some texts about / from Natasa Kandic

BETA news agency report
Yugoslav Army News Conference Belgrade, 29 August 2000 (BETA)

YA Spokesman: Natasa Kandic Should Be Sentenced

Yugoslav Army (YA) spokesman Colonel Svetozar Radisic confirmed today that the Yugoslav Army would file charges against Natasa Kandic, director of the Humanitarian Law Center, because of her accusations against the YA, adding that Kandic “should be sentenced for what she is doing.”  Radisic told a news conference that legal action would be taken against Kandic because of her unfounded accusations in which she “publicly attacked the Yugoslav Army as an institution.” Legal action against Kandic was announced by the YA General Staff on 25 August in a letter to the editor of Danas in response to the allegations she made against the YA in a text published in the newspaper the previous day and an earlier interview with the paper.
     In its letter, the General Staff said that unless Kandic substantiated her allegations with proof, “something else will be involved which also entails accountability and consequences clearly defined by law.”  In the text published by Danas  on 24 August and headlined “I Will Not Remain Silent About the Atrocities,” Kandic told the YA General Staff she would not pass over the suffering of  Albanian civilians as well as YA soldiers she saw in Kosovo during the NATO bombing. She said she would not remain silent about the crimes in Kosovo of which she knew regardless of which side committed them.  Among other things, Kandic said in the interview that the case of Kraljevo journalist Miroslav Filipovic, who was sentenced by the Military Court in Nis to seven years in prison for espionage and spreading of false reports, was really about his being the first person to “raise the issue of the reponsibility of the Army, the Serbian forces” in Kosovo.
     The YA General Staff, however, assessed that Kandic used the Filipovic case to accuse “the Army and state, denigrate the Yugoslav judicial system and cover up the crimes of the Shiptar terrorists and NATO  criminals.” Colonel Radisic said today it was “only natural” for Kandic to be taken to court.  “These allegations are so unfounded that no comment is necessary,” he said, adding that there would be no debate with Natasa Kandic and her case would go through the procedure envisaged by law. “We consider that she has no arguments and that she should be sentenced for what she is doing,” the YA spokesman said.  He added that it would not befit an institution such as the YA to enter into a polemic “with a person who puts forth such allegations” since, he said, “this person might be a psychiatric case.”
     Natasa Kandic told BETA three days ago that she had proof of her allegations based on what she saw herself and the research and investigations carried out by the HLC.

 
HLC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S LETTER TO YUGOSLAV ARMY GENERAL STAFF

Yugoslav Army General Staff
Belgrade

Belgrade, 21 August 2000

Sirs,

On 17 August last, the Belgrade daily Danas in its Letters to the Editor section carries a letter from your Information Office under the heading “Ms Kandic Prejudges with Serious and Unproven Accusations”. The letter is in response to my interview by Bojan Toncic carried by the same paper and purports to set out what I said, what I left unsaid, and what I actually meant in that interview. I consider it fitting to address my letter directly to you, both as the institutional and presumable authors of the letter published by Danas.
     You state in your letter that I put forth “falsehoods with regard to events in Kosovo and Metohija” during the NATO intervention and that in so doing committed a crime for which both I and those who prevented my so doing should be held accountable.
     There is no doubt in my mind about whom you consider to be criminals, terrorists and spies.  In Serbia today, everyone, including  children, are under suspicion by the authorities of being terrorists.  When anyone dares to raise the question of the responsibility of the Yugoslav Army, you respond with secret trials.  I am one of those people who refuse to remain silent, even at the cost of being brought to trial by you.  I will not remain silent about the horrors your generals sent young recruits to witness in Kosovo. I can still see the anguish on the faces of 20-year-olds who gave their rations of milk, bread and cheese to Kosovo Albanian mothers and children driven from their homes by the Army and police.  The road from Kosovoska Mitrovica to Pec and Djakovica on 14 and 15 April is engraved on my memory: a column of Albanian civilians, young soldiers going up to them with tears in their eyes, pleading with them to accept their food, to forgive them, saying it was not their fault, that their officers ordered them to Kosovo, that they did not know where they were being taken. Young soldiers were the bright light of humanity and life in other localities of Kosovo too. I will not be silent about the suffering of civilians I saw in Kosovo. I saw Albanian villages surrounded by tanks and heard the shelling. I saw thousands of people leaving their homes with a bundle or two of belongings, ordered out by the police or Army who told them Kosovo was no longer their home.  I saw columns of civilians on the roads.  A few dared to stop for a moment to tell me how the Army shelled their village and ordered them out to Albania.  As they were leaving, they saw police enter the village, plunder their property and torch their homes.  I spoke with people who were in Izbica on 26 March.  They recounted how they were surrounded by soldiers in green uniforms, reservists, who separated the men to be shot.  A woman described to me how soldiers went through a mass of villagers, pointing to who would remain and who had to leave, for Albania.  They took her husband and father-in-law, an old man of 70, in a round up of 20 men.  She saw them shot.  When they came around a second time, her son was taken.  She offered the soldiers money for her son’s life but they said they could not let him go.  She did not see her son shot, but later heard on the radio that he had been shot on that 26th of March.  About 10,000 civilians were forced by shelling to leave a field near Izbica and set out for Albania. In these columns were mothers who were not allowed to see their dead children for a last time.
     These, gentlemen, are facts about what happened in Kosovo during the state of war.  Regrettably, this is the cruel truth about Izbica, Bela Crkva, Cuska, Vucitrn and many other places and not, as you maintain, “falsehoods.”  If you can find no one else to hold accountable for these events, you may count on me.  I stand here and plead guilty because I did nothing to prevent these crimes from being committed. You rebuke me for not praising the Yugoslav Army, the astuteness of its commanding generals, its high morale, good tactics and ingenious camouflaging.  Do you really think the people of Serbia and Montenegro believe you fought against a flesh and blood enemy, those you label “NATO criminals”, and that you won?  Every casualty of the NATO bombing is your casualty too. You wholeheartedly endorsed the war against “foreign occupation” only to sign the Military-Technical Agreement in Kumanovo on 9 June on the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army, police,paramilitary and parapolice units from Kosovo.  And then you proclaimed victory. Yet you avoid meeting face to face with the parents of soldiers who were killed or went missing.  You took their sons to Kosovo but not your own sons; you award medals to the sons of parents who only want to know where their sons are buried.
     The issue of the legality and legitimacy of the NATO intervention in FRYugoslavia has been raised at the international level.  Legal experts are seriously analyzing possible violations of international humanitarian law by NATO.  Very soon after the bombing of the Serbian Radio-Television building and the civilian deaths caused, the respected human rights organization Amnesty International came out with an expert opinion saying a civilian target had been attacked in contravention of the Geneva Conventions. You say that I fail to mention the victims of the NATO bombing and the destruction it caused.  May I remind you that I applied to you on 3 April for permission to research and investigate attacks on civilians and civilian targets.  May I recall the bus tours organized by you of bombed locations, with passes issued only to selected reporters.  You had an information monopoly; it was as if tourist attractions were involved, not human life.  Although the Humanitarian Law Center is the only human rights organization to have applied for such permission, your Press and Information Office, when we applied, made us wait for days before we were finally and bluntly told, “No! We know what kind of organization you are.”
     You accuse me of passing over the crimes of “Shiptar terrorists” from 1 January 1998 to the present.  What do you call those on “our side” who have committed crimes?  Do you consider them terrorists also or the nation’s defenders?  What have you done to establish the fate of Serbs, Roma, Bosniacs and Montenegrins who disappeared when you had control over the territory of Kosovo?  You treat these victims of before and after the arrival of the international force in Kosovo as numbers, as though the more dead and abducted, the better for the Serb cause. You say that you successfully opposed the world’s strongest military force, that you beat NATO.   If you are so powerful why not do a simple thing for the good, this time, of the people of Serbia and Kosovo: ask those with whom you signed the Kumanovo Agreement to help with the clarification of the fate of the missing and the prisoners: 2,500 Albanians who went missing during the state of war, 1,150 Serbs, Roma, Montenegrins and Bosniacs who disappeared since the employment of the international force in Kosovo and about 900 Albanian who are being held prisoners in Serbia.
     I stand where I have always stood, defending the right to life, the right to freely use one’s native language, the right to freedom of movement, the right to publicly criticize authorities.  I stand in support of every court that punishes the perpetrators of war crimes and those who ordered crimes against humanity. Ethnicity is irrelevant; a crime is a crime.

Natasa Kandic

VIP, Belgrade, August 25, 2000

Yugoslav Army Says it will Sue Natasa Kandic

The Yugoslav Army (VJ) said on Thursday it would be bringing charges against Natasa Kandic for her text “I shall not keep quiet about horrors” published in the Danas newspaper on Thursday, the Glas Javnosti newspaper writes on Friday.
     Quoting the newspaper’s obligations “under the Law on information”, the VJ Command’s Information Service says in a letter submitted to Danas it hopes that “Danas, as a serious newspaper, carefully weighed the claims made by Natasa Kandic” and that “she will be able to prove her claims in court”.
     It is not clear from the letter who will be prosecuted and under what law.  However, the text of the VJ statement carried by Danas on Friday says “the VJ hopes that Natasa Kandic will prove her contention in court”.
     Danas Deputy Editor-in-Chief Boza Andrejic has said he does not expect Danas to be charged.  He said the editorial board had, from the VJ letter, come to the conclusion that the Army would not be taking steps against Danas under the most serious articles of the Law on information, and might not even bring charges against Danas at all.
     Andrejic said the hope was based on the fact that the newspaper had immediately acted on the VJ’s request and published the VJ’s reaction to Kandic’s text.
     “The essence of the letter is that the VJ announces it will sue Natasa Kandic for texts published in our newspaper.” Asked what in her text could have prompted the VJ Command to take the step, Humanitarian Law Fund Director Natasa Kandic said on Thursday she did not know how the VJ meant to prove its case.  “If the trial is closed to the public, then it will not be possible to present evidence”. Kandic said she had made her claims in the text as “an eyewitness to many things”.  If evidence could be presented publicly, “I think that would be an ideal chance for the public to learn what evidence there is that things have been done in contravention of international humanitarian law”, Kandic said.

Can Anyone Be Surprised By Sudden Anti-serbian Statements of The “Protectoress of Humanity and Law”
Politika, August 24, 2000

Soros’ Mercenaries

Mrs. Natasa Kandic accuses the Yugoslav Army, while setting a high foreign exchange rate for her “humanitarian” efforts and collecting a fee of 5,000 German marks for every false accusation of the army and the legal leadership of the state she belongs to. While Mrs. Kandic accuses, The Guardian journalist Audrey Gillan indirectly defends the Yugoslav Army admitting, these days, that the accusation of mass murders of the Shquiptari in Kosmet was an ordinary lie and an alibi for NATO military intervention against the FRY – The fact is that all the banished spies invoked one source of information alone – Natasa Kandic
     Financial potentates like George Soros and his mercenaries, such as the director of the “Fund for Humanitarian Law”, lawyer Natasa Kandic, still imagine that they can rearrange the world as they see fit by their own yardstick. This unrealistic ambition of theirs is particularly heated up by a number of our own – bought – media by overemphasizing the importance of nonsensical statements uttered by the impassioned “preachers of morality”, actually people of dubious moral integrity and no dignity,   and observations of analysts and critics of social circumstances who choose to overlook the truth, “patriots” who have sold their patriotism and “fighters for justice and law” who have abused both these values and, moreover, with their conduct and statements, persist in doing just that..
     Thus, only recently, Mrs. Kandic, on the basis of specific instructions of her financier George Soros, in the Belgrade daily "Danas" (which, too, is subsidized by the above-mentioned businessman of Hungarian origin) gave her contribution, albeit a modest one, to the continuing anti-Yugoslav campaign. Using the usual, unproductive, pattern she accused the Yugoslav Army – only and exclusively because it represented the symbol of state integrity and coexistence of  all the nations in our homeland – of committing mass crimes against civilian population during the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosmet, although she must know for sure that the Yugoslav Army soldiers could not have committed such atrocities. They did not and could not have done that because  – as revealed by our freedom-loving history – professional and human honor is inherent in the nature of the Serbian and Montenegrin officer.
     Despite that, Mrs. Kandic, accuses the Yugoslav Army  “overlooking” the fact that the only true victims of violence, terror and daily brutal executions in the southern Serbian province are precisely the Serbs and the non-Albanian population of a few.  Mrs. Kandic does that because she has set a high foreign exchange rate for every false accusation against the army and the legal leadership of the state she belongs to, collecting a fee of 5,000 German marks.
     It appears that this foreign exchange amount was sufficient for the close friend of the SFRY foreign minister Budimir Loncar to “forget” the fact that even the press close to the British government, biased as it is, has recently uncovered a piece of information no one has yet denied, to the effect that the SAS had participated in the mass execution of Muslim civilians near Srebrenica during the Bosnian ware and that the crimes were subsequently asscribed to the Serbs to reinforce the image already made in the workshops of media propaganda experts.
     While Mrs. Kandic accuses, the jouranlist of a popular London daily The Guardian, Audrey Gillan, these days, indirectly defends the Yugoslav Army acknowledging and confirming what we have known for a long time already, that the accussation of the mass killing of Shqiptari in Kosovo and Metohija was an ordinary lie and an alibi for NATO military intervention against the FRY.
     Revealing that the pathetic story of the Shqiptari victims was actually a “lesson on the use of propaganda in modern war”, Gillan dealt a hard slap in the face of Blair’s government. But, what could be expected of Mrs. Kandic who, way back in March 1994, on behalf and in the name of Soros’s “Fund for Humanitarian law” in Belgrade, accused the Serbian and Montenegrin police of allegedly arresting and torturing over 400 Muslims. Can anyone at all be surprised by sudden anti-Serbian statements of the hypocritical and selective “protectoress of humanity and law” who, already in 1996 in Vukovar, publicly accused the Serbs of committing crimes against Croatian civilians and of allegedly concealing mass graves in Eastern Slavonia which, as we all known now, have never existed.
     Statements of this kind may come as a surprise to the naïve or uninformed, but certainly not to the journalists who were banished from the FR of Yugoslavia during last year’s aggression because of false reporting on the events on our soil or because they, on the side, engaged in espionage in the interest and for the governments of states which had sent them here.
     The fact that all the banished spies invoked one source of information alone – Natasa Kandic- is the most expressive of the false humanity of Soros’s hireling.
(Tanjug)
 

In the Wake of Nis Military Court’s Verdict

WHO IS DEFENDING THE CONDEMNED SPY MIROSLAV FILIPOVIC

The most consistent and passionate defenders are precisely those who are tested enemies of the Serbian nation in the FRY, which clearly reveals whose puppet and political exponent Miroslav Filipovic really is

Nis – August 17. (Tanjug)

Towards the end of July this year, the Military Court in Nis condemned the political propagandist from Kraljevo, an associate of the London Institute for War and Peace Reporting, allegedly a correspondent for the  France Presse agency,  Miroslav Filipovic (49) to seven-year imprisonment for espionage and dissemination of false news.
     The sentence was used by numerous organizations operating under the mantle of human rights protection, pseudo-democratic media and journalists – actually directly controlled by NATO-member governments –to continue the synchronized campaign against the legally elected authorities in the FRY,  trying to present the above-mentioned propagandist and traitor as a victim and to thereby draw the foreign and local public to their objectives.
     What did really precede Filipovic’s arrest on May 8 and the pronouncing of the sentence two and a half months later?
     A journalist, without a journalist card, one of those who could nor resist the enticing, although deceptive “aroma” of foreign currency, has this spring, on the web site of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting  published an article brimming with untrue and falsified facts, a text wherein he – using the manner of his financiers on  their orders – unfoundedly accused the army of his state, for the crimes its soldiers did not and could not have ever committed.
     Filipovic did not hesitate to assign the crimes which have been committed by the extreme Shqiptari separatists in Kosovo and Metohija, consumed by crazed ethnic hatred and propelled by a monstrous idea on creating a so-called Greater Albania, to the soldiers of the Yugoslav Army although, being a son of an officer himself, he must know full well that our soldiers and officers not only cherish patriotism, military and human honor  their highest value but also consider them the bounds of their profession and life in general. Of decisive importance for continuation of the unpleasant story on the political propagandist from Kraljevo is the fact that, appearing before the Military Court in Nis, he could not substantiate a single one of his statements or prove any of  his allegations.
     This article notwithstanding, Filipovic would still be called to account for disclosing and selling information on the deployment and abilities of our armed forces, location of important military institutions and falsified information allegedly on the low morale of the army, pursuant to article 128 of the Yugoslav Criminal Code, which is precisely what has happened this summer.
     The article published on the Internet this year, including unfounded and unambiguous accusations against the Yugoslav army, brought Filipovic the annual journalist award of the British Government Netmedia Foundation, while the Austrian daily Salzburger Nachrichten “wisely” judged that “in Serbia, Filipovic will be celebrated as a hero and the first true dissident”.
     Here in Serbia and the FR of Yugoslavia, Filipovic is, in every possible way, supported by the Otpor members, the so-called independent media and journalists, as well as diverse non-governmental organizations funded by the American financial magnate of Hungarian origin George Soros and (or) governments of NATO- member countries.
     Precisely this fact, namely that Filipovic is the most consistently and passionately defended by  proven enemies of the Serbian nation and the FRY, is the best indicator of whose puppet and political exponent Miroslav Filipovic really is. Still, the epilogue of the court trial which has agitated the foreign public is yet to come, in view of the fact that Miroslav Filipovic has already appealed to the court in the second instance against the verdict pronounced by the Military Court in Nis on July 26, this year, on the basis of Article 128 of the Yugoslav Criminal Code.

Published in “Politika” on August 23, 2000.

Daily "Danas," Belgrade, Thursday, 17 August 2000

From the Information Service of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Yugoslav Armed Forces

Mrs. Kandic Launches Grave But Groundless and Premature Accusations

Mr. Spasovic,
The double issue of your paper of 12-13 August 2000 featured an interview between journalist Bojan Toncic and Mrs. Natasa Kandic, the director of the Humanitarian Law Center. In it, she criticized the state in a well-known and well-tested but ineffective way -- by criticizing the military. Using the court case against the journalist Miroslav Filipovic as a pretext, Mrs. Kandic acted as an alleged human-rights activist, even as a leader in the field, thereby abusing not only the law and humanitarian principles but also the truth, by extending support precisely to those who have committed crimes and who are still committing evil deeds.
     Using the case of Miroslav Filipovic as a pretext, Mrs. Kandic has accused the military and the state, offended the Yugoslav judiciary, and hidden the crimes of the Albanian terrorists and the criminals of NATO. If Mr. Filipovic had been "publishing the truth, following his moral notion of reality," as Mrs. Kandic stated, how is it possible that this "truth" has not been proven in court? Mrs. Kandic has instead "clarified" Mr. Filipovic's alleged moral notion of reality with untrue statements about related developments in Kosovo and Metohija regarding war crimes allegedly committed by the Yugoslav military.
     Of course, there are no arguments, just as there are no arguments in the stories of those who have quoted (and who are still quoting) the same reasons for the brutal aggression against our country.
     By pointing to the Hague Tribunal as the only institution in charge of establishing war crimes committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and by blaming members of the Yugoslav military as the only culprits, Mrs. Kandic has accused the defenders gravely and prematurely, with no evidence, exclusively and solely, while extending amnesty to proven terrorists and criminals. By such statements, she has also taken the side of those who have breached, and are still breaching, numerous norms of international law and international convention, even as she opposes the true humanitarians and peacemakers and the advancement of the increasingly convincing truth about the consequences of the activities of the terrorists and the NATO aggressors.
     As an activist in the field of rights and humanitarian law, Mrs. Kandic has failed to quote some of the irrefutable proofs and facts, particularly those related to civilian victims and the destruction of industrial and cultural objects. These include, first, the fact that aggression itself is a crime, irrespective of its form, but particularly when committed by armed forces. NATO has killed thousands of persons, mostly civilians. It has breached the UN Charter, numerous international conventions and international laws -- even the norms of the Agreement on the Establishing of the Alliance -- and the constitutions of the most of the member countries.
     During 78 days of military aggression, NATO -- among other acts – dropped approximately 37,000 cluster bombs, mostly in Kosovo, and fired munitions containing depleted uranium, which is forbidden by international convention. It destroyed several thousands of living units, more than 200 industrial objects, and tens of schools, hospitals, public and cultural institutions. It bombed oil refineries (19 times), oil tanks (96 times), petrol stations (19 times) and other energy-related structures, which produced not only large material damages but also large ecological consequences. NATO also bombed hydrological objects, electrical plants, communications and transportation objects, and trains and buses.
     Mrs. Kandic failed to mention numerous facts and information related to the crimes of Albanian terrorists, who, in the period between 1 January 1998 and 05/02/1999, [QUERY: The second date should be written in a style consistent with the style used above. Either "5 February 1999" or "2 May 1999" -- depending on whether the numerical style in original follows European rules or American rules.] committed 2,733 terrorist acts -- 1,078 of them against civilians and civil objects -- and killed 335 citizens of Kosovo and Metohija. In the period between 6 October 1999 and 5 July 2000 they committed appproximately 5,000 terrorist acts (4,792).
     Albanian terrorists have killed 1,010 Serbs and other non-Albanians, wounded 924 persons and kidnapped 936. Over the same period, among other objects, more than 50,000 Serbian, Montenegrin and Roma homes were destroyed and set on fire. Eighty-five monasteries and churches were destroyed, damaged or desecrated.
     Mrs. Kandic never cared to mention that Yugoslav military managed, by its efficient command, high morals and rational tactical actions, as well as by expert disguise, to successfully resist the most powerful armed force in the world. It was military's constitutional obligation, professional duty and patriotic assignment. It had no other choice.
     All that, or at least that, Mrs. Kandic could have said. Accusing the defenders and forgetting or failing to mention real criminals and terrorists, makes for an additional crime. A crime against mankind and homeland. Against law and humanity. And against many other things. An unavoidable part of responsibility for this belongs with those who are not preventing it.

Information Service of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Yugoslav Armed Forces

attachment of this mail

 
HLC Executive Director’s Interview with Danas, August 12-13, 2000

Authorities Use Repression To Cover Up Responsibility

Though the Filipovic case is a drastic one and shows that the government intends to prevent coverage of the responsibility for crimes, we have not been able to react adequately and start discussing things everyone already knows, to start setting out the facts available to everyone. Miroslav Filipovic is the only journalist who has been charged with espionage and the dissemination of false reports, primarily with regard to the war crimes in Kosovo but also in the territory of former Yugoslavia in general.  His case is specific also in that it is talked about but without anyone getting to the crux of the matter, which is that Filipovic was the first to raise the issue of the responsibility of the Army, the Serbian forces.  This is why his trial was held behind closed doors, for which the espionage charge was only an excuse, said Natasa Kandic, director of the Humanitarian Law Center, when interviewed by Danas.  She pointed out that Filipovic “came out with the truth because of his moral attitude toward the reality.”

N.K. Filipovic is from Kraljevo, a city where many reservists were  called up for the war in Kosovo and the previous wars in the territory of former Yugoslavia.  People in Kraljevo know each other, they talk and everyone knows who was where, what his state of mind was when he came back, what he witnessed there.  Filipovic reacted to the facts and faced them.  His was a moral and a professional reaction and it focused on the central issue – responsibility. Though the Filipovic case is a drastic one and shows that the government intends to prevent coverage of the responsibility for crimes, we have not been able to react appropriately and start discussing things everyone already knows, to start setting out the facts available to everyone.  There are so many war crimes indictments, so many war crimes trials that bring out what happened in Kosovo and in Bosnia.  General Krstic, for example, told The Hague Tribunal something our public refuses to admit - that Serb forces liquidated between five and eight thousand people in Srebrenica.  After the Filipovic case, the Srebrenica victims should have prompted some hard thinking.  But a serious reaction that could be expected in any normal society was not forthcoming here.

B.T. The Humanitarian Law Center has been seriously investigating the war crimes in Kosovo, conducting research on the ground and interviewing victims of the war operations.  When will conditions be created for talking openly about the responsibility of the Serbian side and, hence, members of the Yugoslav Army too?
N.K. These past ten years have proved how hard it is to talk about what was done in the wars in former Yugoslavia in the midst of a crisis of political and moral integrity.  It is also hard to establish the truth in order to be able to raise the issue of responsibility on that ground.  This is not the case only in Serbia.  The situations in Croatia and Bosnia are not conducive to discussion of crimes according to their severity, in legal terms and not in terms of the ethnicity of the perpetrators or the political evaluations of those crimes.  At present, this is possible only before the Tribunal.  For years it has been said over and over again that the Tribunal was set up only to judge and punish Serbs.  Then someone like General Krstic appears and what he says voids everything the authorities have being claiming about The Hague
Tribunal.  Vicious circle I don’t think conditions here will be favorable for war crimes trials any time soon.  Even when such trials did take place – I refer to two trials of policemen for crimes in Kosovo – advantage was not taken of them to speak out about what really happened.  The government’s strategy works and has been helped by Albanian extremists who started systematically terrorizing Serbs, Muslims and Roma after the arrival of the international forces in Kosovo. This narrowed down the possibility of discussing what happened before and during the NATO intervention. There are at least 200,000 people in Serbia who know what happened but there is no possibility of raising the issue.

B.T.  We see that Albanians who were arrested or taken prisoner during or before the NATO intervention are receiving prison sentences approximately equal to the time they have already been held in custody. Does the practice of buying and selling their freedom still continue? How many Albanian prisoners are there in Serbia now? N.K.  The official figure is 900 Albanian prisoners in Serbia and, so far as we know, the practice of buying their freedom has been discontinued.  Sometimes, when criminal proceedings had not been initiated, lawyers found ways to get their clients released, in return for which they received large sums of money from the families.  The practice was stopped because it was reported by the media; many judges realized they had been involved in dirty deals about which they knew nothing.  Between 100 and 150 Albanian prisoners in Serbia are released every month, which is good news.  However, some of the trials were not fair.  This was the case with the trial of the “Djakovica Group” when both witnesses and expert witnesses corroborated the defendants but the presiding judge said they were collectively responsible. On the other hand, the Serbian authorities have not even tried to clarify the fate of some 1,000 missing Serbs and to initiate negotiations with the assistance of the international community.  Some of these missing people may still be alive.  This was not done because the issue of Albanians who went missing during the NATO intervention would also have had to be put on the agenda.  We are in a vicious circle.  We know only a part of what happened, do not know the other part and thus fall into the trap of the regime which just keeps repeating that the whole world is against us.

B.T.   How are Serbs treated in the prison at Kosovska Mitrovica? Are there any real guarantees that they will receive fair trials?
N.K.  The majority of Serb and Roma prisoners are accused of war crimes and genocide.  The Center is monitoring the trials that have started and, in contrast to the practice in Serbia, we are allowed to visit the prisoners.  I regularly visit the prison in Kosovska Mitrovica where Serbs from Orahovac who are accused of very serious crimes are being held.  International standards are applied there and none of the prisoners has complained about the treatment or the conditions.  The problem is that some of the investigations were conducted without the presence of international investigators and investigating judges.  In all such cases, additional investigations are carried out and results have been forthcoming.  Charges have been dropped in several cases and there are indications that eleven Serbs who were imprisoned in August last year will be released shortly.  International judges sit on all the trial panels, which ensures high standards and impartiality.

B.T.  A number of non-governmental organizations have been thoroughly scrutinized by the State Security, Economic Crime Division and financial police.  This was accompanied by a press campaign against the “third sector.”  In this light, what does the future hold for non-governmental organizations?
N.K. This is just part of the Serbian authorities’ strategy to retain political power.  The main targets are Otpor activists and political parties, journalists and non-governmental organizations.  After the NATO intervention, the government celebrated its purported victory against the aggressor while the opposition came out with clear demands for replacement through elections of a government which has in the past ten years produced nothing but wars.  The regime therefore started to create conditions for the intimidation of its political opponents and the means it resorted to included pressures on the media, fines, prohibition of their work, takeovers.  When this was achieved, the official media were able to dominate with their messages. Their basic message is that there is a division into “us” and “them”, into people who care about national interests and the citizens and people who are in the pay of the international community, in the pay of NATO. In late May, it was clearly stated that Otpor, certain parties and non-governmental organizations were terrorists.  The serious intimidation started with the use of such terms.  The objective is to frighten everyone and create conditions in which it will be easy to win the elections and keep hold on power. Police under political orders From May to early August, the police force has been the main government agency which, for no reason at all but following very precise political orders, has been conducting a campaign of mass intimidation.  Never before have we had daily close encounters between young people and police or a situation in which such a large number of people has been subjected to actions by police following political instructions.  The police do not conceal that they have been instructed to register everyone who wears an Otpor badge or supports Otpor.  In these three months, the police pretended to be very active in solving a large number of crimes and in doing so acted unlawfully on many occasions.  Some 800 young people whose mean age was 27, were taken in by police, and more than 100 minors subjected to procedures reserved for felons. They were summoned for investigatory interrogations for distributing leaflets, wearing Otpor badges, staging street performances, putting up posters.  An analysis of these cases brings out that this is a witch hunt against all who have different political views and aimed at scaring the citizenry to keep them quiet when the authorities make their next move.  The mass intimidation and unlawful conduct of the police did not stop when the elections were called.  It even seems that the pressures have been stepped up.  The police make no secret of the fact that they will not allow putting up of posters, street performances and similar actions, public discussion forums.  They will continue building up files on young people without convictions, which will be pulled out when the authorities decide what is to be done with them.

B.T. What should non-governmental organizations do during the election campaign?
N.K.  For months opposition parties have been blind to what is going on.  I am surprised at how long opposition leaders have been obsessed with themselves, not realizing what they should be doing.  Opposition leaders stay in Belgrade for months and announce that they will have another meeting, that they have fixed the agenda, that they will travel abroad to meet and talk with representatives of the international community...  But they are not capable of travelling to a city or town in Serbia to see what is going on there, to feel the atmosphere, to gauge the political mood at local level. Civil sector ahead of opposition The Humanitarian Law Center organizes public forums in the interior because we believe it important to talk about what is happening to us, what the law and constitution have to say about our rights and how to protect these rights. It is mostly young people who attend these forums and discussions because they want to know what they should do when a policeman stops them. They need to know that opening of police files, fingerprinting and taking of photographs is unlawful.  They have realized that the government has abused the police force to such an extent that police officers no long know what they are doing.  At a time when many murders and robberies go unsolved, when so many war criminals can go about with impunity, the police write up reports on confiscated objects such as “glue-smeared can.”

B.T. The Center monitors human rights in different areas.  We have recently witnessed incidents of a kind that were earlier inconceivable - racial discrimination against Roma people.
N.K. Some of these cases should really scare us and, by the way the public reacted to them, it was evident that it did not approve.  Roma are barred from some disco clubs, cafes and public swimming pools.  And when this is proved true, a terrible feeling grips us: after all that happened to us, is it possible that we live in a society in which a young man is asked at the entrance to a sports facility if he is Roma and, if the answer is yes, is not allowed in.  The Center filed an action seeking damages for violation of the equality of citizens and we were able to see that the judges were appalled; they had never before had such a case.  The date for the hearing was set in record time.

B.T.  What should be the opposition’s priority in establishing a civil society if it wins the elections?
N.K. Our priority should be to free ourselves of the ballast of a government responsible for crimes, to make it clear that governments can be voted out of office and that they depend on the backing of the people.  Where opposition parties and the civil sector are concerned, non-governmental organizations will work primarily for the genuine, not rhetorical, rule of law.  Then, if we are for the rule of law, we will have to raise the issue of responsibility for war crimes as this is a precondition for establishing relations with our neighbors.  I believe that such a time is in sight. The civil sector here is far more developed that the opposition.  In a relatively short time, the past ten years, we have laid the groundwork for the development of a civil society and for cooperation with future governments who will care for human rights.  A  government with a genuine concern for human rights will find it in its interest to hear what independent organizations have to say about the conduct of the police, for instance, in order to make improvements.  The problem is that some political parties perceive non-governmental organizations as rivals. This is wrong and is the result of self-admiration and conceit.  The reason is that there are many respected intellectuals of high moral integrity in non-governmental organizations and some party leaders consider this dangerous.  Political parties could start working with non-governmental organizations to advance their activities and programs.

Bojan Toncic

HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER

Beograd, 2 August 2000, 20:00

Executive Director of the Humanitarian Law Foundation Natasa Kandic, expert co-worker of the Foundation Duska Anastijevic, former judge Rasmila Dragicevic and Otpor activist Branko Ilic were prevented from attending the panel discussion "Human Rights Campaign" which VK Radio organized in Kikinda.
     Today at around 18:45, at the entrance to Kikinda, traffic police stopped the GLC's vehicle. After an identity check the police confiscated the identity cards of the HLC team, and attempted to take them to the Kikinda police station for informative talks.
     When the travellers refused to go with the police until they were informed of the reasons for their being taken, the police detained them without any explanation.
     The members of the team had still not been permitted to continue their journey at the time of this announcement.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
BETA DAILY NEWS
August 3

POLICE ATTEMPT TO TAKE KANDIC IN FOR QUESTIONING.

On Aug. 2, police attempted to take in for questioning the director of the Belgrade chapter of the Humanitarian Law Fund, Natasa Kandic, on a road leading to Kikinda.
     Kandic was going to Kikinda to attend a rostrum called "Campaign for Human Rights." Around 5:30 p.m., the police pulled over a car in which, besides Kandic, were Belgrade weekly Vreme journalist Duska Anastasijevic, former judge Radmila Dragicevic, and Otpor activist Branko Ilic.
     Kandic told BETA that the officers had asked them to come with them to the local police station for questioning, which they refused unless a reason was given.
     After a conversation with a plainclothes State Security Service inspector, during which police collected their personal data, Kandic and her fellow travelers were released around 8 p.m.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FreeB92 News for Wednesday, August 2, 2000

Natasha Kandic intercepted on way to Human Rights Meeting

Police apprehended the director of Fund for Humanitarian Law Natasa Kandic for interrogation on the road into the Vojvodina town of Kikinda this evening. Kandic told B2-92 how traffic police had stopped the car in which she was accompanied by a journalist of weekly Vreme, a recently dismissed Belgrade judge, and Otpor activist Branko Ilic. The four were intending to participate in the meeting "Campaign for Human Rights" in Kikinda when a senior policeman who had apparently been expecting them, told them to come with him for interrogation. Kandic reminded him that was not the proper procedure, and he replied angrily that they were to wait there instead. They were held in Kikinda police station for an hour and released after Otpor activists and citizens, including the mayor, gathered outside, demanding their release.

CORRECTION: HLC COMMUNIQUE OF 21 JUNE ON ALEXANDER LANGER AWARD
24 June 2000

On the basis of information from the Alexander Langer Foundation, the Humanitarian Law Center reported on 21 June that the cash prize accompanying the human rights award of this Foundation, given this year to Natasa Kandic and Viosa Dobruna, amounted to 2,000 Deutsche marks. The HLC was subsequently informed by the Foundation that the prize is 20,000 marks.  From her share, Natasa Kandic will give a donation to the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in the Sand?ak, and contributions towards the founding of a Parents for the Protection of Children Association in Kragujevac, and to Otpor in Novi Sad and Leskovac.

HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER COMMUNIQUE

NATASA KANDIC AND VIOSA DOBRUNA RECIPIENTS OF ALEXANDER LANGER HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD

21 June 2000

Natasa Kandic, founder and Executive Director of the Humanitarian Law Center, and Viosa Dobruna, founder of the Center for Protection of Women and Children in Kosovo and Co-Minister for  Democratization with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, are recipients of this year’s human rights award of the Italian Alexander Langer Stiftung-Onlus Foundation. The award will be presented to them on 2 July at a ceremony during the Euro-Mediterranean Festival in Bolzano, Italy. The award was established in 1997 in memory of Alexander Langer, a member of the European Parliament who died in 1995.  In his election campaigns, Langer always devoted special attention to the citizens of Bolzano, a small city poplated by members of different ethnic communities.
     The previous recipients of the Alexander Langer Award are Khalida Messacudi, member of the Algerian Parliament and a prominent champion of women’s civil rights (1997); Jolande Mukagasana of the Tutsi people whose entire family was massacred and whose book is a moving testimony about the Rwanda genocide in which 800,000 lost their lives, and Jacqueline Mukansoneri, a Hutu, who saved the life of Yolande at the risk of her own (1998); and last year the Chinese dissident couple, Ding Ziling and Jiang Peikun, both former philosophy professors at Beijing University, who have dedicated their lives to collecting documentation on all students killed by Chinese troops during the massive anti-government demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989 and publicizing their names.  The couple’s 17-year-old son, Jiang Jelian, was among those killed during the demonstrations.
     The Foundation gives the award to people who are committed to the defense of universal human rights, establishment of civil society, good relations among nations and environment protection.  The award carries a prize of 2,000 German marks.  Natasa Kandic will donate her share of the prize to the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in the Sandzak.
_______________________________________________________________________
http://www.freeb92.net/archive/e/index.phtml?Y=2000&M=06&D=21

Human rights awards to Serb, Albanian

14:02 BELGRADE, Wednesday -- The founder and director of the Humanitarian Law Foundation, Natasa Kandic and the founder of the Centre for the Protection of Women and Children in Kosovo, Viosha Dobruna, have been honoured for their human rights work by Italy's Alexander Langer Foundation. The awards will be presented in Bolzano on July 2.

FRIDAY, MAY 5, 2000

Two shining lights during Kosovo's dark times

Justin Brown
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON

It was a war in which heroes were difficult to find. Among the Serbs, there was hardly a voice to condemn Slobodan Milosevic and his forces while they killed thousands of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Among Albanians, there was near silence after Kosovo was liberated and a wave of revenge began against the Serbs.
     Two exceptions were Veton Surroi, an ethnic Albanian newspaper publisher, and Natasa Kandic, a Serbian human rights lawyer.
In Washington this week to receive an award from the National Endowment for Democracy, both lamented the lack of progress their people had made, even though the war ended nearly a year ago.

[ http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/05/05/csmimg/p4s2g1.jpg ]

    HONORED: Veton Surroi (l.) and Natasa Kandic receive awards
    from the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington. The
    newspaper publisher and lawyer worry about the future of Kosovo.
    ANDY NELSON - STAFF

"Serbia has a very difficult time ahead, and I'm not optimistic," said Ms. Kandic, a slight woman who seemed uncomfortable with all the praise she has received. "Even without Milosevic, we will not be without problems."
     Likewise, Mr. Surroi said Kosovo, now an international protectorate, so far has failed in four crucial categories: establishing democracy, implementing a free-market economy, becoming ethnically tolerant, and developing relations with its neighbors.
     Surroi and Kandic, who have known each other for 10 years, came to represent hope in different ways. Surroi, a burly former football player who went to college in the US, is a prominent political figure and publisher of Kosovo's leading Albanian-language newspaper, Koha Ditore. Its headquarters were destroyed during the Serb crackdown on Kosovo, and Surroi was forced into hiding, moving from house to house. After the Serbian forces bowed to NATO and left Kosovo, Surroi spoke out against the extremist ethnic Albanians who were killing Serbs.
     "The treatment of Kosovo's Serbs brings shame on all Kosovo Albanians, not just the perpetrators of violence," he wrote in an editorial. "And it's a burden we will have to bear collectively." His comments were hardly applauded. The KLA's press agency printed a rejoinder, implying that Surroi was a war criminal and saying his writing deserved revenge.
     As Surroi was trying to stay alive in Kosovo, Kandic was doing the unthinkable in Serbia: speaking out openly against the violence committed against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo - and trying to confront Serbs with the truth.
     In some of the darkest days of the NATO bombing campaign, when other Serbs were becoming increasingly nationalist, Ms. Kandic regularly drove to Kosovo to check on ethnic Albanians that worked for her organization, the Humanitarian Law Center.
     Today, Kandic is helping defend several ethnic Albanians who were taken prisoner in Serbia and charged with terrorism. She is also urging Serbs to "achieve the truth" - about Kosovo as well as previous wars in Bosnia and Croatia.
     Kandic "is one of the few remaining liberals and democrats remaining in Serbia," says Morton Abramowitz, a former assistant secretary of state and board member of the National Endowment for Democracy. About Surroi, he says: "He has been the most articulate voice of the aspirations of his countrymen...."

(c) Copyright 2000 The Christian Science Publishing Society.

NATASA KANDIC AND VETON SURROI TO RECEIVE 2000 DEMOCRACY AWARD

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) announced today that it will present its annual Democracy Award to Veton Surroi, the editor and publisher of Koha Ditore, the most widely read Albanian language daily in Kosovo, and Natasa Kandic, head of the Belgrade-based human rights organization, the Humanitarian Law Center, which has been documenting human rights violations in Yugoslavia since 1992. The Award will be presented on May 3 at a Capitol Hill ceremony.
     "These two individuals represent the best hope for democratic progress in Serbia and Kosovo today. Their refusal to compromise their commitment to human rights, free speech, and ethnic tolerance in the most desperate of circumstances serves as a beacon for all those in Serbia and Kosovo who still dare to strive for a peaceful, democratic, and multi-ethnic future," said NED President Carl Gershman. "Their willingness to place their own lives at risk to protect the principles of democracy and the lives of others should inspire all people around the world who are also struggling for freedom and human rights, as well as those of us who are privileged to live in democracies," said Gershman.
     When most other NGO leaders in Serbia had been silenced by intimidation from the Milosevic regime, Natasa Kandic bravely continued her work and spoke out against the Serbian attacks in Kosovo. During the war in Kosovo, she, at great personal risk, shuttled back and forth between Kosovo and Belgrade, first to save her own terrorized Albanian staff members, and then to collect information on human rights abuses to disseminate to the outside world, including the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague.
     Veton Surroi was a member of the Albanian delegation to the Kosovo peace talks in Ramboulliet, France, and remained in Kosovo during the war, despite being targeted by Milosevic. Surroi hid underground during the eleven weeks of the siege, emerging only to change hiding places four times. Commenting on his decision to remain in Pristina, Surroi told the New York Times, that as a signer at Rambouillet, "I had taken some responsibility and could not go out. I thought, 'I am going to suffer the consequences." He emerged as a hero to his fellow Kosovars, to whom he has continued to preach the importance of mutual tolerance in the post-war period. Recently, Surroi has been using the pages of Koha Ditore to speak out forcefully against taking revenge on the Serbs who remain in Kosovo. In a recent column, Surroi commented that violence against the Serbs "brings shame on all Kosovo Albanians, not just the perpetrators of the violence...It will dishonour us and our own recent suffering."
     The Democracy Award is given annually by NED's Board of Directors to recognize the courageous and creative work of individuals and organizations that has advanced the cause of human rights and democracy around the world. Past recipients include Violeta Chamorro (Nicaragua), Vaclav Havel (Czech Republic), Vesna Pesic (Serbia), Elena Bonner (Russia), Martin Lee (Hong Kong), Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan (China), and most recently the Transition Monitoring Group (Nigeria) who received the Award in 1999.

NED is a private, nonprofit, grant-making organization created in 1983 to strengthen democratic institutions around the world. It is active in more than 90 countries, supporting grassroots democratic initiatives.

HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER COMMUNIQUE

Natasa Kandic and Veton Suroi receive another joimy award

24 March 2000

Natasa Kandic, Executive Director of the Humanitarian Law Center, a Belgrade-based human rights and humanitarian law organization, and Veton Suroi, founder and editor-in-chief of the Kosovo Albanian-language Koha Ditore daily, are the recipients of this year’s award of the US National Endowment for Democracy. The award, given in recognition of their commitment to the development of democracy, will be presented to them at a ceremony on Capitol Hill, Washington, on 3 May. Laureates of the award include Vesna Pesic (1993), Martin Lee (1997) and Vaj Jingsheng (1998).
     The National Endowment for Democracy award is the second given jointly to Ms Kandic and Mr Suroi.  They received this year’s Geuzen Medal at The Hague earlier this month.

HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER COMMUNIQUE

NATASA KANDIC, VETON SUROI – LAUREATES OF NETHERLANDS DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD

28 January 2000

Natasa Kandic, Executive Director of the Humanitarian Law Center, and Veton Suroi, Editor-in-Chief of the Albanian-language daily Koha Ditore of Pristina, have been awarded this year’s human rights award of the Netherlands Geuzenverzet Foundation.
     The prestigious award is given to individuals and institutions who strive for the establishment and preservation of democracy and against dictatorship, discrimination and racism.
     Established in 1987, the award is presented to the laureates on 13 March in memory of 18 members of the Geuzen Dutch resistance group who were shot by German occupation forces at The Hague on 13 March 1941

HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER BELGRADE
PRESS RELEASE
New York, 20 October, 1999

NATASA KANDIC AND BAJRAM KELMENDI HONORED 1999 AWARD FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS BY THE LAWYERS COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Natasa Kandic, Director of the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Center received yesterday the 1999 Human Rights Award established by the New-York based international organization Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.
     Ms. Kandic received the prize in her and in the name of the late Kosovo Albanian lawyer Bajram Keljmendi, who was together with his two sons killed by Serbian police on March 25, 1999, at the beginning on the NATO intervention in Kosovo.
     "I am very much pleased to be here" * said Natasa Kandic in the acceptance speech yesterday evening in New York, in front of some 700 representatives of international human rights organizations and corporate America - "And I am very proud to receive this award in my and in the name of my late colleague and friend Bajram Kelmendi.  But I am not pleased by the fact that there are still up to two thousand ethnic Albanian political prisoners in Serbian prisons.  And I am not happy that I am the only Serb who feels safe in Kosovo today."
     Throughout the war in Kosovo, Ms. Kandic did the seemingly impossible, shuttling back and forth between Belgrade and the shattered province, she provided a lifeline of information to the outside world about the massive violations being committed by police, paramilitary units, and Yugoslav Army troops.  The evidence she gathered will be vital to the preparation of indictments by the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague.
     At 3:30 a.m. on March 25, the first night of NATO bombing, Ms. Kandic received a phone call from a friend in Kosovo to say that police had broken down the door of the family*s apartment and taken away her husband and two sons at gunpoint.  Bajram Kelmandi, 62, was Kosovo*s leading human rights lawyer, an ethnic Albanian who was well-known in Europe for his courageous defense of critics of the Milosevic government and victims of Serbian violence.  The bodies of the three men were found the next day, dumped by the roadside just outside Pristina.
     Today, Natasa Kandic continues her work in Kosovo.  As well as urging her fellow Serbs to acknowledge the thruth about the atrocities that were committed in their name, she is busy documenting and denouncing revenge killings by Albanians, and criticizing the failure of the UN Mission in Kosovo to speed up access to legal representation by detainees * whatever their ethnic origin.
     The prestigious Lawyers Committee to Protect Human Rights award is every year given "to human rights defenders who have fought relentlessly to protect the rights of others in the face of great personal risk, and even death".  Together with Natasa Kandic and late Bajram Kelmendi, the prize is this year awarded to Pakistani lawyers and women rights defenders Hina Jilani and Asma Jahangir, as well as to Chilean lawyer Jose Zalaquett who fought for protection of political prisoners during the Gen. Augusto Pinoche*s rule.

August 29, 1999
EDITORIAL OBSERVER

One Serb's Struggle to Awaken Her Country

By TINA ROSENBERG

The killings in Kosovo of Serbs who stayed after the war -- many of them elderly -- has made it even harder for their countrymen to confront the far more widespread killings and other crimes that Serbs committed against Kosovo's Albanians. Even the opposition to Slobodan Milosevic has shown little interest in acknowledging these atrocities. Natasa Kandic is a lonely exception. Ms. Kandic, 51, is the director of Belgrade's Humanitarian Law Center. She is now documenting abuses against Serbs in Kosovo. But during the NATO bombing, she made several trips into Kosovo, driving to various towns and cities at great personal peril to take testimony from victims and try to protect her Albanian associates there.
     Last month, the independent Belgrade daily Danas published a long, detailed and horrifying interview with her about the bodies she saw and the gruesome stories of extortion and mass murder she heard. A few other small publications have also interviewed her. During the war she tried to interest Serbian journalists in her reports, but the censorship was too tight and the climate too hysterical. She published them in Western Europe. That Serbs can read her information now, even in small-circulation publications, is positive.
     But Ms. Kandic's account, and that of a Serbian Orthodox priest from a monastery in Kosovo that had shielded Albanians, make up the bulk of, if not the only, in-depth accounts of atrocities against Kosovar Albanians to appear in Serbian media. This is in part because it is dangerous for Serb journalists to go there. The response, according to Ms. Kandic, has been disbelief and lack of interest, even among her fellow activists. Her struggle shows the distance Serbs must yet travel in coming to terms with their nation's crimes.
     Ms. Kandic's outspokenness requires more than physical courage. Her criticism of Serb atrocities isolates her even from the democracy activists who are her closest friends and colleagues. "My son even accused me of protecting everyone except Serbs," she told me in a phone call, although she said she later overheard him defending her concern for the weak. She does, in fact, fight for Serb victims. In mid-July she made another dangerous trip to Kosovo, this time taking testimony from Serbs and arguing with local Kosovo Liberation Army commanders about the abuses.
     In Serbia today, if you listen hard you can hear mention of what Serbs did in Kosovo. Significantly, the Orthodox Church, which has called for Mr. Milosevic's resignation, has criticized "crimes committed in our name." The opposition's political rallies center on the impoverishment Mr. Milosevic has brought to Serbia, and the most popular opposition leader, Vuk Draskovic, has been just as nationalist as Mr. Milosevic. But some speakers at the rallies of the Alliance for Change, an opposition group, do allude to what happened to Albanians. The independent newspapers have printed some statements from international prosecutors and reprinted a few articles from European papers about the atrocities being uncovered.
     But these mentions are brief and bloodless next to the in-depth reports in the press about the mistreatment that Serbs in Kosovo are suffering today. However, the stories of Serb victimization, while important, give an incomplete view of the war.
     No one in public life, Ms. Kandic said, contacted her after her interviews for more information. Many of her friends, she said, merely told her that they had not believed it, and left it at that. "These are normal, human feelings," she said. "They are all occupied by their own situation. They say, 'My house is here in Belgrade.' "
     Ms. Kandic has studied how other societies dealt with past crimes. "Germans faced it because they were forced to," she said.
     The Allied occupation of West Germany was certainly a factor, but so was the Nuremberg tribunal, which revealed the horrors of Auschwitz -- but allowed most Germans to lay blame exclusively on the Nazi leaders in the dock. While isolated voices in West Germany wrestled with war guilt in the 1940's and 50's, it was not until a new generation came of age in the rebellious 60's that West German society really examined, and expressed its revulsion for, what it had done.
     The task in Serbia may be even harder. There will be no Western occupation. More important, Serbians, unlike Germans, are oppressed by a strong victimization mentality. Serbs have genuinely suffered throughout their history -- most recently in World War II -- and their fears are fanned by unscrupulous leaders to mobilize Serbs to lash out at others.
     It would help, Ms. Kandic said, if some of the army reservists who witnessed crimes in Kosovo would come forward. She would also like more contact between the outside world and Serbians. "We see our situation only from the local perspective," she said. "People think that society will change with new elections. We've had elections before. No one understands that our problem is not a new election, but facing our realities."

Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company

Here is the full text of an interview given recently to Reuters by Natasa Kandic, Director of the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Center.

INTERVIEW-Serbs urged to face up to Kosovo crimes
07:08 a.m. Aug 05, 1999 Eastern

By Colin McIntyre

BELGRADE, Aug 5 (Reuters) - A leading Serbian human rights activist has called for a public debate on alleged atrocities committed by Serb forces in Kosovo, saying it was time for the country to face up to what happened there.
     Natasa Kandic, head of the Humanitarian Law Fund, also called for similar discussions among Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority on the wave of revenge killings of Serbs and other ethnic minorities that has swept the province since NATO's air war against Yugoslavia ended two months ago.
     Kandic said the revenge attacks were not the usual kind, but were rooted in the Albanian mentality and culture of ``blood feuds'' that can be handed down through generations, and if left unchecked could spiral out of control.
     In an interview with Reuters in her modest office in central Belgrade, Kandic said it was time for Serbs to face up to alleged atrocities committed by Serb forces in Kosovo from the start of NATO's bombardment in March to the entry of peace troops 11 weeks later.
     ``They have to accept that it happened, to start talking about responsibility, to support the U.N. war crimes tribunal, and the investigation and punishment not just of perpetrators, but also those responsible at a high level starting with (Yugoslav President Slobodan) Milosevic,'' she said.
     Milosevic has been indicted by the Hague tribunal for alleged atrocities committed by Serb army, police and paramilitary forces during the forced expulsion of hudreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo.
     Kandic, a regular visitor to Kosovo before, during and after the NATO bombardment, said no publication in Serbia had published the indictment against Milosevic, nor had it been publicly discussed by legal experts.
     ``What about Izbica -- it's mentioned in the indictment?'' Kandic said, referring to a Kosovo village where investigators found clear signs that mass graves had been tampered with.
     ``What happened there, and elsewhere? This is an issue for our media, political parties and public opinion. To start a public debate on the atrocities.''
     Kandic said her own investigations in Kosovo, particularly in the western town of Pec, which was virtually destroyed by Serb forces, backed up testimony by refugees that they had been systematically expelled by Serb forces.
     She said a third of the Albanian population were expelled by order, and the rest fled. Around 30 Albanians in the town were killed during the expulsions, and later there were mass killings in villages around Pec.
     According to witnesses she interviewed, most of the killings were done by paramilitaries, which she said were not independent units, as some Serb authorities have alleged, but were attached to regular forces.
     ``There were special units established by orders from a very high level,'' Kandic said.
     ``Based on information from the field, I know that the army and police had paramilitary units, especially the police. Their task was to expel people from villages, and to kill,'' she said.
     She also said some of the atrocities were committed by Russian and Bulgarian mercenaries who were directed to Albanian-owned homes by local Serbs.
     On the question of revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians she said this was a very serious issue for which NATO-led peace troops appeared to have been unprepared.
     ``This is not revenge in the usual sense -- 'you robbed me, I'll rob you'. Nothing like this happened in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. It is part of the Albanian mentality.''
     She said that over the past few years Albanian intellectuals had been studying the question of the vendetta tradition, and in a programme of discussions with villagers across the province had partly succeeded in turning people away from it.
     ``Now it is back in strength, and there needs to be new discussion on it. Otherwise it will go on till the last minority in Kosovo is eliminated.''

Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.

Retribution in Kosovo

By Natasa Kandic
July 27, 1999.

"My first meeting with the UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army) took place following threats to Albanian investigators on the premises of the Humanitarian Law Centre (FHP) in Ulcinj in Montenegro. Shortly after the signing of the agreement in Kumanovo on 12 June 1999, someone from the local UCK headquarters in Pec warned my investigators they would have to consider continuing working for the Belgrade-based organization after returning to Kosovo. They were told that the situation had changed and that their liaison with Serbs could bring them trouble.
 "I decided to discuss these threats with the UCK commander, Agim Ceku. I also considered this talk important in view of the killing of 44 men in his home village of Qyshk, one of whom was his father Hasan. I called on the UCK headquarters in Pristina on July 2. In keeping with protocol, I was asked what language I would use during my interview with Ceku given that he did not speak Serbian. No one had any objection when I replied that I would speak Croatian.  "Ceku made clear that the UCK would not interfere with the work of human rights organizations. As to the events in Qyshk of 14 May 1999, he said his service had information that the killing and the burning of bodies and houses was not the work of a paramilitary group but of a unit attached to the 125th Brigade of the Yugoslav Army (VJ). He referred me for further information to his sister Ifete, who was present at the killing of his father Hasan, and to the UCK local headquarters in Pec, which was in possession of written evidence on the possible involvement of the 125th Brigade.
 "In the Pec headquarters under the command of Ethem Ceku, a relative of Agim Ceku, I was shown a note-book belonging to a VJ lieutenant registering the military activities in the municipality of Pec after March 24. The entry for May 11 said that the focus of military activities should be shifted to Qyshk and its vicinity. The local UCK headquarters in Pec also had a document marked confidential bearing the signature of the colonel in charge of the 125th Brigade.
 "I availed myself of the opportunity to raise the issue of the threats to my Albanian investigators and of my conversation with Agim Ceku. Ethem Ceku said that the matter of threats "must be some misunderstanding".
 "On July 4, I paid my second visit to Qyshk. On my fist visit on June 16 I had interviewed two of the survivors. Their account was grisly. They spoke of looting, killing and burning of bodies. Agim Ceku's sister, a village teacher, was telling me about how the Serb soldiers burst into their house when Agim's brother came into the room. He told me straight away to leave their house because the Albanians had their organs of government who would investigate the crime themselves. He told me he did not like my Serb name and that there would be no Serb names in Kosovo any more. Ifete felt embarrassed but, being a woman, she did not oppose her brother.
 "I went to their house again next day. I was sure that in that awkward moment of haste I had left behind my notes which were full of important information. A woman who came out waved their head and said, 'You didn't leave it here'.  "Next day I went to the Patriarchate in Pec. It was surrounded by Italian members of KFOR. The church had offered accommodation to the relatives of Serbs who went missing in Pec after Albanians returned on June 18. Mitra Grujic was among them. I had heard of her before. Several Albanians in Pristina had told me about Serbs in Pec who had protected Albanians and looked after their property after their (Albanians') expulsion to Montenegro. They spoke about Mitra with respect. They told me she had taken to the Patriarchate and that her Albanian neighbours were looking after her house.
 "Mitra's husband Branko Grujic and his cousin Milorad had not been seen since June 18. Mitra last saw Branko on June 18 at a UCK checkpoint opposite from the Beopetrol filling station near the old hospital. She and Branko had gone out separately to look for Milorad who had been arrested two hours before as he left his apartment in the centre of Pec. Mitra saw UCK soldiers take Branko away. They told her he would be back shortly after making a statement. She has made inquiries in connection with her husband's disappearance at the local UCK headquarters. She has been told that the UCK had nothing to do with his arrest and the disappearance of other Serbs.
 "In spite of the assurances by the local UCK headquarters, there is relevant information on the ground that the headquarters was responsible for the kidnapping of Serbs after June 18. One of the Serb arrestees, a priest at the Patriarchate in Pec, was released on orders of the local UCK commander, Ethem Ceku. After being arrested he was taken to a house where he saw two Serbs who have not been seen or heard of since. The order for his release was brought by a soldier with whom the priest had talked at the UCK checkpoint the day before when Branko Grujic was arrested. The priest described the soldier as a young man of medium height, lean, with short brown hair.
 "The priest was arrested on June 19 at the UCK checkpoint across from the Beopetrol filling station near the old hospital. He was stopped by three men in camouflage uniforms who searched his car. On the pretext of having found incriminating material - a mask (actually part of a seat cover), a knife and a Motorola - they took him away for questioning into the yard of a white house belonging to a wealthy Romany near the filling station. There were about 20 soldiers in the yard. He saw there Radonja Petrovic and, on the balcony, Milivoje Djuricic. He heard that they had been picked up in the street several hours before his arrival. He saw that Petrovic's jacket was torn.  He also saw evidence of violence on both of them. The priest was taken out of the house into the cellar of the neighbouring house belonging to a panel beater. The house was uninhabited and a self-service store called Renesansa was on its ground floor. A soldier gave the order to "get it over with". The priest saw a rifle with a silencer in the cellar. He also saw bullet holes and blood stains on one wall and on the floor. One of the three soldiers who had led him into the cellar - he could not have been older than 20 - ordered him to stand next to a wall and put the muzzle to his head, saying, "Now you're going pay for all those you've killed". At that moment the soldier whom the priest had seen at the checkpoint the day before entered the cellar. The soldier, wearing full military uniform, ordered the other soldier to put the rifle away and let the priest go. He said that Ethen Ceku's orders were that "no one is to kill a priest". He untied the priest's hands, took him out of the cellar and returned his belongings and the car keys."

"Danas" of July 3 and 4, 1999

ALBANIANS WERE KILLED, ROBBED AND EXPELLED

Natasa Kandic, director of Humanitarian Law Center, talks about crimes in Kosovo

"Serbian authorities and those who held important positions in Kosovo first moved away their material possessions and money and then made sure to be among the first to flee. They left ordinary people behind to fend for themselves. The Serbs who have stayed are the ones without important positions or privileges in Kosovo. They are people of modest means who want to keep what they have and are now paying the price. Everything in Kosovo ends with revenge against the Serbs who did not participate in what was happening to the Albanians. They are being attacked by the KLA and various gangs from Kosovo and Albania", says Natasa Kandic, director of Humanitarian Law Center, in the interview she gave "Danas" between visits to Kosovo.
Natasa Kandic is the only Belgrade human rights activist who between March 24 and the arrival of KFOR often traveled to Kosovo and gathered testimonies about murder and expulsion of  Albanians. She visited the cities of Pec, Kosovska Mitrovica, Pristina.
Humanitarian Law Center also opened an office in Ulcinj. The lawyers of the Ulcinj office interviewed more than 120 Albanians who were forced to come to Montenegro. Our interlocutor emphasizes that all the information of the Hague Tribunal and relevant international organizations as well as the information she gathered refutes the claim of Serbian authorities that the Albanians fled from Kosovo because of the bombing.
She stresses that, according to witnesses' accounts, the key days for the expulsion of the Albanians from Pec and the surrounding villages were March 28, 29 and 30. Says Natasa Kandic: "At that time a large number of police, paramilitary units and Yugoslav army troops were in Pec. During the three days, police and paramilitary formations entered approximately one third of all the Albanian houses. They ordered the people to leave their homes in five minutes and go to the center of the town. Police and paramilitary forces guarded the streets from both sides so that no one could go in any other direction.
People were herded onto semi-trucks and trucks and taken to Albania. Others were ordered to leave for Montenegro and told that the roads were secure, which means that the route was prepared in advance for their expulsion. According to our records around 300 people were killed in those three days. This was done to frighten the rest.
Houses were plundered and then set on fire. Police, paramilitary units and even the [Yugoslav] army reservists would stop the expelled people who were on their way to Albania and Montenegro, harass and beat them and rob them of their money and jewelry. There were many cases of people arriving in Montenegro without a single piece of currency because every few miles of their journey they had been forced to pay for their lives, to be allowed to continue", says Kandic.

Did any Albanians remain in Pec after that?

"Around one thousand Albanians remained - mainly old people and those who were determined not to leave their houses no matter what. Many were killed in April and May. A mother and four underage children were killed on June 15. The father and one young son survived. That family was one of the poorest and they stayed because all they had was that house and they were afraid that if they left they would lose everything.
I was in Pec on June 18. I pushed open a few courtyard doors and saw dead bodies. Depending on the smell or look of the bodies I gathered that the killings took place a few days earlier."

What happened in the villages surrounding Pec?

"In June I visited the village of Cusk (Qushk) near Pec. A paramilitary unit entered the village on May 14 and killed 44 men.  I talked to the women in the village and to two of the surviving men while my lawyers talked to a third survivor. Their stories are highly consistent.
According to the testimonies, all paramilitary forces wore masks on their faces. I heard that some of them were dressed in military uniforms and on their feet they wore trainers. They arrived in a military vehicle with a heavy machine gun installed on it. In the first house in the village Hasan and Kadri Ceku were killed. When the first houses started to burn, the men from the village began to flee and around 400 villagers gathered in the biggest street. It is there that the paramilitaries found and surrounded them. First they separate the men from the women and children. Then they begin to rob. Everyone has to hand over money, jewelry, identity cards and passports.
The men are then divided in three groups and taken to three different houses. Some of the houses are already on fire. Women, children and some old people are even taken to the burning houses and asked again to hand over the money. They [the paramilitary forces] know by now that over the past three months the Albanians have learned to hide their money in different places in order to have some for everyone who might ask them for it and thus be able to pay for their lives. Women again take out the money and those who haven't already given all their jewelry do it now. In the end the paramilitary forces drive over the villagers' tractors, put the people onto the tractors and order them to drive towards the city [of Pristina] and then on to Albania. Since there are no men, the children, in one case a seven-year old boy, drive the tractors. Just before entering Pristina, they are stopped by police. Scared out of their wits, the women tell them that someone took the men away. Police order them to return to the village, using the explanation that the children cannot drive the tractors.  In the houses were the men were taken, the next day the women come across a horrifying sight of burnt bodies."

What happened with the men who survived?

"The men were divided between three different houses. One of the survivors was wounded in both legs. According to his testimony, two paramilitary forces took away at gunpoint a group of 12 men. The witness says that he was at the head of the column and that once the group was inside the house, one of the two paramilitaries threw him a cigarette lighter and told him to ignite it. The witness cannot remember if he ignited the lighter at that moment. He says that all he heard were gunshots and the next second he jumped out of the window. Behind the house were bushes that stretched all the way to the forest. A third year medical student dressed his wounds and made splints out of cardboard for his broken legs.
According to the testimony, the group that was taken to the other house was ordered to sit on the floor and then the paramilitaries began firing from their machine-guns. They threw mats over the people and set them on fire. The survivor from that group says that he didn't feel that he was wounded, that he lost consciousness for a moment and then realized that two bodies fell on top of him.
He jumped up, threw off the bodies and managed to jump out of the window. As he was getting out, he saw that the mats were burning, but the fire did not yet catch everyone in the room.  He didn't see anyone else of the people who were in the room with him move nor did he hear any more gunshots. He came out of the house and noticed that his legs were covered in blood and that he could no longer move. I saw the rooms that still contained parts of burned bodies, bones and pieces of clothing.
In Cusk I learned that the same paramilitary unit killed 20 or 30 people in the nearby village of Pavljani on the same day. The same thing happened in the neighboring village of Zahici but it is not clear if that was also the work of the same paramilitary unit."

How did the villagers of Cusk receive you?

"Based on the information that I gathered, that village was never armed and its people never took part in the fighting. A large number of children go to school there. Two boys came out of a house and when they heard me speak Serbian, they stared at me in disbelief and said 'Serbian paramilitaries are killing us and you dare come here'. I told them that I came to see what had happened, to demand that the murderers be punished, to say that I suffer because of what had happened and to ask for forgiveness because all Serbs are held responsible for what had happened. After this, the boys apologized and said that they knew that I didn't do it and that there were many more people who had nothing to do with these crimes, but the fact remained that their fathers had been killed."

What did you find in Djakovica when you arrived there on the morning of June 19, shortly before the arrival of KFOR?

"I went to the city hospital, the doctors were panicking, and the surrounding houses were on fire. They told me that the army, police and paramilitary units were retreating and in the last minute setting fire,
taking away cars, pillaging and killing. They killed two old people in a nearby house. I saw that the doctors had collected a few thousand German Marks to offer to police and paramilitary forces in case they come and threaten to kill them. Only after a few KFOR jeeps and some Italian journalists entered the city that day, the people began to come out and fill the streets. I learned that some of them came out for the first time after three months of hiding."

How did the Kosovo Serbs react to what was happening to the Albanians?

"From Cusk I returned to Pec. KFOR was already there. About 200 Serbs remained. I described to them what I saw in Cusk. They told me that it wasn't true and that the murdered people were Serbs. I asked them how they could be Serbs if the area was under the control of the army, police and paramilitary units. Then some of them said that they were not sure, but that the perpetrators should be punished if that was what really happened. I told them that the Albanians would return and that they [the Serbs] would have to tell their neighbors who burned their houses. They replied that the authorities and police knew who was responsible, but that they had left.  I believe that the Serbs who stayed in Pec had nothing to do with any of it."

Did it happen that local Serbs tried to protect Albanian families?

"No. People were afraid. If the Serbs tried to protect someone, they were likely to pay a horrific price. A young women testified that she, her parents and three brothers, together with a few other Albanians, stayed in the house of a man called Hasan who told them that the local police inspector Babic had promised to protect them and told them not to leave Pec, since they managed to avoid being pushed out with the big wave of mass expulsion. On May 28, four men in camouflage uniforms broke into the house and only the girl survived. She said that after the people were killed, the local policeman who said that he would protect them was sobbing uncontrollably and repeating 'I killed you, it was my fault, I asked you to stay'. "

What was happening in Pristina?

"On the first night of the bombing, the city was plunged into darkness. This was done on purpose. During that first night several dozen houses were raided and the best-known Pristina lawyer Bajram Keljmendi and his two sons were killed. The fear this created was overwhelming. People went into hiding. Police started breaking into the houses on the outskirts of the city. Many people were expelled. When I arrived in Pristina on April 10, in the first apartment block in the suburbs of Suncani Brijeg with close to 600 apartments I found only two women."

Did you have any trouble with Serbian police during your visits to Kosovo?

"On the day when Slobodan Milosevic was indicted, the police stopped me near Lipljani. It happened by accident, because I made a mistake and took a road to Prizren that was not open for regular traffic. They searched my car, found a report written in English and Albanian and called state security. The people who then arrived on the scene were in my opinion high-ranking intelligence officers who knew exactly who I was and who were incredibly well informed about the whole political situation. They were shocked to have caught me in Kosovo. They questioned my driver separately. They expected me to have bodyguards when traveling around Kosovo.  I spent about seven or eight hours with them. They threatened to charge me with spying and said that they had enough evidence to do so and that a military prosecutor was on his way. In the end they told me 'You are not our case, we are waiting for orders from Belgrade to decide what to do with you.' It seems that someone found it too much for one day to arrest a human rights activist in the middle of Kosovo when at the same time Milosevic was indicted."

Do you have information on the whereabouts of the political prisoners from Kosovo?

"The Ministry of Justice bears main responsibility because the prisoners and detainees are under the Ministry's jurisdiction. At the end of April, forty political prisoners who were serving their sentences or were remanded in custody awaiting sentencing outside Kosovo were transferred by the decision of our judicial bodies to the Dubrava prison in Kosovo. The question is why, when NATO attacks were concentrated in Kosovo, and why transfer only the Albanian prisoners? In May, NATO hit the prison in three successive attacks. The political prisoners from Kosovo were then transferred again to prisons in the rest of Serbia. There is still no explanation about what really happened. Many families are looking for their relatives who were remanded in custody or imprisoned. The whereabouts of Uksin Hoti, the most famous political prisoner who was sentenced to five years in prison and should have completed his sentence by May 17, are unknown. He was transferred to the Dubrava prison on April 26."

What could be the consequences of the arrival of police forces from Kosovo in the rest of Serbia?

"We finally have a Greater Serbia and the police from Bosnia, Krajina and now also from Kosovo who have a ten-year experience in perpetrating violence against civilians. We also have various paramilitary units from various parts of former Yugoslavia who fought on the Yugoslav side. The mechanism of repression has never been bigger and we have never had more reason to ask ourselves what will happen now that almost everyone can have his or her own policeman."

Inset 1
Indictment against Milosevic

Kandic: "The mass graves that are now being uncovered in Kosovo were created using the blueprint of execution that we saw in Cusk and Pavljani. In my estimate there were between 70 and 90 cases of mass executions. The indictment against Milosevic and four of his accomplices is based on the evidence of those executions. At the end of May and beginning of June the bodies were moved from one site to another in order to destroy evidence."

Inset 2
Decani and monk Sava protectors of all people

Kandic: "The Serbian Church has been turned out to be the best opposition in the case of Kosovo, in contrast to its role in Croatia and Bosnia where it was deeply entangled in the conflict and unable to see the reality. [The monastery of] Decani has been known for many years now as a source of human decency and care for all people. Over the past three moths the monastery and monk Sava have been protecting Albanians. They provided refuge for the remaining Albanian families. The Church also speaks out about crimes committed against the Albanian population."

Inset 3
Honorable behavior of Yugoslav army

Do you have information about the behavior of the Yugoslav army?

Kandic: "According to Albanian refugees, paramilitary units and regular police forces were expelling Albanians from Kosovska Mitrovica on April 14 and 15. They ordered the Albanians to go to Djakovica and from there to Albania. Between 10 and 15 groups of two to three thousand people left on foot. Along the way they were met by various paramilitary units and police forces that robbed them. Police even refused to give them water. However, when the refugees came across the soldiers of the regular army, the young conscripts gave them water, food, milk for the babies. Witnesses talked of some soldiers who cried, who said that they were forced to be there, that they didn't know what was really happening, that they had witnessed terrible things, that they were sorry.  These big groups of refugees arrive on the outskirts of Djakovica on April 19 and 20. There they come across a group of Yugoslav military officers who inform them that an agreement has been reached, that peace has been signed, decisions changed, no more policy of expulsion, people should return to their homes. One witness said that he heard an army officer say 'Who needs a state without the people, go back to your homes'. At that moment paramilitary units appeared and said that they were there to bring things into line and that everybody had to go to Albania. Witnesses say that arguments broke out between the officers and the paramilitaries, but that in the end the military managed to keep the people there. The next morning buses and trucks were brought to transport the refugees back to Mitrovica.  In Mitrovica, paramilitary units and police waited for the refugees and pushed them out again. The Albanians moved to one part of Mitrovica and were pushed out, they then moved to another part and only to be pushed out again. Serbian police did not allow the Albanians to come to the center of the city to buy provisions. People told about several days of surviving on bread and onions, and how they fed their children only bread and sugar. Finally Serbian authorities organized a bus route from Mitrovica to Rozaje [in Montenegro] with the tickets costing 150 German Marks. After April 20 and in May, a large number of Albanians from Mitrovica arrived in Montenegro."

Inset 4
Death of Fehmi Agani

There are contradicting stories about the assassination of Fehmi Agani.

Kandic: "According to testimonies, Agani was in a group that was stopped by police on its way to Macedonia on May 5. The police separated some people from the group and then singled out Agani and took him away. When I told the intelligence officers whom I mentioned earlier about the Albanians who were murdered by the police and mentioned the name of Fehmi Agani, I was told that his murder had been a mistake, although officially they claimed that he had been killed by the KLA. This means that he was killed by some local police unit that was out there looting and did not consult its commander."

Interviewer: Izabela Kisic

HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER

Letter from Natasa,

I am now in Belgrade and I plan to remain here a few days before leaving for Kosovo and Montenegro.
     I received a letter from Prizren dated 4 May 1999, but it did not reach me until the 20th. It bears a Serbian PTT postal stamp and it was probably mailed by someone who left Prizren. The letter itself is printed in capital letters and unsigned, but it came from a very good friend of mine.
     B. says that large refugee columns are moving towards the Vrbnice border crossing every day. There are three check-points before the Albanian border. He learned that many refugees had their identification papers torn up and that license plates from their cars were taken away. The remaining Albanians do not dare leave their homes. After mass expulsions of Albanians from the surrounding villages, the targets have now shifted to doctors, professors, lawyers, political activists and Albanians who worked for the OSCE or rented their houses to OSCE personnel. They are questioned by police and then expelled to Albania by force. B. says that some of the expelled sent signals that they were safe by contacting the Albanian media, but that others disappeared leaving no trace behind. About 650 Albanian families do not know what happened to their sons who were forcibly mobilized in the Yugoslav Army. Local authorities told them that they are digging trenches somewhere on the border with Albania. Everybody fears paramilitary groups, unmarked cars, police questioning, possible expulsion and, as of late, hunger. Sick people do not dare go to the doctor and resort to traditional cures instead. People in bread queues say that remaining Albanians will have to pledge loyalty to the state or leave Kosovo. B. says that these rumors are killing them. They do not know what to do. If they go, this will mean leaving behind their homes, property and the town they love. If they stay, all they can expect is humiliation. If only there were some international organization in the area, they say, they would feel more secure and this would give them strength to persevere and stay there. Fear has taken such proportions that they do not dare tell anyone when they decide to leave.
     There are not only bad news but also some good news today. In the case of Kosovo, good news is when I hear that “police came, but all went fine, nobody was killed”. On 21 May 1999, police searched about 200 Albanian flats in the Suncani breg section of Pristina. The tenants were asked to produce their identification papers and to report weapons and refugees, if any. My friends told me “they were not beaten or harassed”. A group of about 60 young people, including girls, were searched separately. Except for a few secondary school students, they were all university students. After a thorough search, most of them were released, but 18 were taken to the local police station, where they underwent questioning for several hours. Fourteen were then released, but two boys and two girls remained in custody. The four were taken away from a flat in which police found a uniform of the former Yugoslav People’s Army. People in Suncani breg say that one of their Serb neighbors will try to find out what has happened to them.
     Intensive diplomatic efforts for resolving the Kosovo crisis prompted me to send a few stories about Kosovo to the Belgrade daily Danas. The editor told me that the texts were fantastic and revealing, but that he did not dare publish them.
     On my way to work today I passed by some of the facilities destroyed by NATO. When I asked military authorities to grant us access to civilian facilities destroyed in the attacks and civilian witnesses of these attacks, my request was rudely turned down. We are therefore left only with newspaper reports. When I travel through Serbia,  now more and more by side roads, I talk to people in villages and I see that they have no problem understanding what is going on. They are fully aware that the most vital issue for Serbia at present is to call to account those who are responsible for everything that has happened. The general feeling, however, is that this is not possible at the moment.
     More than 50,000 people have left Belgrade since 24 March 1999. It is not easy to describe life here. My friends abroad find it very hard to believe when I tell them that there are people in the streets just like before, that local cafes are busy even when the sirens go off, that taxies circle the city at night when the streets are completely dark and that I don’t know anyone who goes to air raid shelters. Electricity and water supply cuts mean that beside queuing for bread people now have to find ways to fetch drinking water too. Common sense has it that candles should be bought in the church because they are much cheaper there and because they last much longer than the decorative candles sold in household supply stores.
     Until 24 March 1999, there were about 100 Albanian students in Belgrade. Now only a few have remained. On 13 May 1999 police raided and searched a flat at No. 5, Klara Cetkin Street in New Belgrade. Four students (Edon Hajrullaga, Bekim Blakj, Safet Blakj and Luigj Ndue) were taken away. Luigj, who has been living on the same address for the past six years, was just about to defend a master’s thesis at the Faculty of Special Education in Belgrade. When the bombing started, he invited the other three students who lived in the Students’ Hostel to come to his flat. One neighbor said she saw   police taking the boys away, but added that a girl with short hair was also taken with them. A check in Belgrade court registers shows that there is nothing on them and, for the time being, police refuse to give any information.
     People in Serbia by and large support the G-8 proposal for ending the war. This is evident from statements by high-ranking officials of the ruling party and other government officials. More and more reports speak about Albanian refugees who were forced to leave their homes because of NATO air raids. One can hear this not only from politicians but also from law experts. When the Belgrade Law School was asked by JURIST: The Law Professor’s Network from Pittsburgh University whether Yugoslav armed forces had responded to NATO attacks “by deportation and forcible transfer of Albanian population”, the reply was that Albanians were fleeing Kosovo because of NATO bombs. The same school said that that trains reaching  Belgrade everyday bring Albanians, Serbs, Turks and others who have fled Kosovo. For the sake of facts, I would like to quote here what one  Albanian from Pec said about expulsions of Albanians from that town (I have interviewed 98 Albanians expelled from Pec and they have all corroborated his story):
     “Friday, 26 March. We were sitting at the table when a group of about 20 people in uniforms and red berets accompanied by three civilians raided our home. None of them wore masks. Their uniforms looked like army uniforms. I recognized some of them as people from the Brzhenik I section of the town. They shouted at us ‘You have one minute to leave’. My daughter in law put her baby in the cradle and then one of the uniformed men kicked it so hard that the baby fell out of the cradle and started to scream. We all started to leave the house except my old father who cannot walk. One of them ordered my son Blerim to stay behind. My son remained  silent but my wife and I started to cry and plead with them to let us stay too. My son then cried that he would stay behind and that we should go. My wife and I would not budge, but they started shoving us and pushing us out by our shoulders. When I saw a rifle pointed at Blerim’s temple, I tried to go back and help him, but then I heard a shot and saw Blerim taken up in the air before he crumpled down in a heap at my father’s feet. They got hold of me too, but then my wife rushed and took me out of the room. When we left the room we heard three more shots. I heard them shouting that we should go to Clinton. Blerim’s body was left behind. We tried to go to our cousins’ house but streets were crammed with people and police ordered us to join one of the columns. They also told us that the road to Montenegro is safe.”

Best regards,

Natasa Kandic
Director, Humanitarian Law Centre, Belgrade

HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER

Dear friends,
12/5/99

I am currently in Montenegro, consulting lawyer - refugees from Kosovo - about ways to conduct research into events in Kosovo after 24 March. There are over 80,000 Albanian refugees in Montenegro.  Approximately 60,000 of them are from Pec, Mitrovica and Istok.  Interviewing refugees will help us obtain relevant material about the pattern of ethnic cleansing in the above places.  This material will be useful to the ICTY's Office of the Prosecutor for their decisions on conducting investigations and bringing indictments.
     The office in Montenegro, in Ulcinj, is the third office of the Humanitarian Law Center.  The office in Pristina does not exist any more.  Last time I was there  on 3 April, was my second visit to Pristina since 24 March.  Through the open door, I saw books and paper scattered all over the place, desks with no computers, and the usual mess after a police search.  Mentor Nimani, one of my lawyers, lived in the neighborhood.  I will never forget 29 March in Pristina, and Mentor on the staircase of his block, at his wit's end from terror and ready to flee Kosovo.  We had been in contact on daily basis in the previous days, so I had known he lived in fear that someone might come, knock on his door and kill him, but the terror I saw in his eyes made up my mind then and there to depart immediately.  I had already found my other staff, so we were ready to go.  Vjollca stayed in Pristina.  Her father was adamant that she stayed with her family and that they were not to loose contact.  She phoned me from Albania several days later.  All families from her part of town had been expelled, transported by train to Blace, a village close to Macedonian border.  She spent a few days there, out in the open together with a group of 20,000 people.  They were put on buses and taken to the Albanian border by night.
     On that 29 March, we started from Pristina towards the Macedonian border, Ariana, Nora, Kushtrim and some friends whose names I cannot disclose for their personal security.  Several hundred cars followed us.  We returned after we had received information that the border had been closed, and when we saw policemen wearing masks on their faces.  We returned to Pristina, dropped Ariana off, as she decided to stay until my next visit, and turned Belgrade bound.  I do not know how we managed to leave Kosovo, there must be God somewhere.  A car with three Albanians and two Serbs.  We cleared all check points, each in fear that they will discover who we were, arrest and separate us.  Mentor's fear did not disappear in Belgrade.  It was easier for him, but that was no freedom either.  Several days later, we went to Montenegro, Mentor then went to Albania and subsequently to the US.  Nora stayed in Montenegro working with refugees for a while.  She left for Budapest on 4 May. She, too, is US bound.  Ariana was waiting for my arrival in Pristina. She was looking after our Jeep.  She left for Macedonia on 5 May.  She is currently visiting camps and interviewing refugees.  She plans to return to Kosovo as soon as it is safe to do so.
     Whenever I show up in Pristina, people can hardly believe it possible. It amazes me that I manage to do it.  The first time I went back, on 27 March, I took a taxi to the bus station in an attempt to find a bus for Kosovo.  Some ten meters away from the bus station, it occurred to me to ask the driver if he would take me to Bujanovac, a small place 100 kilometers from Pristina, thinking that I would be able to catch a lift to Kosovo from there.  He agreed to my proposal, and when we were near Bujanovac, he accepted, for a generous fee, to take me all the way to Pristina.  If it had not been for him, I could not have taken three Albanians out of Kosovo.  He had a way of chatting with policemen, an air of nonchalance when clearing check points, asking about fuel and cigarettes, that left an impression he was one of their own kind.  I went with him two more times.  He would always ask, "who are we getting out this time" before each trip.
     When I travel to Kosovo, on roads with no traffic, with police and military check points, I never think about the possibility of something bad happening to me.  Riding through Serbia, my primary concern is fuel.  I keep bothering the driver about how much fuel we have already spent.  When I see the road sign for Kosovska Mitrovica, I start to look round.  The villages were intact until 5 May.  They were obviously empty, but there was no arson.  I took a note that on 23 April, I met a large group of people on the same road, who were walking towards Vucitrn.  These people were returning to their homes having spent two weeks in woods hiding, and were anxious whether the police would allow them to go back and whether their houses were still standing.  They were looking at me in utter disbelief when I told them they should return home, that people were going back to Pristina from the border. Unfortunately, these same people as well as others from Vucitrn, have been expelled from their homes.  On 5 May, I saw that the town was empty, and many houses were on fire.  The same day, I passed through Mitrovica.  There were neither police nor military in the town center. There wasn't a soul to be seen.  Large sections of town had been destroyed.  One could see that houses had been plundered first, and then set on fire.  There were some people in the suburbs.  Serb parts of town were intact.  Afterwards, when I talked to Albanians from Mitrovica who came to Montenegro, I found out that approximately 30,000 Albanians were expelled from Mitrovica on 15 April, and that they had been ordered to leave for Montenegro.  They traveled on foot, it took them three days to reach Dubovo, a village 80 kilometers away from Mitrovica, where the Yugoslav Army stopped them.  The army kept them there for three days, when three officers announced there had been an "order for refugees to return home".  They were put on buses and shipped back to burnt down Mitrovica.  Hunger and fear made many of them leave Mitrovica again and go to Montenegro.
     Every time I enter Pristina, I feel relieved.  I say to myself, "It's still standing".  Bajram Kelmendi is gone.  He was murdered on the first night of NATO bombardment.  He was taken from home with his sons that first night.  Fehmi Agani is gone, too.  I never managed to meet him in Pristina.  He was last seen at Bajram Kelmendi's funeral on 27 March. People were saying he was in Pristina in hiding, changing houses, and that it was good he was not going out.  I tried to find him, but no one knew where he was.  Now I wonder if it was possible that he was still free at the time, and if it was his decision not to communicate with anybody.  I shall not have peace until I find out how he was murdered and what was happening with him after Kelmendi's funeral.  He was an old friend.  I can still hear his words: "How is it going Natasa, are you less busy, how is your health, your family?"; and in the same breath: "There is hope, we must believe that things will get better".  A long time ago, in 1994, we both attended the Conference on the Hague Tribunal in Bern.  I remember those days for two reasons.  Although there were only a few participants from Serbia, he spoke Serbian in front of a huge audience, the majority of them Albanians.  He said he was doing that because of his Serb friends, out of respect for their work.  One day during the Conference, he invited me to meet some of his former students who had arrived from Germany and Switzerland to attend the part of the Conference concerning Kosovo.  When he introduced me, I realized that he had not told them he had invited a Serb woman.  At that time, there were few occasions for Serb and Albanian intellectuals to sit together and talk.  I could see that his students were stunned, but soon they welcomed me and apologized for the fact they did not speak very good Serbian.
     The news about Agani's death has reached me in Montenegro.  At the hotel reception desk, I have been told that a cousin of Agani's called from Pristina and said he had been arrested.  The next day, the news said his body had been found near Lipljan.

Best regards

Natasa Kandic

YHRF # 11
Natasa Kandic

Arrests in Pristina
29 April 1999

On 28 April 1999, Albin Kurti was arrested in Pristina, the former leader of the Albanian Students’ Union and spokesman to the former political representative of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Adem Demaqi. Albin’s father, an official with the Kosovo Parliamentary Party, was also arrested at this time, as well as Albin’s two brothers, Nazmi Zeka, the owner of the house where the Kurtis were temporarily residing, and Nazmi’s son.  Witnesses claim that the arrest was conducted in an extremely brutal manner.  Twenty-four hours later, Albin’s fifteen-year old brother and Nazmi Zeka were released; they both had visible signs of beating.
     The day before Albin Kurti was arrested, on 27 April 1999, the brother of a prominent soccer player Fadil Vokrri, Adil, was arrested.  No information has been available about the destiny of the arrested persons.
     On 25 April 1999, Adem Demaqi was taken in for questioning.  According to his account, he had been interrogated for two hours in relation to his attitudes towards the solution to the Kosovo issue.
     There are other developments in Pristina, which cause a feeling of insecurity among the remaining Albanians.  The police make rounds visiting homes and compiling lists of Albanians with permanent residence in Pristina and refugees staying with them.  A number of Serb shopkeepers refuse to sell their goods to Albanians.  There are only a few Albanians in Pristina whose telephone lines have not been cut off.

HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER
Natasa Kandic
YHR FLASH # 6

ON THE MURDER OF BAJRAM KELJMENDI
27 march 1999

It was confirmed yesterday morning, 26 March, that Bajram and his sons were murdered.  A relative of the Keljmendi family found their bodies at the first gasoline station on the road from Pristina to Pec.  I learned of their disappearance two hours after they were taken from their home.  At about 3.30 a.m., Bajram’s wife Nekibe phoned me and her first words were: “Nata{a, they have taken Bajram and the children.”  “Who, Nekibe?” I asked.  Her reply was very specific. “Five men in dark uniforms with police insignia and long-barrel rifles.” She had heard the front door being broken down and voices shouting, “You have five seconds to come out of your rooms!”  As the attackers climbed the stairs to the upper floor, Nekibe seized the opportunity to call the local police station.  They heard her out and did not come.  She called again after Bajram and their sons were taken away. This time the police hung up on her.
As we spoke on the phone, Nekibe asked again and again, “What shall I do? Who should I call.  It’s dark and everyone is afraid to go outside.”  All Pristina ran through my mind – judges, prosecutors, State Security inspectors, other Serbian officials – all of whom knew Bajram Keljmedni as a man of stature in Kosovo.  I clutched at straws, told her to call the Police Department, the State Security Service, judges with whom she once worked.  And then I thought of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK).  “Call the LDK, the LDK...” I kept saying until her words sank in: “The LDK can’t help me.  The chairman of the local LDK committee in Mitrovica has been killed.”
All next day, 25 March, there was hope that Bajram and his sons might be alive. It was rumored that they had been wounded and taken to hospital.  When I managed to get in touch with Nekibe again, she told me people had looked in all the wards of the Pristina hospital but that they were not there. She sent friends to the morgue but they were not there either. She told me she had called a well-known Serbian judge with whom she had worked and that he told her: “Nekibe, if they were taken by a paramilitary group, then there is no help.”  At the Police Department, they told her to turn to NATO troops for help.
Bajram Keljmendi.  A man of stature – in court and among people.  His defense of accused Albanians from Urosevac before the Pristina District Court will be remembered as the best legal and political analysis of the events in Kosovo.  I had never seen him so vulnerable as during a trial in Pec on 11 February.  With misty eyes he listened to Marija and her son Miomir Peju{kovi}, Serbs, giving testimony at the trial of their Albanians neighbors in Grabovac village, alleged “terrorists.”  Marija and her son spoke movingly of Avdi, Sadri and Syl Krasnici, of the help they gave them in all circumstances, especially when the situation in Kosovo worsened.  Their Albanian neighbors protected them, encouraged them, told them things would go back to normal, like they were over the past forty years they lived together.
My respects to Bajram Keljmeni.  Justice for Bajram and his sons!  Justice for Kosovo!

Mail senden