Human Rights Violations against Non-albanian Kosovars

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# AI: Kosovo: Murder of 14 ethnic Serbs
      -- UN civilian police must be deployed immediately
# IHF: Letter on Kosovo to Mr. Kouchner
# Separated by Fear, Albanians and Serbs Shun Reconciliation Efforts
# Orthodox Press: Kosovo and Metohija Chronicle, July 27

 
* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International *
News Service: 142/99
AI INDEX: EUR 70/104/99
26 July 1999

PUBLIC STATEMENT

Kosovo

Murder of 14 ethnic Serbs -- UN civilian police must be deployed immediately

Amnesty International condemns the murders of 14 ethnic Serbs in the village of Gracko on 23 July 1999.

The human rights organization believes the incident clearly illustrates the challenges facing KFOR in Kosovo province in its efforts to "ensure public safety and order".

While Amnesty International welcomes the fact that KFOR and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia have announced their intention to carry out investigations into the killings, the organization is concerned that those states contributing to KFOR have been slow in committing to the civilian police component of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

So far, out of the required 3,100 civilian police, only 156 have been deployed in Kosovo province.

Amnesty International urges all states contributing to KFOR to deploy personnel to the UN civilian police force in Kosovo province as a matter of urgency. In addition, the organization asks that all civilian police should receive training in human rights and adhere to relevant human rights standards when carrying out their duties.

Bernard Kouchner
UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)

Via facsimile                   +873-76 201 0451

Vienna, 27 July 1999

Dear Mr. Kouchner,

On behalf of our Federation’s 37 Helsinki Committees, and in  particular those in Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia, I am  writing to express our concerns about the failure to provide  adequate security in Kosovo.

Whoever shot 14 Serbs on 23 July in Gracko bears  responsibility for this crime and must be brought to justice.  But  the international community also bears responsibility.

As you know, this is not an isolated incident, but the largest in a  string of killings and other security lapses that have affected  civilians of all national backgrounds.

As our organization and a number of others have already  warned, the tardy formation of an efficient international police  force in Kosovo is a threat, not only to the security of the  people, but also to the credibility of the project to ensure human  rights, democracy and the rule of law. Sufficient security for all  citizens is the most important starting point for building a  democratic Kosovo and successful completion of the  international mission (protectorate). In that respect the speedy  deployment of an efficient international police task force is  absolutely vital and must not be further delayed.

We have high expectations for your service, and offer our  cooperation.  Please inform us about how the International  Helsinki Federation might use its influence to help improve the  situation.

Sincerely,

Aaron Rhodes
Executive Director

Separated by Fear, Albanians and Serbs Shun Reconciliation Efforts

BUJANC, (AP) - Once, ethnic Albanians from Bujanc and Serbs from the neighboring village of Gracke harvested wheat and corn together in adjacent fields. When someone in one village died, people from the other paid their respects.
That was before ethnic Albanians from Bujanc were forced from their jobs by Serb authorities in 1989, before 34 houses in the village were burned and they were forced to hide in the mountains last April - and well before 14 Serb farmers from nearby Gracke were killed while harvesting Friday night. The climate of fear, hate and intolerance that lingers between these two villages just two miles apart illustrates the enormous obstacles hampering NATO's attempts to provide security and the international community's goal of peaceful cohabitation between ethnic Albanians and Serbs.
The ethnic Albanians of Bujanc no longer fear attacks by Serb paramilitary groups, but they are far from ready to renew relations with their Serb neighbors. The Serbs of Grack allege that Bujanc is a stronghold of the rebel Kosova Liberation Army and an immediate threat to their safety. Relations between Bujance and nearby Gracke broke down early in Kosova's war.
Gracke's Serbs blocked the road to the nearby town of Lipljan, prevented retirees from picking up their pensions and cut electricity to the Bujanc, said Nazif Buja, 54.
Bujanc is the home of Rame Buja, a minister in KLA leader Hashim Thaci's provisional government, and villagers said his house was the first burned by Serb forces in early April.
Paramilitary forces returned two weeks later, on April 18, and set fire to 30 more of the village's 70 homes. They forced the villagers to flee into the mountains. "We were lucky. No one was killed," Buja said.
Most of the people of Bujanc have returned to their homes, and to their fields, feeling protected by NATO forces.
They recognize, however, the fear of the Serb farmers, and have seen them come to the fields armed with Kalashnikov automatic rifles for their own protection.
They still pass Serbs as they work, but Nazif's brother, Rizah, said he no longer feels comfortable talking with them.
"One Serb asked me how was the wheat coming in. I told him not well, because I could not tend to it for four months," Rizah Buja said. "It gave me a bad feeling, because all of our houses were burned, and they tried to act friendly."
The villagers of Gracke blame the KLA - though not the people of Bujanc directly - for the murders Friday night.
With the arrival of NATO forces five weeks ago, the balance of fear in Kosova has shifted away from ethnic Albanians. It is now the Serb minority, living in pockets around the province, that feels under threat and unprotected by Western allies.
"Like the Albanians have the KLA, I would like the Serbian police and the Serbian army to come here to protect us," said Sonja Zivic, 22.
Her husband, Jovica Zivic, and brother-in-law Radovan Zivic were among the 14 men shot to death in the fields. Their mother sat in the garden Sunday, wailing in mourning.
Serbs of Gracke once had good relations with the ethnic Albanians of Bujanc, villagers acknowledged. That changed with the war, Slava Milosavljevic said. "They avoided us. They didn't want any contact," he said. He denies that Serbs from Gracke intimidated their ethnic Albanian neighbors during the war. He also does not believe that any houses in Bujance were burned, and certainly not by Yugoslav forces.
"Our army did not enter the village. Maybe the Albanians burned the houses themselves and blamed the Serb people," he said.
Outraged by the Gracke killings, the worst violence since the arrival of the peacekeepers, NATO and the United Nations have pledged to find the attackers.
The Gracke massacre shares a common feature with the other killings, arsons and home invasions that have persisted despite the arrival of nearly 40,000 NATO soldiers: There are few clues.
More than 80 people have been killed in the provincial capital, Pristina, since NATO's arrival. There are no suspects in most cases.
Deep-seated ethnic intolerance has hampered the U.N. efforts to establish civilian institutions, including a police force, that will help restore a sense of order.
"You find a very closed community," said Lt. Sean Hendy, a British military police officer in Pristina. "No one will say anything, so what you have is a body on a back road or in a gutter somewhere."

Information Service of the Serbian Orthodox Church
PRAVOSLAVLJE PRESS

KOSOVO AND METOHIA CHRONICLE
Belgrade, July 27, 1999

The expulsion of the Serbs from Kosovo and Metohia has now obtained characteristics of a specific phase - phase of the systematic destruction of the Serbian Orthodox churches. Yesterday, the meeting of the Albanian representatives with the representative of the Serbian side - father Sava Janjic, hieromonk, was held in Pec. After father Sava's lenient and yielding speech, the Albanians expressed favourable judgement on the Serbian Orthodox Church, naming it as the only constructive Serbian factor in establishing peace on Kosovo and Metohia, and as the only institution which from the mists of time nurtures friendly relationship with the Albanians. Only a day later, the new information on the material destruction of the Serbian shrines has been reported. The recently built Holy Trinity church in Djakovica has been blown up with a mine, thus being torn down to the ground. In Grmovo village near Vitina, a church which was waiting to be consecrated, has also been blown up with a mine. These are the new victims of the Albanian destroyers, not to mention the previous ones, not to say, for the sake of survival of the Serbian being and Serbian shrines, openly and directly to the executioner - that he is an executioner, after all!?

Simultaneously with the destruction of the Serbian Orthodox churches, the Albanians continue with the intensive killing of the Serbs. Last night in Pristina, Ljubisa Vasic (aged 40) was killed at the threshold of his house. The executioner was a coward and shot at Ljubisa from behind, hitting him in the back of the head and thus killing him. However it may be, the Serbs are being killed.

In vain do the Serbs address appeals to KFOR to protect them. The helpless Serbs watch with their own eyes how the things from their houses and apartments are being taken away, as it has been the case today, in the apartment of Minoslav Jokic. We still do not have news on the kidnapped hieromonk Stefan (Puric), from the monastery of the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ in Budisavci village.

Rt. Rev Amfilohije, the Metropolitan of Crna Gora and Primorje, and Rt. Rev. Atanasije, the Bishop of Zahumlje and Herzegovina, have visited today Devic monastery, and Banje and Suvo Grlo villages. One house on the landed property of Devic monastery has been set on fire, while Devic nuns live in the monastery like in a concentration camp, surrounded with the French soldiers. They completely depend on the humanitarian aid, since the Albanians, as we have mentioned earlier, robbed the monastery possessings.

Banja and Suvo Grlo villages, together numbering 60-70 Serbian houses, still hold out and are in good condition. A priest from Prizren has informed today that in Prizren, as he presumes, still live 600 Serbian souls, out of which number the greatest part is in the Seminary, the other part in the Diocese building, and a certain number of the old men and women in their own homes. All of them live in very difficult situation, especially those who have stayed in their homes, since they live exclusively on the supplies of the food that happened to be in their homes, without the opportunity to provide new food, since they cannot move anywhere. It is presumed that a concentration camp exists in the vicinity of Prizren, and that the Albanians hold about 70 Serbs in it.

Mr Stevan Lalic from Staro Gracko village hereby denies the writing of the "Politika" newspaper, which in an article in today's issue, claims that he knows the criminals who massacred the Serbs from Staro Gracko village. Mr Lalic, who has reported the massacre, asks apology from "Politika" newspaper.

Regardless of the fact that the killers are known or not, that does not diminish the dimensions of the crime executed in Staro Gracko village.

Bishop Atanasije
Rakita

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