Crimes in Kosovo

Toying with Death

During several months of bloody conflicts in Kosovo, both parties - the Serb and the Albanian - have manipulated to such an extent with number of victims and the manner in which "their" respective civilians were killed, that not even the actual discovery of terrible mass graves could produce any political novelty

AIM Belgrade, 30 September, 1998

In the end of August, in military and police operations on the territory of Malisevo, the "rebels' fortress" of the Liberation Army of Kosovo (OVK) in central Kosovo & Metohija, in the village of Klecka, cremated remains of 22 persons were found. The very next day, on 28 August, spokesman of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) of Serbia informed a large number of journalists, who were permitted access to the village lime-kiln where the remains had been found, that they belonged to civilians shot by Albanian separatists.

An avalanche of sharp condemnations followed. Remains of the unfortunate persons killed in Klecka were the "ultimate evidence" of the terrorist nature and criminal methods of the OVK; almost all political parties and all officials of the Serbian authorities, in equally sharp terms, attacked the international community, humanitarian organizations, individual states and their leaders for shutting their eyes to "genocide", "crematoriums" and undoubtful terrorism of Albanian separatists. On the other, Albanian side, the possibility that members of the OVK had committed the crimne in Klecka was not only rejected and the atrocity qualified as a fabrication, but it was attributed to Serb police and authorities.

There was hardly any voice of reason in this exchange of statements. Committee for Protection of Human Rights from Pristina, Fund for Humanitarian Law from Belgrade, and opposition parties which have been pushed to the margin were the only ones who demanded international investigation and forensic medical expertise. In proportion with the reservation of the international community and their own discontent because of the manner in which news about the crime in Klecka was carried and presented in foreign media, Serbian authorities did not even try to conceal the pressure they exerted in order to accomplish "general national unity" of the most powerful political parties. This goal was the easiest to reach; its achievement was not disturbed even by the very rare warnings that human misfortune must not be abused for political propagandist purposes.

Two weeks after cremated bones were found in Klecka, MUP of Serbia informed the public about another mass grave revealed when a stronghold of the OVK in the region of Djakovica was captured. The first police reports, this time submitted in the presence of journalists who were escorted to the place of the crime hardly a couple of hours after the end of combats, spoke about revelation of at least 12 corpses in and around the canal which fills the lake of Radonjic, near the village of Rznic. Fear was expressed that there were at least three times more victims.

There was a new series of condemnations of the criminals, political parties and other associations identified as "Albanian terrorists" whose victims were "Serb civilians". All international organizations were mentioned again, this time because of the ban of flights which was pronounced to the Yugoslav Air Transport by the European Union due to continuation of the conflict in Kosovo & Metohija.

Rejection of every possibility of involvement of the OVK in this crime by the spokesman of Albanian political parties was much less explicit. Repeating that this crime had been directed by Serbian police, representatives of the OVK threatened even members of their own ethnic group not to cooperate with the authorities of Serbia, not to return weapons and not to give up on their struggle. It seemed at first that the sad case with the victims from Klecka would be repeated all over again, who were practically forgotten in a tide of statements, condemnations, appeals and unmet expectations.

However, in this case (and at least to a certain extent) things have taken a different course. Investigative judge from Pec, Radomir Gojkovic, announced the investigation which will, after identification of the victims, be conducted by a team from the Institute for Forensic Medicine of the Medical School in Belgrade, headed by Professor Dr Dusan Dunjic.

Apart from skeletons and bullets, parts of cut cables were also found on site, which probably belonged to the milking machines from the nearby stables of the agricultural estate, barbed-wire fence tied in a knot on which a long lock of black hair and human tissue were found, a piece of wire which one of the found skeletons had been tied with, and 14 wounds were counted shot through mostly skulls and, in one case, through the pelvis.

"As concerning anthropological data, the most useful in identification were data on teeth and previous diseases or injuries", says for AIM anthropologist and assistant professor Dr Marija Djuric-Srejic. "An elderly woman was identified, among other, by injuries of the head in a traffic accident which occurred twenty years ago, a person (was identified) on the basis of a tumor of the shin-bone due to which he was forced to limp, a third person based on an old rib fracture". The team used all its knowledge, led by the irresistable need to give back the unknown victims at least their names.

The last phase in identification was comparison of findings of experts with data received from relatives of persons disappeared in the period between April and September this year, which was estimated to be the time of death of the victims. "Identification is a nightmare", says Marija Djuric Srejic, "and the responsibility which we all felt was as if their life depended on it". From ar least 34 persons found in the canal of the lake of Radonjic near Rznic, 12 have been identified. Four of them were ethnic Albanians (one woman among them), one Romany and seven Serbs (two of whom were women). After completion of the identification and after taking samples for possible further identification by DNA analysis, 22 persons were buried as unknown. In the meantime, in the end of September, remains of another five persons were revealed at the place of the crime. The same team of experts is at this moment working on their identification.

After it had completed the work, the team of experts was certain that it had sufficient number of elements for identification of another five or six persons. Members of their families, however, either failed to come for identification or were not sure whether they recognized clothes, shoes and personal belongings. It is possible, although it cannot be proved, that another person was recognized, but the relatives denied it. Things have gone that far in Kosovo & Metohija that people, even the dead, victims of crimes, are divided according to their belonging to a desirable or undesirable group. Reasons for refusing to recognize members of the family can just be guessed, ranging from fear of persecution as "traitors" to refusal to cooperate with the "enemy". Stories told by the local population just increase such and similar doubts. Allegedly, among four identified Albanians two were Catholics, one was a Muslim and one an Albanian married to a Serb.

It is not certain whether, perhaps even too easily, these rumours fit into the context that the OVK has an ideological hard core faction of "Marxist and Leninist" orientation which does not shink from punishing "internal enemies", "traitors" and "collaborationists". In the severe operation of Serbian police and the Army of Yugoslavia which, regardless of warnings and threats of the international community and occasionally it seems even with its tacit consent, has lasted practically for six months already, groups of the OVK have suffered heavy defeats. In such circumstances, obviously poorly organized, with local leaders, at times mutually intolerant groups of "fighters for freedom" could have succumbed to the challenge of revenge against helpless civilians. In this context, it is also possible to interpret the killing of army officials of the "Republic of Kosovo" in Albania, but also the last week's attempt on the life of Ibrahim Rugova's political advisor. The list of "local traitors" has, in fact, already been made public: regardless of the fact that it includes politicians inclined to compromise about the status of a province for Kosovo, which would not immediately mean that of a republic, even Adem Demaqi himself, who had for months offered to be the political leader of the OVK, decided that now was the best time to be ill.

In this sense, abiding by professional standards and procedures as the team of medical experts has done in their part of the job of investigation of the crime in Rznic, should easily be recognized as one of the ways out of the deadend street Kosovo & Metohija is in. Instead of counting "our" and "your" victims, and if it is really impossible to save lives, at least victims can be spared the destiny of anonymous death. When victims are given back their names, the personality of the criminal becomes quite clear.

Aleksandar Ciric (AIM)