MACEDONIA: ALBANIAN REBEL ABUSES OF SERB CIVILIANS (Human RightsWatch, 7 June 2001)

[Paola Lucchesi <paola.lucchesi@mail.inet.it>]

Betreff:  [alb-information] Macedonia: Albanian Rebel Abuses of Serb
Civilians
Datum: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 16:26:07 -0400
Von: Human Rights Watch <HRWpress@hrw.org>

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

MACEDONIA: ALBANIAN REBEL ABUSES OF SERB CIVILIANS

(New York, June 7, 2001)-The National Liberation Army (NLA) physically
abused eight ethnic Serb civilians whom it arbitrarily detained in the
Macedonian village of Matejce last week, Human Rights Watch charged
today.  Altogether, at least 21 ethnic Serb men, many of them elderly,
were detained by the Albanian rebel group.
    "These villagers were clearly not combatants," said Holly Cartner,
executive director of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human
Rights Watch.  "The NLA has a responsibility to respect international
law, just as much as the Macedonian government does."
    According to interviews conducted in Macedonia this week by Human
Rights Watch, the NLA arbitrarily detained two different groups of
Serbian civilians in the mosque of Matejce, a village with a mixed
Serbian and Albanian population west of Kumanovo.  The village has been
the location of ongoing fighting between the NLA and Macedonian forces
for much of the past week.
    Both Albanian and Serbian witnesses said that all of the villagers
of Matejce had decided to try to avoid the fighting between the NLA and
Macedonian forces, and ethnic Albanian elders of the village had
requested that the NLA stay out of the village.  However, following
heavy fighting in the nearby villages of Vaksince and Slupcane, NLA
fighters entered Matejce around May 24 and attacked the government
police station, pulling the village of Matejce into the conflict.
    Sixty-year-old Krunislav Filipovic, an ethnic Serb, was taken from
his home by NLA fighters on the evening of May 24.  He was taken to the
village mosque together with three other elderly ethnic Serbs, he told
Human Rights Watch. All four were fathers of Macedonian policemen,
apparently the reason for their detention.  At the village mosque, NLA
fighters beat the four men with their fists and gun butts and kicked
them.  On several occasions, the men were subjected to mock executions,
and NLA fighters sharpened knives in front of the men, threatening to
behead them.  The men were kept in detention, abused for four days, and
then released in the village of Otla, where they were told to walk
towards Macedonian government positions.  NLA soldiers fired above their
heads as they fled.
    Two of Filipovic's fellow captives remain hospitalized in Kumanovo
as of June 8.  Police guards at the hospital refused to allow Human
Rights Watch researchers access to the men, thereby preventing the
researchers from documenting their injuries and providing a more
complete description of the incident.  Human Rights Watch's
investigation was further impeded by the refusal of the Macedonian
police to allow access to the Serbian-inhabited village of Umni Dol.
    Seventy-eight-year-old Bozidar Trojanovic was also detained at the
village mosque by NLA fighters on May 25, together with three other men
and three women, most of them elderly.  The four men in the group were
beaten at the mosque, according to Trojanovic, although the women were
not physically abused:
    They started kicking our [the men's] legs with their boots.  We kept
silent; there was nothing we could do.  Then they ordered us to stand up
and face the wall, and to bend our heads.  They kept hitting us on the
back of the head.  Then they told us to turn around and to turn our
faces to one side. They slapped my [male relative] four times on each
side.  Then they told him to hit his brother just like that.
    The second group of ethnic Serbs was detained in a guarded basement
with ten other Serbs from Matejce for four days before being released.
On May 28, they were released when the ethnic Albanian inhabitants of
Matejce left the village.
    Human Rights Watch has also looked into a number of other reports of
NLA abuse that have appeared in the Macedonian-language press or come
from the Macedonian government.  To date, Human Rights Watch researchers
have not been able to confirm many of these reports, but are continuing
to investigate these allegations.  Human Rights Watch has also asked the
Macedonian authorities for specific details on a number of allegations
they have made regarding NLA abuses, but has received no concrete
information to date.

For more information, please contact:

In Skopje, Peter Bouckaert:  + 389-70-544-002
In Washington, Elizabeth Andersen:  +1-202-612-4326
In New York, Holly Cartner: +1-212-216-1277
In Brussels, Jean-Paul Marthoz: +32-2-736-7838