Serbs and Albanians Victims of the Same Game

by Vesna Peric-Zimonjic

The truth about atrocities committed against Kosovo Albanians is slowly surfacing in Serbia, while the country watches the massive reprisals executed by KLA fighters against ethnic Serbs and Gypsies.

More than one month after the withdrawal of Yugoslav security forces from Kosovo, it is still hard to determine the real proportion of alleged war crimes committed in the area since March 24, when NATO started bombing Yugoslavia, human rights experts say.

"No war crimes were committed by any VJ (Yugoslav Army) members during the NATO aggression," general Nebojsa Pavkovic, commander of the Kosovo-based Third Army, stressed last month in an interview with the Vecernje Novosti daily.

"Our army was only defending the country from aggression," he added.

As for the several hundred thousand ethnic Albanian refugees that fled to Albania, Macedonia and the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, the general's version, as well as that of all other officials who comment on the matter, is that they were escaping the air strikes.

But independent human rights groups from Serbia and Serbian Orthodox Church officials openly admit that there is physical evidence of mass atrocities.

"From the investigation that I was able to conduct so far, I can say that ethnic Albanians were systematically expelled from Kosovo since March 24," Natasa Kandic, head of the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade told IPS.

"Refugees I talked to said that police, VJ soldiers or paramilitaries who expelled them said their orders came from 'higher places'. That is how the Albanian population of Pec and Istok, for example, left in just a few days," she added.

In early May she saw a house in the village of Cusk, five kilometers from Pec, where 44 men had been shot dead in one day by Serbian paramilitaries, their bodies later burned.

"I saw the pile of burned bones in the house and talked to the two survivors... It is very hard to find out who the paramilitaries exactly were, as they wore black ski-masks, like in all other places in Kosovo where I talked to the people and found evidence of war crimes" she added.

According to Kandic, the evidence she collected leads to "many mass graves in Kosovo, but only an impartial investigation will show who are buried in them."

"I'm certain that links can be established, leading to those who gave the actual orders, as logbooks of army and other officers have been found," she said.

Sava Janic, a priest at the Orthodox Decani monastery in Kosovo, recently told independent Serbian media that "there were different armed groups that systematically expelled ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, looting their homes."

"Albanians were definitely not fleeing NATO air raids," he said. "The problem of war crimes against ethnic Albanians is not a matter of western propaganda. This material evidence, things discovered literally every day, traces of blood everywhere."

"Bodies of men, women, children in mass graves are being dug up... The Serbian people must learn this terrible truth and what was done in their name," Sava said.

Nonetheless, both human rights and church officials warn that even the worst crimes reportedly committed against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo cannot justify what was done to Serbs and Gypsies after the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from the province.

More than 136,000 Serbs fled Kosovo since June 12, according to statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees (UNHCR).

"Out of 150,000 Gypsies of Kosovo, only 10 percent still live there today," Dragoljub Ackovic, leader of the Gypsy community in Serbia told IPS. "Their houses have been systematically burned by the KLA, 1,200 in Pristina (the Kosovo capital) only."

"There are eparchies (districts) in Kosovo where no Serbs are left now," Bishop Atanasije Rakita, assistant to the Orthodox church patriarch, told IPS.

"I agree that it is a sin if people in Kosovo were killed and systematically expelled only because they were ethnic Albanians, but when we look at what happened to our people (Serbs), it is also a sin that appeals to heaven for justice" he added.

"We saw a precedent in international developments in March -- a (NATO) military intervention in the name of human rights (of ethnic Albanians). Now when there is practically no protection of Serb rights in Kosovo, everybody abroad is almost indifferent," the bishop added.

The precise statistics for rural areas of Kosovo is unavailable, as most Serbs have left and later dispersed in Serbia proper.

"The saddest thing is that those (Serbs) who were killed or abducted were the people who thought they could stay in Kosovo as they did nothing wrong. Those guilty left before the KLA returned and those who stayed had to pay a terrible price," Bishop Rakita said.

"A war crime is a war crime and people must learn the truth," Natasa Kandic said, stressing that most Serbs still ignore the atrocities.

"Official propaganda and fear from the paramilitaries who left Kosovo, but are around us now, block people's minds. They know that paramilitaries do not care if one is a Croat, Bosnian, Albanian, or a Serb -- if seen as an enemy," she said.

"Only the complete democratization of this country, new and honest politics with a clear view on the past ten years will help people learn and realize the truth -- what was done in their name and how the image of Serbia was tarnished," said Zarko Korac, a Belgrade University psychologist.