KOSOVO HUMAN RIGHTS FLASH #14
MULTIPLE EYEWITNESSES CONFIRM KILLINGS AROUND VELIKA KRUSA, KOSOVO
Clear Policy of "Ethnic Cleansing"
Serbian security forces killed at least fifteen Kosovar Albanians on the main road between Pec and Prizren over the past weekend, Human Rights Watch confirmed today.
In separate interviews conducted on March 30 and 31 in Albania, three ethnic Albanian refugees told Human Rights Watch that they had seen at least fifteen ethnic Albanians killed on the Pec-Prizren road around the village of Velika Krusa (Krusha e Madhe in Albanian). Their accounts match two separate accounts provided by The New York Times and a local Albanian human rights group.
According to all of the refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the killings took place near a police and army checkpoint on the main road between the villages of Zrce and Velika Krusa. The convoy of refugees expelled by police from Pec last Sunday was stopped there, they said.
One witness from Pec, B. T., said that he was forced from his home by the police on Sunday and put on a bus that drove toward the Albanian border as part of a larger convoy. The bus was stopped at the Zrce checkpoint, he said, where soldiers pulled between ten and fifteen men off the bus, took them aside, and shot them. He told Human Rights Watch:
We left Pec at 11:00 in the morning. At the village of Zrce, the convoy stopped on the main road. There were 50 buses and trucks. It was about 1:30. The village is between Dakovica and Prizren. There were about 100 of us on the bus, packed in. There were soldiers on the sides of the road, and armored personnel carriers parked all around as well. Some of the soldiers started pointing at people: "You, you, and you -- get off the bus." They took them about ten to fifteen meters away, out of sight. We heard shooting. They were all young boys... When we drove past, I saw blood on the road. There were soldiers all around.
Another witness named N.L. was expelled by police from his home in the Dardania neighborhood of Pec on Sunday morning. The police demanded money from residents, he said, and confiscated many items, including his car. The police forced him and his family onto a bus that drove toward Prizren and then the Albanian border. He told Human Rights Watch:
When our bus came to an area near Krushe e Madhe, I saw dead bodies on the road. There were about 15 bodies, men of all ages. There were police standing all around. Next to them was a group of about 200 men, and further up the road, a group of about 200 women. One of the men managed to get on our bus, and he said the bodies were of men who had been killed by the Serbs, who were selecting out people -- "You, you, you" -- and then shooting them.
Another refugee, R.R. from Celina village, said he was part of a larger group that was on a forced march during the period between Saturday night and Sunday morning from his village to the main Pec/Prizren road, just below Velika Krusa. He told Human Rights Watch:
They kept saying they were going to kill us, that they were looking for a good place to kill us. They said: "Where is your America now? Where is NATO? Why doesn't London or Germany come to protect you?"
When we got to the main road they separated some of the men. The buses from Pec were passing by and they could see this. We were on the road from Pec to Prizren near the train tracks. It was near Velika Krusa... The trucks came to take us. As we were getting on they took two people away and killed them. One of them was Vefair Rexhepi from Celina. He was a mute and couldn't say anything when they asked him to speak Serbian, so they shot him. The other man was Nait Kabashi from Obterusha. I saw this.
An article in the March 31 edition of The New York Times ("Kosovars Flee to Beat Serb Deadline of Death") cited a fifty-five-year-old woman, Naxhije Zymi, as having seen a mass killing in Mala Krusa (Krushe e Vogel in Albanian) on Friday. The article said that her claims "conformed with other accounts given by refugees" and with accounts heard by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The Albanian Human Rights Group, an Albanian non-governmental organization, also interviewed refugees who spoke of killings at Velika Krusa (See the Albanian Human Rights Group's publication, "The Situation of Refugees from Kosova," Report #1, March 29, 1999). Members of the Gega family from Pec told the group that they were expelled from their home by the Serbian police, who then shot and killed two of the sons, Gjelal (35) and Arbnor (31). On the road to Prizren at Velika Krusa, they reported seeing seven or eight bodies, all of them men.
Given the consistency of the accounts from individual witnesses, Human Rights Watch believes that at least fifteen persons were killed in the Velika Krusa area. Other human rights organizations, as well as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, are called upon to identify other witnesses and to search for further evidence regarding the incident.
Other witnesses told Human Rights Watch of individual killings in the Pec-Prizren area that they had witnessed, but Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm these allegations. It appears that sporadic killings have taken place, with the purpose to intimidate the ethnic Albanian population into leaving Kosovo. Rumors of atrocities appear to have been highly effective in spurring people to leave quickly, and with relatively little resistance. All of the refugees interviewed were terrified and traumatized, and believed the Serb threats that they would have been killed had they stayed behind.
In general, the murders seem to be aimed either at intimidating the population into fleeing and staying in disciplined refugee columns, or into quickly giving up their possessions and money. Looting and robberies were widespread. Many refugees told Human Rights Watch that the police or army demanded money or goods in return for their lives.
Interviews reveal that green-uniformed troops were heavily involved in the actions between Pec and Prizren, if not entirely in charge of the actions. This apparent involvement of the Yugoslav Army marks a departure from events in Bosnia and Croatia, where most war crimes were committed by Serbian paramilitaries. It is also possible, however, that paramilitary units have been wearing army uniforms. Human Rights Watch has confirmed earlier incidents in which paramilitary units operating in Kosovo wore police or army uniforms.
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Kosovo Human Rights Flash is an information bulletin from Human Rights Watch. It includes human rights updates on the situation in Yugoslavia generally and in Kosovo specifically. For further information contact Fred Abrahams at (212) 216-1270 or abrahaf@hrw.org
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KOSOVO HUMAN RIGHTS FLASH #13
SERB FORCES SEPARATING MEN FROM WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN MALISHEVO
(New York, April 1, 1999, 7:00pm EST) — Interviews with refugees arriving in Albania today established that Yugoslav forces were systematically separating adult males from women, children, and elderly men in the Malishevo area of Kosovo, in the southern part of the province. According to the refugees, thousands of mostly unarmed ethnic Albanian men in the area have fled into the mountains, fearing arrest and possible summary execution.
Human Rights Watch researchers working near the Albanian border today noticed the arrival of thousands of refugees from the Malishevo area of Kosovo. In contrast to refugees from other areas of Kosovo arriving in Albania and Macedonia, the refugees from the Malishevo area were almost exclusively women, children, and elderly men.
According to refugees from the village of Ostrazuk, men were systematically separated from their families and taken away to an unknown location, after which the women and children were ordered to leave the village. The refugees told Human Rights Watch that the forces separating out the men were wearing green uniforms of the Yugoslav army (VJ), with a smaller number of forces in blue uniforms worn by the Serbian police (MUP). The ethnic Albanian men were questioned about the whereabouts of the Kosovo Liberation Army and of hidden guns before being taken away.
Refugees from other villages in the Malishevo area told Human Rights Watch that thousands of unarmed men had fled into the mountains in advance of the Serb offensive, fearing for their lives. The fate of these men is unknown. In a number of earlier incidents in the Kosovo conflict, and in the Bosnian conflict, the Yugoslav army and Serb police were responsible for the summary execution of unarmed, fighting-aged men. In September 1998, Yugoslav forces selected out and executed thirteen men from a large group of displaced persons in Golubovac, Kosovo (See the Human Rights Watch report, "A Week of Terror in Drenica").
The refugees told Human Rights Watch that Yugoslav forces began a systematic campaign of destruction and ethnic cleaning of the villages around Malishevo on Tuesday night, March 30, herding together thousands of women, children, and older men in the larger town of Malishevo. From there, the civilians walked to the Albanian border.
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KOSOVO HUMAN RIGHTS FLASH #12
MACEDONIA MUST KEEP BORDER OPEN TO REFUGEES
International Community Should Continue With Aid
(New York, April 1, 1999, 12:00pm EST) — Human Rights Watch today called on Macedonia to keep its borders open and to provide safe refuge to all those fleeing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo.
Human Rights Watch has received credible reports that a train carrying as many as 1,000 ethnic Albanian refugees to Macedonia was sent back to Kosovo by Macedonian authorities on March 30. Human Rights Watch researchers on the ground report long delays and obstacles for refugees crossing into Macedonia from Kosovo.
"It is simply unconscionable to send refugees home when they are fleeing Yugoslav government atrocities in Kosovo," said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. "It is also a violation of Macedonia's obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention. Macedonia must keep its borders open to those fleeing Kosovo, and provide refugees with swift and safe asylum."
Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, Macedonia has an obligation not to return any refugee to a country where his or her life or freedom may be threatened (on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion). Kosovar Albanian refugees denied entry into Macedonia are at serious risk of persecution in Kosovo, and a failure to provide them refuge is a violation of the fundamental principle of non-refoulement.
The Macedonian government closed its border to all citizens of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from March 22 to March 23, before the NATO bombing began. Since then, 14,000 refugees from Kosovo have entered the country, bringing the total number of refugees in Macedonia to over 30,000.
Human Rights Watch recognizes the legitimate concerns of the Macedonian government about the de-stabilizing effect such large numbers of refugees could have on inter-ethnic relations within Macedonia. But such concerns do not justify closing the border to those fleeing legitimate persecution. Instead, Human Rights Watch called on the international community to provide the necessary financial aid and practical assistance to help the Macedonian government cope with this crisis.
"If not handled properly, the refugee flow into Macedonia could tilt that country's fragile ethnic balance," said Kenneth Roth. "The international community must provide Macedonia with the necessary aid and assistance to meet the needs of the thousands of refugees crossing its borders."
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New York Times Op-ed written by Fred Abrahams, South Balkans researcher for Human Rights Watch
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KOSOVO HUMAN RIGHTS FLASH #11
(March 31, 1999, 1:25pm, EST)— Human Rights Watch has confirmed that there are currently two hundred dead bodies at the morgue in Pristina. It is not known who the victims are, when they died, or how.
Human Rights Watch has also confirmed that, on the night of March 28, the house of Rexhep Qosja -- ethnic Albanian academic, head of the Albanian Democratic Movement, and member of the Albanian delegation at Rambouillet -- was burned down.
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KOSOVO HUMAN RIGHTS FLASH #10
(March 30, 1999, 6:15pm EST—Human Rights Watch has learned that Serbian officials today visited the offices of Radio B92 in Belgrade and took all the names and addresses of its journalists.
Radio B92 is Serbia's largest and most important independent radio station. On the night of March 24, Serbian authorities confiscated the station's Belgrade transmitter and B92's editor, Veran Matic, was held in police custody for eight hours. The station continues to broadcast via satellite. Its programs remain one of few alternatives to the state-run media.
Since October 1998, when a restrictive Serbian Law on Public Information came into force, the government has systematically shut down or fined out of existence most of Serbia's privately owned media. Foreign broadcasts of the BBC, VOA, RFE/RL and Deutsche Welle have been banned.
Newspapers, radio and television stations under the control of Milosevic, especially Radio Television Serbia (RTS), present distorted information about the Kosovo conflict and the role of the international community. In recent weeks the state media has waged a virulent anti-American campaign, likening U.S. President Bill Clinton to Adolf Hitler and NATO airstrikes to World War II-era Nazi aggression.
Related Information
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KOSOVO HUMAN RIGHTS FLASH #9
(March 30, 1999, 4:20pm EST)—Refugees reported to Human Rights Watch researchers today that Serbian special police and Yugoslav military units are systematically expelling ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, including the cities of Pec and Prizren, in a well-orchestrated and centrally organized campaign to rid the region of the majority of its population. The stories of refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch staff in Albania and Macedonia revealed a consistent pattern in the conduct of the expulsions and their timing, underscoring the fact that the Yugoslav government evidently made a decision over the weekend to "cleanse" the region of ethnic Albanians.
Scores of refugees interviewed today described their expulsion from their homes by Serbian forces. Refugees from the major Kosovo cities of Pec (population approximately 100,000) and Prizren (population approximately 80,000) reported that there was widespread shooting in and around the cities from Thursday, March 25 to Saturday, March 27, during which time many shops were burned or bombed. Starting either on Saturday or Sunday, refugees reported that their homes were raided by Serbian special police and/or Yugoslav Army units who moved from neighborhood to neighborhood, ordering people to leave their homes and forcing them into columns that were then accompanied to the border. Refugees repeatedly told how soldiers and police threatened that anyone who did not leave within four hours would be killed.
Those who carried out the raids were either Serbian special police dressed in blue camouflage uniforms with either black ski masks or black grease paint on their faces or Yugoslav Army units dressed in green uniforms with either red or white bandanas. One person interviewed by Human Rights Watch also described Serbs in civilian clothes and another spoke of Serbs in all-black who participated in the raids.
All ethnic Albanian residents of Pec, a city in western Kosovo, reported that they were forced to gather in the central square where local trucks and private buses had been commandeered by the police to transport them out of the city. None of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch were allowed to take their own vehicles. It appears that a large convoy departed Pec at approximately 11 a.m. accompanied by Yugoslav forces who then stopped them about one hour from the border with Albania and forced them to walk the rest of the way.
Several of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported that individuals had been pulled out of the convoy and killed, and one person interviewed reported that soldiers stopped the bus he was on and took between 10 and 15 men off the bus. He reported having subsequently heard shooting, but had not actually seen anyone shot. He added, "As we drove past, I saw blood on the road." Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm these reports or find individuals who had been eyewitnesses to the reported killings.
Similarly, refugees who were forced to flee the town of Prizren, in southwestern Kosovo, reported that they were rounded up on Sunday morning and forced to leave their homes. In contrast to the expulsion in Pec, no vehicles were provided to transport the residents from the town. Instead, they departed in their own cars, tractors, or on foot to the Albanian border.
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