HRW: BBC revelation on Kosovo Albanian crimes "extremely disturbing but hardly surprising"
Senior researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW) Fred Abrahams has said that a BBC documentary on secret camps managed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) and the murders of hundreds of Kosovo Serbs, Roma and Albanians, is extremely disturbing, but hardly surprising.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Friday, April 10, 2009
In August 1999, two months following the end of the war and the arrival of the international peacekeeping force KFOR in Kosovo, HRW released a report about attacks on Serbs and Roma, Abrahams said. HRW knew already at that time that revenge attacks were taking place in plain sight of the international forces, he said, speaking for the Serbian-language service of Voice of America (VOA).
In May 2008, HRW sent a letter to the governments of Kosovo and Albania and to then United States (US) President George Bush seeking the opening of investigations into the fates of the Serbs who had gone missing in Kosovo, and also an improvement of the situation concerning human rights of minorities in the environments where they live, Abrahams said.
No reply was received.
The two governments rejected these accusations, he said, but BBC investigative reporters are now starting to collect evidence about it all.
Hundreds of persons went missing or were executed , Abrahams said.
According to the figures of the United Nations (UN) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the number of missing ethnic Albanians is around 1,500 and of Serbs around 400. These Serbs went missing after June 1999.
It is especially important to underscore that the mentioned abductions and disappearances took place in the presence of the UN and NATO, Abrahams pointed out. These organizations must provide the answer how this could have happened and say whether they had carried out actual investigations, he said.
Specifically, the UN administration in Kosovo UNMIK should be asked whether they seriously took into consideration the allegations about these kidnappings and murders and whether they had launched an investigation, and, if not, why they failed to do so, Abrahams told VOA.
It is important to stress that the BBC documentary shows that Serbs were not the only victims, he said.
The UCK carried out kidnappings, tortured and murdered also members of their own nation, ethnic Albanians.
This is therefore not an ethnic issue. Many of the victims were Serbs, that is undeniable, but there were also ethnic Albanians among them, Abrahams said.
