KOSOVO HUMAN RIGHTS FLASH #46 BODIES DISCOVERED AT MASSACRE SITE IN MEJA, KOSOVO

(New York, June 18, 1999)—Accompanied by a local villager, a Human Rights Watch researcher yesterday inspected the site of a mass killing in Meja, northwest of Djakovica, and found the decayed remains of several men. The men were apparently killed by Serb security forces on April 27, 1999, victims of a massacre in which Human Rights Watch believes at least 100 men were killed. The site appears to confirm testimony that Human Rights Watch collected earlier, in interviews with Kosovar refugees in northern Albania.

The bodies were found on the edge of a field next to the road that runs through the village of Meja. One intact body and the top half of another body were located on the side of a ravine adjacent to the field, roughly thirty meters up from the road. Another two bodies were a few meters further up the ravine, and the bottom half of another body was located in the field near the ravine. All of the bodies were in an advanced state of decay. The bones of some of the bodies were broken, and they all appeared to be headless. Pieces of a skull were found next to one of the bodies.

Closer to the road, the researcher saw three large piles of straw and cow manure, which the villager said covered many more bodies. The villager also stated that the bodies of most of the men killed in the massacre had been collected by Roma (Gypsy) street cleaners. Having seen the bodies after the massacre, the villager estimated that they numbered well over 100.

In the field were clusters of burned documents and personal possessions ó items such as cigarette cases, keys, and family photos ó that apparently belonged to the dead men. Spent bullet casings were also littered about. There were four recently dug graves located in a small Catholic cemetery further up the hill. According to the villager, the remains of four local men who were killed in the massacre are buried there.

After nineteen separate interviews with eyewitnesses who had passed through Meja on April 27 (See Flash # 34), Human Rights Watch concluded that at least one hundred, and perhaps many more, men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were taken out of a convoy of refugees by Serbian forces and systematically executed in Meja on that day. The refugees who were interviewed had been systematically "cleansed" from neighboring villages by Serbian special police, paramilitary units, and soldiers of the Yugoslav Army (VJ). The refugees were then forced to follow the road to Meja, which many of them passed through around midday. They reported seeing security forces holding "hundreds" of men at gunpoint. Those who passed through Meja later in the afternoon reported having seen a "large pile of bodies."

For further information contact: Holly Cartner (New York): 1-212-216-1277 Jean-Paul Marthoz (Brussels): 322-736-7838


KOSOVO HUMAN RIGHTS FLASH #51 LARGE-SCALE MASSACRE IN PUSTO SELO (POSTOSELO) Serbian Forces Removed Bodies after Release of Satellite Photos

(New York, July 2, 1999)–Three ethnic Albanian survivors of a large-scale massacre in Pusto Selo (Postoselo in Albanian), a village near the town of Orahovac, have described to Human Rights Watch how Serbian security forces shelled their village, captured surrendering villagers, and executed at least 106 men.

Two weeks after the massacre, which took place on March 31, NATO released satellite photos that showed a mass grave where local villagers had buried the dead. At present, however, the graves are believed empty. A survivor of the massacre said that Serbian forces returned to the site in late April with trucks and a small bulldozer, exhumed the bodies, and took them away.

B.K., fifty-seven, is one of the survivors who described the events in detail to Human Rights Watch. He explained how large numbers of Serbian security forces, including paramilitaries wearing red bandanas, attacked Pusto Selo on March 31 using tanks, artillery and mortar shells. The residents of Pusto Selo, joined by people from several other villages, took refuge in a nearby field down the hill from the village. Around 3:00 p.m. they surrendered by waving white bandages at the paramilitaries who had surrounded them.

The Serbian forces separated the adult males from the women and children, searched the women and confiscated their money and jewelry. The men were mostly older than fifty-five, as almost all of the younger men had fled into the hills. Around 4:30 p.m., the women were sent away from the village under orders to "Go to Albania!"

After the women left, the Serbian forces ordered the men to empty their pockets, stealing the several thousand German Marks that they found. "We begged them to spare our lives," said T. K., fifty-four, another survivor. "We gave them all of our money so that they wouldn't kill us." The Serbs also confiscated the villagers' identity documents. B.K. said that they took his papers, telling him: "You won't need any ID where you're going."

The Serbian security forces separated out a group of seven or eight younger men for interrogation and severe beatings. The group was then lined up nearby and shot with automatic rifles by seven or eight members of the Serbian security forces, believed by witnesses to be paramilitaries. Another group of about twenty-five men was then taken to the edge of a nearby gully and killed in the same manner.

"They came back to us and asked if we had seen what happened, telling us, 'you're going to go there too,'" B.K. said. In all, four groups, each consisting of between twenty-five and thirty men, were taken to the edge of the gully and executed using automatic weapons.

A Human Rights Watch researcher spoke separately to survivors from the second, third, and fourth groups, who brought the researcher to the field where the villagers had gathered and the nearby gully where the men had been killed. The three men each gave consistent accounts of the day's events. There was no visible blood at the scene but shreds of clothes and some shoes were scattered around in the gully amidst shrubs where the victims had allegedly been killed.

"I fell before they started to shoot," explained B.K., who was in the fourth group of men. "Two dead men fell on top of me. I didn't move. After a couple of minutes, someone said shoot again and I was hit. I stayed hidden under the bodies for another twenty minutes until I was sure that they were gone; then I escaped down the hill." Human Rights Watch saw the bullet scar on B.K.'s left buttock, as well as the bloody clothes he was wearing at the time.

Another man with the initials B. K., aged sixty, one of B.K's cousins, also escaped death. "They [the Serbian forces] were from somewhere else and they didn't know the terrain," he explained. "I was too quick for them; I slipped behind some rocks." In all, thirteen men survived the massacre, including one of the younger B.K's brothers, although a third brother, M.K., aged fifty-five, was killed.

The following day the Serbian forces removed between twenty and twenty-five bodies from the ravine and burned them in a house in the village, the three survivors said. Village men who later buried the remains of these men stated that they were unrecognizable, with little more than bones remaining.

Serbian forces abandoned the village that same day, but they left the remaining bodies, approximately seventy-five in total, in the gully. Returning villagers spent two days transporting the bodies to a site by the village mosque, where they were buried. Serbian paramilitaries returned to the village once before the burial was complete, forcing the villagers to flee into the woods. The burial resumed that same day after they had left. "We were very afraid; we rushed to bury them," said R. K., a villager who assisted in digging the graves.

Four days after the burial, another Serb attack on the village forced villagers to flee again, with Serb forces temporarily occupying the village. "Every day we watched the village to see if the Serbs would leave," said T. K., who explained that they used binoculars to keep watch over the village. On April 13, the United States government released satellite imagery taken on April 9 that revealed a mass burial site in Pusto Selo (to view the photographs see: http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/rpt_9905_ethnic_ksvo_7b.html). T.K. claimed that on approximately April 24 he saw Serbs exhume the bodies, using a small tractor to dig up the burial site. "There were men wearing medical outfits and masks," he said. "They took the bodies away toward Orahovac in two civilian trucks."

Villagers showed a Human Rights Watch researcher the burial site next to the mosque in the village. There was a large patch of freshly tilled earth, although it was not possible, without digging, to determine if the bodies had been exhumed.

"Not to know where the bodies are hidden is, for us, as if they've been killed again." T.K. stated, articulating a sentiment expressed by several villagers.


DAL SITO DI "HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH" - http://www.hrw.org :

SUMMARY


On June 15, 1999, Serbian and Yugoslav forces withdrew from the town of Glogovac in the Drenica region of central Kosovo, in accordance with the agreement signed by NATO and Yugoslavia's military leadership. Thousands of traumatized ethnic Albanian civilians, as well as members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), promptly emerged from their homes and the nearby hills for the first time since NATO raids began on March 24.

For the previous eleven weeks-since the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) pulled out of Kosovo on March 19-the population of Glogovac and the surrounding villages had been besieged and terrorized by Serbian special police and paramilitaries, as well as by the Yugoslav Army (VJ). As NATO bombs fell throughout Yugoslavia, Serbian and Yugoslav forces launched a brutal campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Albanians of Kosovo that involved summary and arbitrary executions, arbitrary detentions, regular beatings, widespread looting, and the destruction of schools, hospitals, and other civilian objects. As a stronghold of the KLA and an area of constant fighting with government forces, the Glogovac municipality was particularly hard-hit.

This report documents some of the abuses and war crimes that took place in the Glogovac region between March 19 and June 15. It is based on extensive interviews with ethnic Albanians while they were refugees in neighboring Macedonia, as well as on interviews with those who returned to the Glogovac area in late June. The testimonies from the two groups, as well as the physical evidence in the region, are remarkably consistent and, taken together, paint an undeniable picture of systematic abuse by Serbian and Yugoslav forces. This report does not, however, attempt to cover all of the abuses that took place in the area, since many crimes, including large-scale killings, are still being investigated. With few exceptions, witnesses and survivors are only identified by their initials in order to protect them from possible reprisals.

The most serious atrocities documented in this report took place in two villages near Glogovac: Staro Cikatovo and Stari Poklek, both places where the KLA was active. In Poklek, the police blocked a group of ethnic Albanians-mostly members of the extended Muqolli family- from fleeing their village and forced them into the house of a relative. After a few hours, the owner of the house, Sinan Muqolli, and another man were taken outside, executed and thrown into the family well. Shortly thereafter, a grenade was thrown into the room holding at least forty-seven persons, including twenty-three children under the age of fifteen. One man in uniform raked the room with automatic gunfire, a survivor said, killing everyone inside except six people. A member of the Muqolli family is a local commander of the KLA, which may explain the killings.

A Human Rights Watch researcher visited Sinan Muqolli's largely burnt house on June 25, 1999. The room where the killing took place had bullet marks along the walls and bullet casings from a large-caliber weapon scattered on the floor. The basement below the room had dried blood stains dripping from the ceiling and walls and a large pool of dried blood on the floor. Surviving family members displayed a cardboard box containing some of the bones allegedly collected from the room and showed the nearby well where they claimed some of the bodies had been dumped.

In Staro Cikatovo on April 17 the police attacked the village and separated the men from the women and children. By the end of the day, twenty-three men from the Morina family had been killed. Another four were still missing as of June 25 and presumed dead by their families. The survivors from Staro Cikatovo insist that none of the dead men were involved in the KLA, although several members of the family are admittedly KLA soldiers, including two who were wounded in the assault. As in Poklek, this may be one explanation for the executions.

Human Rights Watch visited Staro Cikatovo on June 25, 1999. Between 40 and 50 percent of the approximately one hundred homes had been badly damaged or destroyed. Most houses had been burned from the inside, indicating that they were purposefully burned rather than damaged in combat. Several structures had also been demolished bybulldozers. Human Rights Watch has also interviewed a witness who claims that dozens of prisoners were executed at the mine in Staro Cikatovo.

Very credible allegations of mass killings have also emerged from other villages around Glogovac, specifically in Vrbovac and Cirez. Human Rights Watch visited Cirez on July 11, 1999. A local human rights activist showed a list with the names of seventy-two persons allegedly executed in the area of Cirez and Baks villages. In Vrbovac, between eighty and 150 people are believed to have been executed.

Although they were generally not as violent as in the surrounding villages, Serbian and Yugoslav forces also committed serious abuses in the town of Glogovac itself. At least five, and as many as nineteen, civilians were reportedly executed by Serbian police or paramilitary forces in the town, usually in connection with looting and robberies. Glogovac's inhabitants, including the large numbers of internally displaced persons from the nearby villages, were subjected to repeated harassment, including detentions, beatings, house-to-house searches, robbery and extortion, as well as the destruction of foodstuffs. In addition, private homes, shops and businesses were deliberately ransacked, looted, and burned. Finally, the majority of the population was systematically expelled from the town over a five-day period in early May and sent toward the Macedonian border.

The actions in the Glogovac municipality were clearly coordinated between the regular Serbian police, the Yugoslav Army, and paramilitaries, whom witnesses identified as having long hair and beards, with colored bandanas on their heads and sleeves. While the police were responsible for many of the beatings in Glogovac, as well as the organized mass expulsion, it is the paramilitaries who are implicated in most of the serious violence, such as in Poklek and Staro Cikatovo. A number of witnesses claimed to have seen what they thought were members of Arkan's Tigers-the notorious paramilitary group run by the indicted war crimes suspect Zeljko Raznjatovic (Arkan), but their presence in the region could not be confirmed.

The only person identifiable by witnesses was a deputy police chief from Glogovac known as "Lutka," which means "doll" in Serbian. A known policeman in the town, residents said that he did not behave brutally, unlike many of the paramilitaries, although he was involved in thefts, and he was a principal organizer of the forced depopulation in early May, telling Albanians that they should "get on the buses or go to Albania by foot."

It should be noted that these abuses are hardly the first war crimes committed by Serbian or Yugoslav forces in the Glogovac municipality. Since February 1998, the Drenica region has been the sight of numerous executions, arbitrary detentions, beatings, and the systematic destruction of civilian objects, such as schools, medical clinics, and mosques. Previous Human Rights Watch reports ("A Week of Terror in Drenica," February 1999, and "Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo," October 1998) document war crimes committed in Gornje Obrinje, Golubovac, ,irez, Liko_ane, and other villages in the area.

THE TOWN OF GLOGOVAC

The largest town in the Drenica region, Glogovac (Gllogofc in Albanian) lies approximately twenty-five kilometers south-west of Pristina. Prior to the outbreak of Kosovo fighting in March 1998, it had a population of approximately 12,000, almost exclusively ethnic Albanians.

Although Drenica, as a stronghold of the KLA, was a focal point of conflict throughout 1998 and the beginning of 1999, Glogovac itself, like most towns and cities in Kosovo, was spared any fighting or destruction. The Serbian police always held the town, and the police station was frequently used as a detention center for ethnic Albanians arrested from the surrounding villages, especially during the large-scale government offensive in September 1998.1 Police harassment, arrests and beatings were commonplace in the period before NATO began bombing on March 25, 1999.

A notable feature of Glogovac was the nearby Ferrous Nickel plant, called "Feronikl." The large mine and industrial complex was frequently used by Serbian and Yugoslav forces as a base of operations throughout 1998 and 1999. There were multiple, but as yet unconfirmed, reports that Feronikl was also used as a detention facility for Albanians since March 1998. Likewise, unconfirmed reports speak of a crematorium in Feronikl where Albanians were allegedly deposed of once the NATO bombing began. NATO bombed the plant directly on April 30 and later.

Serbian police and Yugoslav military operations against Glogovac's surrounding villages began almost immediately after the OSCE's Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) left Kosovo on March 19, 1999. Right away, many ethnic Albanians from the rural areas fled, or were expelled from, their villages towards Glogovac.2 By the end of April, the influx of displaced persons had swelled the town's population to more than 30,000, and residents were sheltering large numbers of displaced persons in their houses.

While the level of violence during NATO airstrikes against civilians in Glogovac was lower than that inflicted on villages in the same municipality, eyewitness accounts indicate multiple violations of human rights and humanitarian law in the town since the end of March 1999. At least five-and as many as nineteen civilians-were reportedly executed by Serbian police and paramilitary forces in the town. Glogovac's residents were repeatedly harassed by Serbian security forces and suffered detentions, beatings, house-to-house searches, robbery, and extortion. Some private homes, shops and businesses were deliberately ransacked, looted, and burned. Finally, the majority of the population was expelled from the town over a five-day period in early May and sent toward the Macedonian border.

Accounts from residents indicate a large presence of both Serbian police and paramilitaries. Witness testimony repeatedly referred to armed Serbian men having long hair and long beards, as well as bandanas on the heads and arms. One person said that a few paramilitaries even had UCK patches (Albanian for KLA) on their sleeves as a joke.3 Some Glogovac residents claimed to have seen members of Arkan's Tigers -the notorious paramilitary group run by the indicted war crimes suspect Zeljko Raznjatovic (Arkan)-but their claims could not be confirmed.

The only person identifiable by witnesses was a deputy police chief from Glogovac known as Lutka, which means "doll" in Serbian. A known policeman in the town, residents said that he did not behave brutally, unlike manyof the paramilitaries, although he was clearly involved in many thefts, and he was a principal organizer of the forced depopulation in early May, telling Albanians that they should "get on the buses or go to Albania by foot."4

Human Rights Watch visited Glogovac on June 25, 1999, nine days after NATO forces had arrived in the town. Approximately 20 percent of the town had been destroyed. Many windows had been broken, cars burned, and there had clearly been a great deal of looting. There were approximately fifty burned houses in the town, most of them private homes.

Forcible Displacement into Glogovac

The forcible displacement of civilians from surrounding villages into Glogovac began with the departure of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission on Friday, March 19. Refugees from the neighboring villages and from the town itself told Human Rights Watch that Serbian forces and military equipment were pre-positioned prior to the departure of the KVM. A forty-six-year-old man from Glogovac described seeing fifteen tanks in the center of the town and a similar number of tanks moving toward Staro Cikatovo on Saturday, March 20. Military and police operations against villages commenced the same day. Some of the villages contained KLA positions.

A twenty-four-year-old woman from Glogovac described for Human Rights Watch what happened on the morning of March 20:

The police were located in the Feronikl mineral factory. Early on Saturday morning, around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m., a lot of forces came into the town with tanks and military vehicles... Around 7:30 a.m. the forces started to grenade the villages around Glogovac - Staro Cikatovo, Gradica, Vasiljevo and Trstenik....5

Accounts from residents of Staro Cikatovo confirm that attacks against the nearby villages began on March 20. According to a twenty-year-old woman from the village who was detained by police for six hours on Saturday morning, "They were shooting from Feronikl with cannons and rockets" (see section on Staro Cikatovo, below).6 Another woman from the same village said that, that morning "There were grenades falling into the houses and yards ...a lot of grenades, and incessant gunfire...."7

The same day, displaced villagers began to arrive in Glogovac; those who sought to remain in their villages were expelled by force. This was the pattern that continued until the forced expulsion to Macedonia of most of the town six weeks later.

A villager from Domanek, for example, reported that his entire village was expelled by police on March 26. The woman, children, and elderly inhabitants of Gladno Selo were also expelled on or around April 16. Police and paramilitaries forced out the remaining residents of Staro Cikatovo and Poklek on April 17 and then executed dozens of civilians in the two villages (see below). Evidence suggests a similar pattern in other villages in the municipality, such as Vrbovac.

Killing of Civilians

While most of the killings in the municipality occurred in villages, civilians were also killed in Glogovac itself during the month of April. Human Rights Watch interviewed more than fifteen residents of the town, as well as a number of displaced persons from surrounding villages who were sheltering in the town. The majority of the interviewees had knowledge of between four and twelve killings in Glogovac, although one person claimed thatnineteen people had been killed. Human Rights Watch has only been able to confirm the killings of Haxhi Selimi, Sokol Saiti, and two men from Banjica village with eyewitness testimony. Most of the killings, witnesses said, were carried out by paramilitaries and police during house-to-house searches and robberies, apparently to create terror in the course of thefts.

Shortly after the March 19 departure of the OSCE from Glogovac (the witness did not know the precise date), the Serbian police killed sixty-year-old Haxhi Selimi and two men displaced from the village of Banjica, according to B.K., a fifty-two-year-old Glogovac resident.8 He explained that Mr. Selimi, a displaced person from the village of Negrovce was among forty people sheltering in his house at the time. Three armed police officers wearing green uniforms with white eagle insignia on their jackets, came to his house around 10:00 a.m.. One of the officers, who had a moustache and a dark complexion, demanded 2000DM (Deutsch Marks, approximately U.S.$1042), he said, while the men in the house were forced to go outside. Mr. Selimi was shot seven times by the officer with the moustache at point blank range, according to B.K.. Two of the shots were fired after Mr. Selimi had already died, he said. The witness also heard additional shots and later saw the bodies of the two men from Banjica, who were reportedly shot by the same police officer in the yard of a nearby house.

Late in the afternoon of March 28, paramilitaries entered the home of Sokol Saiti in Glogovac, demanding money and valuables. A fifty-three-year-old displaced man from Domanek village, A.H., who was staying near Saiti's house, told Human Rights Watch that the paramilitaries had informed local residents, including him, that they were "Arkan's men."9 They were wearing black uniforms, with black camouflage makeup on their faces, and had bandanas around their heads. According to the man, the paramilitaries then shot Saiti. He told Human Rights Watch:

They shot him in the leg around 6:00 p.m.. They didn't touch him or let anyone give him first aid until he had bled to death. The paramilitaries stayed in his house until he died at 1:00 a.m.

Although he did not witness the shooting, Saiti's neighbor helped bury the man's body later the same day. This man claimed knowledge of an additional twelve killings, although he had not personally witnessed the deaths or seen the bodies.

One forty-four-year-old man from Glogovac, A.G., told Human Rights Watch that two ethnic Albanians were killed in his apartment building. He did not witness the killings but, as paramilitaries were robbing his apartment, he heard the shooting on the floors above. He told Human Rights Watch:

They [paramilitaries] broke into my apartment about 4:00 p.m. on Friday, April 20. Two of them broke in. We were eighteen people. They were wearing green uniforms. They broke in and shot into the ceiling. Then they said, "All of your money, Deutsch Marks, gold, watches - give it all!" They even took our wedding rings.

We were on the fourth floor. In the other apartment they killed Brahim Shala. Two others went there, and we heard one shot. They said they killed him because he was wearing a plis [the traditional Albanian white cap worn by older men]. On the fifth floor they killed another - Hysen Morina - because he looked at the policeman. We heard the shooting.10

Eight other residents from the town (three women and five men) interviewed by Human Rights Watch claimed knowledge of as many as nineteen other civilian killings in Glogovac during late March and April, although they didnot witness the deaths or see the bodies. The dead include thirty-four-year-old Hysen Morina, reportedly killed by paramilitaries during a robbery; Qazim Kluna (from Poklek); Sokol Hajrizi; and Rahim Krasniqi. At the very least, their claims strongly suggest that further killings did take place during this period, mostly in the context of robberies. Five of the witnesses specifically indicated that paramilitaries were responsible for the killings.

Robbery, Extortion, and Looting

Within days of KVM's departure, paramilitaries and police began to rob Glogovac residents and displaced persons, entering houses and apartments and demanding money, gold, mobile telephones, televisions and other valuables. Stores and businesses were also targeted. In the words of M.S., a twenty-year-old woman: "After the OSCE left, we became very insecure. Three days later they [the police] started robbing and burning houses and stores."11

The vast majority of refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch who were in Glogovac either personally experienced or directly witnessed robberies in the period between late March and early May. In some areas, demands for money by paramilitaries were so frequent that residents went to the police on April 23 to request protection, which was provided only intermittently and did little to curtail criminal activity.

Private cars and tractors were stolen and expropriated for use by police and paramilitaries during this time, according to residents. "Almost all the cars were confiscated," one Glogovac resident said. "They didn't take my car because I had an ordinary car, a Yugo."12 In a pattern common elsewhere in the municipality and other parts of Kosovo since March 1999, the police and paramilitaries used private vehicles taken from civilians as transportation, presumably to make identification by NATO aircraft and satellites more difficult.

The robberies followed a similar pattern: one or two policemen or paramilitaries would break in the door of a private apartment, sometimes wearing masks, but always carrying automatic rifles. The families were physically threatened until they handed over everything of value. A fifty-nine-year-old man from Glogovac, A.H., described what happened when men with "green uniforms and red bandanas on their arms" came to the four-house compound he shared with his three brothers in early May:

Two days before we left, at around 9:00 or 10:00 a.m., they [the police] came into the house and searched us... they pointed their guns at us...They asked me for money...[then] they forced me to strip to my underwear - looking for money. One of them said, "If I find any money on your body, I'm going to shoot you..." They took rings and gold from the women...The next day...they took two radios from my brother and a small TV.13

Another man, forty-five-year-old Q.D., told Human Rights Watch what happened in his home on April 20:

I was home with my wife and son. They broke in the door. They said "Marks." It was one man, but others were on the other floors. He was in an army uniform with no symbols. I didn't know him. He had an automatic [gun] and no mask. I gave him 200DM. He pointed the gun at my wife's chin, and I gave him another 300DM. He asked me what kind of car I have. I said I have a Zastava 101, so he left.14

During some of the robberies, paramilitaries and police reportedly threatened children with knives and automatic guns in order to extort money from their parents. According to H.M., a forty-six-year-old man, from Glogovac: "Aweek before we left [paramilitaries] started to take very strong action to take money. They would take your daughter and say, `Give me money or I won't let her go.'"15 Another man from Glogovac in his late fifties said that "paramilitaries came, they took children, held a knife against their throats [and threatened to kill them] unless they were given money."16

Multiple accounts from persons present in the town during this period strongly suggest that the robberies, extortion and looting that began in Glogovac around March 19 was a systematic attempt to strip the residents and displaced persons sheltering in the town of their property. Given that the robberies were sometimes accompanied by murder or threats to the lives of children and adults, as well as house-to-house searches (see below), these actions also seem to have formed an important part of the organized campaign by Serbian authorities to harass and terrorize the civilian population of Glogovac, perhaps to facilitate their subsequent forced expulsion from the town in early May. As happened in Bosnia and Kosovo prior to March 1999, looting and thievery were also the open rewards for the police and paramilitaries.

Some residents of Glogovac told Human Rights Watch that the police occasionally pretended to protect them from the paramilitaries who, the police claimed, were "out of their control." In particular, a deputy police commander known as Lutka reportedly told residents that he was trying to control the situation as best he could. He even reportedly said on one occasion that he had been "away on vacation," but that order would return now that he was back.

At the same time, a number of residents said that they had seen Lutka taking many private possessions from local Albanians. "He took cars, tractors and money from so many people," said M.K. from Glogovac.17 Lutka was also the chief police officer responsible for the deportation of Albanians out of Glogovac in May, numerous witnesses said (see section on forced expulsion).

Arson and Destruction of Civilian Property

In addition to theft and looting, there was some deliberate burning of Albanian homes, stores and businesses in Glogovac beginning on March 27. Two-thirds of the refugees from Glogovac interviewed by Human Rights Watch claimed to have witnessed some arson in the town.

A Human Rights Watch researcher visited Glogovac on June 25 and observed that approximately 20 percent of the town had been destroyed. There were clear signs of extensive looting, while the burning of structures seemed limited to private homes. An estimated fifty homes were burned in the town. Many private cars had also been burned.

A twenty-year-old woman from Glogovac described how her neighborhood and finally her own house were burned by the police:

Within five days of the airstrikes, they burned the stores. Our house was in danger from the fire. We were forced to leave our house at 1.30 a.m... [I]t was very bright because of the flames and we went to my aunt's house...The fire didn't catch our house, so the next day my father, brother and I went back to try and get some food..[but] that night they [the police] burned our house. First they looted it, and then they set it on fire.18

In at least one case, a building was set on fire with people still inside. At 8:00 a.m. on April 23, paramilitaries arrived at a house where four displaced families were sheltering. A thirty-five-year-old mother of five from Staro Cikatovo who was staying there explained what happened:

They broke down the iron door [and] a lot of "Chetniks" with masks entered the house. They took away two old men from Gornje Obrinje. Then they took us from the house and put us in an empty store. They burned the house. [Then] they came to us women and children and sprayed us with gasoline. One of them had matches in his hand and another held a knife against my child and said, "Give me money." They wanted Deutsch Marks. We collected some money and gave it to them, so they left. Half an hour later, eight others came. They set fire to everything...and they left, taking the keys with them...We wet some blankets and extinguished the fire. [Then] we broke the window and got the children out and got ourselves out.19

Destruction of Food Stocks

According to Glogovac residents, by mid-April food had become dangerously scarce in the town. The large and visible police and military presence, and the activities of paramilitaries, had confined people to their homes, making it difficult to locate and obtain food supplies. In addition, many food stores had been looted and burned or were simply not functioning. The town's population had also been swelled by the influx of displaced from neighboring villages. The town was virtually under siege by Serbian security forces, with what one resident described as a "ring of steel" around it, blocking the arrival of food supplies.

Refugees in Macedonia told Human Rights Watch that they witnessed police destroying or stealing food stocks in the town. "In Glogovac they were smashing up the stores as much as they could and taking away the stockpiles [of food], " according to a fifty-nine-year-old man from the town. In some cases, food in private homes was destroyed by police officers during the course of searches and robberies. On April 25, during a police operation in which some men were detained (see below), police searched the home of a fifty-six-year-old man, ostensibly for weapons. At a time when food supplies in the town were in extremely short supply, the police spoiled food in the man's house. According to the man,"The police didn't take food away - they just pulled it out...They threw the flour around and poured milk on the floor."20

Several refugees indicated that food was in such short supply by late April that people were forced to subsist on boiled corn and wheat. A Glogovac resident who was among the first to be bussed out of the town on April 26 said that the food shortages added to the sense of hopelessness among the population. "The bullet [was] not the problem there," he told Human Rights Watch. "Food [was] the problem."21

Detention and Abuse

Throughout the period between the departure of the OSCE and the expulsion of the population in early May, paramilitaries and police made frequent visits to the homes of Glogovac's inhabitants and displaced persons. Until the third week of April, most of these visits were connected with robbery, although threats of violence helped to intimidate the population, keeping most inside their homes unless absolutely necessary.

Beginning April 22, however, the nature of these visits began to change. Over the course of a week, the regular police carried out early morning raids against various neighborhoods in the town, conducting house-to-house searches, in which large groups of adult men were separated from their families and forced to the local police station. Almost all of the men were beaten in front of their homes or on the way to the station, and some were forced to sing Serbian nationalist songs.

Although some beatings took place in the police station and in the nearby garage, where many men were held, some detainees also reported that the police in the station generally behaved correctly, and even offered them cigarettes. Most of the detainees were questioned about the KLA and then released after no more than one day in custody.

A thirty-five-year-old man from Glogovac was among the first group to be detained. He told Human Rights Watch:

The police came in the morning at 8:00 a.m. on April 22...They brought everyone out of their houses...They separated men aged between fourteen and sixty from the women, children and elderly. They put us against a wall and threatened to shoot us, saying, "Shall we shoot them or not shoot them?" Ninety percent of the men were beaten up as they were searched by the police. Then they said to us, "Go to the police station." They put us in a garage at the station...[and] said to us, "You are not safe here anymore. From now on the military will take responsibility..." Around 3:00 p.m. the last person was released....We were asked, "Have you been in the KLA?"22

The searches, beatings and detentions on April 22 established a pattern that would be repeated throughout the week. On April 24, I.X., a fifty-nine-year-old male resident from the center of Glogovac close to the police station, received a visit. He told Human Rights Watch:

In my house, around ten soldiers and paramilitaries came at 8:00 a.m. They knocked on the door. [When I opened it] they pointed their automatic rifles at me and told me to put my hands up. They took me outside with my family and checked all of us...They beat up the men and ransacked the house. They hit me twice inside the house, while they were searching the house. My sons were beaten up on the street and taken to the police station.23

Although he was not detained, due to his age, and his sons were later released, the message of the visit was clear: "They never let us relax and sleep," I.X. said. "We were always in anticipation of when they were going to enter inside."

Some Glogovac residents received visits from the military as well as the police. On April 25, police came to the house of a fifty-six-year-old man, B.B., in Glogovac around 9:00 a.m. After a weapons sweep, the men were lined up against the wall. The younger men were taken to the police station and beaten. The man subsequently received a second visit from the military. He told Human Rights Watch:

Three or four days after the police came, the military came around 1:00 p.m. and harassed us. They took our identification cards and told us to gave 100DM if we wanted them back. After we paid the money they returned them. Then they checked our pockets.24

The raids and detentions continued on April 28 and 29, the day when NATO first bombed the Feronikl plant. A displaced man in his forties from Gornje Obrinje staying in the center of Glogovac described what happened to him during an early morning operation:

The police came on the 28th of April around 8:00 a.m. They searched us and... asked, "Do you have weapons?" They searched our house but they didn't take anything... We [eighty-three men] were taken to the police station at 9:00 a.m. It was a garage. They put us with our faces against the wall and said, "If you turn around we will shoot you."...We were detained until 2:00 p.m. Other people were held there for three days... An inspector from the Ministry of the Interior wearing civilian clothes was asking me questions in Albanian...The deputy chief of police, "Lutka," was also present while I was being questioned. [Lutka] said, "We are leaving and the military are taking our place. If they find you they will execute you immediately."25

Another detainee, R.M., told Human Rights Watch what happened in the police station when the Feronikl plant was bombed. He said:

Around 2:00 p.m. NATO began bombing Feronikl. We were in a part of the station with cars, and one high official with stars on his shoulders said, "You asked for NATO, and look what they are doing to us." He beat some of us with a shovel handle.26

Another man, N.B. who was detained on April 30, explained how he was arrested and how the police responded to his group when the Feronikl plant was struck. He said:

They took me on April 30 around 8:00 a.m. I was in my house, and around nine police surrounded the homes in the center. They took men up to sixty years old, altogether about 150 men. They took us to the police station. They beat us on the way with batons and shovels. It was the normal police. We went with our hands on our heads, and we were made to sing Serbian songs. We were put in the car garage. Most of us were released after about one and one-half hours, but about forty people stayed [including myself].

We stayed until the next day around 5:00 p.m. In the moment when NATO attacked Feronikl, the police got so nervous. They beat some of us. They took me by the hair and slammed my head against the wall. Some people were made to work and clean the station. They were also beaten.

They put us in a room in the cultural center that is near the station. There were forty others there, those who had been taken the day before. They said, "You asked for NATO, and now you've got it." Nine people were taken away for questioning, but they were later released.27

Subsequent events make clear that these operations were the prelude to the mass expulsion of the population, designed to instill fear among the population and to expedite their forced removal from the town.

Forced Expulsion

To some of Glogovac's residents, the objective of the detentions was made immediately clear. A small group of residents in the center of the town was informed on April 24 that buses would be arriving to take them to Macedonia if they wished to go. They were to be the first group to leave the town, which had been effectively under siege since March 19. One of the residents, a twenty-three-year-old man, had the stark choice made explicitly clear:

On Saturday (April 24) the police came into our house and told everyone to get out. They took me while they searched the rooms, forcing me to kick the doors open. The police hit me and my aunt...They took usinto the street. The police [in the street] were even worse. They threatened to kill us...They gathered men from the houses and took us to the police station. There they told us, "There is no more safety in the town. We heard on the news that we are keeping you as hostages. We are going to bring buses and take you to Macedonia if you want to go."28

Around 11:30 a.m. on April 26, the police went door to door in central Glogovac, telling residents that there were two buses going to Macedonia and that they were free to stay or go. The police, who reportedly included the commander and deputy commander from Glogovac, known as "Lutka," also reminded people of the nature of their choice. According to M.S., a twenty-year-old woman resident, "The police chief came with another police officer and said, `We are not forcing you' but, he said, `From now on the military will be in charge of this place.'"29 Approximately 200 residents were told that their safety could not be guaranteed if they remained, and they were given fifteen minutes to decide whether they wanted to leave. Most decided to go and boarded one of the two waiting buses, paying 50DM per adult. They were then transported to the Macedonian border without incident, arriving around 4:00 p.m. the same day. The buses were clearly organized by the Serbian authorities: Several refugees indicated that the lack of problems en route to Macedonia was explained by the fact that the buses had a special pass from the Interior Ministry authorizing their safe passage through the multiple roadblocks and checkpoints between Glogovac and the border.

The mass expulsion of Glogovac's residents and displaced persons did not begin until five days later, on May 1. The pattern established with the early expulsions continued, with organized buses being used to transport thousands of people out of the municipality over a five-day period. Buses went either directly to the Macedonian border or, in some cases, to a railway station near Kosovo Polje for transit to Macedonia. All adults were required to pay 50DM if they were being taken directly to the border, or 25DM for transfer to the train. Diesel fuel was also accepted as payment for travel. Again, it was the Glogovac police that were responsible for informing people about the buses and ensuring that they boarded them. Multiple witnesses identified deputy police chief "Lutka" as the person responsible for organizing the expulsions and informing residents that the police "could no longer guarantee their security," while attempting to emphasize the voluntariness of their decision to leave.

On Saturday, May 1 at 10:00 a.m., a group of displaced persons from Staro Cikatovo and Poklek paid 50DM each and boarded buses for Macedonia. According to a fifty-three-year-old displaced man from Domanek, A.H., the same day white armored Land Rovers with loudspeakers were announcing further departures on the following day, with the message: "We cannot defend you, but your way to the border will be open, and no one will touch you." The next morning the man made his way to the center of the town and boarded one of an estimated twenty-five buses that left at around 10:00 a.m. 30 A seventy-three-year-old displaced man from Gladno Selo told Human Rights Watch that he left on the same day under similar circumstances.

The following morning, Monday, May 3, police visited apartment buildings in the town. According to a seventeen-year-old boy: "Those of us who had apartments in Glogovac didn't want to leave...[but] they entered by force and told us to get out because the military needed the apartments."31 When the boy came out of the building with his family, buses were waiting. Two other witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch left the same day.

The clearance of apartment buildings continued on May 4, according to H.M., a forty-six-year-old man from Glogovac. He told Human Rights Watch:

The police came into the building at 9:00 a.m. They were going building by building. They indicated with their hands that we had to leave. There was a deputy commander with the name "Lutka", who was responsible for the evacuation.32

A fifty-six-year-old Glogovac resident who was transferred to the train near Kosovo Polje on the same day had a similar account. He said:

They [the police] were going through the streets and shouting around 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. "Go out as soon as possible, go to the bus station to take the bus," they said. So we took some food for the children and some clothes and left the house. At the bus station they were putting us in the buses in lines by neighborhood. The buses were shuttling to Milosevo (near Kosovo Polje), and from there people went by train. We had to pay 25 DM per person for a ticket for adults. We arrived in Milosevo around 5:00 p.m. We were told to get off the bus, and the police put us on the train immediately. They didn't let us go left or right - we had to go straight to the train. We waited for two hours there. We had no problems after that except that they put twenty people in one compartment - it was very crowded...There were police escorts on the train...33

Statements from other witnesses who left on May 4 corroborate these accounts. A.H., a fifty-nine-year-old man from Glogovac (originally from Domanek) who left the same day, was told by the police: "`Whoever has diesel can go.' I had fifteen liters in my tractor, so they let me go on the bus. Otherwise they wanted 50 DM."34 Another man who was displaced from Gornje Obrinje described seeing "fifteen buses in an open area [in Glogovac].There were more than 1,000 people there."35

The expulsions continued on May 5, according to those who were forced from the town on that date, although in smaller numbers. By that time, much of the displaced and resident population of the town had been forced out. While some of the population did remain in the town, the actions by the police in the first days of May amount to the systematic expulsion of the civilian population from Glogovac. Following weeks of harassment, intimidation, robbery by paramilitaries and police, as well sporadic killings, a dwindling food supply, and a heavy military and police presence, and the temporary detention of hundreds of men, the population was in no position to decline an offer of transport to Macedonia, especially when they were repeatedly told that their security could no longer be guaranteed.

1 Human Rights Watch, A Week of Terror in Drenica: Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1998), pp. 42-47.

2 Villagers came to Glogovac from Staro Cikatovo, Trstenik, Poklek, Banjica, Domanek, and Gladno Selo, among others.

3 Human Rights Watch researchers in Drenica in September 1998 also encountered some soldiers of the Yugoslav Army with KLA pins on their uniforms, clearly as a sarcastic statement.

4 Human Rights Watch interview with N.B., Stenkovac refugee camp, Macedonia, May 8, 1999.

5 Human Rights Watch interview with J.G., Neprosteno refugee camp, Macedonia, April 29, 1999

6 Human Rights Watch interview with "B.B.," Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, April 29, 1999.

7 Human Rights Watch interview with "D.D.," Stenkovac II refugee camp, Macedonia, April 29, 1999

8 Human Rights Watch interview with B.K., Senekos refugee camp, Macedonia, May 23, 1999.

9 Human Rights Watch interview with A.H., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 15, 1999.

10 Human Rights Watch interview with A.G., Stenkovac refugee camp, Macedonia, May 8, 1999.

11 Human Rights Watch interview with M.S., Neprosteno refugee camp, Macedonia, May 23, 1999.

12 Human Rights Watch interview with thirty-five-year-old man, Neprosteno refugee camp, Macedonia, April 30, 1999.

13 Human Rights Watch interview with A.H., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 15, 1999.

14 Human Rights Watch interview with Q.D., Stenkovac refugee camp, Macedonia, May 8, 1999.

15 Human Rights Watch interview with H.M., Stenkovac II refugee camp, Macedonia, May 10, 1999.

16 Human Rights Watch interview with I.X., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 15, 1999.

17 Human Rights Watch interview with M.K., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 8, 1999.

18 Human Rights Watch interview with M.S., Neprosteno refugee camp, Macedonia, May 23, 1999.

19 Human Rights Watch interview with D.D., Stenkovac II refugee camp, Macedonia, May 9, 1999.

20 Human Rights Watch interview with B.B., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 13, 1999.

21 Human Rights Watch interview with twenty-three year-old man from Glogovac, Neprosteno refugee camp, Macedonia, April 29, 1999.

22 Human Rights Watch interview with thirty-five-year-old man, Neprosteno refugee camp, Macedonia, April 30, 1999.

23 Human Rights Watch interview with I.X., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 15, 1999.

24 Human Rights Watch interview with B.B., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 13, 1999.

25 Human Rights Watch interview with X.D., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 14, 1999.

26 Human Rights Watch interview with R.M., Cegran refugee camp, Macedonia, May 8, 1999.

27 Human Rights Watch interview with N.B., Stenkovac refugee camp, Macedonia, May 8, 1999. N.B. claimed that he spent three days in a field hospital in the refugee camp due to head wounds. Human Right Watch saw a scar on the back of his head where he claimed to have been injured by the police.

28 Human Rights Watch interview with twenty-three-year-old man from Glogovac, Neprosteno refugee camp, Macedonia, April 29, 1999.

29 Human Rights Watch interview with M.S., Neprosteno refugee camp, Macedonia, May 23, 1999.

30 Human Rights Watch interview with A.H., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 15, 1999.

31 Human Rights Watch interview with C.C., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 12, 1999.

32 Human Rights Watch interview with H.M., Stenkovac II refugee camp, Macedonia, May 10, 1999.

33 Human Rights Watch interview with B.B., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 13, 1999.

34 Human Rights Watch interview with A.H., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 15, 1999.

35 Human Rights Watch interview with X.D., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 14, 1999.


THE VILLAGE OF POKLEK

Poklek is a relatively wealthy village with two parts - old and new - located on the outskirts of Glogovac. The KLA has been active in and around the area since at least March 1998. Thus, the village has suffered a fair amount of damage, as well as human rights violations, over the past year. A damage assessment conducted for the European Union by the International Management Group in January 1999, determined that 40 percent of New Poklek's (Novi Poklek, or Poklek I Ri in Albanian) seventy houses had been damaged, while 47.6 percent of Old Poklek's (Stari Poklek, or Poklek e Vjetër in Albanian) 164 had been damaged.36

The most serious human rights violation during 1998 took place on May 31 when an estimated 300 special police forces attacked Novi Poklek. Ten local ethnic Albanians were seized that day during the attack; one of them (Ardian Deliu) was later found dead, while the nine others have never been found.37 Poklek remained a dangerous place up until March 1999 because of the presence of Serbian forces in the nearby Feronikl plant. Many villagers had moved to Glogovac or to the neighboring village of Vasiljevo a few kilometers away. A Human Rights Watch researcher visited Vasiljevo in June 1998 and encountered the KLA.

None of the abuses that took place in and around Poklek throughout 1998 compare to what happened on Saturday, April 17, 1999, in the old part of the village. According to numerous testimonies, including one survivor, at least forty-seven people were forced into one room and systematically gunned down by a single Serbian police officer or paramilitary. The precise number of dead is unknown, although it is certain that twenty-three children under the age of fifteen died in the attack.38

A Human Rights Watch researcher visited the site of the killings - the house of Sinan Muqolli - on June 25, 1999. The house had been largely burned (which was consistent with witness testimony). The room where the killing took place had bullet marks along the walls and bullet casings from a large-caliber weapon on the floor. The basement below the room had dried blood stains dripping from the ceiling and walls, and a large pool of dried blood on the floor. Surviving family members displayed a cardboard box containing some of the bones allegedly collected from the room and showed us the nearby well where they claimed some of the bodies had been dumped.

Human Rights Watch first heard about the Poklek killing on May 8 from a member of the Muqolli family, F.M., who was in the Cegrane refugee camp in Macedonia. The thirty-nine-year-old woman told Human Rights Watch that the police had attacked Poklek on April 17, a rainy day, around 6:00 a.m. She said:

The police were first based in the Gorani family compound. The massacre took place about 150 meters from there. At 8:30 a.m. the shooting began. We were running away in a field toward Glogovac. Sometimes we stopped for the group to gather. The police were in a Zastava 101, white jeeps, and a grey Niva. We made it finally to Glogovac, but a second group behind us was blocked by the police and sent back.39

F.M. stayed in Glogovac for eight days before going back to Poklek. When she returned to her village with a cousin, four members of the group that had been turned back eight days before told her what had happened on April 17:

They said that they went into the house of Sinan Muqolli. "You will change your clothes here," Sinan told them. "You will be safe here." The police entered and the children screamed. Sinan said, "Don't scream because they won't hurt you." The police counted sixty-four people and said, "Don't leave the house because we have counted you. If you want to save these people, then bring us four people from the UCK." Sinan said he has two sons in Germany and their wives are here. The police asked why all of these women were there. "Where are the men?" they asked.

F.M's story is largely corroborated by a fifty-five-year-old member of the Muqolli family who was in Sinan's house and survived the attack. His detailed and damning testimony, as told to Human Rights Watch, is presented here in its entirety:

Something happened that you can see nowhere. I think it was April 17. It was Saturday . They [the police] came from the hill. They had tanks and a car. They just started to shoot. We didn't know where to go, but we tried to go to Glogovac. They saw us and came with three cars to the house there [indicates a house close to the town], and they told us, "Just go back, because nothing is going to happen in Poklek." When we came back, they started shooting in the air.

We came back and gathered together, four brothers. There were seven of us. We wanted to stay together. We stayed there all day. At about 5:00 in the evening they came. Sinan opened the door for them. They told us to get out, all of us. We went outside. They asked us, "Do you have guns?" We said no. Then they told us to go inside. We went inside. Then he [sic] called Sinan and Ymer, and he took them out and killed them. The women started to scream. I was trying to tell the women, "No, no, they are just shooting in the air."

After five minutes they came. There were a lot of us. First they just dropped a bomb, and the children and women started screaming. Then he [sic] started shooting with an automatic rifle. The rifle was firing for a long time. Then I heard someone from outside say, "Come on, leave them, they are all dead," but he saw someone alive and started to shoot again.

I heard him leave and was trying to get out. I got up and saw one of my neighbors, H.M., who was wounded and another woman and a daughter of S.M., who was wounded too. After that I was trying to help those who were wounded, because there was only me and a five year-old child who were not wounded.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later I saw the police forces coming into this house. It's the house of my cousins. So the girls were trying to go to the village, but me and H.M. couldn't go to the village because they were watching us from Feronikl. After that, the police forces came and started to burn.

That night, when it got dark, we went out and saw that they had burned the houses, not once, but twice. We were trying to go to the village Vasiljevo. We stayed that night in Vasiljevo, and after four days we came back and found Sinan and Ymer who had been burned and thrown in the well. There are others who were killed and put in the well. They found the mother of Ymer, killed her and put her in the well. Halim was killed, and they put him in the well too. We were trying not to disturb the remains and to hide them from the police.

... Twenty-three or more [of those killed] were children between six and thirteen. Some old women around sixty years old [were also killed]. I lost a daughter, a three-year-old, two nephews - a three-year-old andten-month-old - and a big daughter, twenty-one. There are thirty-four victims from the families of two of my brothers. There was a daughter of my cousin and three children and sister-in-law.40

In response to a question about the identity of the perpetrator, referred to in his testimony only as "he," R.M. responded:

I didn't recognize him, but he was uniformed, like a policeman. It was the same man who told us to go outside and go back home. The same man who dropped the bodies in the well. It was one man who threw the bombs and shot. It was the same person who did all of this.

List of those believed dead in Poklek (all Muqolli family members, unless otherwise noted):

1. Sinan, m, 55 2. Elheme, f, 54 3. Feride, f, 30 4. Ylber, m, 9 5. Naser, m, 15 6. Shehide, f, 14 7. Egron, m, 5 8. Hyla, f, 22 9. Florentina, f, 2 10. Liria, f, 7 months 11. Emile, f, 18 12. Elife, f, 16 13. Sherife, f, 14 14. Hafie, f, 9 15. Mehreme, f, 57 16. Hida, f, 30 17. Mendohije, f, 13 18. Mirsad, m, 9 19. Mergim, m, 8 20. Batihe, f, 32 12. Kujtim, m, 15 23. Naime, f, 22 24. Miradije, f, 57 25. Florije, f, 23 26. Fatos, m, 4 27. Zarife, f, 24 28. Arife, f, 22 29. Shemsije, f, 42 30. Vezire, f, 20 31. Fatmira, f, 18 32. Rexhep, m, 13 33. Agron, m, 9 34. Albulena, f, 6 35. Hasime, f, 39 36. Avdula, m, 13 37. Sherije, f, 33 38. Vahide, f, 5 39. Kushtrim, m, 3 40. Qendrim, m, 1 41. Nexhmije, f, 25 42. Kimete, f, 18 43. Sala, f, about 60 44. Mervete, f, 24 45. Lindita Hoxha, f, 20, from Korotic 46. Dr. Ymer Elshani, m, 50, from Korotic 47. Halim Kluna, m, 77. Killed somewhere else and reportedly put into a well.

36 "Assessment of Damaged Buildings and Local Infrastructure in Kosovo," International Management Group, January 1999.

37 Human Rights Watch, Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1998), pp. 33-37.

38 A list given to Human Rights Watch by Muqolli family members in a Macedonian refugee camp on May 8 had forty-four names and seven unknown victims, while a list given to Human Rights Watch in Poklek on June 25 had forty-eight names. The list presented in this report contains only the names of those who appear on both lists. Media accounts have cited other figures, such as fifty-two (The Irish Times, June 18) and sixty-two (Associated Press, June 17).

39 Human Rights Watch interview with F.M., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 8, 1999.

40 Human Rights Watch interview with R.M., Stari Poklek, June 25, 1999.


THE VILLAGE OF STARO ,,IKATOVO (ÇIKATOVË E VJETËR)

The village of Staro Cikatovo (Çikatovë e Vjetër in Albanian) lies a few kilometers north-east of Glogovac. The village had a 1991 population of 1,300, all of them ethnic Albanians. Staro Cikatovo is located close to the Feronikl plant, which at times since early 1998 has served as a base of operations by Serbian security forces against KLA insurgents active in the area.

Serbian forces had inflicted a fair amount of damage on Staro Cikatovo long before the March 1999 offensive. A U.N. damage assessment conducted on November 2, 1998, determined that 60 percent of the village had been damaged, 20 percent of it severely.41 At the time, only ninety Albanians were living in the village, mostly due to the proximity of the dangerous Feronikl plant and the ongoing clashes in the area between Serbian forces and the KLA.

Human Rights Watch visited Staro Cikatovo on June 25, 1999. Residents said that there are 114 houses in the village. Between 40 and 50 percent of the village was badly destroyed. Most houses had been burned from the inside, which indicates that they were purposefully burned rather than damaged in combat. Several structures had also been demolished by bulldozers.

According to witnesses from the village and Glogovac, government attacks on Staro Cikatovo began on Saturday, March 20, five days before the start of NATO bombing, when military operations were launched from the Feronikl plant against KLA positions around the village. One witness from the village told Human Rights Watch, "We were between the KLA and Feronikl. [Serbian forces] started grenading from Feronikl to attack KLA soldiers." Another witness described "incessant gunfire" that day.

Villagers told Human Rights Watch that they had been advised by OSCE personnel prior to the OSCE's departure that "if anything happened" the villagers should relocate to Glogovac. As the attacks continued on March 20, most villagers followed this advice. Most were able to reach Glogovac safely, but one group, consisting of members of the extended Morina family, were detained by police near the school as they tried to exit the village. One of the women from the family, B.B.,42 told Human Rights Watch:

In front of the school, we were stopped by the police in tanks. They took our men and put them to one side, asking them if they were soldiers. They put us in the school - women and children in one classroom and men in the other. They kept us from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. They told us, "If a bullet is fired by the KLA, we're going to kill all of you." [Then the] police and military left us in the classroom and went towards the mountains, where the KLA was. They were shooting from Feronikl with cannons and rockets.43

By mid-afternoon, all of them were released and told to return to their homes. The following day, March 21, the Serbian Red Cross arrived around 1:00 p.m. and evacuated some of the remaining women and children from the village. Many refused to leave because, they said, the Serbian Red Cross would only take women and children, and they did not want to leave their menfolk behind. Those who were evacuated to Glogovac stayed there for periods ranging between ten and twenty days before returning to Staro Cikatovo. In the words of one of the women evacuatedby the Red Cross, B.B., who later returned to Staro Cikatovo, "We came back ten days later because half of our family had stayed."44

Over the ensuing three weeks, the remaining inhabitants of Staro Cikatovo watched as unoccupied houses were looted by the police and paramilitaries. According to several witnesses, Serbian security forces also commandeered civilian cars and tractors, which they used to move around the village. For the most part, however, the remaining residents were left undisturbed during this period, although they were frightened by the threats made during their detention in the school.

A.A., a twenty-nine-year-old woman from Staro Cikatovo, described to Human Rights Watch how on or around April 14, three police officers entered the house of her uncle during the afternoon for what appeared to be a routine check. At 8:00 p.m. that same evening, the three men returned wearing masks made from sheets they had taken from the clothesline outside. Women and children were inside the house as well as an eighty-two-year-old man. According to A.A., who was present, "They harassed the old man, saying, `Give us money or gold or we will kill you all.'" The three men demanded 500DM. B.B., who was also present, tried to collect the money: "We said, `Can we go and ask others, because we don't have any money?' So my sister went to look for money and gave them 300DM. They also took our gold." Before leaving, one of the police pointed at a one-year-old child and, according to B.B., said, "It is thanks to this small baby that you are still alive, otherwise we were going to kill all of you."

The April 14 robbery was a precursor of the horror that was to follow. In the early hours of Saturday, April 17, the village was again attacked by Serbian forces. By the end of the day, twenty-three men from the Morina family had been killed and, as of June 25, another four were missing and presumed dead by their families (see list). A seventeen-year-old boy and an elderly man were forced to endure life-or-death negotiations with paramilitaries and police about whether they should be put with the men, i.e. killed, or allowed to leave with the women and children. They were eventually allowed to go. The survivors from Staro Cikatovo insist that none of the dead men were involved in the KLA, although several members of the family are admittedly KLA soldiers, including two who were wounded in the assault.

Prior to the April 17 attack, the Morina family had gathered in a few houses in one part of the village for safety. According to statements from six witnesses, the houses were attacked in the early morning from four sides: "from the direction of Feronikl, the school, the KLA-held area and the electricity generating stations." A.A. described what she saw:

At 6:00 a.m. a lot of shooting started...We didn't go outside. We were afraid because of the shooting, and we had no idea what was happening to the neighbors...At around 7:00 or 7:30 a.m. they came to my uncle's house...When they told us to get out we saw that the yard was full of heavily armed police. We came out -- men, women and children; we women came out behind the men.45

Witness D.D., a mother of five children, was in another house nearby. She said:

They took a very strong action against the village at 5:30 a.m. Our children were still sleeping. There was a lot of shooting from automatic rifles and grenades. Glass from the windows and tiles from the roof were falling on us. We lay down on the floor inside our house with our children...They entered the house, breaking the door and came into therooms. They took us by our arms and forced us outside. They didn't even let us get dressed....46

Villagers describe a mixture of police, paramilitary and military forces in either dark blue or green camouflage uniforms and iron helmets. Some had either a red, blue, black or yellow bandana tied onto their arms, which may have been used to cover the insignia on their uniforms. D.D. claimed that she saw a tiger emblem sewn onto some uniforms and that the troops were wearing black fingerless gloves. If true, the tiger emblem might indicate the presence of Arkan's Tigers, the notorious paramilitary group. Witnesses also emphasized that the forces were heavily armed, with flak jackets, automatic rifles (in some cases with bayonets), and grenades.

C.C. described how the occupants of the houses were taken outside. The men were separated from the women, he said, and lined up against the walls of the nearby houses. Since the houses were close to one another but not adjacent, the families were gathered in several groups in the village, and the evidence points to a time lapse between the operations against each of the groups. C.C. told Human Rights Watch:

They came to our house and shouted, "Come out one by one." We came out and walked into the street. There was already another group there. The forces were all drunk and wearing iron helmets. They were all red in the face and had bandanas on their arms: red, blue and black. We were afraid. Then that group separated us -- men from women. They didn't let us talk or do anything. They were angry, out of their minds. Our mothers were grabbing us, but they were hitting them. Fathers who had children in their arms had the children taken away. My sister held my father's hand. One of them said to her, "Let go of his hand, and go to your mother." She wouldn't, so they hit her in the head with a rifle butt. My father's eyes were full of tears.47

It was during this operation to empty the houses and separate men from their families that the first killing occurred. According to several relatives, the security forces caught Avdil Morina as he was trying to sneak his family away to safety. Avdil was stabbed in the throat and then shot dead in front of his family. B.B., who witnessed the killing, told Human Rights Watch, "He had a big wound in his throat - they stabbed him in the neck, pushed his wife and child away, and shot him."

Meanwhile, the women were being ordered to leave the village. Another witness, E.E., explained:

They brought us to the house of a neighbor. From that house they took four men. From our house they took three men - my father-in-law, his uncle, and my husband. All the men were separated on one side. My mother-in-law tried to intervene...but they forced us out and told us to go to Glogovac. Then they took the men to a lower place. When we left on the road, they just started shooting. I didn't see whether they shot in the air or on the ground, but I heard a lot of shooting. We knew at that point that they had killed them. My mother-in-law fainted.48

Despite the efforts to kill the men out of sight, one woman, Witness A.A., saw eleven of the men being shot around 8:00 a.m. She told Human Rights Watch:

They lined up all the men against a wall, and they directed all of us away, but I didn't go with the rest [because] my husband has only one son. Women were screaming and children were crying, but it was useless. They put the men in the yard of a neighbor, [shots were fired], and I saw them fall down. The children didn't want to go away-they were crying. After I saw them fall down I started to scream [to the others]: "Hey women, they killed them all." There was a lot of shooting....49

Several of the male Morina family members, including an elderly invalid man and a young boy, did manage to escape with their lives, but only after negotiating police checkpoints and the threat of execution. The younger of the two survivors, C.C, explained what happened:

They took me too. My grandmother wouldn't let me go, but they kept screaming, "Go away from here, because we are not releasing them." One police officer told me, "Go" and the other put his rifle against my chest and said, "Where are you going?" It happened three times. Then they talked among themselves and decided to let me go. They released my grandfather too. After this they didn't release anyone else...Then they screamed at us, "Go to Glogovac." But we didn't want to leave, so they started acting crazy. Then we went a little further away. They told the men to line up behind a wall. After they had lined them there-they had rifles. I didn't see them directly, but I was five meters away. I think I saw their blood splash.50

After being sent down side streets and walking through ploughed fields, the group with C.C. and his grandfather were stopped by police outside the school, where many of them had been detained almost one month earlier. Again the fate of the two male family members was the subject of discussion. According to C.C.:

They called my grandfather, and they asked him about me. They separated me from the line so I had to go to them. They asked me, "Why did they let you go? They shouldn't have let you go." My grandfather said, "The others down there released him." They searched him and said over and over again, "Why did they release you?" Women were crying for me, my mother, grandmother, and others. They said, "Let him go, he's the only one left, and he's young." Fifteen minutes later, one of them told me to go. So then we started towards Glogovac.

The group was stopped again on the road to Glogovac by military personnel at the Feronikl plant, and faced similar questions but was eventually allowed to proceed to the town.

Despite at least three subsequent attempts by some of the older women to return to Staro Cikatovo, in order to locate and bury the bodies of their dead men, they were not permitted to return to the village. According to A.A., the women "never made it further than the school...The third time they went, they were told, `We can let you in but there are police in the houses, and they might kill you.'"

According to witness accounts and Morina family members interviewed on June 25 in Staro Cikatovo, the following men from the village were killed:

Killed in Staro Cikatovo: 1. Tahir H. Morina 63 2. Florin T. Morina 38 3. Bahtir H. Morina approx. 50 4. Afrim B. Morina 34 5. Sabit A. Morina 38 6. Kadri H. Morina approx. 60 7. Selim S. Morina approx. 30 8. Muharem Morina approx. 85 9. Zenel S. Morina approx. 85 10. Beqir Z. Morina approx. 50 11. Avdyl H. Morina ?? 12. Isuf F. Morina 49 13. Goni H. Morina approx. 50 14. Syl H. Morina approx. 40 15. Tahir Z. Morina approx. 40 16. Rexhep Morina approx. 60 17. Brahim Morina approx. 40 18. Sheremet R. Morina 28 19. Daut J. Morina 65 20. Beqir J. Morin approx. 60 21. Arif Z. Morina 85 22. Bajram Makoll approx. 80 23. Haxhi H. Demaku (from Obrinje/Abri) ??

Missing and believed dead: 1. Selman Morina 50 2. Sokol Morina 45 3. Petrit Morina 28 4. Emin Morina 40

Missing in Vrbovac: 1. Bajram Morina 40 2. Ekrem Morina 15

41 UN Assessment, GIS Unit Pristina, January 28, 1999.

42 A number of villagers from Staro Cikatovo requested anonymity in return for their testimony. The letters A.A., B.B., C.C., etc. are therefore used in this section to protect their identities.

43 Human Rights Watch interview with B.B., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 8, 1999.

44 Human Rights Watch interview with B.B., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 8, 1999.

45 Human Rights Watch interview with A.A., Stenkovac II refugee camp, Macedonia, May 9, 1999.

46 Human Rights Watch interview with D.D., Stenkovac II refugee camp, Macedonia, May 9, 1999.

47 Human Rights Watch interview with C.C., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 12, 1999.

48 Human Rights Watch interview with E.E., Stenkovac II refugee camp, Macedonia, May 9, 1999.

49 Human Rights Watch interview with A.A., Stenkovac II refugee camp, Macedonia, May 9, 1999.

50 Human Rights Watch interview with C.C., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 12, 1999.


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This report was researched and written by Ben Ward and Fred Abrahams, researchers at Human Rights Watch. The report was edited by Wilder Taylor, general counsel at Human Rights Watch, Holly Cartner, executive director of the Europe and Central Asia division, and Cynthia Brown, program director of Human Rights Watch. Invaluable production assistance was provided by Alexandra Perina and Natalia Ermolaev, associates in the Europe and Central Asia division.

Human Rights Watch would like to thank all of the individuals who were interviewed for this report. Now that many of them have returned home, we hope this report will help lead to holding accountable those who committed terrible crimes.

*******

Human Rights Watch Reports on Kosovo:

NATO's Use of Cluster Munitions, 5/99. A Week of Terror in Drenica, 2/99. Detentions and Abuse in Kosovo, 12/98. Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo, 10/98. Persecution Persists: Human Rights Violations in Kosovo, 12/96. Human Rights Abuses of Non-Serbs in Kosovo, Sandzak & Vojvodina, 10/94. Open Wounds: Human Rights Abuses in Kosovo, 3/94. Human Rights Abuses in Kosovo, 10/92. Yugoslavia: Crisis in Kosovo, 3/90 (out of print).


A VILLAGE DESTROYED:

War Crimes in Kosovo



PHOTOGRAPHS REFERENCED IN THIS REPORT SUMMARY BACKGROUND THE KILLINGS IN CUŠKA (QYSHK) THE ATTACKS IN PAVLJAN (PAVLAN) AND ZAHAC (ZAHAQ) Zahac Pavljan THE PERPETRATORS APPENDIX

A Note on Terminology and Witness Names

First mention of all place names in Kosovo is provided in both the Serbian and Albanian languages. Thereafter, for the sake of simplicity and consistency, all names are in Serbian.

In order to protect individuals from possible reprisals, Human Rights Watch has used random initials to conceal the identity of the witnesses and survivors mentioned in this report.

SUMMARY

This report documents what happened in one village on one day.

In the early morning of May 14, 1999, in the midst of NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia, Serbian security forces descended on the small village of Cuška--Qyshk in Albanian--near the western Kosovo city of Pec (Pejë). Fearing reprisals, many men fled into the nearby hills while the rest of the population was forcibly assembled in the village center. An estimated twelve men were killed during the roundup in various parts of the village.

At approximately 8:30 a.m., the security forces in green military uniforms with painted faces and masks separated the gathered women, children, and elderly from the remaining men who had not managed to flee. The more than 200 villagers were threatened and systematically robbed of their money, jewelry, and other valuables. Their identification papers were destroyed.

Twenty-nine men between the ages of nineteen and sixty-four were divided into three groups and taken into three separate houses, where they were forced to stand in a line. In each house, uniformed men sprayed them repeatedly with automatic weapons. In one of the houses, a gunman finished off several of the fallen men with pistol shots. Each house was set on fire and left to burn.

The events in Cuška are far from unique: hundreds, if not thousands, of ethnic Albanians were killed by Serbian special forces and paramilitaries throughout Kosovo between March and June--many of them in a similar manner.

But this case has two special characteristics that make it worth a detailed investigation. First, in each of the three groups of men, there was one survivor. Through pure chance, three people managed to crawl from the burning homes, none of them seriously injured. They, and many others present that day, have told Human Rights Watch their stories.

Second, while ethnic Albanian villagers in Kosovo are usually unable to differentiate between soldiers, special police, paramilitaries, and anti-terrorist units, let alone identify individuals, in this case there is powerful evidence to point the finger at some of the specific people involved in these war crimes. Local villagers are adamant that ethnic Serbs from the immediate area were involved in the action. Some of the forces spoke to the Albanians by name and asked for specific valuables.

More importantly, villagers positively identified in photographs two of the individuals that they claim were present in Cuška on May 14 and a third who was present in the nearby village of Zahac (Zahacq in Albanian) on the same day, when nineteen other men were killed. While none of the individuals identified are known to have opened fire on the ethnic Albanian men, their presence in Cuška and Zahac on May 14 means that they should be able to identify the perpetrators, as well as the commanders of the unit. That information is invaluable to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which is mandated to investigate and prosecute war crimes in Kosovo.

The photographs used to identify the men in Cuška were provided to Human Rights Watch by representatives of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). While Human Rights Watch cannot vouch for the authenticity of the photographs, numerous Kosovar Albanians recognized the men mentioned in this report from these photographs, and placed them among the Serbian forces in the villages on the day of the killings. Some witnesses were able to provide names.

A Human Rights Watch researcher scanned the photographs into a laptop computer and then showed them to villagers in Cuška, Zahac, and Pavljan (Pavlan, in Albanian, is where another six people were killed on May 14), as well as to people in Pe. The methodology employed was to show the photographs to only one person at a time, preferably in a one-on-one setting. All of the photographs were shown one at a time on the computer screen without any comment or suggestive hints.

Human Rights Watch found five different people, interviewed separately, who said the man second from the left in Photograph no. 1 was among the Serbian forces in Cuška on May 14. Three of these people thought the man was a commander. United States journalists independently investigating war crimes around Pec with the same photographs found three people who independently identified the man as Sreko Popovic. The journalists also found an additional five people who said they saw Popovic in Cuška on May 14.

Two of the witnesses Human Rights Watch spoke to claimed that the man in Photographs no. 2 (on right) and no. 3 had been in Cuška with the Serbian security forces. The man in both photographs appears to be the same as the man identified in Photograph no. 1 as Sreko Popovic.

Three other people said that Zvonimir (Zvonko) Cvetkovi was also present in Cuška on May 14, one interviewed by Human Rights Watch and two by the U.S. journalists (Photograph no. 4, far right). The person who spoke with Human Rights Watch picked Cvetkovi out from the group photograph and said she saw him in Cuška on May 14. "Of course I know Zvonko," the witness said. "We lived on the same street." Human Rights Watch subsequently obtained a copy of Cvetkovi's passport (see Photograph no. 5).

Two ethnic Albanian men from Zahac, interviewed separately, identified Slaviša Kastratovi from Photograph no. 1 (third from left), and said that they had seen him in Zahac on May 14. Both men claimed to have had previous interactions with him in the Pec area, and to have recognized him clearly that day. Although she didn't know his name, a third witness recognized Kastratovi from Photograph no. 1 as a member of the Serbian forces in Cuška on May 14. This matches the general testimony of other witnesses who claimed that the security forces moved on to Zahac and nearby Pavljan after the killings in Cuška. Six people were killed in Pavljan in the early afternoon.

Many other people in the villages and Pec identified Vidomir Šalipur in Photograph no. 6 (back row, center, with cap) and Photograph no. 7 (front row, far left) as a Pec policeman who was notorious for his use of torture and beatings against ethnic Albanians in the area. Šalipur, who allegedly headed a local militia group called "Munja," or Lightning, was killed by the KLA on April 11, 1999 (see Šalipur's death announcement, Photograph no. 8), before the May 14 incident in Cuška.

In the process of the Cuška investigation, two people independently identified Nebojša Mini (aka Mrtvi, or "Death") from Photograph no. 6 (back row, far right) and others said he was well-known in the Pec area for his criminal activity. Although Mini was not seen in Cuška, the two witnesses directly implicated him in the extortion and killing of six family members from Pec on June 12. In Photograph no. 6, Mini is standing next to Šalipur (back row, center), suggesting that the two men might have collaborated in the same militia group, possibly the group known as "Munja."

The motivation for the killing in Cuška, as well as the attacks that same day on Pavljan and Zahac, remains unclear. There is no evidence to suggest any KLA presence in the villages in 1998 or 1999, and no policemen or soldiers are known to have died in the immediate vicinity during the NATO bombing, which might have made revenge a possible motive. One explanation offered by local villagers is that Cuška was the home of Hasan Ceku, the father of Agim Ceku, the military head of the KLA. Hasan and his brother, Kadri, were both killed on May 14. One villager in Cuška told Human Rights Watch that the police showed her a picture of Agim Ceku and said: "We are doing this because of him."

Motivation aside, the killings in Cuška, Pavljan, and Zahac were closely coordinated. This was not random violence by a rogue element in the Serbian security forces. As in other villages throughout Kosovo during the war, the Yugoslav Army maintained security on the periphery of the fighting, installing checkpoints on roads leading out, while special police forces and paramilitaries went into the villages to kill and "cleanse." Whether the principal perpetrators in Cuška were a local militia, a special police unit, or perhaps both, there is no question that they were working in concert with the local police and military authorities.

There is also evidence of Yugoslav Army involvement in the attack. A number of sources reported seeing documents from the army regarding a military buildup around Cuška shortly before May 14. One Western journalist claimed to have seen Yugoslav Army documents that ordered the village to be "cleansed."

BACKGROUND

Cuška is a small village about five miles east of Pec near the main Pe-Priština road that had approximately two hundred houses and 2,000 residents. Three ethnic Serbian families lived in the village, each named Jašovi, as well as one Montenegrin family named Bojovi. Relations between the Serbs and Albanians were good, the ethnic Albanian villagers said. All of the non-ethnic Albanian families left Kosovo when the Serbian and Yugoslav forces withdrew from the province on June 12.(1)

According to villagers, there was never any KLA activity in Cuška, Zahac, or Pavljan, although some of the military-age men in the area were admittedly members of the KLA who fought in and around Pe, including in the village of Loa (Loxhë in Albanian).(2) The immediate Cuška area was not the scene of any fighting between government forces and the KLA in 1998 or 1999. The only incident occurred in Zahac on December 22, 1998, when the police killed one ethnic Albanian man, Sali Kabashi, and arrested five others in disputed circumstances. The Serbian government said the police came under fire during the arrest,(3) but ethnic Albanian sources claimed that Kabashi was summarily executed.(4)

During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, Cuška, Zahac, and Pavljan were initially left relatively untouched even though most of the surrounding villages and the city of Pec were systematically "cleansed" beginning on March 25. By March 29, more than 90 percent of Pe's population had been sent to Montenegro in the north by foot or to Albania in the southwest by bus. Other villages along the Pe-Priština road were also vacated of ethnic Albanians in March and April, except for Cuška, Zahac, and Pavljan. Why they were not "cleansed" at this time is unknown, but they remained a pocket of villagers in the middle of the Pec area.

Special police forces came to Cuška three times before the May 14 attack to demand weapons and money, and they burned a few houses, but nobody was injured or killed, and everyone was allowed to stay. The first visit was April 17 around 4:00 p.m., and the forces only entered the Kristal neighborhood of the village. Between four and seven houses were burned, villagers told Human Rights Watch.

Four days later, at around 12:00 p.m., security forces entered Cuška, Zahac, and Pavljan. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the men were in green camouflage uniforms, and some of them had green cowboy hats. Villagers also said that the forces told them not to worry. "All of you can go home. No one will touch you. You're safe," they reportedly said. The forces came again the following day and searched Cuška for weapons. A number of villagers said that some villagers had handed over some guns they had in their possession at this time. Syl Gashi reportedly handed over a hunting rifle and his brother gave a pistol, as did Brahim Lushi, even though he possessed a gun license. The police also reportedly took Syl Gashi's BMW car and 1,200 DM.

The motive for the May 14 killings remains unclear. One hypothesis is that Cuška was the home of Hasan Ceku, father of the KLA's chief military leader, Agim Ceku.(5) One villager claimed that the security forces on May 14 showed her a photo of Agim Ceku and said "We are doing this because of him."(6) This is supported by testimony given to the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights, a U.S.-based human rights group. In video footage taken by the committee's Witness Project, members of the Ceku family testify that the security forces specifically asked for Agim Ceku's father, before killing him.(7)

The police action on May 14 was clearly "more aggressive" than on previous visits, many villagers said. From the beginning, it was clear that the forces' objectives and orders went beyond a routine search for weapons.

THE KILLINGS IN CUŠKA (QYSHK)

The May 14 offensive began without warning around 7:30 a.m. when a large force believed to be special police and paramilitaries entered Cuška from the direction of Pe. Villagers told Human Rights Watch that they heard automatic gunfire at about that time and saw some houses on the edge of the village being burned. Many of the young and middle-aged men fled in fear into the nearby hills, as they had during the previous police visits to Cuška, although some decided to stay with their families.

The police swept from west to east, forcing people towards the center of the village. Some villagers went willingly to the center since, as one woman said, they thought they were being expelled to Albania and "it would be safer to assemble in one place."(8) An estimated twelve men were killed at this time in various parts of the village, including Hasan Ceku, the father of KLA military commander Agim Ceku.

The Witness Project of the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights interviewed two witnesses to Hasan Ceku's killing. Both of them testified about the incident on video, the transcript of which was made available to Human Rights Watch. One witness said:

They [the security forces] then asked who was the father of Agim Ceku, that he was big now, that we brought NATO to them, now they will eliminate us.... They took Hasan, twice then let him go, and released the cattle. When he came back the last time, they had even stabbed one of the cows. They shot Hasan right there, and set him on fire. I snuck close by and saw Hasan dead, with his legs on fire.(9)

Another witness testified to the Witness Project:

We knew that they were killing the families of Albanian officers. I believed it was just a matter of time before they killed us all. They separated us, not knowing who Agim's father was, and asking about it. [Hasan] came forward. They told him to take his family and separated us. They took [Hasan] to find a picture of Agim, while they questioned me and my sister-in-law. They asked us when was the last time we saw him [Agim]. Where? But we had already decided that no matter what, we would never admit that we have any contact with him. I was telling him never. At that moment [Hasan] brought the picture, in which I was with Agim. He recognized me, but I denied it. He told me I was lucky because I was carrying a little child with me. They asked me to follow them and tell them whose house was the one across the street. Then I heard the shots. I ran but my uncle did not let me see [Hasan] dead.(10)

Despite these initial killings, some men decided to stay with their families. One thirty-eight-year-old man, B.B., remained with approximately forty people from his family, including his mother and children. He explained for Human Rights Watch:

When I saw them [the Serbian forces] near my house they looked very aggressive, so I decided to run. Down the road I saw some young men who told me they [the Serbian forces] had killed three men. I decided to come to the neighborhood of the Gashi family. When I got there I spoke with some old men who had decided to wait for the military to come. Right after that, the Lushi and Kelmendi families came--women, men, and children.(11)

B.B. and other villagers interviewed separately told Human Rights Watch that a group of approximately 200 ethnic Albanians from the village was soon surrounded by an estimated one hundred security forces. All of the witnesses said that the forces were wearing green military-style uniforms. All of them had their faces covered in some way, either with black grease paint or a mask, and some of them had black scarves and green cowboy-style hats.

All of the villagers believed that some of the security forces were from the Pec area, such as the ethnic Serbian village of Gorazdevac (Gorazhdvec), which is across the Bistrica River from Cuška. Some of the forces seemed to know a few of the local Albanians personally, villagers told Human Rights Watch, since they asked for specific valuables, such as the "car keys to your Mercedes." One woman who was in close contact with the forces told Human Rights Watch:

They wore green camouflage uniforms. Most of them had handkerchiefs around their heads, and two of them had hats, but some of them had their heads uncovered. All of them had their faces painted. We could only see their eyes, so we could not recognize them. But it was obvious that some of them knew us. There is a very short man from Cuška, a drunkard, whom people make fun of. Some soldiers started making fun of him, and from the way they did it, it was clear they knew him... Also, some of the soldiers would say to a person: "Get the keys of your Mercedes!" or "Give us the keys to your van!" That is, they knew who was who and who owned what.(12)

B.B. told Human Rights Watch:

I think they were from around here because they knew the men by name and they told them to get their cars. I recognized some of their faces.(13)

For more details on the identities of the security forces, see the section on perpetrators in this report.

After the crowd of villagers was concentrated in the village center, twenty-nine men were separated from the women and children. The entire group was then systematically robbed of their valuables. B.B. explained:

They ordered us to empty our pockets of all valuables--money, jewelry, gold. After they finished that, they ordered two kids, aged thirteen and fourteen. One was to take our IDs and the other to collect the valuables. The man who [later] executed us put a knife to the childrens' throats and said "give us everything you have." They shot near the kids' legs and above their heads.(14)

C.C., aged fifty-seven, was also captured as he tried to leave his house and forced to gather in the village center. He told Human Rights Watch:

The wife of my brother was twenty meters away. They told her to stop and they put a machine gun to her neck. They took about 850 DM from her. One of them cursed me and hit me in the face with his hand. "What do you think, you will never have a democracy," they said. "This is Serbia. America or NATO have no business here."

They took us to the cemetery. The Gashi, Lushi, and Kelmendi families were there, along with some guests from Lodza, Graboc, Rausic, and Gorazdevac.... They started to separate the women, children, and old men from the younger men. I didn't recognize them because at that moment most of them were masked or with black color on their faces. They stole from us; from me they took about 200 DM. They took our watches, documents, some of which they burned, our gold, and jewelry.(15)

Another woman who was present, D.D., told Human Rights Watch that the women and children stayed in the village center for approximately one hour. She said:

The soldiers were taking things from us: money, cigarettes, watches, jewelry.... One soldier took a knife and started licking it. He put it under the throat of a child. One of my children, my three-year-old son, broke free from my hands and started running to the direction of the group of men, where my husband was. The soldiers shot into the ground close to my son's legs to stop him.(16)

Another woman, A.A., corroborated this account. She added:

We [the women] stayed at the square. A soldier told us that they had an order to kill all of the villagers, but that they would spare women and children. He asked: "Do you want us to take you to Albania or to Montenegro?" We did not answer.(17)

After stripping everyone of their documents and valuables, the security forces separated eleven men from the group of twenty-nine and brought them into a yard between the houses of Ajet and Haki Gashi. The eleven men were led into the nearby house of Syl Gashi. What happened next is best described by the testimony of C.C., who was in the group:

Four of them came with us, three soldiers and one policeman. One had an automatic machine gun with two legs and the other three had normal machine guns. They put us near the wall. One of them was at the door with the machine gun--a young soldier. He said, "We will execute all of your families at the cemetery. You'll give us all your money if you want to be saved." We said we didn't have any more money and you can do anything you want with us.

Then he said he would talk with his colleagues to see what he'd do with us. They spoke by walkie-talkie with their commander but I didn't hear what they said. At once he stepped into the door with the machine gun. We were against the wall with our hands up. He said, "In the name of Serbia you will all be shot."

Ibro Kelmendi was on the left side. He has a weak heart and when he heard what he said, he died and fell on top of me. I pretended like I was dead too. Then he opened fire and everyone was killed except one guy. He shot once more at that person--I don't know who it was. I was wounded too, in the upper leg. Another guy came and shot again, then a third guy emptied his machine gun, then the fourth. I was alive under Ibro Kelmendi and my brother.

They cursed Albanians and then they set the house on fire. They broke a window and lit the stuffing from a mattress and put it over the bodies. I pushed the bodies aside and got out. I decided it was better to kill me than to be burned alive, so I jumped out the window. I went 100 meters and hid. I hid from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.(18)

Human Rights Watch inspected Syl Gashi's house on July 16. Only the walls were standing, and the interior had been completely burned. Small fragments of bone were scattered among the charred roof tiles and wooden beams that lay on the ground.

B.B. was among the men waiting outside the garden gate. He told Human Rights Watch that he heard shooting two or three minutes after the first group had been taken away, and he knew they had been killed. He told Human Rights Watch:

The police returned, talked among themselves and asked some young boys around fifteen and sixteen to go with the women and children. Then they separated us into two groups. When they took us [ten men], one guy didn't know which way to go and they hit him with a gun and said "Go this way!" They told us to go with our hands on our head and walk quickly. When we came here [house of Sahit Gashi], one said, "put them here." Another said, "It's not good to put them here because it will smell." So we went to Sahit Gashi's house.

First they said stand near the bathroom. I first thought they would execute us there but one guy with many bullets on his chest--12.7 mm-- said, "No, go in this room." They were very calm. They cursed us but they were not shouting. I wonder how they can kill us when they are so calm.

We went into the kitchen. I saw the fire from the machine gun and I fell to my left. I think everyone was killed but I wasn't even wounded. He sprayed three times. The same man went to the other side of the room and shot again at those who had fallen Three times again. One bullet hit me in the leg. I was hit on my left leg below the knee. Then I was hit on the right leg above the knee. The third bullet hit me in the right shin and broke the bone.(19)

Then he took out his pistol and shot six or seven people but I wasn't watching because my eyes were closed. Then everything stopped. There was silence. I waited for two or three minutes and slowly opened my eyes. When I saw no one was around I looked to my right and saw Isuf Shala was dead. Arian Lushi was dead on my right. The others were dead too.

I saw five police from the window and I heard one of them coming. I stayed lying down with my eyes half closed watching what he was doing. He just put his head in the room and threw something and very quickly some black smoke started going from that. After a few seconds, I couldn't breathe. When I thought I was going to scream because I was choking, I was thinking "please God, help" and I got up and went to the door. I thought I'd be killed but it is very hard to be burned alive.

I went to the other room and jumped from the window. I jumped out and saw their cars. One had a big Gulinov. They had civilian vehicles, trucks, and tractors and military vehicles too.(20)

Like Syl Gashi's house, Sahit Gashi's home was also burnt out, with only the walls remaining, when visited by Human Rights Watch on July 15.

E.E. was in the last group of eight men waiting outside the garden gate. In a brief interview with Human Rights Watch he confirmed that his group had been taken into Demë Gashi's house and was shot there. He survived uninjured. During the discussion, however, the photographs of his deceased family members and neighbors arrived for use in the ceremonial service that was planned to take place in Cuška the next day, July 18, rendering the moment improper for an in depth interview.

Some foreign journalists, however, did speak in detail with E.E. about his experience. In an article published in the June 28 edition of Time, the survivor is quoted about what happened after the security forces took him into the two-story house:

I was together with eight others. When we entered the hallway of the house, one of the VJ [Yugoslav Army] soldiers gave us a lighter and told us to burn down the house. When I bent down to take the lighter, the shooting started. I started crawling, not lifting my head.(21)

Human Rights Watch also spoke with E.E.'s niece, A.A., in Montenegro where she was a refugee. She told Human Rights Watch that she met her uncle near Cuška the night of May 14 and relayed what he had said to her at that time:

At twilight, our uncle E.E. came and told us that the men had been separated into three groups and led into three houses. He was the first to enter one of the houses. He was given a lighter by a solider and ordered to light a curtain in the room. When he kneeled down to set the curtain on fire, he heard a machine gun burst. He jumped out of the window and ran away.(22)

The events described by the three survivors were corroborated by other individuals in Cuška on May 14, including the women who were in close proximity to the security forces before being sent out of the village around the time the first group of men was being led into Syl Gashi's house. As they were leaving, they heard shots, some of them said, but they were not able to determine where they came from. A.A. told Human Rights Watch:

While we were leaving Cuška, the soldiers started shooting in our direction, but they were only shooting into the ground. Because of the noise and the fear we felt, we were unable to discern precisely what was shot at, and all the places the shooting was coming from. Maybe there was some other shooting as well at the same time, but we were not able to discern it.(23)

The women and children in the village were loaded onto tractors and escorted by the Serbian forces to the nearby Trepca battery factory on the Pe-Priština road. One women in the group told Human Rights Watch that they met the commander of the Pe-Kliina police station at a checkpoint near the factory. He was apparently surprised to see the women and children, asked who had sent them there, and returned them in the direction of Cuška, accompanied by men in three civilian cars, a grey Audi and two Zastavas. D.D. said:

The soldiers set Sali's house on fire. The roof began to fall. Then they put us on tractors and horses. Around 10:00 a.m. they took us --women, children, and several old men--in front of the Trepca factory, which is between Cuška and the center of Pe. While we were leaving, we heard gunfire. The soldiers didn't say much on the way to the factory.

We stayed for four hours in front of Trepca. The police there told us to go back to Cuška. When we got close to the village, we saw the burnt houses. I entered the house of Ram Binaku. I saw burnt bodies in one of the rooms. Most of the bodies were impossible to recognize. The woman recognized pieces of things belonging to their husbands, such as lighters, watches, keys.... I think Skender Dervishi was burned alive, because next to his body I saw traces in the ground, as if somebody was scratching his hand in the surface. I fainted.(24)

Another man, F.F., aged thirty-five, fled into the hills when the security forces arrived but returned later that day to discover many of the bodies, ultimately burying thirty-five of the forty-two victims. He told Human Rights Watch:

We went about 300 meters from the village where there is a wooded hill. We saw the burning houses and heard shooting and screaming. Then the forces went away. About thirty or forty-five minutes later, [E.E.] came. We saw he was not okay. I asked him what happened. He couldn't speak a word but just replied, "What happened to us. What happened to us" while putting his hands on his head. He looked inhuman.(25)

E.E. told the men in the hills that people had been killed in the village but he was too traumatized to explain, F.F. said. About an hour later, F.F. and another man named Ajet went into Cuška to see what happened. On the way, they saw Zoran Jašovi, an ethnic Serb civilian who lived in Cuška, waving a Yugoslav flag in front of a burning house, apparently to let the security forces know that he was Serbian. He didn't see the ethnic Albanian men and then he left the area. F.F. explained what happened next:

He [Jašovi] left and we went to that house. I went inside and saw the bodies burning. It was the house of Demë Gashi. I didn't identify them or count them. We went back to the woods and invited Sadik Gashi to come with us. We went back and tried to put the fire out. The forces had left at that time. None of our family members were around....

I saw the burning house of Sylë Gashi and we saw a large number of burning victims. I cannot tell how many people were there, it's better to speak with an eyewitness. I decided to inspect each house. In the house of Ahmet Gashi we found burning bodies but we couldn't put out the flames. In Ajet's house we saw two other burning bodies: Sylë Gashi and Skender Gashi... Then we went to Sali Gashi's house. We saw the body of Ibish Gashi with many bullet holes. We saw an outhouse near the road riddled with bullets. I opened the door slowly, very slowly, and I saw Qaush Lushi dead. He was killed with a 7.9 mm machine gun.

Human Rights Watch inspected the outhouse where Qaush Lushi was reportedly killed. It was a small wooden structure on the side of the road with ten bullet holes in the front door, and nine bullet holes on the far wall inside (see Photograph no. 9). Danish forensic experts who were coincidentally examining the site at the time told Human Rights Watch that they had gathered positive evidence of human blood inside. Two bullets were found, they said, one inside the outhouse and one wedged into the wood. They appeared to be 7.6 mm caliber.(26)

Villagers in Cuška told Human Rights Watch that Qaush Lushi was the richest man in the village, and that he had been forced to give the police 10,000 DM before he and his son, Osman, were killed. An article in Time covering the killings in Cuška also said that Lushi returned from his house with money for the police to find his son already dead. He was then forced into the outhouse where he was killed.(27)

B.B. confirmed that the police had targeted Qaush Lushi. He told Human Rights Watch:

They [the security forces] said "Do you want a state? We are 11 million Serbs so if you want a state ask for help from Clinton and Blair. Ask for NATO's help now." Qaush said "We have a state." And one of them said, "While I was defending you, you got rich." Two times they took Qaush to his home and when he went to this garden [near Azem Gashi's house], they shot above his head. Qaush came back with his car.(28)

F.F. told Human Rights Watch what happened the next day, May 15, after he and other villagers had spent the night in the forest:

The next day, the families who had slept in the Kelmendi house, Ajet, Milaim, and me, decided to bury the bodies because we didn't want the families to see them in that condition. I proposed and we decided to dig one mass grave because it was too dangerous to take the time digging many graves. Some women and children came and realized that their men had been killed and burned. They asked me "where is so and so." I said, "everyone who is not here is dead."

We found thirty-one burned bodies and buried them with two unburned bodies, that of Ibish Gashi and Qaush Lushi... [The next day] it rained very hard. We decided that we, Skender, Ajet, Milaim, and me would go and take two other bodies, one near my house, with a stretcher and we saw one old man who was watching the body of my uncle Brahim, who was killed by a bullet to the heart. We took him to the grave site. We went to look for our neighbor Rasim.... We found Rasim in his garden. He had been killed by many bullets. In his garden had been another executed person, Metë Shala, but he had already been taken by his brother.(29)

By mid-afternoon, the group of women, children, and elderly had been sent back to Cuška. Uniformed men put people from three families--Lushi, Gashi, and Kelmendi--into the house of Shaban Binaku. They, and those who had managed to escape the attack, stayed in the village or the nearby forest until the end of the war.

THE ATTACKS IN PAVLJAN (PAVLAN) AND Zahac (Zahaq)

The killing in Cuška is the focus of this report. But it appears that the May 14 offensive included attacks on the neighboring villages of Zahac and Pavljan as a coordinated action. The evidence suggests that some of the same forces were involved in the attacks in at least two of the villages. Many witnesses, for example, told Human Rights Watch that the security forces moved on in the direction of Zahac and Pavljan after the killings in Cuška.

Zahac

Villagers told Human Rights Watch that the police had come to Zahac, a village with approximately 140 houses, a few times prior to May 14, mostly to demand money. After the NATO bombing began on March 24, the police and paramilitaries were based in private properties near the village, including shops on the Pe-Priština road and the house of Xhemail Rama.

The police arrived on May 14 at around 8:00 a.m. Many people fled into the hills, but a number of villagers were captured in the village. Sadri Gashi, Fatos Gashi, and Valdet Gashi were reportedly killed at this time. Forces described as police and paramilitaries ordered most of the villagers to flee toward Pec on tractors and on foot, with orders to "go to Albania."

Another group of paramilitaries stopped the convoy on the road and separated out fourteen men. The rest of the group continued on to the Trepca battery factory near Pe, but they were stopped there by police around 1:00 p.m., held for a while, and turned back toward Zahac. Around 5:00 p.m. the convoy passed the spot where the fourteen men had been detained, villagers said. They didn't see any bodies, but they later heard from other villagers that the fourteen men were in a ditch there parallel to the road. It is not known precisely when they were killed or by whom (see appendix for names).

Back in Zahac, security forces robbed the villagers who had returned and then separated the men from the women and children. The men were ordered to hand over all of their money if they didn't want to be executed. After all of the valuables had been handed over, the forces left. The villagers stayed in the hills for more than one month, coming back to the village only for food, until NATO forces arrived in Kosovo on June 12. In total, twenty-eight people were killed in Zahac, nineteen of them on May 14. The others were killed on May 12 (one person), June 10 (seven people), and June 14 (one person).

Pavljan

The security forces arrived in Pavljan around 10:30 a.m. on May 14, according to villagers. Many of the men fled the village since they had heard that people were being executed in the area. Forty-six people from the village were captured, however, including six men. After the police took their identity documents, they detained the six men but let the others go. As they were leaving, the villagers said they heard three rounds of shooting. When they returned to Pavljan that evening, they found the six men dead in the burned house of Zymer Gashi.

Human Rights Watch visited Zymer Gashi's two-storey house on July 17. It was completely burned with only the walls standing. On the wall at the height of the second floor, opposite the door, there were fourteen bullet holes. The villagers had collected the remains of some bones, which were placed in a plastic bag hanging on the wall by a nail.

The villagers told Human Rights Watch that Ajshe Gashi, aged forty-three, had had the most direct contact with the security force since she spoke good Serbian. According to them, when the police returned to Pavljan later in May, Ajshe told them that she knew they were from the area. She was killed in unknown circumstances on June 8.

All together, thirteen people were seized and shot by Serbian forced in Pavljan during the NATO bombing, ten of them on May 14. The others were killed on June 5, 8, and 10 (see appendix).

THE PERPETRATORS

Since the beginning of the Kosovo armed conflict in late February 1998, ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have rarely been able to identify the perpetrators of human rights abuses against them. On occasion, a specific individual or police chief has been recognized, but witnesses and victims generally refer to abusers in generic terms like "the paramilitaries" or "soldiers."

One reason is that the various forces often used interchangeable uniforms. Pants, shirts, and jackets used by anti-terrorist units, police reservists, and the army, for example, are often mixed and matched, perhaps to avoid identification. Insignias were not always displayed, and name tags or identification numbers were never visible. Ethnic Albanians, therefore, were often confused about precisely which type of security force, let alone which individual, was in their presence.

There were some exceptions, particularly with the Yugoslav Army (VJ), which had more regimented procedures than the various forces of the Interior Ministry. VJ soldiers were usually identifiable by their green camouflage uniforms and the red and white, double-headed eagle insignia on the shoulder. The soldiers tended to be younger--often conscripts. Some commonly identifiable features of security forces from the Interior Ministry included the infamous green, Australian-style cowboy hats worn by the special police forces run by Frenki Simatovi, known as "Frenki's Boys." Paramilitaries often wore black or red head scarves or bandannas on their heads, as well as hand axes or long knives on their belts.

Abuses in the Pec area offer new possibilities for perpetrator identification, since, unlike in other parts of Kosovo, the local Albanians had regular contact on a variety of levels with the many ethnic Serbs who lived in the area. Pec itself, seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church, had a sizable Serbian population, as did some of the area's villages, such as Gorazdevac and Nakle (Nakillë).

In Cuška, many of the local Albanians believed that the security forces who were in the village on May 14 included ethnic Serbs from the area. As described in the section on the killings, the security forces seemed to know some of the individual Albanians, such as the wealthy Qaush Lushi, even asking them to hand over very specific valuables, such as "the keys to your Mercedes," and they teased a local drunkard. Other villagers told Human Rights Watch that the forces spoke Serbian with a clear Kosovo accent, as opposed to Serbs from southern Serbia or Belgrade. One villager in Pavljan said she recognized some of the forces in her village as Serbs from the area, although she knew no names. "One of them worked as a doorman where they sell cheese and milk in Lloma e Bilmetit," she said.(30) D.D. from Cuška told Human Rights Watch:

We recognized four [ethnic Serbian] men who were from Gorazdevac. Boban was the leader of the group, he is from Gorazdevac too. He had a beard. He was the one with a hat.(31)

B.B. told Human Rights Watch:

I think they were from around here because they knew the men by name and they told them to get their cars. I recognized some of their faces.(32)

C.C. said he recognized some of the men who came on the third visit to Cuška, just before the May 14 killing. He told Human Rights Watch:

There were three brothers from Nakle with a father named Blagoj. Their mother was born and used to live in Cuška. Her father is ivajlevi. Her name was Darinka. Some of them, two of them, were from Zahac.... Two were from Pe, one was Srdjan, the other Boban.(33)

In numerous interviews with villagers, a number of physical descriptions emerged. One woman, H.H., described the man she thought was a commander in Cuška (because he spoke on a walkie-talkie) as approximately six feet tall, slightly fat and aged forty. He had short black hair, shaved on the sides, with a bit of white on the top, she said. He had a beard that was speckled with white and he wore an army uniform with no hat.(34) Other villagers also described the commander as having a light beard. B.B. told Human Rights Watch:

One guy with a short beard with grey speckles looked like a commander because he gave the orders.(35)

The most damning evidence, however, is from witness identifications using a series of twenty-one photographs obtained by Human Rights Watch that depict armed and uniformed men who were apparently in some form of military unit or units, either police reservists, special forces, or a local militia. Two individuals in the photographs were positively identified by multiple witnesses as having been present in Cuška on May 14, and a third person was seen in Zahac on the same day. A number of other individuals were identified, although they were not in Cuška on May 14, and some were not identified at all.

Human Rights Watch obtained the photographs on July 16 from the KLA administration in Pe. The photographs depict various individuals and groups in an assortment of military poses. Some show men in military uniforms posing in a field or village. Others have men in full military outfits and automatic guns in front of burning houses or displaying the three-fingered Serbian nationalist salute. The KLA officials told Human Rights Watch that the photographs had been found in the homes of ethnic Serbian citizens in the Pec area after Serbian and Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo on June 12. Human Rights Watch also obtained two other group photographs dated May 6, 1999, of what, from the shoulder insignia, appears to be special police forces, from villagers in Zahac. The villagers told Human Rights Watch that they had found the photographs in the home of an ethnic Serb in Nakle.

A Human Rights Watch researcher scanned all of the photographs into a laptop computer and then showed them to villagers in Cuška, Zahac, and Pavljan, as well as to people in Pe, to see if anyone recognized or could identify any of the individuals. The methodology employed was to show the photographs to only one person at a time, preferably in a one-on-one setting. All of the photographs were shown one at a time without any comment or suggestive hints.

Human Rights Watch cannot confirm the authenticity of the photographs, since their origin, method of procurement, and ownership record are unknown. The fact that they were provided by the KLA, in whose interest it is to identify possible war criminals, should heighten suspicion about their accuracy. But, even if the photographs were doctored, there is no question that the villagers interviewed by Human Rights Watch positively identified some of the people in the photographs--and it is out of the question that this was coordinated between them and the KLA. Human Rights Watch asked the KLA for the photographs, rather than receiving them on the KLA's initiative, and did not mention that they would be shown to villagers in the area.

The results of Human Rights Watch's investigation are as follows. One man was recognized by six different people, interviewed separately, who said they had seen him in Cuška on May 14. Five of these people identified him from Photograph no. 1 (second from left), and only one of these people qualified this, saying "I am 90 percent sure he was here." The others were emphatic in their answers. Two of the interviewees said the man in the photographs was a commander in Cuška on May 14, and one other who had also placed him there said he "might be the commander," i.e. a person who was directing the others in the group and talking on a walkie-talkie.(36)

Photographs no. 2 (man on right) and no. 3 appear to show the same person, although cleanly shaven. One of the five witnesses who recognized the man from Photograph no. 1 said the same man was on the right in Photograph no. 2 and Photograph no. 3, and that the other security forces had called him "Popa." One further witness, who did not react to Photograph no. 1, said that the man on the right in Photograph no. 2 was in Cuska on May 14, and that he had gone to Demë Gashi's house where eight people were killed. "He had no beard," she said. When viewing Photograph no. 3, the witness claimed that the man had visited Cuška with the Serbian forces in April, and that he had worn a beard at that time. By her account, he "waved his assault rifle and said 'you can't run from this.'"

Aside from having heard the nickname "Popa," none of these witnesses knew the man's name when they identified him in the photographs: they only claimed that he had been in Cuška. His name, Sreko Popovic, had been provided previously to Human Rights Watch by the local KLA, but it was later confirmed by two United States journalists who were also investigating war crimes in the Pec area, and using the same set of photographs to identify perpetrators. According to Stephen Smith and Michael Montgomery from American RadioWorks, whose radio production called "The Killers of Pe" aired on National Public Radio's All Things Considered in the United States on October 25, the three men they interviewed--one ethnic Albanian and two ethnic Serbs--identified Popovic by name when they saw Photograph no. 3. In addition, Smith and Montgomery found another five people who didn't know Popovi's name but placed him in Cuška on May 14. Two of these people considered Popovic a commander.(37)

Another man identified as being in Cuška on May 14 is Zvonimir (Zvonko) Cvetkovi. The strongest witness claimed to have seen Cvetkovi in Cuška on that day, and even to have spoken with him. The witness identified him immediately from the group photograph of the men in front of the truck, Photograph no. 4 (Cvetkovi on far right), saying, "Of course I know Zvonko. We lived on the same street." Human Rights Watch later obtained a copy of Cvetkovi's passport that was found in the Petrans trucking company in Pec where he worked. The passport photo (Photograph no. 5) appears to match the man in the group picture on the right. Another man, F.F., separately told Human Rights Watch that he had seen Zvonko Cvetkovi in Cuška on May 14, but he admitted to only learning his name later, and he did not see the photographs in Human Rights Watch's possession. Smith and Montgomery, however, had two other people separately identify Cvetkovi by name from the Petrans photograph. Both people claimed to have seen him in Cuška on May 14.

Based on these identifications, Human Rights Watch believes there is strong evidence to place both Sreko Popovic and Zvonko Cvetkovi in Cuška on May 14. We do not have evidence, however, that either of these men participated directly in the execution of the forty-one men. It can only be said that they were present with the security forces when these executions, as well as the burning of homes and the theft of private property, took place. In the very least, they possess valuable information about the war crimes that were committed, including the names of commanders, and they should, therefore, be the subject of an investigation by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Two other ethnic Albanian men from Zahac, interviewed separately, said they recognized Slaviša Kastratovi in Photograph no. 1 (third from left, next to Sreko Popovic) as a member of the security forces present in Zahac on May 14. One of the men who claimed to have had regular contact with local Serbs through his job, said that Kastratovi was from Gorazdevac and that he had worked in the Pik Trading Company. The other man claimed to have known Kastratovi personally. He told Human Rights Watch:

On May 14, I saw Slaviša Kastratovi. He spoke with me. He asked how I am. "I'm glad your sons are alive," he said. I only have young kids.(38)

Another person from Cuška, H.H., recognized Kastratovi from Photograph no. 1 as having been in Cuška on May 14, although she did not know his name. She told Human Rights Watch that he had been in Cuška that day, as well as on previous occasions in April when the security forces had checked the village.(39) The testimony of the three witnesses from Cuška and Zahac provides some evidence that the same forces were involved in the actions in both places on May 14.

The other name that came up repeatedly in interviews was Vidomir Šalipur, known by almost everyone in Pec and the surrounding villages simply as Šalipur. Interviews and conversations with dozens of Pec residents revealed Šalipur's reputation for brutality. A member of the Pec police department, he was known for eagerly beating and torturing ethnic Albanians on the street or in detention. Local human rights activists, journalists, and the KLA, as well as a number of ordinary Pec citizens told Human Rights Watch that Šalipur was also the head of a local militia group or paramilitary called Munja, or "Lightning" in English, which was also Šalipur's nickname.(40) The group was apparently made up of local Serbs, some of whom were in the police and others who were civilians. According to Šalipur's death announcement (see Photograph no. 8), obtained by Human Rights Watch, he was killed by the KLA on April 8, 1999:

With great sadness we announce to family and friends that our dear

Šalipur Vidomir - "The Lightning"

(1970-1999)

Died a heroic death defending the Holy Serbian land on April 8th 1999 in the 29th year of his life, at the hand of Albanian terrorists.

The funeral will take place tomorrow, April 11th (Easter), at the Dobrilovici cemetery at 1:00 p.m.

The procession leaves in front of the family house....

LAST SALUTE FROM COLLEAGUES AND OFFICERS FROM "OPG"

AND "PJP" UNITS - PEC POLICE DEPARTMENT

"PJP" refers to the special police forces under the Ministry of the Interior (Posebna Jedinica Policije, or Police Special Unit). The meaning of "OPG" is unknown. The fact that Šalipur, as a Serbian policeman, was apparently in a military unit together with ethnic Serbian civilians, possibly the Munja group, suggests that the Interior Ministry knew about the activities of local militias, if it did not organize and coordinate them.

Human Rights Watch obtained two photographs of Šalipur together with a group of armed, uniformed men (Photographs no. 6 and no. 7). In Photograph no. 7, Šalipur is seen crouching in the front row on the left, holding an Albanian flag. The identities of the other men are unknown.

In Photograph no. 6, Šalipur is standing in the middle of the back row wearing a cap in front of what appears to be a flag marking the Albanian-Yugoslav border. To his right is a man identified separately by two individuals as Nebojša Mini, who has been directly implicated as the leader of a gang that extorted and then killed six members of one family, aged six to twenty-eight, in Pec on June 12.(41) Two people who said they had had direct contact with Mini told Human Rights Watch that he is heavily tattooed with images of a knife, an axe, and a grenade on his forearm, and a dead man on his chest. The man in the front row of Photograph no. 6, far left, was identified independently by two people, as well as by KLA sources, as "Milan," allegedly a friend of Šalipur's, although no specific allegations were leveled against him. The identities of the other men in the photograph are unknown.

There is also some evidence of the involvement of the Yugoslav Army (VJ) in the attacks on Cuška, Pavljan, and Zahac. Local KLA authorities in Pec told Human Rights Watch in July that they possessed a notebook that, they claimed, belonged to an officer in the VJ. Notes in the book mentioned a military build-up in the Cuška area prior to the May 14 killing, they said.

Shortly thereafter, Natasha Kandic from the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Center, one of Yugoslavia's strongest human rights groups,(42) published a report in which she mentioned the notebook of a VJ lieutenant shown to her by the KLA authorities in Pe. She wrote that the book:

[R]egister[ed] the military activites in the municipality of Pec after March 24. The entry for March 11 said that the focus of military activities should be shifted to Cuška and its vicinity. The local KLA headquarters in Pec also had a document marked confidential bearing the signature of the colonel in charge of the 125th Brigade.(43)

A subsequent article in the Western press claimed that the war crimes tribunal had found Yugoslav Army documents that ordered the "cleansing" of Cuška. A journalist for USA Today reported that he inspected a black vinyl, three-ringed notebook that contained a direct order typed on army stationery and stamped by the Supreme Defense Council of the Yugoslav Army Headquarters in Belgrade. The order reportedly said, "The aim of the military activity should be to cleanse Cuška and the surrounding villages and terrain."(44) The article said that investigators from the war crimes tribunal had found the notebook on July 2 near an abandoned military headquarters in Kosovo.

APPENDIX

List of those killed in Pavlan on May 14, 1999

1. Zymber Gashi, age 70

2. Niman Gashi, age 56

3. Shaban Kelmendi, age 52

4. Haxhi Dreshaj, age 41

5. Brahim Nikqi, age 55

6. Hatixhe Nikqi, age 55

7. Agush Selmanaj, age 46

8. Zenun Shala, age unknown

9. Muqê Lulaj, age unknown

10. Xhejrone Nikqi, age unknown

List of those killed in Cuska on May 14, 1999

1. Musë Gashi, age 64

2. Emin Gashi, age 60

3. Brahim Gashi, age 60

4. Ibish Gashi, age 56

5. Halil Gashi, age 55

6. Sylë Gashi, age 49

7. Jashar Gashi, age 47

8. Ahmet Gashi, age 35

9. Skender Gashi, age 37

10. Ramë Gashi, age 60

11. Xhafer Gashi, age 42

12. Brahim Gashi, age 56

13. Selim Gashi, age 42

14. Haki Gashi, age 38

15. Ibër Kelmendi, age 52

16. Skender Kelmendi, age 46

17. Besim Kelmendi, age 36

18. Erdogan Kelmendi, age 19

19. Brahim Kelmendi, age 40

20. Demë Kelmendi, age 41

21. Mentor Kelmendi, age 23

22. Avdi Berisha, age 64

23. Rasim Rama, age 40

24. Muhamet Shala, age 50

25. Hasan Ceku, age 69

26. Kadri Ceku, age 68

27. Sefedin Lushi, age 41

28. Osman Lushi, age 47

29. Xhafer Lushi, age 46

30. Skender Lushi, age 44

31. Avdulla Lushi, age 60

32. Ukë Lushi, age 57

33. Ramiz Lushi, age 41

34. Qaush Lushi, age 51

35. Arian Lushi, age 20

36. Gani Avdylaj, age 42

37. Hasan Avdylaj, age 40

38. Isuf Shala, age 50

39. Emrush Krasniqi, age 49

40. Ismet Dinaj, age 32

41. Zequir Aliaj, age unknown

List of those killed in Zahac on May 14, 1999

1. Ismet Hyseni, age 41

2. Sabit Hyseni, age 31

3. Naim Hyseni, age 38

4. Agim Hyseni, age 28

5. Bajrush Hyseni, age 24

6. Shpend Hyseni, age 31

7. Shaban Rama, age 45

8. Sadri Rama, age 50

9. Faton Rama, age 24

10. Valdet Rama, age 36

11. Demë Hatashi, age 28

12. Shaban Neziri, age 41

13. Zenel Neziri, age 67

14. Fehmi Gjukiqi, age 23

15. Hysen Gjukiqi, age 21

16. Bekim Delia, age 21

17. Zymber Smajlaj, age 26

18. Shaban Smajlaj, age 23

19. Gëzim Cukaj, age 19



1. A large number of Kosovo's ethnic Serbs, Montenegrins, and Roma left Kosovo with the Serbian and Yugoslav forces in mid-June. Many of those who remained were then forced to leave due to harassment, abductions, and killings by vengeful ethnic Albanians, some of whom had returned home after months as refugees. For more information about recent abuses against Serbs and Roma, see "Abuses against Serbs and Roma in the New Kosovo," Human Rights Watch, August 1999, which can be viewed at: www.hrw.org/hrw/reports/1999/kosov2/.

2. Loa is a village of 2,800 people just outside of Pec where intense fighting took place between the KLA and government forces in the summer of 1998. In mid-August the police pushed the KLA from the village with ground and air power, looted the valuables, and then systematically destroyed all of the village's 284 houses, including the mosque, with bulldozers. Photographs of the destroyed village, taken in February 1999, can be viewed on the Human Rights Watch website: www.hrw.org/hrw/campaigns/kosovo98/photo/pics299/299a.htm.

3. Website of the Serbian Secretary of Information (www.serbia-info.com), "Albanian terrorism after Milosevic-Holbrooke Accord," February 25, 1999, and "Serbia: Shoot-out Reported in Pec as Police Arrest Six Albanians," BBC Worldwide Monitoring, Serbian Radio, Belgrade, 1400 gmt, December 22, 1998.

4. The Centre for the Protection of Women and Children, War Chronicle of the Week, December 22, 1998.

5. In September, Agim Ceku became the head of the newly-formed Kosovo Protection Corps, the successor to the Kosovo Liberation Army.

6. Human Rights Watch interview with A.A., Ulin, Montenegro, Yugoslavia, June 15, 1999. See below for details.

7. Testimony of Ceku family members, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Witness Project, Massacre in Qyshk të Pejes, Kosovo. See the Witness Project website: http://www.witness.org/home.htm.

8. Human Rights Watch interview with A.A., Ulin, Montenegro, Yugoslavia, June 15, 1999.

9. Testimony of Ceku family members, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Witness Project, Massacre in Qyshk të Pejës, Kosovo. See the Witness Project website: http://www.witness.org/home.htm.

10. Ibid.

11. Human Rights Watch interview with B.B., Cuška, July 15, 1999.

12. Human Rights Watch interview with A.S., Ulin, Montenegro, Yugoslavia, June 15, 1999.

13. Human Rights Watch interview with B.B., Cuška, July 15, 1999.

14. Ibid.

15. Human Rights Watch interview with C.C., Cuška, July 16, 1999.

16. Human Rights Watch interview with D.D., Rozaje, Montenegro, Yugoslavia, June 8, 1999.

17. Human Rights Watch interview with A.A., Ulin, Montenegro, Yugoslavia, June 15, 1999.

18. Human Rights Watch interview with C.C., Cuška, July 16, 1999.

19. Human Rights Watch saw what appeared to be bullet scars below the witness' left knee and above his right knee. At the time of interview, the witness was still wearing a cast from his right knee down to his ankle.

20. Human Rights Watch interview with B.B., Cuška, July 15, 1999.

21. "Kosovo Crisis - The Awful Truth," Time, June 28, 1999.

22. Human Rights Watch interview with A.A., Ulin, Montenegro, Yugoslavia, June 15, 1999.

23. Ibid.

24. Human Rights Watch interview with D.D., Rozaje, Montenegro, Yugoslavia, June 8, 1999.

25. Human Rights Watch interview with F.F., Pec, July 15, 1999.

26. Human Rights Watch interview, Cuška, July 15, 1999.

27. "Kosovo Crisis - The Awful Truth," Time Magazine, June 28, 1999.

28. Human Rights Watch interview with B.B., Cuška, July 15, 1999.

29. Human Rights Watch interview with F.F.,Pec, July 15, 1999.

30. Human Rights Watch interview with G.G., Pavljan, July 17, 1999.

31. Human Rights Watch interview with D.D., Rozaje, Montenegro, Yugoslavia, June 8, 1999.

32. Human Rights Watch interview with B.B., Cuška, July 15, 1999.

33. Human Rights Watch interview with C.C., Cuška, July 16, 1999.

34. Human Rights Watch interview with H.H., Cuška, July 16, 1999.

35. Human Rights Watch interview with B.B., Cuška, July 15, 1999.

36. One of the people who identified the man as a commander also claimed that he had taken her away into a home, apparently with the aim to rape her. According to the woman, the man told her she knew what she had to do to save her family. For an unknown reason, she was then let go.

37. For more information from the American RadioWorks report, including photographs, see their website: http://www.americanradioworks.org.

38. Human Rights Watch interview with I.I., Zahac, July 22, 1999

39. Human Rights Watch interview with H.H., Cuška, July 16, 1999.

40. For an article on Šalipur, see "The Merciless Life and Death of a Paramilitary Killer; Sadistic Cop Tortured Town," by Paul Salopek, Chicago Tribune, June 27, 1999.

41. Human Rights Watch interviewed a number of witnesses who observed different aspects of the June 12 killing. A gang led by Nebojsa Mini, they said, entered the Pec home of a family that will remain anonymous for the protection of survivors around 9:00 p.m. and demanded money. One young woman was raped before the family was shot with automatic weapons. Six people died (ages 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, and 28) and four survived. Mini was not said to have pulled the trigger, but he was clearly in charge of the operation, which included extorting money from another nearby family.

42. For information on the Humanitarian Law Center in English, Serbian and Albanian, see the organization's website at: http://www.hlc.org.yu/. Kandic later confirmed her report directly to Human Rights Watch.

43. "Special Report, Retribution in Kosovo," VIP Daily News Report, Issue 1559, July 28, 1999.

44. "U.N. Records Link Serbs to War Crimes," by Jack Kelley, USA Today, July 14, 1999.