UN Special Rapporteur for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, visited Kosovo

PRESS RELEASE

12 July 1999


Mr. Jiri Dienstbier, UN Special Rapporteur for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, visited Kosovo from 7 through 12 July 1999. During his visit, the Special Rapporteur met with representatives of the newly established UN Interim Administration in Kosovo, OSCE and KFOR Commanders in the various districts. He also discussed the situation with representatives of the KLA, the LDK, local Albanian NGOs, the Serb Orthodox Church and other ethnic communities in Kosovo.

Mr. Dienstbier met with representatives of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, who described the scale and nature of war crimes investigation. He traveled to Kosovska Mitrovica, a city divided along ethnic lines, where he met Sir Martin Garrod, UN district administrator. He continued to the largely destroyed city of Pec, the home of IDPs whom the Special Rapporteur had met during his visit to the FRY in April. In Pec he visited the KFOR detention facility, formerly used by the Serbian Ministry of the Interior, now holding persons detained by KFOR in recent weeks. Mr. Dienstbier was shown implements of torture found in situ when KFOR occupied the former police headquarters. The Special Rapporteur also visited a refugee camp where Roma from different parts of Kosovo have assembled, generally accused by Albanians of participating in the Serbian atrocities, and live in squalid conditions. He visited Gnjilane, where representatives of the LDK told him of Albanians who have fled south Serbian cities of Presevo and Bujanovac, in the path of the withdrawing army and security forces, and have become IDPs in Gnjilane. He met with representatives of Kosovo Albanian NGOs who described a pattern of violence and terror against civilians and who expressed the hope that, in future, they will not be documenting abuses but working on community education.

In Prizren, meeting with local defense attorneys, the Special Rapporteur expressed appreciation for the interim mobile judiciary recently set up in Kosovo. He stressed that all who are guilty for the gross abuses of human rights in Kosovo--the murders, rapes, destruction of homes and property, the abductions and kidnappings--be brought to justice. He pledged to raise with Belgrade his concern for the whereabouts of prisoners transferred from Kosovo. He expressed concern about the inability of the international community to protect the Serb minority in Kosovo, many of whom have been expelled in recent weeks. He noted the ongoing burning of Serb houses and the parallel institutions that encourage such actions. Representatives of other minority groups expressed fear at the level of intimidation and harassment faced since the end of the NATO bombing campaign. The Special Rapporteur urged the UN Interim Administration to establish itself and assert its authority as soon as possible. He requested states to deploy police forces to Kosovo to maintain law and order, as a matter of urgency.