THE END ONCE AGAIN JUSTIFIES THE MEANS

According to the data and assessments of the Pristina Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms, the most massive and roughest police action of arresting Albanians so far has been going on in Kosovo during the past two weeks. Its targets are trade union activists, former workers of the Department of the Interior of Kosovo. In only less than a week over 130 persons were arrested. Their lawyers claim that they were exposed to brutal physical torture. This persecution and arrests culminated in the death of one of them - the 39 year old Ismail Raka from Kacanik. After this event and everything that happened before and after the question must be asked if the late Raka was thrown out of the window from the fifth floor of the Security Center in Pristina or he jumped himself, driven by horror and torture. Actually, what can easily be proved is that all the prisoners were subjected to horrendous torture.

This action seems to have been heralded by the kidnapping of the Albanian trade unionist, former Department of the Interior employee Biljal Idrizi. Late in October, Idrizi was kidnapped by three workers of the Ministry of the Interior of Serbia, who took him to an unknown location and tortured him, demanding that he sign a statement to the effect that he had been "preparing the assassination of Ibrahim Rugova". However, after this incident, no one could even imagine that the massive arresting of Albanians lay ahead. Arrests of trade union members, former workers of the Department of the Interior of Kosovo started in mid-November.

Although it was already then clear that what is here called "one-day arrests" were not in question, the statement of the federal Minister of Police, Vukasin Jokanovic in Nis, only two days after the first arrests was indicative. The Albanians consider him one of the "most successful executioners of the autonomy of Kosovo", and emphasize that the "Ministry of Internal Affairs has scored major results in suppressing separatism in Kosovo, first within the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kosovo, and of late by destroying the parallel Internal Affairs authorities in Kosovo".

On the basis of past experience, it was clear to the Kosovo Albanians that Jokanovic had then actually "made public" that the Serbian regime had given its "blessing" to these arrests. Already on November 30, the number of arrested rose to 109. Two days later, the District Public Prosecutor, Miodrag Brkljac, confirmed at a press conference that in the action started on November 17, 156 persons of Albanian nationality had been arrested in Kosovo. Investigation proceedings were initiated against 133 persons, and criminal proceedings against most of them. Brkljac claimed that the investigation "revealed that the arrested Albanians had, from 1991 to November this year, on the orders of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo, worked on the establishment of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Kosovo and of the State Security Services in seven centres in Kosovo. He also stated that the "Decree of the Law on Internal Affairs and other materials and lists of the para-police" were found in the possession of the arrested persons, boasting that this was the "largest action so far of the Ministry of the Interior of Serbia for preventing all activities of the parallel Ministry of the Interior of Kosovo". Brkljac also added that the investigations were being conducted pursuant to the law.

However, that same day, the defense counsels of the arrested, at a meeting with journalists, drew attention to the complete disregard of the law by the authorities. The condition of the prisoners itself testifies to the fact that not only human rights but also the very postulates of law are violated during the investigation. The police, they say, "keeps them for more than three days in detention, where they are horrendously tortured. They are brought before the investigating judge exhausted, broken down, hungry and lacking sleep. After making statements before the investigating judge they should be taken to prison but that is not the case. They are again handed over to members of the Department of the Interior so that they can "work them over again".

Lawyer Nekibe Keljmendi, assessing the condition of the prisoners emphasized: "The situation is no longer dramatic, but apocalyptic. Not only the lives of the prisoners but also the lives of their families are in danger. They are subjected to various forms of torture and humiliation".

Lawyer Bajram Keljmendi continues: "It is characteristic that their family members are called to the police building in the late evening hours. This happened to the wife and sister-in-law of Bljerim Oloni. They were forced to listen to Oloni's screams, while he was being brutally tortured. After that they "showed" Bljerim to his wife and her sister, who suffered a shock when they saw how disfigured he was.

"The same happened to my client", says Bajram Keljmendi, and continues: "My client, Avdija Mehmedovic, was taken to the investigating judge four days after he had been arrested. Since he was physically and mentally exhausted he requested that the hearing be postponed. A day later he made a statement before the investigating judge, and what happened? When I visited him two days later, continues lawyer Keljmendi, he told me that after he had given the statement, he had been systematically maltreated by the members of the Department of the Interior". However, Keljmendi says, this did not prevent the mentioned Mehmedovic from stating that "former policemen of Albanian nationality were organized within the Independent Trade Union, but not for the purpose of forming a parallel Ministry of the Interior but for monitoring the actions of members of the Pristina Security Center.

He publicly stated that he and his colleagues had made very important observations in that respect. Among other things, goes on Keljmendi, that the Serbian police had armed a group of Albanians in a village in Kosovo so that, at a given moment, if necessary, an incident could be staged, which could lead to war"...

Having considered the arguments of both sides the question is raised of the intent and aim of this most massive action of arresting people in Kosovo. Is it really fear that a parallel Ministry of the Interior of the Albanians of Kosovo might be organized, or an attempt to prevent the domestic and foreign public from being informed on the "internal" schemes in Kosovo.

We have informed, says lawyer Destan Rukici, both the Public Prosecutor and the investigating judge, that the prisoners are subjected to violence, but they did nothing. The investigating judge himself breaks the law, by not allowing the exercise of the elementary rights guaranteed by the Law on Criminal Proceedings. Lawyers were frequently not allowed to consult with their clients. There were even cases that the arrested person was forced to sign the Report under threats like "you had better sign, or, you know what is in store for you"!

On the basis of comparison, the ex-president of the Provincial Committee in the former system, now a lawyer, Azem Vlasi, emphasized that once again "resort was being made to the old and stereotyped formula", that these are in fact persons accused of acts from Article 116 in connexion with Article 136, and some in connexion with Article 138 of the Penal Code of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia!

"This is similar to a previous process conducted against a group of Albanians because they were allegedly establishing the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kosovo. Therefore, continues Vlasi, it is not at all surprising that neither the Public Prosecutor nor the investigating judge are doing anything to prevent violence, because they themselves are participants in staged processes", he stated.

That is why the lawyers addressed a letter to the President and Public Prosecutor of the International Tribunal for War Crimes in the former Yugoslavia, in the Hague, and the Helsinki Watch and Amnesty International have already emphatically reacted, demanding that the "Yugoslav authorities immediately investigate the cases of torture and violence. They are also requested to take measures for an end to be put to the torture of the more than 150 arrested Albanians in Kosovo and that they be accorded legal protection in keeping with international human rights standards, including guarantees against physical violence and torture".

The Albanians of Kosovo are convinced that this is a staged process on the part of the Serbian regime. The President of the Independent Trade Unions of Kosovo, Dr. Hajrulah Gorani, points out that all this is being done to " fulfil the demands of the Serbian ultranationalists, who are of late levying severe criticism against the regime, because it did not, allegedly, exert sufficient pressure on the Albanians".

On the other hand, police explanations that they are "suppressing parallel organs of Albanian authority, paramilitary and parapolice Albanian formations, sound a bit paradoxical. Paramilitary Serbian formations are moving throughout Kosovo, while over 40 thousand Serbian policemen, are concentrated in and have full control over Kosovo. Anyhow, the former leader of the Kosovo Polje Serbian Resistance Movement, Miroslav Solevic, asked recently that the Serbs in Kosovo should get more arms, because, as he states, they are insufficiently armed. He also thinks that Kosovo needs the First and Second Krajina Corps, which are the elite units of the Serbian Army.

This situation caused great disquiet among the Albanians in Kosovo. Fear that Serbian police forces might start raiding the houses of those who were not former police members in Kosovo, has exacerbated tensions and beliefs that this violence could provoke an inter-ethnic conflict. And all this is, regrettably, happening at a time when there is much talk about the possibility of establishing a Serbian-Albanian dialogue, which can indeed be established when tensions are relaxed in Kosovo. Or is everything that is happening one of the ways to secure better positions before the meeting of the two conflicting sides?

Besim ABAZI AIM Pristina