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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: goldsnow who wrote (13964)	8/9/1999 11:04:00 AM
From: Les H	Respond to of 17770

Mystery Surrounds Gracko Massacre Fourteen Serb farmers were brutally executed as they harvested their crops just outside the village of Gracko in Kosovo on July 23. Was it Albanian revenge or Serb police subterfuge? And can KFOR really keep any kind of peace? From the Institute for War & Peace Reporting. by Fron Nazi for The Institute for War and Peace Reporting July 30, 1999 Early Saturday morning reports that 14 Serbs had been massacred near Lipljan, 15 and a half miles south of Pristina, spread quickly through the capital and settled heavily like a dank cloud over the Spaghetteria caf‚, a favorite Pristina hangout for local journalists. Patrons quizzed the reporters as they came in for a quick coffee. "Who did it?" Nobody had any facts. Agim Ceku, supreme commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), and Hashim Thaci, prime minster of the Kosovo provisional government, had both condemned the killings at a Saturday press conference. Baton Haxhiu, editor-in-chief of the largest Albanian daily, Koha Ditore, said the killers intended to "ensure the return of the Serb police." Belgrade has been demanding just this ever since their withdrawal triggered a wave of reprisal attacks across Kosovo that the NATO-led force in Kosovo (KFOR) has been powerless to stop. KFOR estimated Tuesday that there have been 122 murders, and around 500 lootings and 341 arson attacks in Kosovo since it moved in and the Serbian forces moved out -- or statistically, at least one Serb murdered every 24 hours. But KFOR says the trend is downwards and that there is no evidence of systematic killings. But judging from the way the 14 bodies were found, near the village of Gracko, just outside Lipljan, most people assumed that these killings at least were well organized. One victim had obviously tried to make a run for it and had been shot in the back. The rest were summarily executed with a bullet to the head. The killers' identity and motive was much discussed. One theory blamed a rogue KLA squad carrying out a little private ethnic cleansing of its own. Others thought the murders might be part of a traditional Albanian family blood feud. Some even accuse the Serbian secret police of carrying out the attack to buttress Belgrade's demands that its police be allowed to return to Kosovo, citing Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic's habit of triggering conflict to strengthen his hand at home and abroad. KFOR said the village had been home to about 80 Serb and two Albanian families, who had lived together peacefully during the conflict. Most ordinary citizens feared a wave of tit-for-tat sectarian killings. "This is bad," said a 60-year-old house painter. "This is bad. Belgrade has its operatives here. If they don't get their way, they will retaliate. What have they got to lose?" "Most Albanians know that over 80 percent of the Serbs left," he said. "In most cases those that left did so because they participated in the burning and looting of Albanian homes and, in some cases, in the actual killing. In most cases those who stayed behind did not take part in such actions." "These killings make no sense. Whoever was behind them is looking to destabilize this fragile peace," he said. But the killings have highlighted KFOR's limited ability to stop such attacks, and raised concern at the snail-like pace of the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) in setting up a local police force. Meanwhile attacks continue and Serb homes are still being torched. The German KFOR soldiers are almost routinely serving as an ad-hoc fire brigade, while in the French-controlled zone around Mitrovice, the French have had to provide separate entrances to their compound for Serbs and Albanians. They will not guarantee the safety of those Albanians who do dare to cross into the Serb-populated sector, where bat-wielding vigilantes await them. General Mike Jackson, KFOR commander in Kosovo, said that progress is being made in tackling the problem. "I am not trying to detract from the horror of (the July 23 massacre)," he told the BBC, "but in the round we are making, without doubt, substantial progress. "Reconciliation is not at the top of some people's agendas," he added. "It is our job to do the very best we can to minimize any incidents of revenge." His force's ability to do that remains in doubt, however. Ironically, the week before the massacre, Gracko farmers had asked for NATO's protection from the Albanian reprisals they feared were imminent. Conscious that the farmers would be easy targets while they were out gathering the harvest, locally based British troops had agreed to organize special protection. The patrols were scheduled to begin on Saturday, but the killers struck the day before.