Kosovo That Was Organized by the Highest Levels of the Serbian and Yugoslav Governments in Power at That Time
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
UNDER ORDERS “Unidentified.” © fred abrahams / human rights watch 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY his report documents torture, killings, rapes, forced expul- Tsions, and other war crimes committed by Serbian and Yugoslav government forces against Kosovar Albanians between March 24 and June 12, 1999, the period of NATO’s air campaign against Yugoslavia. The report reveals a coordinated and systematic campaign to terrorize, kill, and expel the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo that was organized by the highest levels of the Serbian and Yugoslav governments in power at that time. Naturally, these crimes did not occur in isolation. This report outlines the historical and political context of the war, with a critique of the interna- tional community’s response to the developing crisis over the past decade. Three chapters also document abuses committed by the ethnic Albanian insurgency known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which abducted and murdered civilians during and after the war, as well as abuses by NATO, which failed adequately to minimize civilian casualties during its bombing of Yugoslavia. Nevertheless, the primary focus of this report is the state- sponsored violence inflicted by the Serbian and Yugoslav governments in 1999 against ethnic Albanian citizens of Yugoslavia. THE 1999 OFFENSIVE he Serbian and Yugoslav government offensive in Kosovo that Tbegan on March 20, 1999, four days before NATO bombing com- 4 UNDER ORDERS menced, was a methodically planned and well-implemented campaign. Key changes in Yugoslavia’s security apparatus in late 1998, including a new head of Serbian state security and a new chief of the Yugoslav Army General Staff, suggest that preparations for the offensive More than 80 percent were being made at that time. In early 1999, a of the entire distinct military build-up in Kosovo and the arming of ethnic Serb civilians was observed. population of Kosovo, Police and army actions in late February and and 90 percent of early March around Vucitrn (Vushtrri) and Kosovar Albanians, Podujevo (Podujeve), called “winter exercises” were displaced from by the government, secured rail and road links north into Serbia. their homes. Serious violations of international humani- tarian law had accompanied all previous government offensives, but the period of the NATO bombing saw unprecedented attacks on civilians and the forced expulsion of more than 850,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. For the first time in the conflict, fighting moved from the rural areas to the cities. While the government campaign seems to have been an attempt to crush the KLA, it clearly developed into something more once the NATO bomb- ing began. With a major offensive underway, then-Yugoslav President Slo- bodan Milosevic took advantage of the NATO bombing to implement a plan to crush the rebels and their base of support among the population, as well as forcibly to expel a large portion of Kosovo’s Albanian population. No one predicted the speed and scale of the expulsions. Within three weeks of the start of NATO bombing, 525,787 refugees from Kosovo had flooded the neighboring countries, according to the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). All told, government forces expelled 862,979 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, and several hundred thou- sand more were internally displaced, in addition to those displaced prior to March 1999. More than 80 percent of the entire population of Kosovo—90 percent of Kosovar Albanians—were displaced from their homes. Areas with historic ties to the KLA were hardest hit. The municipalities of Glogovac (Gllogofc) and Srbica (Skenderaj) in the Drenica region, the cradle of the KLA, were the scene of multiple massacres of civilians, as well as arbitrary detentions, torture, and the systematic destruction of homes and other civilian property. Mass killings, forced expulsions, and the Executive Summary 5 destruction of civilian property were also common in the southwestern municipalities of Djakovica (Gjakove), Orahovac (Rrahovec), and Suva Reka (Suhareke), where many villages had long supported the insurgency. Sixty-five percent of the violations documented by Human Rights Watch took place in the above-mentioned five municipalities (see Figure 2 in the chapter Statistical Analysis of Violations). Explanations for the abuses in other municipalities are more complex and less conclusive. The municipalities of Pec (Peja) and Lipljan (Lipjan), both of which had significant Serbian populations, were targeted for mass expulsion of ethnic Albanians, but killings were more localized, such as in the villages of Slovinje (Sllovi), Ribare (Ribar), Ljubenic (Lubeniq), Cuska (Qyshk), and the town of Pec. Although the KLA was active in the Pec municipality and present in the western-most part of Lipljan municipality during 1998 and early 1999, there is little or no evidence to tie the KLA to some of the villages in which massacres occurred. The killings were consis- tent with a broader pattern of operations to terrorize the population into fleeing Kosovo employing military, police, and paramilitary forces. There was little KLA presence or violence during 1998 and early 1999 in the ethnically-mixed northwestern municipality of Istok, for example. Nev- ertheless the municipality suffered mass expulsions of its Albanian resi- dents into Montenegro spurred by the burning and looting of their homes. Istok was also the scene of one of the bloodiest incidents of the war, when Serbian forces killed more than ninety ethnic Albanian inmates in the Dubrava prison in May 1999, after two days of NATO air strikes had killed an estimated nineteen inmates. The forced expulsion was well organized, which suggests that it had been planned in advance.Villages in strategic areas were cleared to secure lines of communication and control of border zones. Areas of KLA support, as well as areas without a There is little or no KLA presence, were attacked in joint actions by evidence to tie the KLA the police, army, and paramilitaries. Large cities were cleared using buses or trains and long con- to some of the villages voys of tractors were carefully herded toward in which massacres the borders. Refugees were driven into flight or occurred. transported in state organized transportation to the borders in a concerted program of forced expulsion and deportation characterized by a very high degree of coordination and control. 6 UNDER ORDERS Human Rights Watch also documented the common practice of “iden- tity cleansing”: refugees expelled toward Albania were frequently stripped of their identity documents and forced to remove the license plates from their cars and tractors before being permitted to cross the border. Before reaching the border, many Albanians had their personal documents destroyed, suggesting the government was trying to block their return. The mass expulsion of Kosovar Albanians may have served a number of purposes. First, it might have been intended to alter Kosovo’s demographic composition—a policy often mentioned by Serbia’s extreme nationalist politicians throughout history. Demographic shifts might also have led to an eventual partition of the province into two parts, one for Serbs and one for Albanians. Second, the expulsions might have been intended to destabi- lize the neighboring countries of Albania and Macedonia. Lastly, the goal might have been to tie down NATO forces in the neighboring countries, thereby hindering a ground invasion, or at least to weaken the resolve of the NATO alliance. If undercutting the international community’s determina- tion was the aim, it clearly failed, as the images of beleaguered refugees only provoked public outrage and increased calls for action. Deliberate and unlawful killings of civilians—extrajudicial executions— were a key part of the “cleansing” campaign. Throughout the province, civilians who were clearly noncombatants, including women and some children, were murdered by Serbian police, Yugoslav army soldiers, and associated paramilitary forces in execution-style killings. In general, the killings had three apparent motives. The first was to expe- dite the “cleansing” process through intimidation and fear. The second was the targeting of individuals suspected of fight- Deliberate and ing with or assisting the KLA—a distinction unlawful killings of that was often difficult to make. Targeted indi- viduals included some prominent political civilians—extrajudicial leaders, human rights activists, and wealthy executions—were a key businessmen. The third was killing for revenge: part of the “cleansing” some massacres were committed after Serbian or Yugoslav forces suffered casualties at the campaign. hands of the KLA. Although reliable figures are beginning to emerge, the final death toll from the Kosovo war remains unknown, and has become the focus of con- siderable debate. Through its own research, Human Rights Watch docu- Executive Summary 7 mented 3,453 killings by Serbian or Yugoslav government forces, but that number is definitely lower than the total, because it is based on only 577 interviews (and these interviews were not randomly sampled to allow for extrapolation of the data to all of Kosovo). At the same time, the number is certainly not as There is large as some Western government and NATO incontrovertible officials suggested during the war, when figures evidence of grave went as high as 100,000. As of July 2001, the International Criminal tampering and the Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) had removal of bodies by exhumed approximately 4,300 bodies believed Serbian and Yugoslav to have been victims of unlawful killings by Ser- bian and Yugoslav forces in Kosovo. This is cer- troops. tainly less than the total number of those killed by government troops.Most importantly, there is incontrovertible evidence of grave tampering and the removal of bodies by Serbian and Yugoslav troops, as the post-Milosevic Serbian government was beginning to confirm in summer 2001. Human Rights Watch documented attempts to hide or dispose of bodies in Trnje (Terrnje), Djakovica, Izbica (Izbice), Rezala (Rezalle), Velika Krusa and Mala Krusa (Krushe e Madhe and Krushe e Vogel), Suva Reka, Slovinje, Poklek, Kotlina (Kotline), and Pusto Selo (Pastasel).