Yugoslavia's deputy prime minister and the general in command of Serbian security forces in Kosovo systematically sought to cover up what had taken place, according to telephone conversations between the two.
Details of the conversations, which were made available by Western sources, shed new light on the attack and its aftermath, which have again brought NATO to the brink of confrontation with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic over his government's repression of separatist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. The calls show that the assault on Racak was monitored closely at the highest levels of the Yugoslav government and controlled by the senior Serbian military commander in Kosovo -- a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic.
The bodies of 45 ethnic Albanian civilians were discovered on a hillside outside the village by residents and international observers shortly after the government forces withdrew.
"We have to have a full, independent investigation of this to get to the bottom of it," a senior Clinton administration official told staff writer Dana Priest in Washington. "Those responsible have to be brought to justice."
In a series of telephone conversations, Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic and Serbian Interior Ministry Gen. Sreten Lukic, expressed concern about international reaction to the assault and discussed how to make the killings look as if they had resulted from a battle between government troops and members of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army.
The objective was to challenge claims by survivors -- later supported by international monitors -- that the victims had been killed in an execution-style massacre and to defuse pressures for a NATO military response.
Sainovic is the highest-ranking official in the Yugoslav government responsible for Kosovo matters and has been present at most negotiations with top Western officials; several Western officials said they understand that he reports to Milosevic on Kosovo issues. "We often see him as the link between the government in Belgrade and the administration down here" in Kosovo, one official said.
Yugoslav army and Serbian Interior Ministry troops have waged an 11-month campaign against ethnic Albanian guerrillas seeking independence for Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs 9 to 1 but Serbs hold all the power. At least 1,000 civilians have been killed in the conflict.
Under an October accord imposed on Milosevic with the threat of NATO airstrikes, the Yugoslav leader agreed to withdraw some of his forces from Kosovo, and the conflict eased as both sides maintained - - albeit sporadically -- an unofficial truce.
That changed in this farming village when army and Interior Ministry troops converged on the area. As a result of the attack, the village has been transformed into a ghostly place, bathed in dense, damp fog that cloaks ice-covered thickets and leafless trees. Many of its houses were shattered by direct fire from three T-55 army tanks. Now there are only a few dogs, a handful of braying donkeys and scores of other barnyard animals where more than 1,500 ethnic Albanians once lived.
One source familiar with the phone calls between military leaders in Kosovo and officials in Belgrade on Jan. 15 and succeeding days said they show that "the intent was to go in heavy" to find three guerrillas whom government security officials blamed for the ambush of an Interior Ministry convoy on Jan. 8 southwest of Racak in which three soldiers died. "It was a search and destroy mission" with explicit approval in Belgrade, the source said.
As tank and artillery fire and the chatter of machine-guns echoed off the hills surrounding Racak, Sainovic called Lukic from Belgrade, according to Western sources. Sainovic was aware that the assault was underway, and he wanted the general to tell him how many people had been killed. Lukic replied that as of that moment the tally stood at 22, the sources said.
In calls over the following days, Sainovic and Lukic expressed concern about the international outcry and discussed how to make the killings look like the result of a pitched battle. Their efforts to cover up what occurred continued, the Western sources said.
One measure Sainovic advocated in his calls was to seal Kosovo's border with Macedonia to prevent Louise Arbour, a top U.N. war crimes investigator, from entering. Arbour was turned back. Another was to demand that Interior Ministry troops fight to regain control of the killing site and reclaim the bodies. Serbian forces launched a second assault on the village Jan. 17, and the following day they seized the bodies from a mosque and transferred them to a morgue in Pristina, the provincial capital.
A third was to explore whether the killings could be blamed on an independent, armed group that supposedly came to the region and attacked the residents of Racak after government troops had left. Sainovic was told that making this claim was not feasible.
Shortly after the attack, a Yugoslav government spokesman said that the bodies found on the hillside were armed, uniformed members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The account was challenged by international inspectors and journalists who arrived on the scene Jan. 16 and found dozens of corpses on the ground, all in civilian clothes.
Government officials later alleged that some of the victims were accidentally caught in a cross-fire between security forces and the rebels or were deliberately slain by the guerrillas to provoke international outrage. But survivors, diplomatic observers and rebels who were in the area at the time of the killings say that little shooting occurred inside the town early in the the assault and that no battle was underway at around 1 p.m., when most of the victims are said to have died. These sources say that Kosovo Liberation Army forces were not deployed near a gully where at least 23 of the bodies were found, and that none of the trees in the area bore bullet marks suggestive of a battle.
A team of forensic pathologists that arrived in Kosovo from Finland last Friday, a week after the killings, has found nothing to contradict these accounts, according to a Western official. "A picture is beginning to emerge from the autopsies, and it is a tragic one," said another source, explaining that the types of wounds on the victims indicate that they were "humiliated" before being fired on from several directions.
The last of 40 autopsies were to be completed today, and the Finnish pathologists say their final report will be ready by next week. But their preliminary conclusion is consistent with an account given on Jan. 16 by Imri Jakupi, 32, a resident of Racak who said he escaped death by running into the woods. He said that he and other men had been rounded up by security forces in house-to-house searches and ordered to walk along a ravine before troops "started shooting from the hills at us. . . . Firing came from all over."
According to Shukri Buja, 32, the commander of guerrilla forces in the area, Racak was home to many rebels, as government security officials suspected. But he said that most of them were driven into the hills early Jan. 15 by a wave of artillery and tank fire. "We were shot at from three sides . . . and they moved their forces during the day, so it was very hard for us to come down into the village," Buja said.
Villagers told inspectors and reporters at the scene on Jan. 17 that many of the dead were last seen alive in the hands of Interior Ministry troops, who said they were under arrest. Many of the troops involved in the operation wore black ski masks, but survivors said they recognized some local policemen and Serbian civilians in uniforms.
Jakupi and another Racak resident, Rem Shabani, told reporters that they overheard some of what the troops were saying on their walkie-talkies as two groups of men were being led away from the village.
"How many of them are there?" one soldier asked. When the reply came back as 29, Shabani recalled, the order given was: "Okay, bring them up." Yakupi said he then overheard another order: "Now get ready to shoot." He fled before the shots rang out.
THE RACAK CASE IN THE BELGRADE MEDIA
Helsinki Watch
Belgrade, February 1999
A detailed analysis of the media treatment of the Racak case indicates serious regression in the FRY independent media, which in previous periods, under much more difficult conditions, managed to preserve not only their own position and status, but also their moral integrity. In the past years journalists were most consistent advocates and protagonists of democratic ideas by boldly opposing the regime, seriously treating relevant information and engaging in a competent research and analytical journalism. At the same time they represented the most serious resistance group to the regime in the years when Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina suffered the worst stages of ethnic-cleansing and genocide and nationalistic hysteria and hatred dominated all territories of former Yugoslavia. But the current journalistic production is a far cry from the earlier one. Since the opening of the Kosovo issue, the independent media treated this primary political issue of the Serbian political life almost in the same way as the regime-controlled media. Hence the former, in a very irresponsible way, adjusted to the media scheme engineered by the authorities, in order to preserve their own position in the period after the signing of the Kosovo agreement. Consequently, since the last fall, the independent media stopped articulating the public interest, something which they more or less successfully did at the outset of the crisis.
As the number of dailies increased ("sickness" of transition), journalistic potential split and became fragmented, which ultimately hurt an already wobbly profession. When many editors became aware of the advantages of international donations, they started abandoning their papers and launching the new ones. But the new ones failed to reach the standards of the old ones, although they tried hard to eliminate them as rivals. Examples: Nasa Borba-Danas, Blic-Glas javnosti.
All this resulted in a drastical reduction of quality of daily information. Hence, in order to be properly informed one needs to read several papers. Both readers and journalists are dissatisfied. But as there are thousands of unemployed journalists and nobody is trying to help them, not even the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia, the employed ones are 'happy' to get their salaries.
International organizations, donors above all, have many reasons to reassess the work of the independent media, to analyze their wrong calculations and the fact that they allowed local lobbies, motivated by personal, rather than group interests, to influence them.
In the light of the aforementioned it was logical that weakened and fragmented media failed to respond in an adequate way to the most violent crackdown of the authorities, strategically planned and executed at the end of Holbrooke-Milosevic negotiations and signing of the agreement, which resulted in the decrees on the closing down of dailies Nasa Borba, Danas, Dnevni Telegraf. Decrees were followed by the enforcement of the Information Act which made already weakened dailies even more marginal and provincial. Nasa Borba is not published any longer, but as on the media market there is no adequate replacement to it, the authorities can smoothly dictate the rules of conduct in the printed media sphere.
When the sequence of events led to the emergence of the Kosovo issue the topmost leadership of the SRY and Serbia orchestrated the media campaign in order to prepare public at large for the future developments, that is to ensure its own survival. Long-standing, persistent national homogenization on the Vidovdan (Kosovo) myth has greatly sensitized voters.
While working out the strategy it was established that it was desirable to form the government of national unity. It came into being on March 1998, when the Radical Party members entered the power structures. Since then the media focus was on Kosovo, as "the uppermost issue of all Serbian issues." Namely both the state-controlled and para-state media centered on the governments' activities related to Kosovo.
When the Radical Party and the Serbian Renewal Movement joined the government it helped the regime simulate the allegedly general support for its Kosovo policy and the settlement of the crisis. The most powerful media in Serbia, notably the Radio-Television Serbia every day articulates the non-existing joint stand of all strata of society on the resolution of the current crisis and depict the ruling elite as the most competent and serious part of the society. Time slots in the news broadcasts and other information/current affairs programs are given only to those politicians who fit this scheme, while the others are evaded. For example the media simulate that the national unity government ensured general consensus of all relevant political factors on all key issues. Thus the created image is the one of a homogenous society without confrontations and differences. By extension this homogeneity means massive support to authorities who competently rule the country under conditions of complex relations with powerful and anti-Serb international community. In this way all different opinions and even ideas about forming a political alternative are eliminated. The state and national interests must have priority over any particular or group interest. Hence President of Independent Trade Unions of Serbia, Tomislav Banovic, advised the educational professionals not to strike, as "the eve of the Rambuieu Conference is not the right time for strike." In other words Kosovo problem is the most serious problem with which the society is faced, and the entire social potential should be engaged in efforts to solve this problem.
At the same time extremely anti-American footage is being broadcast (the US being the key player in the resolution of the Kosovo crisis), which stimulates the other party to prolong the isolation of the country.
In this scheme of things the Kosovo crisis is depicted as a consequence of terrorist and criminal activities of Shiptari terrorists which threaten both the past and future of the country. That strategic orientation was confirmed by all the state-controlled media (both the print and electronic ones) in their treatment of the village Racak case.
But what is happening with the independent media, notably, dailies?
A certain degree of professionalism was achieved in the information pages, because some papers used to cover Kosovo developments from both the Serbian and Kosovar angle. But some independent media, alike their state-controlled counterparts, in that second angle included the opinions and statements of international community, widely considered "an ally of Shiptari." In the Racak case, William Walker was criticized for siding with "the terrorists." "By uttering many lies and faking the facts he blamed our state bodies for the massacre, and once again tried to protect terrorists, kidnappers, and murderers." (President of Serbia, Milan Milutinovic, Vecernje novosti, 17 January 1999).
All independent media ran original or re-told agency stories about the Racak case, as well as about other Kosovo developments. But there was an evident lack of editorial effort to research, analyze and establish the genuine facts. Unlike in the past there were no analytical texts which could have contributed to the elucidation of the case. If the first oversight can be justified by lack of correspondents or journalists on the ground, there is hardly any justification for the second one. In actual fact the second 'oversight' could have been intentional. Namely many editorial boards, intimidated by strict enforcement of the Information Act, have opted for middle-of-the-road concepts of Kosovo crisis coverage and presentation.
The absence of the media support to some moves of international representatives, which could have a long-term bearing on reconciliation in Kosovo and establishment of stability, is also symptomatic of the above trend. This also applies to Walker's appeal that Yugoslav, that is Serbian authorities, should name and punish perpetrators of the Racak crime.
There was no adequate response to the Skopje statement of the Hague prosecutor, Louise Arbour, after her abortive attempt to cross the Yugoslav border: "I do not know who is responsible for the Racak massacre, but I know who is impeding investigation." News coverage of this event was ample.
In all print and electronic media the Kosovo Liberation Army was quoted as "so-called KLA", as well as "separatist and terrorist organization." Not a single medium tried to analyze the reasons underlying the emergence of this organization and its actions.
News are placed and presented with great inconsistency and confusion (particularly on the front-pages). In that sense most inconsistent is daily Danas. The SENSA agency news on the Hague Tribunal-NATO cooperation, after the session of the NATO Council, was headlined "How many divisions Lousies Arbour has" (19 January). The text than explained the stupidity of the headline, but the latter was nonetheless bannered.
On 19 January Danas also ran a front-page story headlined -CIA uses Walker to provoke the NATO intervention-. At the same time the statement of Melissa Fleming - "Walker is not partial"-was presented with quotation marks.
Glas javnosti plainly imitated the state-controlled media when its editor-in-chief, in his commentary, accused Walker of the lack of criteria. Something similar happened in the Radio B 92 interview with Walker, when the radio's interviewer (in his tone and manner of asking questions) demonstrated that he more interested in expressing his "patriotic standpoint" than in probing for information relevant to the Racak case.
In the Racak case independent media somehow fitted in the state-run media scheme, which excludes all those media which do not back efforts of the ruling coalition: hence the independent media had no coverage of the Albanian opinions and analysis of the Racak case. These media only occasionally ran statements of Kosovars related to the negotiating process.
The most salient example of the above is daily Blic which, within its medley of news also sells serious political information in the shape which is most suited to the large public, as proved by its 200,000 copies circulation. In comparison with other papers, Blic's coverage of the Racak case was highly informative. This daily also showed the right instinct to immediately establish the necessary distance. The most illustrative example of the above was its coverage of the press conference at which Vice Presidents of the Serbian government, Markovic, Seselj and Bojic accused the CIA of trying to financially organize the toppling of the regime in Serbia. While Danas ran a straightforward front-page story about the event, Blic on that very day had a complete information that a 'notorious' document was not the CIA paper, but the one published by the Institute for Peace. This article indicated the true motives behind the Government's move. Added to that the paper provided most relevant information on the Racak case.
Motivated by an unhidden ambition to be the spokesmen of so-called Third Serbia, some independent media go to great lengths to avoid irritating the official or the regime's versions of Kosovo developments. This means that they are not bent on providing the necessary information. In fact they act like political parties on the eve of elections. Hence they abandon the position of the "consciousness of people" and start pursuing their own political project. This has happened to Radio B 92, which despite substantive financial backing has a very poor program- only two, 30 min. long informative, i.e. news programs a day. Its critical tone has become very sophisticated, and 90% of broadcasting time are dedicated to musical programs. Coverage of Kosovo developments is rather biased and full of 'patriotic' tone. One of the most indicative examples of the above is the aforementioned interview with W. Walker regarding the Racak case.
Listeners of this radio still have not been told whether the highly important program of the Radio Free Europe, dedicated the current events on the entire ex-Yu territory, will be aired again. From the radio-station which aspires to be the leader in the information field (in the 21st century) such a move is justifiably expected.
The case of Dnevni Telegraf illustrates amply the situation in the field of the independent media. Namely this daily aspires to be the indisputable leader of all independent media, although it has never been truly independent. To date not a single text was written on how much S. Curuvija's (the paper's editor-in-chief) falling out with Mira Markovic contributed to the regime's hard crackdown on independent media, and to the passing of the Information Act.
Conclusion
The analysis of the media, notably the independent ones, clearly indicates that in recent months the differences between the "patriotic" and "anti-war" sections of society have grown smaller. The latter abandons its original positions, and asks nor more questions which used to distinguish it from the former. The fact that the opposition, and a good number of the independent media, have never posed the question of who is responsible for the war and the economic collapse in the country, has obviously contributed to this closing of ranks between the originally opposed groups.
Assessing that the end of Milosevic's regime is approaching, a part of the patriotic bloc is rapidly distancing itself from him and becoming the harshest critic of his policy. It builds its strategy on the Kosovo issue, convinced that this issue will be the cause of Milosevic's downfall. However they still do not dare pose the question of who is responsible for the war, enormous financial losses, crimes, casualties, everyday suffering of people, and the overall regression of the Serbian society. But this change of heart indicates also that they are trying to ensure their social positions in any future political set-up and simultaneously avoid responsibility for taking part in this regime.
The anti-war bloc embodied in the independent media also contributes to this strategy of collective oblivion and inclusion in the new processes of transition. They also reckon on their new positions in a future political milieu. This conformist position is reflected in its current efforts to present reality which has nothing to do with the way thing really are. Finally this indicates that they take an inflated view of their own importance and role in the political scene of Serbia.
December 23, 2004
Press Release
Members of the State Security took part in the destruction of evidence of the war crimes in Kosovo
Belgrade - Nataša Kandić, the executive director of the Humanitarian Law Center
The cover-up of the war crimes committed in Kosovo in 1998 and during the NATO bombardments was, above all, a police activity carried out by the most trustworthy men of the late of the head of Ministry of Interior Affairs of Serbia, Vlajko Stojiljković, of the former President of the Government of Serbia, Nikola Šainović, of the one time head of the Public Security, Vlastimit Đorđević, and the former head of the State Security, Rade Marković. In the south of Serbia, the trustworthy person was Dragomir Tomić, a high official of the Government and the Parliament of Serbia at the time of Slobodan Milošević, the owner of Simpo Company today, whose understanding and support were essential for the organization and transport of the corpses from Kosovo to the area of Vranje and Surdulica. In the implementation of this "patriotic duty", from Kosovo via Bujanovac, members of the Special Operations Unit [Red Berets], local heads and chiefs of the State Security, and the director of the Mačkatica factory, its owner today, took part. In Surdulica, everybody knows that, in the said factory, during NATO bombardment, corpses from Kosovo were incinerated. However, nobody dares speak about it in public because all those who took part in it are still in power. In order to prevent the eyewitnesses from speaking in public, the local chiefs of the State Security had forced them to sign statements about the "peace of mind" wherein they had allegedly declared that "they feel no psychological pressure to speak about what had happened" in Mačkatica in May 1999. While the eyewitnesses are in fear for the lives of their children and for their own lives, the union of those who had issued orders for, and those who had taken part in, the cover-up of the crimes, is still, without hindrance, engaged in its basic activity - the plunder of Serbia and its citizens, the activity they had been engaged in even prior to the incineration of the corpses. In every other country they would have been under the scrutiny of the organs of investigation and of the courts, except for Serbia, where the criminal activities of the groups and individuals inside institutions are known as patriotism and the fight for the Serbian people. Despite the fact that Serbia had not distanced itself from the policy and the criminal practice of the former regime, it has no other option but to submit to the basic principles of responsibility of a state which indicates opening of a parliamentary debate on the mass graves in Serbia, initiation of investigations concerning the alleged incineration of the bodies of the Kosovo Albanians and the punishment of the members of the police and all others who took part in it.
According to the data received by the Humanitarian Law Center from a number of independent sources, the incineration of the bodies in the Mačkatica factory occurred twice, on May 16 and 24, 1999, after midnight, with the security provided by the Red Berets who, at the time, had a base in the village of Bele Vode, near Vranje. According to those data, Milorad Luković Legija, the then commander of the Red Berets, had personally accompanied a load of corpses and was present at the incineration. The bodies were incinerated in the "field furnaces" Nos. 4 and 5. Judging by the comments in the State Security in Surdulica, immediately after the incineration, there had been children among the victims.
The receipt and the organization of the incineration of the corpses were carried out by Stošić Zoran, the then head of the State Security for the Pčinja District, today inspector general of the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Serbia for Vranje, Leskovac, Niš and Prokuplje, Bratislav Milenković, the chief of the Security and Information Agency [SIA] for Vladičin Han, Surdulica and Bosiljgrad, Dragan Stanković, the head of the Office of Interior Affairs in Surdulica since 1993, Miroslav Antić, the head of SIA in Vranje, Dragan Lakićević, who used to be the director if the Mačkatica factory and who is, today, the owner of the said factory, and his deputy, Aca Đorđević.
At the time the TAM 110 military vehicles with the corpses were arriving, Bratislav Milenković and Dragan Stanković removed the regular security of the factory and posted the police security, under the control of Dragan N. Stanković, Dragoslav Đikić, an employee of the State Security in Surdulica, and Tomislav Veličković, the commanding officer of the Office of Interior Affairs in Surdulica.
In connection with the events in Mačkatica, a number of eyewitnesses forced to sign the "peace of mind" statements and individuals who had learned about what had been happening, contacted the members of the police they had trust in, hoping that an energetic action aimed at an elucidation of the event would ensue. Instead, they were, at the local level, warned not to do that again.
According to the information received by the Humanitarian Law Center, the decision on the use of the Mačkatica factory to incinerate the bodies was prompted by the discovery of the refrigerator truck with corpses near Kladovo, in April 1999. Then the people charged with the "restoration" of the terrain revoked the order to bury the bodies transported from Kosovo via Bujanovac in some inaccessible locations and introduced a new technique of destroying the evidence by incineration.
In connection with the criminal activities of the chiefs of police and the heads of the State Security in Surdulica and Vranje, in September 2004, a group of unsigned citizens submitted a complaint to the Inspector General of the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Serbia, Vladimir Božović, to the director of SIA of Serbia, Rade Bulatović, to the Minister of Interior Affairs, Dragan Jočić, and the President of the Government of Serbia, Vojislav Koštunica, with the evidence on the abuse of authority. Until this day, nobody has commented on this evidence which, with the information about racketeering, embezzlement, fictitious payments, illegally acquired property and other types of criminal activities including the incineration of the State Security documentation, elucidates the role of the "patriots" and the fighters for the Serbian people at the time of NATO bombardment and following the removal of the regime of Slobodan Milošević.
May 25, 2005
Report
Srebrenica Crime Denied at Belgrade Law Faculty
Belgrade - Srebrenica Crime Denied at Belgrade Law Faculty
The crimes committed against the Bosniak population in 1995 were denied during the 'Truth About Srebrenica' panel discussion organized by the student association 'Nomokanon' at the Belgrade Faculty of Law on 17 May. Participants insisted that no crime at all took place and that the victims were soldiers of the 'Muslim army sacrificed by Alija Izetbegović to provoke a foreign military intervention'.
The event was marked by chants of support for the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić lasting several minutes each. Tens of young men in the audience wore T-shirts bearing the emblem of the ultra-nationalistic movement 'Obraz' and the inscription 'Serb Hero Karadžić'. The symbols of the disbanded Special Operations Unit (JSO) were also in evidence.
The citizens who turned up at the Faculty to protest against the panel discussion, numbering several score, were greeted with shouts of 'Ustashe!', 'Sorosites!', 'Traitors!, 'Faggots!', 'Croats, we're gonna kill all of you!' The protesters were also threatened with having 'yellow stars' pinned to their sleeves. Most protesters walked out after some ten minutes to continue their protest outside the Faculty building and only a few NGO representatives remained inside.
The event started with a clapping of hands which went on for several minutes. When the journalist Ljiljana Bulatović greeted the audience with a three-finger salute, a number of spectators reciprocated, rose to their feet and chanted 'Karadžić, Karadžić!' In a highly charged atmosphere marked by several incidents verging on clashes between supporters and protesters, Bulatović went on record as announcing that the 'tenth anniversary of the liberation' of Srebrenica was being marked this year. She then went on to explain that the 'liberation of Srebrenica is associated not only with the general, the army leader Ratko Mladić, but those who suffered terror at the hands of [Srebrenica Bosniak forces commander] Naser Orić and other foreign mafiosi'.
Bulatović called the memorial to the victims at Potočari a 'fictitious location and an occupied part of Republika Srpska where they [the Bosniaks] claim the victims of Ratko Mladić lie' and suggested the Bosniaks 'relocate the memorial to their territory'. 'In my research and the book I am writing, I insist that they move their mezari [local Turkish word meaning 'graves'] to their territory because they are occupying fertile land which people ought to be able to cultivate; also, they shouldn't have denigrated their casualties - by whom they swear for a reason, since they were their combatants - by transferring them from their territory to a place where they are not welcome.'
In a reference to the RS Army, Bulatović insisted that 'no one should feel ashamed of those who were at the head of the Serb people in their struggle for survival.' Her address was punctuated with bursts of applause and cheering.
One of Slobodan Milošević's legal counsel, the attorney Dragoslav Ognjanović, said that the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation had recently completed an 'expert's report which states, among other things, that Serbia and the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia] have nothing to do with the Srebrenica crime.' In Ognjanović's view, the events at Srebrenica were a tragedy, but the lies about that crime are an even greater tragedy.
The retired army general Radovan Radinović agrued that although the Srebrenica crime had brought discredit on all, the greatest responsibility for it was borne by the United Nations and UNPROFOR under whose protection Srebrenica was at the time. He said that the information relevant to the crime must not be taken as 'gospel truth', that no ethnic cleansing took place in the enclave, and that its population was not relocated by force.
The Director of the Humanitarian Law Center, Nataša Kandić, who was repeatedly insulted during the discussion, observed that general Radinović had spoken 'as a soldier, and what's important is that he repeated several times that he would bear the burden of that crime until he lives.' 'Unfortunately,' she added, 'no one at this panel thought to raise the question of coming to terms with a burden that's already there.' 'The journalist Ljiljana Bulatović defended the system under Milošević and she continues to defend it with the same fervour with which she defends Milošević,' Kandić said.
Kandić was escorted from the lecture hall to the open space outside the Faculty building by several panel stewards, and they had to struggle hard to keep the 'Obraz' members at bay as they poured abuse on Kandić ('Bitch!', 'Turkish scum!', etc.) and tried to get at her. This continued on the street and the stewards asked the four traffic police officers standing outside the building to give Kandić protection. Kandić was addressing reporters close to where the policemen stood when a youth from the crowd spat at her. The policemen grabbed the youth by the hand to stop him following Kandić as she left the scene in the company of the reporters. The police declined to say whether the youth had been taken into custody.
'Our police obviously do not think that their task is to enable the citizens to attend public gatherings without being molested and hear opinions they disagree with. This is not part of their job description because most of them agree whith those who spoke at the Faculty of Law and approve of what took place in Srebrenica. I think that the nongovernmental organizations are largely agreed that the kind of hate speech journalist Ljiljana Bulatović resorted to in her address must not be tolerated. We must not pass over her speech because it was voices like hers that called down the crimes on us,' Nataša Kandić said.
The Faculty of Law panel discussion was scheduled a month ago and later cancelled under pressure from nongovernmental organizations and the public. The event was condemned by the Belgrade University Rector, Dejan Popović, who said that the proper thing would have been to pay tribute to the Srebrenica victims rather than chant slogans and engage in rituals which are out of place in 21-century Europe. If the organizers had wanted to tell the truth about Srebrenica, they ought to have been aware that the Hague tribunal had passed a final judgement in connection with the crime; or, if they consider the tribunal illegitimate, they ought to have taken account of the public acknowledgement of the Government of the Republic of Serbia as to who committed the crime and its proportions, Popović said. He accused the organizers of allowing the panel discussion to turn into incidents of which every decent person is ashamed.
According to the findings of a commission set up by the Government of the Republic of Serbia, Serb forces executed 7,900 Bosniaks in Srebrenica on 10-19 July 1995.
July 29, 2005
Press Release
Serbian Government reinforces campaign against NGOs dealing with the past
Belgrade - Government in Serbia is reinforcing the campaign against Non-Government Organizations advocating acknowledgement of the past and delivering of the facts on recent history. Trough public assaults and confrontation against NGOs, members of the Serbian Government and other state administration bodies, directly offer support to radical groups and grant the space for public lynch over those who only provide facts on Serbian role in war operations on territory of ex Yugoslavia.
In latest wave of assaults on NGOs, statement given by Russian president Putin was used as „best model for conclusion of the conversation with NGOs“. Serbian Parliament speaks about several NGO representatives as of „immoral, insignificant persons, whose work is aimed against Serbia“. Radical groups attack the media reporting on statements issued by Non Government organizations. Death treats were forwarded to RTV B92 and Danas daily.
Even with phone and internet treats sent to NGOs on daily basis, governing politicians are often publicly accusing NGOs for being „ a restrain to process of normalization in Serbia“.
BIA director Rade Bulatovic, openly stated that the agency follows the activities of several NGOs, but did not respond to opened letter sent by eight NGOs asking for elaboration of his statement. In spite of opened treats coming from Serbian Radical Party, addressing the Court, state administration did not react to statements issued by high rankers of this party claming that „if Natasa Kandic, director of Humanitarian Law Center, is not sentenced, half of million people are going to be on the streets until October 15“. Director of Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, Sonja Biserko, was physically attacked in several occasions in front of her building. Tear gas was thrown at calm protest organized by Women in Black bounded for ten-year anniversary of genocide in Srebrenica. Police did not act in order to prevent the incident. Billboards placed by Youth Initiative for Human Rights, serving as reminder of genocide in Srebrenica, were completely ruined and covered in graffiti „ustase“ and „get out of Serbia“ etc. Bomb treats are arriving to addresses of NGOs together with warnings that some are bound to end up under the „car tires“ or with „rock around their neck in the bottom of Sava river“. Members of NGOs are identified on the lists of „Zionist collaborators“, „hit lists“, „Serbian scum“ and „paid scoundrels that need to be exterminated“.
Serbian media, under the excuse of free press, publish insulting and fibbed articles, practically requesting lynch of several NGO representatives as well as politically engaged individuals. Public and authorities in Serbia have been regularly informed on these facts; even several criminal complaints were filed. However, appropriate action failed out. Considering Serbian Government directly responsible for safety of its citizens, Group of 8 NGOs expressively requests immediate end to, not only this barbaric campaign, but also to odium towards Non Government sector, reinforced by executive administration itself.
The info can be found at
http://www.hlc.org.yu/english/index.php
Kosovo Atrocity “Cover-up”
IWPR reveals state of secretive exhumations of Kosovo Albanian victims and exposes the reluctance of the authorities to take action against the culprits.
By IWPR contributors in Belgrade and London (23-Dec-02)
The mass graves at the Batajnica are not a sight for those with weak nerves and sensitive stomachs. A semicircular tent covers the excavation pit, which exudes an almost unbearably strong smell.
The stench comes from the bodies of what are believed to be Kosovo Albanians murdered during the conflict there with Serbian forces in 1999, and then transported north as part of an alleged cover-up to ensure the world never knew of the atrocities.
The first exhumed grave in the Batajnica police camp - used to train special antiterrorist units, SAJ - lies in a field close to the right bank of the Danube. The other four are close by, one next to other, at the far end of a firing range, which is about 300 metres long. This space is about 50 by 30 metres and is ringed by a high fence on three sides, made of earth supported by wooden buttresses. (Two other pits have been dug but no bodies were discovered)
The path to the firing range leads through a Yugoslav army barracks and training grounds. Only those who are thoroughly screened twice and possess a special court order can pass through. Until now, no one from the media has been granted access. One journalist was sent back without getting anywhere in spite of the fact that she was accompanied by The Hague tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte.
When an IWPR contributor, the first journalist allowed to attend the exhumation, arrived at the excavation site, one of about 300 bodies was being exhumed from the largest grave, known as Batajnica 5.
A shapeless, black, glittering mass about 2.5 metres down immediately caught the reporter’s eye. It was a mass of plastic bags containing bodies. They had been buried in layers. Some had clearly been pushed into the grave by people, while others had been shoved in by diggers, or tipped in by dumper truck.
The tracks of heavy-duty vehicles and traces of bulldozer blades could still be seen near the surface. Someone had clearly attempted to burn the bodies before they were covered up, according to an IWPR source - a member of large team of experts comprising archaeologists and staff from the Belgrade Institute for Forensic Medicine.
The team is the part of International Commission on Missing Persons, in charge of exhumations and autopsies. The names of the team are being kept secret, as there are people in Serbia who are still very unhappy that the Batajnica exhumations are even taking place.
The archaeologists begin the exhumation procedure by removing the surface layer of soil with the most up-to-date techniques, and then defining the pit and the bodies' positions. The remains found in this space are mapped after which a computer simulation of the grave is made.
The bodies are then dug up and the clothing and the remains of soft tissue removed. Then follows the examination and autopsy, as well as the anthropological analysis of the skeletons. This procedure is carried out in the tent, about 10 meters from the grave. Two tables are reserved for the exhumation team. Medical documentation is compiled at a fourth table on a computer. Various entries are made - gender, age, height, condition of teeth as well as other elements that may identify the body.
The IWPR source said, "Our aim is to determine the cause of death. Wounds inflicted by firearms were found on a number of mainly male bodies exhumed from Batajnica 5. We put together the photo-documentation and a video recording and we send all this to the court. Bone samples are also taken after the examination which can, on a court order, be used for the DNA analysis."
He showed this reporter photographs on a computer screen of items found in the grave, such as jackets, jumpers, trousers, ID cards, drivers' licenses, health-insurance cards, keys, money, cigarette-cases and jewellery. Then, he picked out a wallet containing an almost undamaged ID card, an address book with phone numbers and photographs of two young men and a girl.
The ID card belonged to a middle-aged man, Albanian, from the Djakovica region. "We took photos of all these items and this album can be shown to the relatives of the missing through the International Red Cross," the source said.
At the Batajnica firing range, archaeologists opened another two pits this summer, Batajnica 4 and Batajnica 6, but it turned out that no bodies had been buried in them.
The earth from Batajnica 4 was used to fill up Batajnica 5, whose bodies were dumped in Batajnica 6 and burned. In the latter grave, many car tires alongside piles of human bones were discovered. It has yet to be determined how many bodies were burnt on this pyre. Burnt car tires were also found in other Batajnica graves, but the method of burning the bodies used in Batajnica 1 was different from that used in the other graves. Car tires had been placed at the bottom of this pit, which is about 7 meters wide and 2.5 deep, and covered by planks with nylon sheeting on top. The bodies had then thrown on top of them and doused in petrol.
This apparent attempt to cover up evidence had not been successful. Because the bodies had previously lain in the water, they had become so waterlogged that the fire did not destroy them. It is thought that some of the bodies from the freezer truck that surfaced in the Danube in April 1999 ended up in Batajnica 1.
HOW THE BODIES GOT TO BATAJNICA
The bodies now being excavated in Batajnica, are all believed to be victims of atrocities committed in the Kosovo conflict two years ago. The "clean up" is understood to have been organised by Slobodan Milosevic's officials to destroy evidence of widespread massacres Serbian forces committed in Kosovo in 1999.
The massacre revelations began with the publication in May 2001 of a story in a small local magazine in Zajecar, in eastern Serbia. The Timocka Krimi Revija (Timocka Criminal Review) reported that a refrigerated lorry containing some 50 corpses had been pulled out of the Danube at Kladovo, in eastern Serbia, in April 1999 and that the Milosevic regime had hushed up the whole business.
The magazine said the corpses appeared to have come from Kosovo. Intriguingly, the owner of the paper, Dragan Vitomirovic, who died recently in a car accident, said early in 2001 that he had offered the story to a Belgrade-based privately-owned weekly , close to the Serbian government. Vitomirovic never revealed the name of the title.
Vitomirovic was a former member of Serbia's state security service.After making the aforementioned proposal, he was visited in Zajecar by two current state security officials from Belgrade who told him to say nothing about the case and refrain from publishing any information and articles, Vitomirovic is reported to have said.
News of the freezer lorry spread like wildfire after it was published, as the public had never been informed before about Serbian atrocities. The Serbian interior ministry formed a working group charged with investigating the circumstances surrounding the case, under Dragan Karleusa, deputy chief of the police unit combating organised crime. The media made the story headline news.
They also attempted to investigate the case, though with only limited success. In May 2001, Radio B92 interviewed the man who gave Timocka its exclusive story. Zivojin Djordjevic was the diver who had found the lorry in 1999. The station also spoke to Milivoj Srzentic, the new district prosecutor in Negotin, where the lorry was found.
"It was a Mercedes lorry - the name of the meat processing company from Pec was written in Albanian on the cabin," Djordjevic told B92. "The license plates were from Pec. A huge stone had been placed on the accelerator pedal to send the truck plunging into the water."
He added, "When the lorry was pulled out and the doors of the freezer opened, corpses slid out. There were numerous bodies of women, children and old people. Some women wore Turkish trousers, some children and old people were naked."
While the discovery of the first truck load of corpses in the Danube is now well known, it has only recently come to light that a second refrigerated lorry containing dead Albanians was discovered in similar circumstances at much the same time in April 1999.
This truck was dumped in Lake Perucac, an artificial lake near Bajina Basta, on the border between Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in what is now Republika Srpska. Few even know the truck in Lake Perucac surfaced at practically the same time as the one near Zajecar.
According to a Serbian judicial source, the bodies were first spotted on April 8, 1999, floating on the surface of the lake upstream from the nearby dam. The first officials notified were the police department in Bajina Basta, and the chief of police in Uzice.
The police chief first suspected they might be the bodies of people killed in clashes in Bosnia but did not wish to do anything before consulting with his superiors in Belgrade. "He called Vlastimir Djordjevic, then chief of public security, asked him what he should do and suggested the prosecutor's office and the courts be notified," the source said.
Djordjevic told him to immediately send two police inspectors to Perucac. He said he wanted to be informed of their report immediately, but asked the police chief not to mention anything to representatives of the judiciary. The judicial source added that when the inspectors from Uzice and a diver from Bajina Basta reached the spot, they discovered two female and five male bodies floating on the surface of the lake.
They were told to sink the bodies, which they did by tying heavy stones to them. But it turned out that these were only a few of a larger number of bodies. About 24 hours after they were sunk, the freezer truck surfaced, though without the chassis and the motor.
The police were alarmed and the team in charge of covering up the evidence was reinforced. They first tried to sink the lorry but it proved impossible. Nor could a crane lift it from the lake. As a result, the bodies were put into metal baskets used for cleaning the dam, lifted to shore by crane and then loaded into a truck.
Because of the strong smell, the policemen wore protection masks. They noticed that some bodies were slightly burnt, while others had no heads or limbs, and there were traces of earth on them. The judicial source said there are indications the police knew how the truck had ended up in the lake.
A number of Yugoslav army reservists, staying at a nearby hotel during the NATO bombing, claimed that one night, as they were guarding the border, they saw members of state security push the freezer truck into the water.
The bodies were eventually buried on a cliffside, at a spot where the Derventa river runs into Lake Perucac. An IWPR contributor could see a pit had been dug up along the left river bank, some 20 meters from the local road. It must have caught the attention of many passers-by in the first few months. One of the men who took part in this operation is reported to have complained to his colleagues, “We were asked to do this urgently and very fast, and to make sure that as few people see it as possible. But that was impossible.” The exhumation of this pit was carried out in September 2001.
The investigating judge at Uzice district court, Momcilo Krivokapic, told IWPR that 48 bodies had been recovered - 26 whole ones and 22 in parts. An ID card found along with jewellery, money and a ballpoint pen suggested these were victims from the Djakovica region. Krivokapic added that bone samples have been sent to the labs for DNA analysis.
MILOSEVIC REGIME “BLOCKS” INVESTIGATION
The Serbian interior ministry under Milosevic is believed to have blocked all investigations of the first lorry-load of corpses in the Danube. The prosecutor from Negotin, Milivoje Srzentic, said he had asked the state prosecutor at the time, Krsta Majstorovic, why no investigation was taking place. Majstorovic had apparently answered, "Because nothing has happened".
It has since been revealed that Vlajko Stojiljkovic, Milosevic's interior minister, and Vlastimir Djordjevic, then chief of public security, had instructed the district chief of police, Colonel Caslav Golubovic, to refrain from launching any investigation.
They had ordered him to transfer the bodies to Belgrade, as the whole case had been declared a "state secret". Both Golubovic, now retired, and Bosko Radojkovic, who led the investigation in the field, have testified on this before The Hague tribunal.
The day after the discovery of the lorry, on April 7, 1999, the corpses were taken by truck to the police training compound in Petrovo Selo, in eastern Serbia, where the truck was destroyed with 30 kilograms of explosives. The prosecution office at The Hague tribunal is conducting its own investigation, according to Jim Langdale, spokesman for the court's registry and chambers department.
The director of the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre, Natasa Kandic, has condemned the affair as a heinous crime. The people in the freezer lorry, she believes, may well be on the list of between 1,300 and 2,000 Albanians missing since the Kosovo conflict. "The Serbian government must launch an investigation into facts surrounding the removal of evidence," Kandic said. She said there were serious indications that the Serbian police and Yugoslav army jointly destroyed evidence of atrocities committed against Kosovo Albanians during the NATO bombardment.
BODIES CLAIMED TO HAVE BEEN BURNED ON FACTORY CONVEYOR BELTS
An investigation by Kandic has concluded that between March 24 and June 12, 1999, the bodies of at least 800 murdered Albanians, including old people, women and children, were transported from their initial burial sites to secret locations in Kosovo and Serbia. The corpses were then burned, or reburied.
On the night of May 17, 1999, the bodies of 87 Kosovo Albanians were removed from graves in Djakovica, for example. In addition, Kandic said the bodies of around 130 men executed in Izbica were taken from their mass grave and transported to an unknown location.
Similar claims were aired in a documentary programme broadcast on the American public radio station ARW on January 25, 2001. It alleged that Serbian special forces, acting on the orders of "a close Milosevic ally", burnt the bodies of about 1,500 murdered Kosovo Albanian civilians in the blast furnace of the Trepca mining complex in spring 1999. "The aim was to destroy the remains of those killed as if they had never existed," an ex-member of Serbian special forces, calling himself only Dusko, told the programme. "Whole villages were destroyed and their inhabitants killed."
According to the testimony of a driver of one of the lorries that took the remains to Trepca, named Branko, around 120 corpses of women and children came from Izbica alone. The bodies, he said, were taken first to the mills used for grinding minerals and then fed by conveyor belt into the furnace. "It was a horrifying scene," said Branko. "The conveyor belt was like the one in any other factory, only it was moving corpses."
The two interviewees are not prepared to testify at The Hague tribunal. A Western official, who wants to remain anonymous, told IWPR the court possessed evidence that Serbs removed all the evidence of the mass burning from the Trepca mine but added, "Those who know about it do not wish to come forward and testify."
NEW GOVERNMENT FAILS TO INVESTIGATE
The chief of Serbian public security, General Sreten Lukic, was in charge of the Kosovo police during the war. When the first freezer truck case was revealed in the papers, Lukic claimed he had learnt about it only "through the media" and had been informed more closely and in detail about it "only at end of April 2001".
After the conflict in Kosovo ended, the Yugoslav army launched an investigation into the conduct of 245 soldiers. Charges for crimes committed between March 1, 1998 and June 26, 1999 were brought against 183 of them. But IWPR has learned that none of these charges relates to the Trepca mine or to the Pec freezer lorry.
Details of the judicial proceedings are not known, neither is the identity of the accused. There is some doubt that the trials will ever take place.
Officials in the new regime and members of the judiciary had been expected to comment on the freezer lorry affair. However, the Serbian justice minister, Vladan Batic, and the police minister, Dusan Mihajlovic, have both declined to say anything.
After the federal police minister, Zoran Zivkovic, told B92 radio on May 7, 2001 that the matter was outside his jurisdiction, the Serbian interior ministry announced that a special police investigative unit had been set up to investigate the case under Dragan Karleusa.
After this, it seemed the names of those involved in the crimes and the apparent cover-up would be disclosed within days and the case taken to court. Hopes were raised by statements of police officials, starting with Mihajlovic and Karleusa.
Karleusa told a press conference on May 24, 2001 that his team had established a number of facts. He confirmed that "a working meeting was held in Slobodan Milosevic's office in March 1999" and that besides Milosevic, the then interior minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic, public security chief General Vlastimir Djordjevic, state security chief Radomir Markovic and others had attended. "At this meeting General Djordjevic raised the problem of cleaning up the terrain in the Kosovo region. In connection with this, Milosevic ordered Stojiljkovic to take measures to cover up all traces that could point to evidence of crimes," he said.
During his subsequent testimony to The Hague, Karleusa said that the working group had questioned several police generals who then occupied senior posts in the interior ministry, but all of them had denied involvement in or knowledge of the mass graves.
Karleusa failed to mention whether efforts were made to interrogate SAJ police commander Colonel Zivko Trajkovic who was in command of the Batajnica and Petrovo Selo bases in which the mass graves had been discovered. Trajkovic is currently in prison for the accidental killing of a colleague during hunting trip. A senior police source claimed that Trajkovic actually played a minor role in the mass grave case, because he was merely executing the orders of his superior, Djordjevic.
Since making these statements, no arrests have been made and no charges have been pressed. Excuses may be made for Milosevic and Stojiljkovic, for while Milosevic was transferred to The Hague on June 28, 2001 his former interior minister committed suicide. But it is unclear why the police took no measures against General Djordjevic, who is believed to have been in charge of removing the bodies of Albanians killed in Kosovo.
After the overthrow of the Milosevic regime, Djordjevic was dismissed as public security chief. In March 2001, he was appointed advisor to the Serbian interior ministry and the decision to pension him off was signed six weeks later. Two weeks after that, the interior ministry denied that Djordjevic's retirement was linked to the freezer truck case.
In an interview with the Belgrade-based weekly Vreme in November 2001, Karleusa commented on Djordjevic's role in this operation, "We tried to get in touch with him. I rang him and said, 'Friend, will you come, there's some truck here, the word is that is has something to do with the police.' When he came I asked him, 'Do you know anything about the freezer truck?' He muttered something, but actually never told me anything."
Asked where Djordjevic is now, Karleusa replied, "We have issued a local warrant for his arrest. There have been reports of him in Yugoslavia, Macedonia and Moscow..." An IWPR reporter tried to contact Karleusa, but was told he was unable to issue any press statements following his testimony against Milosevic in The Hague.
IDENTIFICATION OF BODIES GOES ON AT SNAIL'S PACE
The first DNA analysis was carried out in Madrid, where the Serbian authorities sent bone samples from 36 bodies recovered from the Batajnica mass graves. An initial report that just recently arrived from Madrid says two of the bodies have been identified beyond doubt. In mid-May, 2002, Belgrade was donated its first DNA laboratory.
Dr Dusan Dunjic, director of the Institute for Forensic Medicine, where the lab was set up, told IWPR the work of analysing the other bodies is being completed "at full speed". Dr Dunjic declined to say how many DNA analyses had been completed so far, saying he could not comment before all the bodies had been exhumed from all the mass graves.
Insisting no secrets were being kept, he said the biggest problem was that their lab analyses could not establish people's identities. He said a parallel DNA analysis of tissue samples of relatives of the victims was needed before this could happen.
However, the Hague prosecutor William Fulton, who was assigned to work in the tribunal office in Belgrade, testified at the war crimes court on May 28, 2002 that as a result of the exhumation carried out at the first Batajnica site by the experts from the Institute of Forensic Science in Belgrade, a number of items of indentification were recovered. These belonged and referred to people from the Kosovo municipality Suva Reka.
He also testified that identity documents recovered from the second Batajnica site belonged to eight persons from Meja who disappeared on April 27, 1999 and were subsequently registered as missing by the International Red Cross. Amongst them were the names of Ali Bajrami, Simon Sokoli, Sezai Rama, Shyt Hasanaj, Krist Sokoli, Gani Smajili, Qun Bib Krasniqi, Ndue Krasniqi and Brahim Gaxherri.
POLICE STONEWALL JUDGES' REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION
The police appear to have turned a deaf ear to urgent requests from the judges for the identities of those who perpetrated the Kosovo crimes and those who took part in the alleged cover-up. There is no doubt the police knew of the existence of the mass graves from the start and only began doing something about it in spring 2001 following a meeting of the Serbian political leadership. This session decided to resolve the freezer truck case on the special insistence of the interior minister, Dusan Mihajlovic.
In line with his orders, the public security chief, Sreten Lukic, on May 7, 2001 formed an operative team under Karleusa charged with establishing the facts about the truck containing the unidentified bodies and with taking measures based on the findings. To this day, the police have filed no criminal charges against the people mentioned by Karleusa as having been present at the "working meeting" held in Milosevic's office in March 1999, nor have they discovered the identity of the "others" he said had attended the gathering.
Following the exhumations of the first mass graves and the recovery of more than 450 bodies in the autumn of 2001, the police have issued few statements on the matter.
As well as being unable to identify the people who issued the orders to commit these crimes, the police have proved curiously unwilling to release information on those who dug the pits at their training camps, filled them with bodies and covered them up, said the IWPR source in the Serbian judiciary.
The police are unable to turn a deaf ear to all questions, but have generally advised journalists to direct their questions to the judiciary, suggesting they had already done their part of the job. At the same time, some police circles have spread reports that under pressure from the politicians, the courts and the prosecutor's office deliberately hindered the investigation.
This triggered a reaction from the state prosecutor's office in spring 2002, which said it had been unable to launch criminal proceedings against unidentified persons but could only act against persons whose names were found in criminal charges filed by the police.
The police have still not filed any such criminal charges. The IWPR source in the Serbian judiciary believes the prosecutor's office could have reacted more strongly after the police repeatedly ignored its requests.
"The requests filed by the prosecutor's office are very clear as to what the police need to do," the source said. "The police were asked to determine where, when and under what circumstances the Kosovo Albanians had been killed, as well as... exactly what kinds of operations had been launched by the Serbian and Yugoslav authorities in the territory in which it is suspected the murders had been committed."
The source said the police were asked to determine the identity of those who had led these operations and that of the person or persons who had been briefed on the course of these operations and on their results. The prosecutor's office had explicitly demanded information on whether civilians had been treated in an inhuman and brutal manner, and who killed and first buried the victims in Kosovo and who later exhumed the bodies and transferred them to from Petrovo Selo and Perucac to Belgrade.
”COVER UP” OF BITICI BROTHERS CASE
The same source cited the case of the Bitici brothers as a good example of Serbian police obstruction tactics. Argon, Vili and Mehmed Bitici, Albanians with American citizenship, were arrested in June 1999 in Serbia and each sentenced to 15 days in prison for illegally entering Yugoslavia.
They served their sentence in the Prokuplje prison from which they were taken on July 8 that year. A year later, their bodies were discovered in one of the two mass graves in a police training camp in Petrovo Selo, eastern Serbia. All three were wrapped in wire and had blinds over their eyes and head wounds clearly inflicted by firearms.
Their identity was determined in August 2001 at the Belgrade Forensic Institute by FBI pathologists and a team of experts of the American Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, AFIP. The Serbian police said they know who took the Bitici brothers from Prokuplje prison but their names have still not been disclosed.
The prosecutor's office in Negotin, which has jurisdiction over the mass grave in Petrovo Selo, has repeatedly asked the police to step up their work and continue trying to identify those who had issued the orders for the killing of the Bitici brothers as well as to identify the people who acted on these orders and committed the crime.
The prosecutor's office also listed the names of the people who could supply the police with valuable information on this case. The office had informed the police that "there are some suspicions" that the former public security chief Vlastimir Djordjevic organised the kidnapping of the Bitici brothers.
The prosecutor's office underlined that the police needed to find Djordjevic to answer why he had issued orders for the Bitici brothers to be brought to the police training grounds in Petrovo Selo, as well as their transfer from this site.
The prosecutor's office believes the former public security chief may possess knowledge about who issued the orders for the killing of the Bitici brothers and who committed the crime. Besides Djordjevic, the prosecutor's office suggested the police also question Obrad Stevanovic, former assistant interior minister. He was the commander of the so-called operative-chase team of the Serbian interior ministry, whose members took the Bitici brothers from the Prokuplje prison.
The prosecutor's office also asked the police to question the chief of the Serbian gendarmerie, Goran Radosavljevic, known as "Guri", because he had been in professional contact with Djordjevic and when the Bitici brothers were taken to the police training camp, Guri was commander of the facility in Petrovo Selo.
At the same time, the prosecutor's office suggested the police might also question Ljubomir Aleksic, deputy chief of the Serbian interior ministry's police administration department. According to the information that the prosecutor's office and IWPR has seen, Guri's deputy at the time, Rade Djeric, also allegedly participated in digging up the pits and burying the bodies in Petrovo Selo. Pointing out that the police did not do their work promptly, officials from prosecutor's office in November 2002 complained that no progress had been made in the Bitici brothers case from July 2001 to February 2002.
NO ONE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE
The exhumation of Batajnica 7, the fifth mass grave of Kosovo Albanians, began in early November. Unless bad weather conditions get in the way, the exhumation should be completed by the end of the year. This would mark the end of the process of exhuming bodies from all locations discovered so far in Serbia.
The net result of 18 months’ of exhumations are the remains of some 770 people, including those of nine children and of several dozen women. The number will probably increase, because it is believed that the last grave in Batajnica may yield anything from 50 to several hundred bodies. The great unknown is still who killed these people. Was it the police, the army, paramilitary formations, or local Serbs?
Public security chief Sreten Lukic has said that when the state of war was declared, an order was issued that all forces, including the Serbian interior ministry, should subordinate themselves to Yugoslav army command, and that there are written documents to prove this. The suggestion was that the army bore ultimate responsibility for all acts of terror in Kosovo.
A senior police source who took part in the Kosovo war claims that while it would be easy to identify the perpetrators of some of the crimes in the province, it would be impossible in most cases. "It was chaos," he said, "with NATO bombing, us clashing with the Kosovo Liberation Army practically all over the place and various paramilitary and special police forces either plundering or looking for some kind of revenge. It is difficult to say who did what. "
In the meantime, witnesses like Marko, a barman from Kragujevac, central Serbia, are remaining silent. Between 1998 and 1999, he served in a regular Yugoslav army unit in Kosovo, manning the Kosare watch tower on the Albanian border. "We were protecting our border from Albanian terrorists - unfortunately there were those who vented their anger on innocent civilians," he said. Marko said a friend from the same unit, enraged by the death of another friend, killed an Albanian woman by throwing her into a well along with a grenade. Like most men who served in Kosovo, Marko said Serbia was not yet ready to discuss such crimes.
This report was compiled by IWPR reporters in Belgrade and London.
This is why Kosova must be independent, because Serbs are a bunch of people that justify murder and rape just because an estimated number of people (100,000) turned out to be a bit high.
So what if 100,000 were not murdered, you unhappy about this? Would you dance and rejoice if there were 100,000 murdered Albanians and mostly children? I assume you would.
NATO attacked Serbia because Serbia deserved it, each one of the inhabitants of that country rejoiced when Bosnia was attacked, when Croatia was occupied, and when they began the "final solution" for the Albanians.
This country is the shame and disgrace for Europe.
Leave us alone...
We have nothing to do with Serbs so just get off our backs and keep your thirst for blood to yourself. Stop spreading that virus.
Why are the admins sleeping and letting this moron spaming this blog with his wiki bullshit serb propaganda?
Please guys, keep it clean!
To serb moron:
You get stick your wiki-bullshit in your ass, try to sell em to your shumadija villagers, rest of the world rather reads serious sources!
I don't understand--albanians provoked a war and now they complain that people died? What in the hell did you expect? When you form a terrorist movement and start killing people, you will be killed. You asked for it, you got it. Stop your incessant whining for getting what you asked for.
again and again albos only know how to spew garbage out of tehir mouths and surse and scream so i have to speak a languange that u understand u muslim dirt scum. what lies??? tell me one thing that i have posted that is a lie, tell me. yes albos died, just as many serbs died as well, that sucks for both sides but that is not what the point is, teh poin is that u LIED throught ur teeth about he # dead and about what was really going on, u lied and bitched liked a bunch of little lieing muslim ungratful animals which u are. here is a BBC (HUge anti serb propaganda was spewed from the bbc but u still cant hide teh truth even on this site) WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS SOURCE NOW????:
Friday, 7 September, 2001, 14:04 GMT 15:04 UK
Kosovo assault 'was not genocide'
Ethnic Albanian refugees
The court ruled there was no attempt to destroy the Albanian ethnic group
A United Nations court has ruled that Serbian troops did not carry out genocide against ethnic Albanians during Slobodan Milosevic's campaign of aggression in Kosovo from 1998 to 1999.
The controversial ruling by the UN-supervised Supreme Court in the Kosovan capital, Pristina, has angered Albanians, and some UN officials are reported to be preparing to challenge it.
The decision comes as authorities in Serbia begin the excavation of another mass grave believed to contain the bodies of around 50 Kosovar Albanians.
Four graves have already been investigated, revealing the remains of 340 victims.
UN 'unhappy'
The court, Kosovo's highest legal body, said there had been a "systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments".
Slobodan Milosevic
Slobodan Milosevic has not yet been charged with genocide in Kosovo
Crimes against humanity and war crimes did take place, it said, but "the exactions committed by Milosevic's regime cannot be qualified as criminal acts of genocide, since their purpose was not the destruction of the Albanian ethnic group... but its forceful departure from Kosovo".
However the BBC's Paul Wood in Belgrade says that some UN legal officials are deeply unhappy and have begun a campaign to have the ruling overturned.
The decision was based on the 1948 Geneva convention which defines genocide as the intent "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such".
Milosevic debate
The court, which is comprised of two international judges and one Albanian, was ruling on the case of a Serb, Miroslav Vuckovic, convicted of genocide by a district court in Mitrovica.
Grave site
Excavations of mass graves have changed public opinion
International officials have raised concerns about the treatment of Serbs by Kosovo's Albanian dominated judiciary.
Mr Vuckovic's conviction has now been overturned and he will face a retrial in Mitrovica.
The decision is likely to reopen the debate on whether Slobodan Milosevic should face genocide charges at The Hague, where he already stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The tribunal is currently preparing indictments of genocide against Mr Milosevic in connection with atrocities carried out in Bosnia and Croatia.
Mass grave
Serbian authorities in the western Serbian town of Bajina Basta began on Thursday to excavate a mass grave thought to contain the bodies of Kosovo Albanians.
They are believed to have been transported out of the province in an attempt by Mr Milosevic to cover up atrocities and possible war crimes carried out during his campaign of terror.
Serbian police believe around 800 victims of the conflict in Kosovo have been buried around Serbian territory.
The gruesome revelations of the bodies are credited with changing public opinion in Serbia and increasing acceptance that war crimes were carried out under the Milosevic regime.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1530781.stm
Hey buddy don't call me albo, it's Mr. Albo the Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox and Jew to you.
Next time you decide to go about killing civilians there will be another armed movement, not like terrorist cowards, Serb mighy army, hiding behind tanks while burning the vilage.
This sudden attack on the blog by Serbs shows they are out of everything, nothing left for them to do but polute wikipedia and use words like "muslim dirt scum". Its sad, feel like crying.
The funny thing is the Serbs think this propaganda will fly today. It actually worked in 1912, today however, it looks lame and moronic to post information form Wickipedia, which is an encyclopedia created by everyone, whoever feels like adding information there can do so easily.
And I laugh when I look at the effort this poster makes to bombard the blogg with propaganda. The administrator is not sleeping he is letting the blogger receive his embarrassment at his uncultured attempt to prove that the Serbs actually did not kill people, or did not cause seven wars in the past century. Please blogger take a look at your postings, they are truly embarrassing.
You know, the Germans were in a state of denial for an entire generation. Today however, is a different story, they pay money out of their pockets for the holocaust not to be mentioned. They despise their Nazi history and they teach their kids that the Germans have a lot of guilt to bear for the Holocaust. The same fate is awaiting the new serb generation, they will despise blogger like you and all the carz and generals that you claim were victorious.
The Balkans will not forget the Serb atrocities, even if you quote Wickiepedia as your source of information. We will also make sure your new generation knows about what their fathers did every weekend.
hahahhaha WHAT ATROCITIES???? SHOW ME!!!!! again wikipeida is the #1 online dictionary in teh world. I posted fricken BBC ARTICLE WHICH PROVE S THAT TEH UN THE FUCKING UN WHO WAS INSTRUMENTAL IN BREAKING UP YUGO EVEN ADMIST THERE WAS NO GENOCIDE, yes people died becuae of the KLA WHO STARTED THE SHOOTING FIRST in 1996, did u expect that the serbs werent going to shot back????? r u kidding me???? again prove the BBC Article wrong, prove thje fact that u lied cheated and inflated teh numbers to 500,000 and 100,000 dead and there are only 2k mostly KLA albos that DIED! prove that wrong!!! u kicked out 300,000 serbs taht cant go back and u killed thousands of serbs. prove this wrong, stop with the rhetoric propaganda bullhsit "serb atrocites" etc hitler etc if anything its the albos who were hitlers allies and it was the albanicas who for over the last 100 years commited a genocide agaisnt the serbs living in kosovo who are no longer there, u came down from teh mountain where u were making love to ur sheep and settled in kosovo (in 1920 there was less than 100,000 of u, i mean that 100,000 people produced 1.5 million in 80 years!!!!! A HARSH AS IT SOUNDS, SORRY, BUT HOW IS THAT NOT ANIMAL LIKE REPRODUCTION???? HOW? in the 17th 18th cent. there was barly a albo presence there, look at the ottoman census from teh time). again "nacrtenje" was a pieace of paper while u conducted teh work on teh ground like true genocidal nazis. again please stop just saying stupid shite and rhetoric and prove something wrong here concretly, I DARE UR ENTIRE NATION TO ADDRESS MY POINTS!!! after u are done bending over 5 times today and looking towards mecca take at a time out to actuially address teh BBC article, prove it wrong, prove to me that there WAS a genocide, prove to me that u are NOT liars and I will never come back to this site again.
To the Serb blogger why do Serbs decide to ignore what MRS. Kandic has to say or the other NGO's. Why did Serbs threaten to take her life. Why did the Serbian government open a case for her.
And again why are you talking about religion again. Does your brain have the capacity to conclude that people who talk about religion all the time come accross as people who are not to be taken seriously. Even the pope does not talk about religion as much as you do.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_22/b3935405.htm
Natasa Kandic
Founder and Director, Humanitarian Law Center, Serbia and Montenegro
Death threats have become a daily routine for Serbian human-rights activist Natasa Kandic. For 15 years she has doggedly protested the torture, rape, and murder committed by warring factions in the conflict that devastated the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Kandic has earned the hatred of fellow Serbs and military leaders throughout the region -- and won the admiration of human-rights defenders worldwide. "We are slowly forcing the governments to stop denying, to stop covering up," says the 58-year-old.
Since you like BBC here:
World: Europe
Charity warns of Kosovo attrocities
Ethnic Albanians examine half-burned remains of a compatriot
The French humanitarian organisation, Médecins du Monde, has said Serb forces are still waging a campaign of terror against Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.
The French-based charity, which has two teams working in Kosovo, says Serb forces in the province killed villagers and set fire to their homes in a shelling attack this week.
Kosovo Section
Nato decided earlier this week that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic had withdrawn enough forces from the province by a 27 October deadline to avert threatened air strikes.
But Médecins du Monde disputed Nato's assertion.
"Serb forces are still on the ground, the guns and tanks are still there. Special forces remain in the area instilling terror in the people," said Director General Michel Brugier.
Another senior staff member, Olivier Brochu, said special Serb forces were still hiding in the woods - and that one of his teams had seen Serb artillery bombard a small village in south-western Kosovo.
"Our people saw the village in flames. It has been destroyed. There were a lot of deaths," he said.
Refugees 'have nowhere to go'
Doctors working with the charity agreed that Serbian troops had allowed free movement along major roads, and had lifted many of their checkpoints.
[ image: Returns to find Serbs still close to village]
Returns to find Serbs still close to village
But they said this only encouraged tens of thousands of refugees, who had fled their villages earlier this year, to head home, when in fact their villages had been destroyed.
"They have nowhere to go. All their houses have been destroyed, their animals killed," Mr Brochu said.
"What are they expected to do? Between 70-80% of villages south-west of Pristina have been destroyed.
The organisation also disputed reports about improving conditions for Kosovar Albanian refugees, saying 50,000 were still in tents in appalling conditions.
The charity criticised Nato's decision not to go ahead with air strikes, and called for the team of 2,000 international monitors to take up their positions immediately.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/204925.stm
Drenica buries 24 victims of the massacre
100 thousand people attend, many more are prevented by the police
Likoshan & Çirez, 3 March (ARTA) 2030 CET
Around 100 thousand people participated in the burial of 24 Albanians killed during the last weekend in Drenicë. The burial was postponed till late afternoon, as the corpses of other 14 killed, ten of whom were members of the Ahmeti family, were expected to be brought from Prishtina's morgue. They were delivered from there without prior autopsy.
The reason for the delay was that other members of the Ahmeti family were detained by the police on their way to the morgue.
According to the local activists, a truck, which was headed to collect the bodies, was stopped at Komoran police check-point.
Today, the police didn't allow any vehicles to pass through the main road towards Drenicë. Many people were mistreated at this checkpoint. According to eyewitnesses, the corpses were totally massacred, and some of them were missing even some parts of their bodies.
Three of the corpses had not been identified to that point yet, therefore the activists had called all relatives of those who were suspected dead, to approach the corpses and identify them.
**********
Surroi: "Drenica massacre was one of the worst atrocities that Kosova has seen for decades"
In the interview with the BBC, "Koha Ditore" Albanian daily editor-in-chief, Veton Surroi slams on "FRY" president Milosevic as a person "who is endangering the regional security"
Prishtina, 3 March (ARTA) 2230 CET
"Hundreds of thousands of people wanted to get there, at the funeral. According to our journalists reports, there were at least 100.000 people. Tens of thousands were prevented from the police to get there, including the journalists -- some foreign journalists never made it there", said the editor-in-chief of "KOHA Ditore", Albanian Daily from Prishtina, being asked on the present situation in Prishtina today, after the police massacre in Drenica region, and the yesterday’s mass protests of Kosova Albanians in Prishtina.
"It was a mourning day in Kosova", said Surroi describing the funeral event that took place in the raided Drenica villages.
As for the police attack that caused the massacre, Surroi replied that "out of the 25 people who were killed, I can assure you that all of them -- absolutely all -- were victims of the massacre by the Serbian authorities. This is one of the worst atrocities that Kosova has seen in this decade."
What should be the message from UK Foreign Minister, Robin Cook to Milosevic, at their scheduled meeting for tomorrow in Belgrade? -- was another question, for which Surroi thinks "the message that mr. Cook should have towards Belgrade is not that the EU will not be linking itself with what is called ‘Yugoslavia’ in economic relations, meaning that Belgrade cannot count on good economic relations with EU." Surroi argues that "there should be more offensive approach in telling mr. Milosevic that he is endangering the regional security, and that (Kosova) is becoming a very highlighted matter of interest to Western powers, including, of course, the EU", stating further that Milosevic should count "not only on the financial consequences, but also on political consequences and those concerning questions of security, as well -- meaning the NATO interests in the region.
***********
Recalling the horror
One of the baskets in the garden, filled with corn, lied overturned. A man, claiming to be related with the Sejdiu family, and who had been in hiding close by, says: "It was hit by an APC". "In that basket was one of the sons of the Sejdiu family, who died then".
Likoshan, Qirez, Drenicë, 2 March (ARTA)
After the police attack on Drenica region, the situation in villages nearby seems to be more quiet today.
There are no police forces to be seen around the region. Roads leading to Gllogoc (settlement 40km east from Prishtinë) are still empty. But, the road linking this part of Drenica with villages of Likoshan and Qirez was full of local people, heading to express their condolences to the families which lost the loved ones.
Total confusion and sorrow continue in the house of Islam Gjeli.
"My children and I hid in the washroom, to avoid the bullets", says the widow of the killed Naser Islam Gjeli (M).
"Naser's father was killed too", said the villagers, gathered in this place. "The old man (72), was in the room located in front of the garden. That's where he was killed", says the widow. "After half an hour, I couldn't stand it anymore, so I got out of the washroom, where I was hiding my children. That's when I saw my husband who was dead by that time...my children saw him too. Then the police took me and my children and sent us to our neighbors house. I don't know what happened with bodies of my husband and his father", she explains, deeply distressed, and eventually loosing her conscience.
Further up the hill were other houses, in which the Serb police had also broken in.
The house of Ahmeti family appeared deserted. There was no information whatsoever on the whereabouts of the 10 men of this family, and their guest.
Blood stains, broken bones and other body parts could be made out in the crossroads, close to the house.
A long column of people was heading towards the village of Qirez, nearly connected to the village of Likoshan. There were rumors that 8 corpses of those killed were in that village.
The Sejdiu family house yard was overcrowded with all of them waiting to get into one of the house's rooms where the bodies of the four killed brothers lied.
One of the baskets in the garden, filled with corn, lied overturned. A man, claiming to be related with the Sejdiu family, and who had been in hiding close by, says: "It was hit by an APC". "In that basket was one of the sons of the Sejdiu family, who died then".
"The other one hid behind the other basket of corn and died after being shot at", he continues.
"The other two Sejdiu sons were killed in the valley, behind the house that is being built, where they tried to hide among the bushes", says his cousin.
"A helicopter circled above the house and people shot from up there during the whole time", say the locals gathered close to the victims' house.
An appalling sight was also in Sefer Nebihu's household, whose son, Naser and his wife, Rukije were killed. He himself suffers severe wounds.
"They entered the garden in an APC and forced their way up to the window", recalls wounded Sefer. "The entire family was gathered: my wife, my son, his wife and our grandchildren", he continues.
"The policemen in the APCs kept shooting, as other policemen broke into the house,ordering us to get out and lie on the ground", he says.
"We freezed on the ground for about four hours, until they were gone. My other son, Ilir, was in his own house when the police took him and we still do not know what happened to him", concludes Sefer.
Sefer was being taken care of by doctors who came to the village in search for the wounded people.
"We have to take him to a hospital", one of them claimed.
Hata, Sefer's wife gave us the same information, only one could make out that she was very distressed.
"They came close to the house with a tank -- or whatever it is -- shooting at us. They killed my son and his wife, and they wounded my husband...", she recalled, turning her head the other way to hide her tears.
**********
Police executed the entire Ahmeti family men -- from 16 to 50 years old
Ten members of the Ahmeti family and two guests who were found in the house at the moment of the attack were dragged barehanded out of the house, being violently massacred and killed on the 28 March, during the Serb police attack on the village of Likoshan, that took place past weekend: Ahmet Ahmeti (50 M), Gani Ahmeti (46 M), Hilmi Ahmeti (44 M), Hamëz Ahmeti (44 M), Driton Ahmeti (23 M), Naim Ahmeti (22 M), Shemsi Ahmeti (19 M), Lumni Ahmeti (20 M), Basri Ahmeti (19 M), Elhami Ahmeti (16 M), and Behram Fazliu (50 M) Shaban Muja, both of them guests from the nearby village of Gradica
Likoshan 2 March (ARTA) 1328 CET
Corpses of 9 members of the Ahmeti family, arrested and executed during the withdrawal of the Serb police forces from the region of Likoshan, are now in Prishtina's city morgue, unofficial sources claim.
The oldest member of this family is 16 while the oldest 50 years old. Ten members of the Ahmeti family and a guest from Gradica were arrested, according to the information issued on 1 March by CDHRF.
Serbs police massacred the Albanians of Drenica region, in the thorny bushes nearby Ahmeti's house (five meters from the demolished garden gate).
Five or six big blood stains, broken teeth, brains all over the place, a piece of human jaw hanging down from the bushes, bullets of different calibers, are seen at the "scene of the crime",as villagers calls it. The bush is large over 3 m. square.
The police slaughtered them to death using shotguns and other hard and sharp objects, confirms the witnesses.
The corpses of the father, Muhamet Isuf Gjeli (79) and the brother Naser Muhamet Gjeli (39) brought in from the morgue of Prishtina by their relative, Kadri Gjeli, were lying down in the first floor of his house. Kadri’s house close to that of the victims was also attacked by the Serb police.
They were killed in separate rooms, inside of the house. The police got in the house of Muhamet Isuf Gjeli and shot dead Muhamed and Naser, say the villagers.
Signs of the tank chains could be traced in the entrance of Likoshan, coming in front the direction of Gllogoc.
From what it could be seen, the police withdrew entirely from the villages that were a target of the uncontrolled police attack.
Today, at 1200 CET, from the police station of Gllogoc, Fehmi Hasan (Gjeli), and Fatmir Islami (Gjeli), who were kidnaped on Sunday morning (around 1100 CET), were released. Both have severe body injuries.
The exact number of the Drenica massacre victims is still unknown. There are unconfirmed information that at the city morgue in Prishtina lies another corpse that came in from the village of Boks.
There are fears that the total toll of victims will exceed 20.
"They wanted to kill the entire village"
In the village of Likoshan, the household of the Islamgjeli was overcrowded. "I took my children and hid in the bathroom, trying to escape the bullets", says the wife of the killed Naser Islamgjeli -- "I came out after some time, and I saw my husband laying down, dead"
Likoshan and Çikatovë, Drenicë, 2 March (ARTA) - 2050 CET
Today, the situation in the villages of Drenica region (40 km west of Prishtina) seems calmer, after the crackdown that took place on the late Friday eve and which lasted unitil early Sunday afternoon.
16 Albanian civilians are confirmed killed during the massacre, although the very next day after the raid no policemen were to be seen in an around villages.
The streets of Gllogoc were empty, but the endless line of people was heading for Likoshan and Çikatovë -- to express condolences to the families of the killed Albanians.
In Likoshan, the household of the Islamgjeli was overcrowded. "I took my children and hid in the bathroom, trying to escape the bullets", says the wife of the killed Naser Islamgjeli.
"I came out after some time, and I saw my husband laying down, dead".
"It was then when the police came and took me and my children to our neighbors'. I don't know what happened with my husband's and my father in law's bodies. The latter was also killed, in the other part of the yard", she explains, deeply distressed.
The long chain of people was heading to Qirez.
Here too, there were killed people laying. In the household of the Sejdiu, in one of the rooms were laying the corpses of four killed Sejdiu brothers.
One of the corn baskets was torn down, "it was hit by an armored vehicle", states a youngster, who hid in the stable while the attack took place. "One of the Sejdiu boys was hiding in the basket, and he was killed". Another of the sons was hiding behind another corn basket, while two others were killed as they were running towards some bushes".
Another terrifying scene was that at the Nebiu household. Son Naser and his wife Rukie were killed while father Sefer was wounded.
"They first broke into the garden on the armored vehicle, and came as close as the window frames", says wounded Sefer.
"The whole family was in the room, my wife and I, my son and his wife as well as my grandchildren", he continues.
"They shot once from the APC, and then came the other policemen, who were standing by the window - he tells - and forced us to go out. They told us to lay on our stomachs and not move".
"Thus we laid over four hours, until the police left. Our other son, Ilir, who was in his house, at the other side of the yard, was taken by the police and we don't know what has happened to him", concludes old Sefer. "They wanted to kill the entire village".
************
28 hours of massacre
Likoshan, Drenicë, 28 Feb -1 March (ARTA)
Since there was no other way to reach Drenicë, we decided to travel by train. In the train traveling in the relation Fushë Kosovë-Gllogovc, where we met some old men from Drenicë, exchanging words about the latest events in their villages. One of the men was from the village of Gllanasellë, an hour away from Likoshan, where the "war" supposedly had begun. We traveled with that man until he arrived to Gllanasella, where he got off, and continued our journey to Likoshan, this time accompanied by youngsters. When we got close to Likoshan we could see columns of people going in the direction of the houses of the destroyed. Only a few minutes past our arrival, a large number of people gathered and started walking on the street, maybe because they felt unsure. Everyone of them gazed at us with doubt as we showed them our journalist ID cards. Immediately after entering the village, it became clear that most of the people had abandoned their houses and that a large number of them were frightened to return to their houses, destroyed by police grenade launchers. A number of them still stayed at the outskirts, where they had gone to hide from the police expedition. "How did the conflict begin?", we asked the local villagers.
The "conflict" by the Six Oaks..
On 28 February, claim the villagers, a "Passat" was parked close to the school, side by side with another vehicle full of policemen. That is where the chase of supposed members of KLA began, only to end up in the village of Likoshan, in a place the locals call "Six Oaks". That is where, the locals assert, the fighting began between the police and a group of young people the locals referred to as "ours".
That is the scene where heavy shooting took place, and a couple of policemen were killed, according to the villagers.
Since a short time after the group of young people went into the forest, the police started shooting in the direction of the houses nearby. In a very short time, helicopters along with 39 APCs arrived in the village of Likoshan. Heavy shooting, mostly from helicopters, began against the houses of defenseless civilians. Only in the villages of Likoshan and Qirez, 11 people were shot dead, claim the villagers.
During this attack, Muhamet I. Xheli (age unknown, M) and Naser M. Xheli (age unknown, M), father and son were shot dead, and their corpses were taken by the police. The blood stains on the floor confirm that their bodies were dragged by the police. From Adem Ahmeti's (age unknown, M) household, all male members of the family above age 15 were taken. It's presumed that there were over ten persons. This village was object of heavy shooting, and the villagers were also mistreated by the police.
Someone had resisted during the whole time.
The villagers assert that two men, about which we still have no information, were tied to poles and were beaten to death. Their whereabouts are still unknown. Unidentified persons had resisted the police during the whole time, claim the local inhabitants. The real massacre, say the villagers, was in the village of Qirez, where houses were attacked from APCs. Beqir Sjediu (31, M), Nazmi Sejdiu (1975, M), Bedri Sejdiu (1975, M), Bekim Sejdiu (1974, M), all brothers, were killed in their own houses. Xhemshir S. Nebihu and his wife Rukije Nebihu, and Rexhep Rexhepi (M), and Beqir Rexhepi (M), uncle and nephew, were also killed in the same village.
Innocent passers-by in these villages were detained by the police. The villagers notify that the police detained Tahir Tahiri (M), in Qirez, Rexhep Ajeti (a guest) was taken while standing in Ahmet Ahmeti's garden, whereas Idriz Tahiri was taken while selling cigarettes in Qirez.
Not one house was spared from bullets of different calibers.
A harsh "war" took place in the village of Likoshan, more precisely in the place called "Six Oaks", in Krasmirovc, Polac and other villages where many were killed, claim the inhabitants. The population of these villages, was alarmed the whole time, whereas a big number of them escaped in the mountains surrounding the village, from where they observed the action.
The most horrible event took place in the house of Skënder (Muharrem) Xheli (age unknown, M)
His house was used by the police as a place to rest, says Skënder. "While the police was singing, eating and drinking, I along with Fatmir (M) and Fehmi (M) Xheli hid in the attic of the house. This went on for 24 hours", ends Skënder Xheli from the village Qirez.
**********
Police operation ends -- death toll rises to 20
Albanian civilians killed in recent police attack
Prishtina 1 March (ARTA) -- 2000 CET
Numerous police and military APCs, numbering several hundreds of policemen and reportedly VJ soldiers withdrew from the region of Drenica (40 km west of Prishtina) around 1700 CET, as local human rights groups and media report on over 14 Albanian civilian victims -- the death toll of the two-day operation.
It is claimed that the joint operation of Serb security forces and military units -- which started on the eve of the last weekend (Friday 27 Feb.), continuing until late hours of Sunday, 1 March -- overrun several villages of Likoshan, Çikatovë e Re, Çikatovë e Vjetër, Qirez, and many other settlements in the surrounding of Gllogoc and Skenderaj, main towns of this 95 per cent Albanian-inhabited region.
14 Albanians are killed, the CDHRF reports. The Serbian Ministry of the Interior , has reported that 4 policemen and 16 Albanians ("terrorists") were killed. The number of killed may be larger.
The number of wounded remains unknown, as witnesses claim of dozens of Albanian villagers, who were brought in local Prishtina clinics, in critical condition from firearm wounds.
According to information from the field, the situation in the attacked region is calming down as the Serb police withdrawal continues.
**************
Four brothers killed instantly
Prishtinë, 1 March (ARTA) - 2030 CET
According to the Human Rights Council (CDHRF) updated information, during the Serb police attack on Drenica (40 km west of Prishtina), names of 3 following Albanians, killed in the village of Likoshan, are reported:
1. Muhamet Xhela (70) (M)
2. Naser (Muhamet) Xhela (37) (M)
3. Rexhep Ajeti (60) (M)
Also, in the village of Qirez, the following Albanian civilians were killed:
1. Beqir Sejdiu (M) (age unknown)
2. Bekim Sejdiu (M) -/-
3. Bedri Sejdiu (M) -/-
4. Nazmi Sejdiu (M) -/-, and
5. Xhemshir Nebihu (M) -/-
6. Rukije Nebihu (M) -/-
Albanian Sefer Sejdiu was reported severely wounded, whereas there is no information on Xhemshir Nebihu's brother, Nebi.
The police gunfire caused the wounding of Hajdin Makolli (58), Albanian from the village Çikatova e Vjetër.
The following Albanians were arrested in Likoshan: Ahmet Ahmeti (50, male), Gani Ahmeti (46, male), Elmi Ahmeti (44, male), Hamëz Ahmeti (44, male), Driton Ahmeti (23, male), Naim Ahmeti (22, male), Lumni Ahmeti (20, male), Shemsi Ahmeti (19, male), Basri Ahmeti (19, male), Elhami Ahmeti (16, male), and Behram Fazliu (50, male), from the village of Gradica.
The overall death toll remains unknown, as local sources report of around 20 killed Albanians.
It is also reported that the massive police forces started withdrawing from the region in the late afternoon hours.
**********
Kosova has 13.000 Serb police forces -- 25.000 reinforcement units can be transferred from central Serbia within 72 hours
Prishtina, 1 March (ARTA)
In Kosova, Serbian Interior Ministry has around 13,000 policemen armed with paramilitary equipment, including APCs and armed helicopters. Around 25,000 police reinforcements and reserve units could be transferred from central Serbia within 72 hours.
Yugoslav Army has around 6,500 men in Kosova, mainly around the border and in four major garrisons.
Plans for deployment foresee 10,000 troops from Nis, Leskovac and Uzice, as the first wave which is to include 4,000 men from the reserve units, theoretically, ready for action in Kosova.
But in practice, the army has expressed it's reluctance to undertake such actions since Kosova is considered to be an internal and political issue, meaning that it is in the competence of the police.
The third and most unpredictable element of the Serbian forces are the volunteers and the paramilitary. Even though most of the police units that operated in Croatia and Bosnia have been dispersed, at least two of those are ready for Kosova if their "bosses" decide for action. The best organized police, that has already withdrawn, but according to reports is "ready" for action in Kosova, is the Serbian Volunteer Guard (SDG), better known as "Tigrovi" ("Tigers"), under the command of Zeljko (Arkan) Raznjatovic. "The Tigers", consisting of about 400 hostile fighters with considerable experience and proved to have committed ethnic cleansing, can be called in for operations which neither the police nor the Army want to be connected to. The only other organization that could organize a police would be Vojislav Seselj's extreme rightist party, Radical Party of Serbia (SRS).
There is no doubt that the Ministry of Interior has enough manpower and equipment to encompass all of Kosova, but it's decision not to undertake action, reflects the lack of clear politics and indirectly implies that the Interior Ministry's units are not prepared, or trained to confront the opposing terrorists or guerrillas, let alone some mass uprising such as an Intifada.
There are many clear signs that Serb politicians are pressuring the interior ministry for actions, but, the two operations they undertook in the region of Drenica by the end of January, prove that the method to resist KLA has not yet been found. In both cases, Serbian police convoys with APCs and around 100 armed policemen have surrounded houses in the village outskirts and opened fire for several hours, killing at least one person and wounding several others. After such confrontations, the Interior Ministry has raided several private houses, arresting men over the age of sixteen, confiscating arms, but not being able to obstruct KLA activities. It seems that the Ministry has realized the futility of such an approach and has given it up.
On the other hand, the decreasing number of Serbian police in Kosova, has encouraged the local inhabitants of the region of Drenica to overestimate their power and significance. Drenica is a region of around 1200 square kilometers, with a population of about 60,000, 95 percent of whom are Albanians. The region is mountainous with some forests and can be reached by six roads. It is totally unsuitable for a serious guerilla headquarters: the main road that connects Kosova with the plain of Dukagjin and Montenegro, divides the region in two and Serbia would not allow any impediment in traffic. Also, north of Drenica is Serbia, that makes strategic withdrawal impossible. This could be considered as KLA's operation to "demonstrate force" in order to boost the will of Kosova Albanians and force the Serbs to act. Courageous tactic, militarily shrewd, since whatever the Serbs do, they cannot win.
*********
Drenica under police/military siege -- Fightings reported around Çiçavica mountain
Prishtina, 1 March (ARTA) -- 16.00 CET
The Prishtina Human Rights Council HRC confirms 5 names out of over 15 Albanians who were killed during the massive police attack over Drenica region (40 km northwest of Prishtina)
All reported victims came from the same village, Qirez (15 km from Gllogoc - main settlement in Drenica):
1. Rexhep Ajet Rexhepi (M)
2. Xhemshir Sejdiu (M)
3. Rukije Sejdiu (F)
4. Nazmi Nebihu (M)
5. Bekim Nebihu (M)
The fire broke out this morning (around 7.00 CET), HRC in Prishtina reports. Two buses carrying policemen were reported heading towards Skenderaj (settlement 20 km north of Gllogoc), as from Mitrovica (town 35 km north of Prishtina) other police forces in two APCs, followed by various vehicles were heading towards Skenderaj.
Around 8.00 CET, from Komoran (25 km west of Prishtina) -- where the main police roadblock in the area was stationed weeks ago -- numerous police forces, numbering over 30 APCs, including few military tanks were seen heading towards the villages of Likoshan and Poklek i Ri.
There are also confirmations by the local whitnesses stating presence of Serb paramilitary units of the war-crime wanted Serb criminal, Zeljko Raznatovic-Arkan.
In the sourrounding villages of Zabel i Poshtem and Korrotica, police started demolishing Albanian houses in search of "terrorists".
Meanwhile, reports from Klina (70 km west of Prishtina), state that numerous police forces were seen penetrating Drenica region from this area. It is said that police APCs, among others, were carrying special sniper police units.
The attack on Drenica -- which started on the eve of 27 Feb. -- was restarted on Saturday (20.30 CET) in Skenderaj and its sourrounding.
According to local whitnesses, first gunshots were heard from the former Ammunition Factory building "Trepca", followed by those heard in the yard of the local high school, presently occupied with Serb refugees from Croatia.
*********
KOSOVA: Police attack over Drenica - reactions (16.50 CET)
Civilian Albanians mostly found killed in the villages of Likoshan and Qirez
Prishtina, 1 March (ARTA)
A delegation from The Democratic League of Kosova (main political party in Kosova) visited today the Drenica region, hit by joint police and military attack.
The closest settlement they could get in was the village of Polac (10 km from Gllogoc, main settlement of the region).
Abdyl Ramaj, LDK, confirmed that in the village of Qirez two members are reported killed. Nazmi and Bekim Sejdiu (M) were in the house when heavy machinegun fire started. Other Albanian victims from this village are Xhemshir Nebiu and his wife, as Sefer, father, is in critical condition, severely wounded. There is no information about his other son, Ilir, who is believed killed.
Rexhep Rexhepi, Albanian from Qirez was reported killed in the Likoshan, and there is no knowledge of the whereabouts of Ibush T. Rama.
An Albanian house was raided from a police helicopter in the village of Prellovc, around 12.00 CET today. Three persons, whose identity has not yet been confirmed, were wounded.
Ramaj states that most of the houses in this 98 percent Albanian area are completely destroyed. Bodies of people lie "all around, in the gardens, inside the houses, in the field.
Fatmir Sejdiu, LDK, stated that "police attacks have intensified past months, whereas the past two days they became exceptionally concentrated. Three villages in the area between cities of Gllogoc and Skenderaj are entirely isolated and under heavy fire".
There are information that the villages are evacuated, although there are no information on the death toll, which is presumed much higher.
The LDK delegation was stopped by the police at the sourrounding roadblocks, being held for an hour of interrogation.
Fehmi Agani, vice-chairman to LDK said, that Albanian population deals "with precisely prepared police actions actions, timed intentionally for the weekend, when all the relevant intenrational institutions affiliates and diplomatic services and representatives are away on weekend."
********
At least fifteen dead
Albanian Council for Defence of Human Rights and Freedom confirms 14 victims
Prishtinë, 1 March (ARTA)
Albanian Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms in Prishtina (CDHRF) notifies about the rising tensions in the villages of Drenica municipality. Other than the five Albanians killed yesterday in the village of Likoshan, Gllogovc municipality, they claim that seven Albanians were killed in the village of Çirez, Skenderaj municipality. Also, two Albanians were killed in village of Çikatovë e re, Gllogovc municipality. This makes the total of 14 Albanians dead even though they presume the number to be much higher. Albanian sources notify that there has been extreme intensification of police and Arkan's paramilitary forces in this region, and that the shootings today started at around 7 am.
Journalists of local daily, "Koha ditore", editor in chief, Veton Surroi, and editors Ylber Hysa and Baton Haxhiu, were prevented from going to the scene.
**********
Over 11 children, 11 women and 5 old people among 46 corpses
Skënderaj, march 9 (ARTA) 1600 CET
46 human corpses, including 11 children (from 3 to 10 years old), 11 women and 5 old people (above 70), is the present toll of the Serb police attack on the village of Prekaz, in the troubled Kosova region of Drenicë, (40 km west of Prishtina), local "Koha Ditore" souces confirms.
29 out of 46 corpses, all local Albanian villagers, are identified, while three others corpses cannot be identified, since being completely burnt.
Three other victims are placed in a nearby house, CDHRF office in Skënderaj reports, while the burial of another victim took place in the village of Llausha on Sunday.
The corpses are exposed at a construction material depot, guarded by the Serb police in Skënderaj. Most of the bodies have wounds presumable caused by large calibre weapons, as well as burning marks. Police in Skënderaj expects two more corpses to be brought from the Prishtina morgue, stating that the number of slaughtered could be higher, including those suspected to have died while running away at a nearby forests.
Following is the list of 29 identified corpses:
1) Qazim Osman Jashari
2) Nazmi Zukë Jashari
3) Sinan R. Jashari
4) Zarife Jashari (female)
5) Zaha Jashari (female)
6) Kushtrim Jashari
7) Ali Jashari
8) Osman Geci
9) Faik Jashari
10) Adem Shaban Jashari
11) Beqir Jashari
12) Sherif Jashari
13) Hazer Jashari
14) Halit Jashari
15) Halil Jashari
16) Bahrije Jashari (female)
17) Ferid Jashari
18) Besim Hamzë Jashari
19) Blerim Zemë Jashari
20) Bujar Zemë Jashari
21) Abdullah Zemë Jashari
22) Elhame Jashari (female)
23) Murtez Zymer Jashari
24) Fatime Gashi (female)
25) Makvirete Bajrami (female)
26) Gazmend Bajram Gashi
27) Sadik Miran Kaqkini
28) Myftar Rreci
29) Isak Halili (from Dubovc, a guest in Prekaz)
Document compiled by Dr S D Stein
natasa kandic for serbs is the equivilent for u guys as the albanians who sided with the serbs during the war, just for ur info. again albaniacs died so did serbs, where is ur list of serbs killed by KLA???? WHERE? just as many serbs died as albaniacs did. again, that sucks for both people, AND AGAIN FOR TEH 100th TIME TAHT IS NOT WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT, we are talking about he fact that the albanicas were LIEING THE ENTIRE TIME CLAIMING THAT 500,000 albaniacs were killled!!!!! list me teh names of 500,000 albanicas taht were killed!!!!! I DARE U U FUCKING SCUM LIARS! that is the point! OK! the FACT TAHT U ARE LIARS AND THEIVES!!!!!!! and that u cant achive anything on ur own only through lieing, selling drugs and pimping ur women out around the world. scum.
Spooooky A Serb using capital letters now I'm scared. $hithead there were 10 thousand Albanains dead from the conflict. This is not just a number. Each one of them was a person who had a son, a daughter, a mother, a sister,a father, a brother. How would you feel if just one Serb was killed and lets say this person was your mother or your brother. Now it's not a number anymore is it. The reason why the number of Albanians is in the 10 thousands and not in the hundreed thousand is because USA and NATO intervened. There are still 3 thousand Albanians who are missing.
asshole the claim was that at first 500,000 albos were dead then 100,000, I know people died serbs and albanicas same number dickhead, teh point here is that u lied like a slimy muslim to further ur stealing.
Joseph Farah WND Exclusive Commentary The real war crimes
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
The record is now crystal clear that NATO and the Clinton administration deliberately lied about Serbian atrocities in Kosovo to justify their intervention in a low-intensity civil war in the Balkans.
It turns out that as few as 2,108 people were actually killed in Kosovo over a period of months leading up to and including the period of heavy bombardment of Serbia by NATO forces.
This is hardly "genocide," as it was billed by Clinton, Defense Secretary William Cohen, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., former Sen. Bob Dole and David Scheffer, U.S. ambassador for war crimes.
By whipping up hysteria for an illegal bombing campaign, all of these men have blood on their hands.
It wasn't hundreds of thousands of dead in Kosovo, as some reports suggested. It wasn't even tens of thousands. It was, at worst, a couple thousand over a considerable period of time. That, of course, is still a dreadful and grisly toll. But, to put it in perspective, no global authority -- not the United Nations, nor NATO -- ever advocates intervention in the United States or anywhere else when the annual murder toll hits 2,000, which it does early in the first half of every year.
Think of the hyperbole we heard prior to the bombing campaign:
* "By the time the snows fall next winter, there will be genocide documented on a large scale in Kosovo," said Biden.
* "History will judge us harshly if we do not take action to stop this rolling genocide," said Hagel.
* "What we have in Kosovo and what (we) had in Bosnia was genocide, and that's why I think we should intervene," said Dole.
* "There are indications genocide is unfolding in Kosovo," said State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin.
* Cohen characterized the bombing campaign as a "fight for justice over genocide."
* Scheffer said Kosovo was one of the top three genocides since 1950, rivaled only by Rwanda and Cambodia.
But no one laid it on as thick as Clinton. He compared the atrocities in Kosovo to the Holocaust. Kosovo, he said, "is not war in the traditional sense. Imagine what would happen if we and our allies instead decided just to look the other way as these people were massacred on NATO's doorstep."
Clinton got testy in a June 25 press conference when asked if, indeed, NATO had actually been the party guilty of war crimes.
"NATO did not commit war crimes," he said. "NATO stopped war crimes. NATO stopped deliberate, systematic efforts at ethnic cleansing and genocide."
Yet, there is just no evidence to support Clinton's conclusion. Where are the bodies? So far, examination of the most likely dumping grounds has produced only 2,108. That's hardly genocide. It's tragic. But how does it justify an international bombing campaign that may well have resulted in far more civilian deaths in Serbia?
Well, explains International Criminal Tribunal spokesman Paul Risley, the numbers aren't really important, after all.
"You don't need numbers to justify genocide," he says. "Genocide is a question of intent and organization and the efficiency of that organization."
A couple of problems with that statement: First, if numbers aren't important, why did NATO inflate them to justify the war in the first place? Second, if genocide isn't about numbers, is it simply the latest in a series of new thought crimes that needs to be judged and punished before any real action takes place?
Sadly, most of the press went along for the ride with all the pre-war and post-war propaganda from government and supra-government authorities. Republicans and Democrats all participated. Officials in the United Kingdom and the United States led the way.
Thus, once more, we see the grave dangers of transferring power to unaccountable global authorities. Who is going to keep abuses in check? How do people have their say? What's to prevent a small elite clique of power brokers from making war in the future, as they clearly did in Kosovo?
Chronology of the KLA's Terrorism 1996-98 Before "Yugoslav Represion" on Kosovo)
1996
April 22: Blagoje Okulic, a Serb refugee from Croatia, was sitting with
a friend in a cafe when a masked member of the KLA opened fire
on the customers with an automatic weapon. Okulic died in
hospital. He was the first victim of the KLA.
Armand Daci (20), an ethnic Albanian student in dentistry
school, was shot and killed by a sniper.
June 16: In an attack against a police patrol near Podujevo, police
officer Goran Mitrovic was heavily wounded.
June 17: Around 11:55 p.m. a police patrol in the village of Siplje
near Kosovska Mitrovica was attacked, resulting in the killing
of Predrag Djordjevic (28) from Krusevac, and the wounding of
Zoran Vukocic (30) from Nis.
The same day a bomb was hurled at the police station in Luzani,
and the police officers on duty in the station were fired on by
automatic weapons. No one was injured.
July 11: One hour after midnight in the center of Podujevo terrorists
carried out an armed attack against police officers, resulting
in a heavy wounding of police officer Sredoje Radojevic.
Aug. 2: Armed attack on three police stations (in Pristina, Podujevo,
and the village of Krpimej) around 10 p.m.
Aug. 28: Three bombs were hurled in the village of Celopek (border of the
towns Pec-Klina-Decani), around 3 a.m. No one was injured.
In the village of Donje Ljupce police inspector Ejup Bajgora (44),
an ethnic Albanian who worked at the Pristina Precinct,
was shot and killed.
Aug. 31: In the night hours two bombs were hurled into the courtyard
of the Yugoslav Army's barracks in Vucitrn.
In the village of Rudnik (Srbica municipality) an armed attack
was carried out on the police station.
In Podujevo, police officers at the juncture of the road
Pristina-Podujevo-Kursumlija were fired on. No one was hit.
The police station in Glogovac was fired on with automatic weapons.
Oct. 25: Two police officers were killed by automatic weapons near the
village of Surkis in the Podujevo municipality -- Milos Nikolic,
a police inspector of the Pristina Precinct, and Dragan Rakic
from the village of Velika Reka, who was a police officer in the
reserves and a manager of a company in Podujevo.
Nov. 16: In the village of Rznic, in Decan municipality, around 10:30 p.m.
a terrorist attack was carried out on the police station. No one
was killed.
Dec. 26: Faik Belopolja, an ethnic Albanian from Podujevo who was a
forest worker in the Serbia Forest Service, was shot and killed.
1997
Jan. 9: In the center of Podujevo at 5:30 p.m. Malic Saholi (52), an
ethnic Albanian who was the manager of the superamarket "Vocar"
and a deputy in the municipal council of Podujevo as a member of
the Socialist Party of Serbia, was shot and killed.
Jan. 11: In the Vucitrn village of Mijalic, around 7 p.m. more than
26 bullets were fired at the house of Ljubisa Mitrovic. No one
was killed.
Jan. 13: Shooting Fazil Hasani, an ethnic Albanian forest worker from the
village of Brabonic (Srbica municipality) in the neck, KLO
terrorists killed him and issued a statement denouncing
Mr. Hasani as a "traitor".
Jan. 16: Using remote-controlled explosives, the KLO attempted to
assassinate the Dean of Pristina University, Mr. Papovic,
at 8 a.m. as he was driving to the University. Both he and
his driver Nikola Lalic were heavily wounded. The explosives
were set off when their car was some 50 meters from Dean Papovic's
apartment in Pristina.
Jan. 17: In the village of Reketnica (Srbica municipality), at 1 a.m.,
ethnic Albanian Zen Durmisi (52) was shot and killed and his
son Nazmi Durmisi was heavily wounded. The Durmisi family was
labeled "pro-Yugoslav" by the terrorist KLA.
Feb. 1: KLA terrorists from a moving vehicle fired on police officers.
The officers fired back and killed all three terrorists.
March 5: At 10:47 a.m., in front of the Pristina University School of
Languages, a bomb in a container exploded. Four people were
wounded, two ethnic Albanians -- Adrijana Dremka and Lindita
Maksuti -- and two ethnic Serbs, Borivoje Popovic and Ivan
Maksimovic.
A second explosives device weighing 4.2 kilograms, which had
been placed at the base of the Vuk Karadzic monument in front of
the School of Languages, was found and deactivated by
members of the Anti-Ballistics Unit of the Pristina Precinct.
March 21: Around 8 p.m., in the center of Podujevo, KLA terrorists fired
five shots at police officer Branislav Milovanovic, wounding
him heavily. In a statement, the KLA claimed responsibility
denouncing officer Milovanovic as a "Serbian policeman, well
known blood-sucker and anti-Albanian".
March 25: Near the village Sicevo, Klin municipality, a group of attackers
killed ethnic Albanians Jusuf Haljiljaj and Fehmi Haziraj (who
were well known as loyal citizens of Serbia) and wounded
ethnic Albanian Mehmet Gasi.
April 10: In the village of Banjica near Glogovac, using automatic
firearms, KLA terrorists killed ethnic Albanian Ramiz Ljeka,
who worked at the Glogovac Municipal Council.
May 6: Around 10:30 p.m. in the village of Lozica near Klina, ethnic
Albanian Hetem Dobruna (30), a farmer from the village, was
shot and killed.
May 16: In Srbica near Kosovska Mitrovica police officers Miomir Kicovic
and Radisav Blanic were shot and heavily wounded.
June 19: On the Pristina-Podujevo-Nis road near the village of Donje Ljupce
in the Podujevo municipality, terrorists fired 12 bullets
from automatic weapons at a police patrol. No one was injured.
July 3: In the village of Trstenik, Glogovac municipality, in the early
morning hours the KLA shot and killed ethnic Albanian Ali Calapek,
a farmer who was a member of the Socialist Party of Serbia and a
member of the local Election Commission in the 1996 elections.
July 21: The Assistant District Attorney in Pec, Miroljub Petrovic, was
shot and killed.
Aug. 3: A police vehicle was fired on at 7 p.m., in the village of
Bradis which is 10 kilometers from Podujevo.
Aug. 4: At 9:30 a.m., on the road from the village of Rudnik to Srbica,
KLO terrorists from Drenica fired on a police vehicle using
automatic weapons. Police officers Milomir Dodic and Zoran
Boskovic were heavily wounded, and a civilian who was in the
car was lightly wounded.
Aug. 23: Forest worker Sadi Morina, an ethnic Albanian, was killed in
Srbica. Mr. Morina had already been receiving threats from KLO
terrorists for a long time because he remained to work
"in the service of Serbia".
Aug. 24: In the village of Zub near Djakovica an ethnic Albanian,
Kcira Ndue (32), was shot and killed, while his brother
Bekim Ndue was wounded.
The police station in the village of Rznic near Decani was
sprayed with gunfire.
Sept. 2: At 10:55 p.m. Ljimon Krasnici, an ethnic Albanian denounced
by the KLA terrorists as a "traitor", was killed in his home.
Sept. 12: A dozen attacks were carried out on police stations
in the municipalities of Pec, Glogovac, Decani, and Djakovica
around 11 p.m. No one was injured.
Sept. 13: Around 10 p.m. a hand grenade was hurled at the police
station in Luzano, near Podujevo.
Sept. 14: A hand grenade was hurled at the police station in Kijevo,
near Klina.
Sept. 23: Around 11 a.m. in the vicinity of the village of Kijevo,
the KLA opened fire on a motorized police patrol. Milan
Stanojevic, the commander of the Djakovica Precinct, was in
the vehicle. No one was injured.
Oct. 13: The police station in Calopek near Pec was attacked.
Oct. 16: Around 1:30 a.m. there was a terrorist attack on the police
station in the village of Klincina, which lies on the road
Pec-Pristina. Adrijan Krasnici (25) from Vranovci near Pec
died in the ensuing gun battle.
Oct. 17: Around 1 a.m. the residential community Babaloc, located between
Decani and Djakovica, where 120 Serbian refugee families who
fled from Albania several years ago are situtated, was attacked.
Oct. 20: The OVK claimed responsibility for attacks on police stations in
Babaloc, Calopek, and Klincina, as well as police patrols in
Gerlica near Urosevac and Balinac near Klina, about which the
public had not been informed earlier.
Nov. 18: Around 7 p.m. in the village of Komoran near Glogovac,
Camil Gasi, an ethnic Albanian deputy in the Parliament of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the chairman of the
Municipal Board of the Socialist Party of Serbia for Glogovac,
was wounded heavily. His driver was wounded as well.
Nov. 25: KLA terrorists held the police station in Srbica surrounded
for 15 hours.
Around 7 p.m. in Decani, and after midnight in the village of
Rznic, two terrorist attacks were carried out in which police
officer Dragic Davidovic (32) from Berane was killed, and
Ljubisa Ilic from Srbica, also a policeman, was heavily wounded.
Bojan Trboljevac from Leposavic, Srdjan Pavlovic (26) from
Zubin Potok, and Nedeljko Aksentijevic (30) from Kragujevac all
subsequently died from mortal wounds.
Dec. 4: The KLA claimed responsibility for an attack on Pristina Airport,
claiming that it shot down a "Cessna 310" on Nov. 26 killing all
five people on-board.
Dec. 15: Around 1 a.m. on the road Srbica-Klina three masked KLO terrorists
stopped a convoy of three cars with 16 Serbian civilian passangers.
According to the civilians' testimonies, the terrorists -- who
were armed with machine-guns and hand grenades -- threatened
them with death.
Dec. 19: Around 6 p.m. on the road Klina-Srbica, near the village of
Josanica, eight masked and heavily armed KLA terrorists stopped
the car of the civilian Milan Sapic from Lazarevac
threatening, insulting, and searching his family and him.
Dec. 25: Two terrorist attacks were carried out shortly after 3 p.m.
against police officers in the Podujevo municipality: In the
village of Zakut a police vehicle was fired on, and in the
center of Podujevo explosives devices were hurled at the
residential building where police officers live. There were no
victims.
1998
Jan. 4: The KLA claimed responsibility for a series of terrorist
activities in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
planting a bomb in front of the police station in Prilep,
which caused no injuries but demolished five cars;
attacking the police station in Kumanovo; and attacking
the Municipal Court in Gostivar on Dec. 16, '97.
Jan. 9: Shortly after 8 p.m., Djordje Belic (57) was shot and killed
with an automatic weapon at the doorstep of his house in the
village of Stepanica near Kijevo. Belic was the head of one of
the three remaining Serbian households in that village.
Jan. 12: In the town of Stimlje near Urosevac, shortly after midnight on
the night of Jan. 11/12, there was an armed attack on the
building in which seven families of police officers reside.
The shots ended up in the bedrooms of some of their apartments.
Miraculously, there were no victims.
Around 8 a.m., in the vicinity of the village Gradac near
Glogovac in Drenica, forest worker Sejdi Muja, an ethnic
Albanian, was shot and killed. He and another Albanian had been
stopped by a masked and armed three-member group of KLA
terrorists, and after checking his ID card established that
Muja was on their list of "traitors". They dragged him out of
the car and shot him, leaving his body by the road. He was a
"traitor" just because he worked in the Serbia Forest Service.
Jan. 13: The KLA issued a statement stating that its headquarters was in
Pristina. It also claimed responsibility for a series of terrorist
actions carried out in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
an attack on the Municipal Court in Gostovar and the police
stations in Prilep and Kumanovo. It announced that it would
expand its actions into Montenegro.
Jan. 14: The headquarters of the Socialist Party of Serbia for Djakovica
were stoned overnight, Jan. 13/14. All windows were broken.
These were greetings for the "Serbian New Year" which is marked
on Jan. 14.
Jan. 19: In Srbica all graves at the Serbian Orthodox Cemetary were
desecrated and vandalized. The monuments at the graves were
completely destroyed.
Jan. 22: After a KLA patrol had been stopping, harassing, and threatening
citizens with death in the Srbica municipality the previous night,
there was a confrontation between that patrol and a patrol of
police officers. While chasing the KLA terrorists, who barricaded
themselves in the house of Saban Jasari in the village of
Donji Prekaz near Srbica, police officers killed the terrorist
Hasan Mandzol and lightly wounded two Jasari brothers.
A three-member KLA group kidnapped the taxi driver Metus Skodru,
an ethnic Albanian, and then took his cab, an Audi 90. They told
him he could buy his cab back if he showed up at a designated
place at a designated time, under the threat that he would be
killed if he called the police.
Jan. 23: On the night of Jan. 22/23, on the road Srbica-Klina near the
village of Josanica, Desimir Vasic, a deputy in the Municipal
Assembly of Zvecan was shot and killed.
On the same road, the same night, near the village Lausa
Blagoje Nikolivc from the village of Drsnik near Klina was
severely beaten until he became unconscious.
During the same night, KLA terrorists stopped, harassed, and
threatened with death a group of Serbian women heading to
Monastery Devic.
Jan. 25: On the night of Jan. 24/25, in the town of Malisevo, in the
very center KLA terrorists heavily wounded two police officers.
During the same night, KLA terrorists attacked the house of the
Djuricic family in the village of Grabanica, near Klina in Drenica.
Terrorists hurled a bomb at the house of a police officer in
Urosevac.
Jan. 26: In the vicinity of the village of Turicevac, which is located
between Klina and Srbica, KLA terrorists opened fire using
automatic weapons on a helicopter belonging to Serbia's
Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Jan. 27: Again in the vicinity of Turicevac, an armed terrorist group
stopped Veroslav Vukojcic from Leposavic and his neighbors
Radmila and Zvezdana Vukajlovic. They beat them severely. The
victimis paid the terrorists to let them go -- Vukojvcic paid
500 German marks, and Vukajlovic paid 850 marks.
Jan. 28: A police patrol which was on its way to Decani to confiscate
illegal weapons from the family Tahirsuljaja fell into a
trap and was greeted with heavy gunfire from several houses.
Nevertheless, the officers managed to arrest seven members of
the Tahirsuljaja clan.
That evening, KLA terrorists fired at the house of
Dragoljub Spasic in the village of Sibovac near Obilic.
Feb. 10: A group of KLA terrorists appeared at a fundraising event for
the KLA in New York City. They received funding from over 150
Albanians attending the event. On that occasion, the KLA
terrorists proclaimed that they had killed 50 Serbian police
officers and "corrupt" Albanians in 1997.
Feb. 12: In Gornji Obrinj, in front of the village convenience store,
Mustafa Kurtaj, an ethnic Albanian who worked at the post
office in Glogovac, was shot and killed. He was shot in
broad daylight, in front of twenty onlookers, as a warning
to others. Prior to this, he had been repeatedly warned by
KLA terrorists that they would kill him unless he quit his
job at the state-run post office.
Feb. 15: Nik Abdulahu, an ethnic Albanian employee of the Serbia Electric
Utility, was shot and killed while at work, at the electricity
substation in the village of Staro Cikatovo near Glogovac.
Feb. 18: In the night between Feb. 17/18, KLA terrorists collected
firearms from ethnic Albanians in Drenica, for whom they
suspected that they did not support their cause. Those who did
not turn over their weapons were given a deadline to do so,
"othewise," they were told, "you will be shot".
The police checkpoint near the village Dobre Vode in the
Klina municipality was attacked with automatic weapons.
Feb. 19: While returning from work, an employee of the state security
service of Pristina Nebojsa Cvejic was shot and killed near the
village of Luzani.
In Podujevo, KLA terrorists hurled bombs at a refugee center
housing Serbian civilians who were "ethnically cleansed" from
Croatia.
Feb. 20: On the road Srbica-Klina, near the village of Lausi, KLA
terrorists shot and killed Milorad Ristic, a private
entrepreneur from Djakovica, and heavily wounded truck driver
Zdravko Djuricic from Orahovac.
On the same day, on the same road, near the village of Josanica
KLA terrorists opened fire on another truck, which was being
driven by an ethnic Serb. However, an ethnic Albanian hitchhiker
from the village of Lausi, who was sitting in the passenger seat
and whom the driver had picked up in Klina, was killed by the
KLA terrorists' gunfire.
That evening, on the road Klina-Djakovica, KLA terrorists set up
a roadblock where they beat up police officer Milenko Kandic.
Feb. 22: Ali Raci, an ethnic Albanian working at a Serbian-owned
agriculture company, was shot and killed in the village of
Dobre Vode at the entrance of the agriculture company. He had
refused to give in to the KLA's earlier warnings and blackmail
that he quit his job.
Feb. 26: Using hand grenades and automatic weapons, terrorists attacked
Serbian refugees from Albania housed in the refugee camp Babaloc
(located on the road Decani-Djakovica) for the third time.
Feb. 27: KLA terrorists attacked the houses in Srbica where Serbian
refugees from Croatia are temporarily housed.
At Monastery Devic, KLA terrorists harassed the head nun for
30 minutes. They ordered her to tell the police that they will
all be killed.
A KLA warehouse containing 12 kilograms of explosives with clocks,
several trunks of shells, and over 120 rocket launchers was
discovered in Prizren. Several terrorists were arrested.
The Serbs show their true face:
"where is ur list of serbs killed by KLA???? WHERE? just as many serbs died as albaniacs did. again, that sucks for both people, AND AGAIN FOR TEH 100th TIME TAHT IS NOT WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT, we are talking about he fact that the albanicas were LIEING THE ENTIRE TIME CLAIMING THAT 500,000 albaniacs were killled!!!!! list me teh names of 500,000 albanicas taht were killed!!!!! I DARE U U FUCKING SCUM LIARS! that is the point! OK! the FACT TAHT U ARE LIARS AND THEIVES!!!!!!! and that u cant achive anything on ur own only through lieing, selling drugs and pimping ur women out around the world. scum."
At first the claim was the number 100,000, then it went up by extra 400,000 or total of 500,000...
"asshole the claim was that at first 500,000 albos were dead then 100,000, I know people died serbs and albanicas same number dickhead, teh point here is that u lied like a slimy muslim to further ur stealing."
dude u are a moron, u r right 100k serbs should not decide the faith of 1.5M (i dont count teh "extra" 400k that came back with u from albania in 99) albos so then u must agree (i am using ur logic here) that 1.5 M albos cant decide teh faith of yugoslavia (1999) and 10M of its people!!!! how is that not right? dud estop lieing the press writes anything they wnat in serbia, even in the thoughest times magaznines like vreme were widely available in serbia. oh so now wikipedia is a GOOD SOURCE yet when I post the infor on Bill Clinton from Wikipedia then it a bad source, yes look up wikipedia and what it says about albaniacs, cleary it state taht ur origins are so unclear and noone knows where u are from. FACT IS THE WORD ALBANIAN, THE FIRST TIME ALBAOS ARE MENTIONED IS IN THE 12th CENTURY, that is the first time the word albanian was used (AHHHHH 600 YEARS AFTER TEH WORD SERB) i have asked on this site so many times and i am yet to get an answer, please show me an albania source from prior tot eh 19th century that cliams u are the illirians??????? where is it? wehre are ur sources from the 9 to the 18 centuries that cliam this??? where ?
hey man we don't pinp our women, we only pimp women from the slavic countries but we give them lovin' first.
I'd list those names that the psycho guy asked for but that shit freaked me out so bad that I just can't type that much. Chill man, you messing up my shit.
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