this is who we helped in the name of humanity!
Is Kosovo peace crumbling?
======================
Two months after Nato troops entered Pristina,
Peter Beaumont returns to find the mafia,
KLA and police engaged in a murderous
struggle for power
Sunday August 15, 1999
The Observer
newsunlimited.co.uk
The bombers of Lipljan are children. The makeshift jail, in a
battered police station now home to the British Army's Royal
Military Police, was once a stronghold for President Slobodan
Milosevic's special forces. Now its cells hold two 15-year-old
girls, detained in connection with a series of grenade attacks
that terrorised the town's remaining Serbs.
Their alleged crime is a dark mirror to methods of the Serb
Police and paramilitaries during their reign of terror in the 15
months before Nato forces arrived in Kosovo in June. The only
difference this time on the roundabout of Balkan violence is that
the bombers of Lipljan are ethnic Albanians. But their mission
had a chillingly familiar ring - to drive the remaining families
from the other side of the sectarian divide out of the town, and
Kosovo, for good.
The age of the members of the gang so far arrested has shocked
the British military police involved. Of the 16 they detained in
connection with a spate of more than 20 'fraggings' of Serb
businesses and homes in barely three weeks, 12 were aged 19 or
under. Last week, the bombings reached their peak with seven
grenade attacks in a single day before military police moved in
to break up the gang.
But for all their youth, the attacks in Lipljan were carefully
planned, not by the children who committed them but by the
gangsters who convinced the teenagers to perpetrate them.
Persuaded by figures in the ethnic Albanian mafia that they had
been recruited to cleanse their 'country' and create an
ethnically pure Kosovo rid of its Serbs, the girls agreed to be
used as couriers to transport grenades from the Albanian border
to the little town just south of Kosovo's de facto capital
Pristina. The girls would carry them into the town in handbags -
aware that the British soldiers would not search them - or gave
them to even younger children to transport.
There the grenades were stored by 'quartermasters' until needed
in attacks against the remaining 4,000 Serbs, in a town where
Serbians once made up more than 80 per cent of the population and
now make up barely half. Most sinister of all, however, is how
the attacks were carried out: with the teenagers sent out in
pairs masquerading as promenading lovers - the first pair to make
sure the coast was clear of British troops from the K-For
peacekeeping force, while the other hurled the grenades. When
Nato troops arrived the bombers would suddenly appear beside the
soldiers, presenting themselves as distraught witnesses of yet
another atrocity in the Balkan cycle.
But the truth behind this series of attacks in Lipljan, and
elsewhere in the province, is more cynical than simply an upsurge
in the sectarian attacks by young hotheads on a minority
population that - as the Balkan wheel has turned again - has
suddenly found itself the vulnerable one.
Instead, investigators believe, the Albanian mafia, posing as
freedom fighters, have turned the 'ethnic cleansing' of Kosovo
into a lucrative business. 'These kids believed that they were
working for figures in the Kosovo Liberation Army, and were
engaged in revenge attacks on Serbs,' said one source familiar
with the bombings.
'They were young and impressionable. They were all fired up. But
the truth is that they were being manipulated by the mafia for a
housing scam with access to the vacant properties being sold on
to homeless ethnic Albanians for 400 deutschmarks a time.'
The sinister pattern of violence against the remaining Serb
population has created an atmosphere of febrile crisis for the
international community whose policing of Kosovo's imperfect
peace has come under the spotlight. After three months of Nato
bombs to stop this kind of killing and expulsions, many are now
asking whether the war with Yugoslavia happened simply to allow
the ethnic Albanians to turn from victim into victimiser in
pursuit of independence.
The violence has sickened many who thought the province had
offered up all that it could from the well of inhumanity. But
recent weeks have seen new atrocities that - if not equal to the
fury of the Serb ethnic cleansing in March and April - are
strikingly familiar. Most shocking of all has been a series of
murders of elderly Serb women, shot through their doors in
Pristina, strangled, even drowned in their own baths, if they
refused to leave and give up their homes to men describing
themselves as representatives of the KLA.
'The truth,' said one aid worker, 'is that we are in the key
period for the survival for the last remnants of the Serb
community. There are probably less than 2,000 left in Pristina,
and more are leaving every day. People are trying to keep it
quiet, but we are aware that daily the Serb community is
organising transports out of the city of up to 50 people a day.
'With only 2,000 left at most out of 30,000 before the war it
doesn't take a lot to work out that soon the city could be empty
of its Serbs. And when Pristina is ethnically clean of its Serbs,
that sends a powerful message to the other Serb enclaves trying
to hang on.'
With only 22,000 remaining of the 200,000 Serbs who once made the
province their home, the question that many aid workers, military
and diplomats are privately asking is whether there will be any
Serbs left in 12 months time.
It is a message that has been rammed home by Ron Redmond, senior
spokesman in Pristina for the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees, who last week said the elderly remnants of the Serb
population in Pristina, which once numbered almost 40,000, were
the victims of sustained attacks, killings and intimidation.
'Conditions for those who have remained have noticeably worsened
over the last few weeks. A disturbing pattern has arisen against
Serbs still in the city,' said Redmond. That pattern is described
by Ruma Mandal, a protection officer with the UNHCR, who has been
studying the method of the killing and expulsions.
'We are aware of concerted efforts to remove remaining Serb
individuals and whole families from the apartment blocks in which
they live,' said Mandal. 'Typically, they first receive a letter
telling them to go, followed by a personal visit setting a
deadline. In some cases this is repeated throughout the entire
block.'
Mandal and other officers working in the city and elsewhere have
recently become aware of a new dimension of the expulsions -
quasi-legal documents posted under doors of those being warned to
leave. One - seen by The Observer - describes itself as an
'Internal Tenancy Agreement' including a licence number and
spaces for witnesses to sign. It is effectively a piece of paper
inviting the Serbs to give up their homes. 'We have seen a number
of these,' says Ruma Mandal. 'We are aware that in some cases
these have been sent to all the Serb occupants of a block. It is
simply another form of intimidation.'
But despite the way that those intimidating the Serb occupants
have described themselves as belonging to the KLA, even appearing
in uniform on visits to their victims and scrawling the letters
'UCK' (the Albanian acronym for KLA) on the door of their
victims, senior K-For officers - including military police - are
sceptical that the KLA is organising the attacks.
'It is a complete and utter sham,' said one senior British
military policeman. 'The point that we want to make - that we
have learned from our investigations - is that these are acts of
utter criminality. These people are gangsters who are using the
cover of the KLA to operate. We have found no formal links with
the real KLA.'
It is a version of events that is contradicted by other sources
who claim that, of 15 ethnic Albanians arrested for intimidation
last week, 11 were carrying cards identifying themselves as
members of the PU, the KLA's military police.
In Lipljan too, the same identity cards have been uncovered,
although local commanders claim no knowledge of those arrested.
'The problem,' said one Western diplomat, 'is that we simply
don't know if these people are KLA or not, even whether the cards
are genuine. Certainly the intimidation is being organised, by
whom and at what level we simply do not know.'
But the KLA's version of events - that criminals are abusing its
good name - does have support from the unlikeliest of sources.
Bishop Artimiye of the Serbian Orthodox Church is not convinced
the KLA is responsible but blames the organisation for not
stamping down on renegades and criminals using its name.
It is an issue that has cause deep discomfort for senior figures
in the former rebel army who, when challenged over why they
cannot police their own community, avoid the question.
For the truth is that, whoever is behind the intimidation, the
attacks on the surviving members of the Serb population are
tacitly accepted by a considerable proportion of the ethnic
Albanian community, happy to see the Serbs thrown out and
complicit in their wider persecution. While the military police
can intervene in areas of crime, they are powerless against the
wider discrimination that has rapidly emerged into Kosovo's
vacuum of power.
Most Serbs feel too frightened now to venture out of their homes
or the fresh-minted Serb ghettos. Indeed, in some areas of the
capital the problem has become so acute that UNHCR has had to
start delivering food to Serbs at home to prevent starvation.
Among them is book keeper Stanka Lalic, who gave up the fight to
stay in Pristina last week, fleeing to a relative's house in
Lipljan. But even there, in the heart of the Serbian community,
she does not feel safe. Now she is contemplating escaping Kosovo
to join her daughters in Serbia proper.
'I feel like crying when I see what has happened to my life,' she
says. 'We were told to leave our flat, and when I tried to go to
work the security men would not even let me through the gate. I
cried for 10 days after Nato came and then gave up.'
Kosovo's post-war cycle of violence
11 June
Pristina: 200 Russian troops enter airport, creating a tense
stand-off with surprised Nato. Direct confrontation avoided when
Lieutenant General Mike Jackson tells General Wesley Clark: 'I am
not going to start Third World War for you.'
12 June
Serb forces begin leaving Kosovo as Nato troops enter the
province after end of 78-day bombing campaign.
15 June
Serb civilians start fleeing for fear of reprisals.
20 June
With all Serb forces gone, Kosovo is divided into five
peacekeeping zones but Russians not given their own sector.
21 June
Kosovska Mitrovica: City divides into Serb and Albanian sectors.
Pristina: Suspected Albanian arsonists arrested.
22 June
Pristina: Serbian refugees housed in a 78-unit complex are
forcibly evicted by ethnic Albanians.
25 June
Pristina: Three Serbs are bound, gagged and shot in the head in
the university.
26 June
Pristina: Hundreds of the Serb intellectual elite leave.
27 June
Pristina: Three Serbs are killed. Germans impose curfew in their
sector of Kosovo.
29 June
Sitinica: 12 houses are burnt under Nato's noses in village
populated by Roma Gypsies and ethnic Albanians.
3 July
Pristina: Inquiry begins after British paratroopers shoot dead
two ethnic Albanians as they celebrate.
Kosovska Mitrovica: French troops intervene in violent clashes
between ethnic Albanians and Serbs.
17 July
Vitine: A 24-year-old Serb farmer is shot dead by five Albanians.
In the next few days grenade attacks wound more than 40 people in
this district.
19 July
Belo Polje: Three Serbs shot through the head by KLA forces. In
Kosovo more than 100 Serbs are reported missing in a month.
21 July
Prizren: Serb pensioners Marika Stamenkovic, 73, and Panta
Filipovic, 63, stabbed to death.
22 July
Roma Gypsies are targeted in revenge attacks as 2,000 flee to
Italy.
23 July
Zac: Albanians shoot at Spanish troops who return fire and arrest
five in western Kosovo.
Kosovska Mitrovica: Three Serb houses set on fire in Albanian
quarter.
24 July
Gracko: Fourteen Serb farmers shot dead while harvesting.
25 July
Orahovac, Prizren, Pec: Five murders, four abductions, one rape
and 14 detentions.
26 July
K-For reports 237 prisoners in its custody, 86 per cent of them
Albanians.
27 July
The peacekeeping force now numbers 35,000, including 1,500
Russians - still short of 40,000 originally promised.
29 July
Since the start of the peacekeeping mission 840 cases of arson
and 573 of looting have been reported.
30 July
Only 150 international police have joined the Nato troops in
Kosovo although 3,000 were promised by member countries.
3 August
Zitinje: 350 Serbs flee the village as Albanians move in and burn
it.
4 August
Dojnice: Serb village reduced to ashes with five bodies among the
remains.
Pristina: Five Albanians arrested after a Serb abducted and
killed. Two others detained suspected of killing an elderly
Serbian woman.
5 August
Human Rights Watch reports 198 murders since Nato's arrival.
7 August
Pristina: In the heaviest night of violence directed at Nato-led
peacekeepers since they arrived, a Russian soldier is wounded.
8 August
Kosovska Mitrovica: Albanians hurl stones and taunt French
peacekeepers preventing their entry into the Serbian quarter.
11 August
Dobrcane: Nine men arrested for an attack on Russian tank.
Kosovska Kamenica: Serb woman killed and her son injured.
Kosovska Mitrovica: Three Albanians beaten up in Serb quarter
after Serbs force their way into Albanian apartments telling
residents to leave.
Grabovra (near Pec): Nine mortar rounds fired into Albanian
community.
12 August
Pristina: UNHCR figures reveal that out of 40,000 Serb
population, only 2,000 are left. Estimates that out of 180,000 to
200,000 Serbs, 170,000 have fled since Nato entered the province.
K-For reports 78 arrests in the past 24 hours.
Donja Vrnica: British soldiers patrolling a place where Serbs had
been warned to leave shoot and wound at least two men and detain
two others after a car chase.
Kosovska Kamenica: About 2,000 ethnic Albanians demonstrate to
demand that Russian peacekeepers be sent home.
13 August
Dobrcane: Ethnic Albanian protesters scuffle with Russian and US
in anti-Russian demonstration.
Kosovska Mitrovica: Ethnic Albanians repeatedly clash with French
troops.
*Compiled by Nerma Jelacic
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 1999
UN troops declare war on
Serb-baiting Kosovo mafia
=====================
Peter Beaumont in Pristina
Sunday August 15, 1999
The Observer
newsunlimited.co.uk
The Kosovo peacekeeping force, KFOR, and newly-arrived officers
of the international police force have launched a tough clampdown
on ethnic Albanian criminal gangs attempting to expel the last
remnants of the Serb population from the province.
Amid private warnings from senior military officers, diplomats
and aid workers that Kosovo could be emptied of its remaining
22,000 Serb population within months, military and civilian
police, including officers of the British Army's Royal Military
Police, have made scores of arrests in the province's de facto
capital Pristina, and other remaining Serb enclaves, recovering
large amounts of arms and ammunition.
Among documents seized in Pristina and elsewhere are identity
cards purporting to show the holder is a member of the Kosovo
Liberation Army's military police, known as the PU.
According to one KFOR source, of 15 men arrested last week for
alleged involvement in intimidation of Serbs 11 were carrying
cards identifying them as PU members.
But despite evidence that seems to demonstrate the involvement of
the KLA in orchestrating the expulsions, investigators believe
most of those arrested are members of the Albanian mafia, posing
as members of the KLA. One senior British military police source
told The Observer : 'We have not been able to demonstrate any
links with the real KLA.'
He believed those arrested in the past week, including two
15-year old girls detained in connection with hand grenade
attacks on Serb properties in Lipljan south of Pristina, were
using the name of the KLA as part of a sophisticated racket
providing empty houses to homeless ethnic Albanians.
The latest clampdown follows widespread horror in the
international community at a series of murders in Pristina of
elderly women living on their own who had been shot after
refusing to give up their properties. It also follows the
shooting by British soldiers last week of three ethnic Albanians
caught attacking a Serb property.
Kosovo's UN administrator, in comments published yesterday,
criticised the KLA, suggesting it was to blame for the Serb
exodus. 'In the future I will not allow the homes of 10 or 15
Serbs to be burned down every night, even if that means
confrontation with the KLA,' Bernard Kouchner told the Athens
daily Eleftherotypia. I have told (KLA leader Hasim) Thaci that
my patience has run out. If the Serbs leave Kosovo we will have
lost.'
Thaci has denied KLA involvement.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 1999
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