POLITICS-YUGOSLAV: Ethnic Albanians Languish In Serb Prisons

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric-Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Feb 10 2000 (IPS) - Eight months after the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), ended its bombing campaign against Serbia, the fate of thousands of Kosovo Albanian prisoners, remains undetermined.

Political analysts say most of the ethnic Albanians, referred to as ‘hostages’ and ‘political prisoners’ by human rights groups, and ‘terrorists’ by Serb authorities, were detained in Kosovo during NATO’s March to June air campaign last year.

They were reportedly transferred to Serbia before the United Nations administration took over and human rights activists say most are imprisoned without charge.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) has accused Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic of trying to upset UN rule in Kosovo by keeping those people in Serbian jails.

“Belgrade appears to have little interest in releasing these prisoners, who have effectively become hostages in … Milosevic’s efforts to keep Kosovo destabilised, jeopardise the success of the international mission there, and demonstrate that Kosovo remains under his rule,” the ICG said in a report last month.

Officially the Serbian Justice Ministry says there are around 2,000 ethnic Albanians being held in eight jails in Serbia and that each case will be handled “in accordance with the law”.

However ministry sources say most of those arrested are being charged with terrorism. This means presumed membership in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), still regarded by Belgrade as a terrorist group. KLA fought for Kosovo’s independence against Serb police and the Yugoslav army since 1998. Under UN auspices, it was disbanded last September.

The Red Cross office in Belgrade says 1,960 ethnic Albanians are still in Serbian prisons. According to the organisation, Serb authorities have so far released two groups of prisoners, 166 last June and 54 last October. At the end of January, another group of 49 Albanians was released.

Natasa Kandic, head of the Humanitarian Law Centre (HLC) in Belgrade, says at least 10 of the prisoners are minors. Among them are Sabri Musliu (aged six) and his sibling Semsi (15) and a nine- month old baby in Pozarevac prison, born to Igbale Xhafaj (21), who was also arrested in Kosovo and transferred to Serbia.

The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Belgrade reportedly called for the immediate release of four categories of prisoners as soon as the United Nations administration took over Kosovo last June. These were women, minors, the elderly and the sick.

Barbara Davis, UN High Commission for Human Rights representative in former Yugoslavia, told IPS that “ethnic Albanians in Serb prisons are in a kind of legal vacuum”.

That is in part because agreements signed between NATO peacekeepers and the Yugoslav government to end the air campaign contains no reference to those people.

“The UN resolution 1244 that followed, put the UN in charge of Kosovo, but recognised Yugoslav and Serbian sovereignty, thus leaving those people in legal vacuum. There is no one to intervene in their behalf”, she adds.

Among those who were tried and sentenced to 12 years in prison for “terrorism” and helping KLA was physician Flora Brovina, one of Kosovo’s leading poets and human rights activists.

The trial, held last December in the Serbian town of Nis, was described as “Stalinist” by human rights lawyer Nikola Barovic. Ajri Begu, husband of Flora Brovina, told IPS at the time that his wife would be used as a “bargaining chip, a prominent hostage to be traded by Milosevic government for concessions”.

Brovina has not been traded so far, but, under the obscure circumstances, three Kosovo Serbs were exchanged for three Kosovo Albanians released from Serb prisons, on Jan 29.

The trade off, arranged by a private Serbian detective agency “OZNA” and widely publicised in the pro-government media, prompted a strong reaction from many legal experts in the country. They questioned the rumours that large sums of money were paid by families of the exchanged and the fact that such a trade off is highly illegal.

“The exchange of those six men only proves that this country is in total legal chaos,” Nebojsa Covic of the opposition Democratic Alternative party said last week in Belgrade. “What was the organ of state that enabled such a release and exchange, were the Albanians tried, sentenced…if not, how did they end up in jail at all?”

Natasa Kandic, head of HLC, says she has tried to pursue rumours that some families of Kosovo Albanian political prisoners have bought the release of their next of kin for a price of 50,000 German marks (approximately 28,000 US Dollars).