"EVERYONE IS ENTITLED..."Declaration and practice of Human Rights
by Bob Petrovich
How United Nations respect UN declarations? Kosovo, province under UN jurisdiction, provides ample evidence. December 10, Human Rights Day, awards an opportunity for long overdue review.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Article 3: "EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY AND SECURITY OF PERSON.'
"From the foreword of the OSCE report:
"The human rights violations . . . for the period June-October 1999 include executions, abductions, torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, arbitrary arrests and attempts to restrict freedom of expression. House burnings, blockades restricting freedom of movement, discriminatory treatment in schools, hospitals, humanitarian aid distribution and other public services based on ethnic background, and forced evictions from housing recall some of the worst practices of Kosovo's recent past."The OSCE report is an exhaustive catalog of ethnically motivated evil in its various banal forms. A day-by-day chronology of all human rights "events" that occurred between June 12 and Oct. 31 runs to 135 pages of single-space type, covering murders (more than 150), shootings, house-burnings, beatings and various other acts of revenge-seeking and terror.Michael Kelly, Kosovo's Killers The Washington Post, December 8, 1999; Page A33
"An Amnesty International report issued last month concluded that, after six months of peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo, "human-rights abuses and serious crimes continue to be committed at an alarming rate, particularly against members of minority communities, with virtual immunity."
The report declared that KFOR soldiers and U.N. police officers have been "unable to prevent violent attacks, including human-rights abuses, often motivated by a desire for retribution, against non-Albanians."Michael Kelly: Kosovo is anything but a safe, secure environment,
The Seattle Times, March 24, 2000
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/march00/hed17.shtmlOSCE Assessment of the Situation of Ethnic Minorities in Kosovo July 1999-Oct 2001
http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/minorities/
Number of terrorist attacks in UN governed Kosovo since June 1999: 5.089 (4.776 against Serbs, 114 against Albanians, 199 against others)
Murdered people in UN governed Kosovo since June 1999: 1.041 (910 Serbs, 78 Albanians, 53 others)
Wounded people in UN governed Kosovo since June 1999: 1.008 (945 Serbs, 20 Albanians, 43 others)
Abducted people in UN governed Kosovo: more than 1000
(104 confirmed murdered, 54 released from KLA captivity)
<http://www.2net.co.yu/apis/spisak_kidnapovanih_sa_opisom.pdf>
Article 4 "NO ONE SHALL BE HELD IN SLAVERY OR SERVITUDE; SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE SHALL BE PROHIBITED IN ALL THEIR FORMS."
"These women have been reduced to slavery," said Col. Vincenzo Coppola, commander of a special unit of the Italian carabinieri, or national police, in Kosovo that has rescued 23 women on raids of brothels in Pristina, the provincial capital, and Prizren.
Peter Finn, Sex Slavery Flourishes In Kosovo,Washington Post, Monday, April 24, 2000; Page A1
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A1973-2000Apr23>other reports:
<http://www.google.com/search?q=sex+slavery+kosovo>
<http://www.google.com/search?q=forced+prostitution+kosovo&hl=en>
Articles 6, 7, 8 , 9, 10, 11: "ALL ARE EQUAL BEFORE THE LAW AND ARE ENTITLED WITHOUT ANY DISCRIMINATION TO EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAW..."
"In its review, LSMS identified two trends in the legal system:
i. Kosovo Serbs may be treated in a more severe way than Kosovo Albanians;
ii. Kosovo Albanians who are detained for the same or similar crimes as Kosovo Serbs are often released when the victim was Kosovo Serb."from OSCE, The treatment of minorities by the judicial system
<http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/justice/report5.pdf>Other OSCE reports related to UN judiciary in Kosovo:
http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/justice/
"Kosovo's ethnic minorities are the victims of a biased and flawed judicial
system concerned with revenge rather than justice, says Steven Powles, one of three delegates who visited the region on behalf of the Bar Human Rights Committee"UN denies Serbs justice, The Times, Tuesday, March 7, 2000
<http://www.barhumanrights.org.uk/pdfs/times.pdf>
"We are all uncomfortable ... that fairness in the case might suffer from its ethnic background," said Rolf Welberts, who heads the human rights and rule of law monitoring
unit for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Pristina
"This is not unique to the Momcilovic case," he said. The worry is that "the judges are either biased or under pressure to decide in favor of their own ethnicity or against someone from another background." Officials of international organizations operating in Kosovo said there are at least six other such cases of Serbs being held on highly dubious charges for serious crimes in the American-run sector of southeast Kosovo.Roy Gutman,
Bias Seen In Judicial System In Kosovo ,
UN refuses to appoint judges above the fray
Newsday, Saturday, April 1, 2000
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/april00/hed31.shtml
Article 13:"EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO LEAVE ANY COUNTRY, INCLUDING HIS OWN, AND TO RETURN TO HIS COUNTRY."
"A year after Britain's disastrous involvement in Kosovo, tragedy vies with incompetence as the West connives in persecuting the Serbs "It's better now, British officers tell me. There is increasingly little anti-Serb violence in their sector, or in most of Kosovo. There are fewer Serbs being protected by our soldiers. One reason for this is that there are so very few Serbs left to attack. In Pristina there are only an estimated 800 Serbs out of a population of 40,000 at the end of the war. As many as 200,000 Serbs have left Kosovo, along with other persecuted minorities such as gipsies and Bosnians."
Stephen Glover,
How We're Aiding The Ethnic Cleansers,
The Daily Mail, February 26, 2000
<http://www.balkanpeace.org/monitor/koskss/kss05.html>
There are more Serbs and gypsies who have been killed and forced from their homes by Albanians since the Kosovo war than there were Albanians killed and forced from their homes by Serbs before it.
Christopher Lord, Bad Moves In The Balkans
Monday, April 9, 2001
http://speakout.com/activism/opinions/5756-1.html
"Put it another way, the United States and NATO, though it was the opposite of their declared intentions, have succeeded in cleansing Kosovo of one ethnic group in favor of the other."
David Binder,
The ironic justice of Kosovo-Seeking to stop ethnic cleansing,
NATO finds it has accomplished it
MSNBC,Friday, March 17, 2000
http://www.balkanpeace.org/monitor/koskss/kss23.html
Article 17: "NO ONE SHALL BE ARBITRARILY DEPRIVED OF HIS PROPERTY."
"The key problem is the lack of clarity, both in the law and in the actions of UNMIK Police and KFOR, regarding the determination of property rights, which has led directly to a large number of illegal occupations of homes and illegal constructions across the province. Without a resolution of the property issue, the situation of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees is aggravated since their homes are often occupied or destroyed."
OSCE report, The Impending Property Crisis in Kosovo
<http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/property/property_report_september_2000.pdf>[n.b. More than 50,000 houses were destroyed under UN supervision since June 1999
More than 400 public and more than 1000 private-owned businesses were looted]
Article 18: "EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF THOUGHT, CONSCIENCE AND RELIGION"
The cause of human rights which motivated the international intervention in this region will be weakened indeed if those which now have authority are unable to ensure the survival of minority communities and the protection of their religious and material patrimony.
World Council of Churches
http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/news/press/99/37pu.htmlDestroyed or Damaged Serbian Orthodox Churches and Monasteries in Kosovo and Metohija (June 13, 1999 - April 28, 2000)
http://www.incommunion.org/churches.htmMore than than 100 Christian churches and monasteries has been destroyed in Kosovo under UN supervision since June 1999. Additional 30 churches has been destroyed in neighboring Macedonia by extremists operating from UN protectorate of Kosovo.
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/world.cfm?id=86867
THE leader of Macedonia's rebel army was a senior figure in Kosovo's United Nations-funded civil defence force, it has been revealed.
Before launching war in Macedonia, Gezim Ostremi was paid by the UN to help set up the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), being appointed its chief-of-staff.
President George Bush has now banned Ostremi from entry to the United States, and accused five key members of the KPC of aiding the rebels.
Article 19: " EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF OPINION AND EXPRESSION"
"Upon arrival at Pristina airport, UNMIK police separated the Serbian journalists from the group, told them they had no permit to enter the city and informed than that filming was forbidden and anyone trying to film would have his camera confiscated and film destroyed.
UNMIK spokesperson Susan Manuel confirmed that UNMIK was unable to provide security for the group of journalists."Timothy Bancroft Hinchley, UN PERSONNEL BAN SERBS FROM KOSOVO
Article 20, 21: "EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO TAKE PART IN THE GOVERNMENT OF HIS COUNTRY, DIRECTLY OR THROUGH FREELY CHOSEN EPRESENTATIVES"
Report on the Provincial Elections, 17 November 2001
BRITISH HELSINKI HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP, November 17, 2001
http://www.bhhrg.org/faking_democracy_and_progress_in1.htm
Article 25: "MOTHERHOOD AND CHILDHOOD ARE ENTITLED TO SPECIAL CARE AND ASSISTANCE....
Grenade Attack on Serbian Children As Kosovo Minorities Suffer
"PRISTINA, Yugoslavia - Peacekeepers and UN police were Saturday hunting for a gang who threw at least two grenades at a group of Kosovo Serbian children playing basketball, a KFOR spokesman said.The attack, which KFOR said left nine youngsters in need of hospital treatment, appears to be the latest in a campaign of hate which a leading humanitarian agency says is making life hell for Kosovo's minorities."
August 19, 2000 Agence France Presse
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/081900-01.htm
Article 28: "EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO A SOCIAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER IN WHICH THE RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS SET FORTH IN THIS DECLARATION CAN BE FULLY REALIZED"
For Serbs, Goranis, Roma, Bosniaks, Turks, Croats and other ethnic groups in UN governed Kosovo "All human rights for all" sounds like "Work brings freedom".
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