HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: CRIMES BEING COMMITTED IN KOSOVO MUST NOT GO UNPUNISHED

HR/99/36
4 May 1999


High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson was in Skopje, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, this morning, where she was to hold discussions with the Ministers of Justice, Interior and other officials before meeting with President Kiro Gligorov. In the afternoon, Mrs. Robinson was scheduled to leave Skopje for Tirana.

Immediately after her arrival in Skopje, last Sunday, the High Commissioner visited the Blace transit camp on the border with Kosovo. There, the High Commissioner spoke to Kosovar Albanians who had just crossed the border and who recounted harrowing stories of their flight from Kosovo. The High Commissioner then visited the Brazda camp (formerly Stankovac) where she spoke to many refugees. The accounts of the refugees in Brazda echoed the reports the High Commissioner has been receiving of the systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing being carried out by forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in Kosovo.

Yesterday, 3 May, the High Commissioner visited the Senokos camp, southwest of Skopje. In the afternoon, in the town of Tetovo, she met with representatives of Macedonian Albanian and Kosovar Albanian human rights and humanitarian non-governmental organizations. She also met with Kosovar academics and journalists who have sought refuge in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

In her discussions, the High Commissioner has emphasized that she and her monitors in the area are working together with international partners, including the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, whose representative she met yesterday, to establish accountability and ensure that the crimes being committed now do not go unpunished. The information being gathered now should also be fed into the different human rights mechanisms of the United Nations system so as to continue to lay the basis for effective presentive action in the future, the High Commissioner said in Skopje.

Mrs. Robinson has also expressed concern over the impact of the crisis on the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the need for international support for Skopje.