«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

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«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 villag e, 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