(Fwd) [noomc-it] Rapporto sul Kosovo

["Davide Bertok" <davide.bertok at adriacom.it>]

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Date sent:      	Fri, 26 Oct 2001 20:28:31 +0200
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Subject:        	[noomc-it] Rapporto sul Kosovo

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HelpIn-Depth Report Documents Milosevic Crimes
New Statistics Show Direction from Belgrade

(Pristina, Kosovo, October 26, 2001) Former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic and his inner circle of political and military
leaders are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity
committed in Kosovo, Human Rights Watch said today, three days before
Milosevic's next hearing at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

The 593-page report released today, "Under Orders: War Crimes in



Kosovo," uses innovative statistical
methods and comprehensive field
research to document the torture, killings, rapes, and forced
expulsions committed by forces under Milosevic's command against


Kosovar Albanians between March 24
and June 12, 1999, the period of
NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia. More than 600 victims and


witnesses of atrocities were interviewed for the report.

"This report implicates the former leadership of Serbia and Yugoslavia


in numerous atrocities," said
Elizabeth Andersen, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Europe
and Central Asia division. "The 1999 Kosovo campaign was clearly
coordinated from the top, and some of these people still hold
important positions today."

War crimes committed by Serbian and Yugoslav security forces did not
occur in isolation, the Human Rights Watch report says. Three chapters
of the report document abuses committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army,
which abducted and murdered civilians during and after the war, as
well as violations by NATO, which failed to minimize civilian
casualties during its bombing of Yugoslavia. A background chapter
analyzes Kosovo's recent history and the international community's
failure to stop what is dubbed a "predictable conflict."

"For a decade the international community tolerated human rights
abuses in Kosovo in the name of regional stability," Andersen said.
"This report stresses the importance of promoting human rights before
a conflict erupts, as well as accountability for past abuses to halt
the cycle of violence."

"Under Orders" breaks new ground in the depth and breadth of its



documentation, including detailed case studies of dozens of
villages, a statistical analysis of the abuses, photographs of
perpetrators, a strategic overview of the Belgrade government's
offensive, and the organizational structure of the Serbian police and
Yugoslav army, both controlled by Milosevic.

A statistical analysis of executions in Kosovo, prepared in
collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS), reveals the coordinated nature of the offensive. Three
distinct waves of killings suggest the executions were not the result
of random violence by government forces. Rather, "they were carefully
planned and implemented operations that fit into the [Belgrade]
government's strategic aims," the report concludes.

Witness and survivor testimonies in village after village describe how
Serbian and Yugoslav troops systematically burned homes, looted
businesses, expelled civilians, and murdered those suspected of
participating in or harboring the KLA, including some women and
children. At some sites, witnesses reported that bodies were removed
to conceal the crimes. This cover-up was apparently confirmed in 2001,
when seven mass graves were discovered in Serbia proper containing the
bodies of Kosovar Albanians.

Rape and sexual violence were also components of the campaign, the
report says, used to terrorize the civilian population, extort money
from families, and push people to flee their homes. Human Rights Watch
documented ninety-six cases of rape and sexual assault in Kosovo,
although the total number of sexual assaults is certainly much higher.
Human Rights Watch has urged the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to include rape charges in the indictment
against Milosevic.

A chapter entitled "Forces of the Conflict" details the various
government troops involved in the conflict, as well as key members of
the KLA. Important commanders in the Serbian police and Yugoslav Army,
all listed in organizational diagrams, include:

-Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic, former Chief of the Yugoslav Army General


Staff;

-Col. Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, former head of the Yugoslav Army's



Third Army;

-Maj. Gen. Vladimir Lazarevic, former head of the Third Army's
Pristina Corps;

-Vlajko Stojiljkovic, former Serbian Minister of Internal Affairs;

-Col. Gen. Radomir Markovic, former head of Serbia's state security


service (SDB);

-Col. Sreten Lukic, former head of Serbian police in Kosovo;

-Col. Gen. Vlastimir Djordjevic, former head of Serbia's public


security service (RJB);

-Lt. Gen. Obrad Stevanovic, former head of Serbia's police
department.

Despite his direct involvement in the 1999 campaign, Nebojsa Pavkovic
is currently chief of the Yugoslav Army General Staff. Sreten Lukic is
currently chief of public security in the Serbian police. Ojdanic and
Stojiljkovic, both indicted by the ICTY for crimes in Kosovo, are
still at large, as are two other Kosovo-related indictees, Nikola
Sainovic, former Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister, and Milan
Milutinovic, still the President of Serbia.

The report also documents violations by NATO and the KLA. NATO bombs
killed approximately 500 Yugoslav civilians between March and June
1999, and NATO did not take adequate steps to minimize this number,
the report concludes. NATO's use of cluster bombs, although halted in
the course of the conflict, is also criticized in the report.

Human Rights Watch also charged the KLA with committing serious abuses
in 1998, in the course of fighting that led up to the NATO bombing.
KLA abuses during this period included abductions and murders of Serbs
and ethnic Albanians considered collaborators with the state. Elements
of the KLA are also responsible for post-conflict attacks on Serbs,
Roma, and other non-Albanians, as well as ethnic Albanian political
rivals.

As many as one thousand Serbs and Roma have been murdered or have gone
missing since NATO bombing ceased on June 12, 1999. Criminal gangs or
vengeful individuals may have been involved in some incidents since
the war, but KLA members are clearly responsible for many of these
crimes. By late-2000 more than 210,000 Serbs had fled Kosovo; most of
them left in the first six weeks of the NATO deployment. Those who
remain are concentrated in mono-ethnic enclaves.

The international community's slow response after the bombing campaign
is partially to blame for the post-war violence, the report concludes.
The United Nations and NATO failed to take decisive action from the
outset to curb the forced displacement and killings of Kosovo's
non-ethnic Albanian population, which set a precedent for the post- war
period. Two years after the war, a functioning judiciary system has
not been established and an atmosphere of impunity persists.

The report welcomes Milosevic's April 2001 arrest and his subsequent
transfer to the ICTY. But Human Rights Watch urged further action by
the Serbian authorities and the international community to hold
accountable all those responsible for crimes committed during the war
in Kosovo, as well as during the wars in other parts of the former
Yugoslavia.

"Holding Milosevic accountable is a first step," Andersen said. "But
he is only one on a long list."


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