July 26, 2004

ERP KiM Newsletter 26-07-04

ASSOCIATED PRESS ARTICLE

(Photos and captions by ERP KIM Info-Service)

NATO, U.N. accused of 'catastrophically' failing minorities in Kosovo

Among other charges, the New York-based Human Rights Watch accused NATO-led peacekeepers of locking their gates and standing by as Serb houses went up in flames just outside their bases during the mid-March riots that left 19 killed and 900 injured. "The NATO-led Kosovo Force and U.N. international police failed catastrophically to protect minorities during the widespread rioting,'' said the 66-page report entitled "'Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, March 2004.''

They believed that their homes and churches will be protected
(Serbs expelled from their homes by Kosovo Albanians in March 2004)

By FISNIK ABRASHI

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - In a scathing report, a leading human rights organization blamed NATO and U.N. police Monday for failing "catastrophically'' to protect minorities in Kosovo during ethnic violence earlier this year.

"The NATO-led Kosovo Force and U.N. international police failed catastrophically to protect minorities during the widespread rioting,'' said the 66-page report entitled "'Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, March 2004.''

The report also accused the international community in Kosovo of being in "absolute denial about its own failures in Kosovo.''

"While international actors have been universally and accurately critical of Kosovo Albanian leadership during and after the crisis, the dismal performance of the international community has escaped similar critical scrutiny,'' the report said.

A NATO spokesman in Kosovo said the report does not do justice to peacekeepers' attempts to normalize the situation.

"These reports coming from (an) armchair position do not pay any respect to the efforts of the soldiers,'' said Col. Horst Pieper of the NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo. He said the peacekeepers "quickly stabilized the situation within hours during the riots and prevented ... civil war.''

"The soldiers ... did their utmost to de-escalate the situation and to save many lives,'' he said.

NATO-led peacekeepers said after the riots that they chose to save people's lives instead of buildings. Over 1,200 of those fleeing the rampage found temporary refuge inside their military bases.

Mobs of ethnic Albanians targeted Serbs and other minorities in a two-day rampage in mid-March. Beyond the dead and injured, 4,000 people - most of them Serbs - were displaced, and at least 600 homes and Orthodox Christian churches were burned.

The March violence was the worst since the end of the 1998-99 war, which led to U.N. protectorate status for Kosovo after a NATO air war against Serb troops stopped their crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians. Some 18,000 NATO-led peacekeepers are deployed in the province working alongside some 10,000 U.N. and local police officers.

The events raised questions about peacekeepers' ability to prevent or quell violence, and represented a dramatic setback for international officials intent on reconciling the bitterly divided ethnic Albanian and Serb communities.

An example of KFOR passivity: Belvedere French KFOR base with all
vehicles parked and no attempt to prevent Albanian cars which
head towards the already burned village of Svinjare. No road blocks were made,
no check points installed to prevent arrival of the arsonists and looters.

"This was the biggest security test for NATO and the United Nations in Kosovo since 1999, when minorities were forced from their homes as the international community looked on,'' said Rachel Denber, acting executive director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division, in a statement.

"But they failed the test,'' she said. "In too many cases, NATO peacekeepers locked the gates to their bases, and watched as Serb homes burned.''

According to the report, in at least four instances the peacekeepers were confined in their bases, without crowd-control equipment, as crowds of ethnic Albanians walked past those camps setting houses, churches and monasteries ablaze.

In the northern village of Svinjare, French NATO soldiers stood inside their base as 137 Serb homes were burned, but neighboring ethnic Albanian homes were left untouched, said the report.

In another instance, German soldiers in the southern town of Prizren ``failed to deploy to protect the Serb population and its historic Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries,'' despite calls for assistance from their German compatriots at the U.N. police in the same town, the organization charged.

The village of Belo Polje in western Kosovo, adjacent to the main Italian military base, was burned to the ground, the report said.

Another sad example of KFOR passivity during March pogrom
Marocan soldiers peacefully watch Albanian mob stormin the church of St
Sava in Mitrovica South. The church and the parish home were burned
in the presence of at least 50 heavily armed Marocan soldiers. Similar examples
of passivity to protect Serb homes and churches in Prizren, Djakovica, Belo Polje etc
were shocking examples of unreadiness of some KFOR contingents to do their duty.

Stephan Feller's mission will be remembered as nothing but a set of disasterous failures

ERP KIM Info-service
July 26, 2004

According to the writing of Kosovo Albanian daily KOHA DITORE, UNMIK Police Commissioner Stefan Feller is going to say goodbye to Kosovo soon. Citing reliable sources in UNMIK Police, Koha Ditore reports that UNMIK Police Commissioner Stefan Feller will officially hand over his post this week. The same sources couldnt say who would be successor to Feller.

"A big stain in his mandate and career will be the March 17-18 events, when based on the reports of many international organizations UNMIK Police failed in its actions, in using its capacities and in communicating with intelligence services operating in Kosovo," added the paper.

However even before March tragedy Stephan Feller's work was exposed to severe criticism from the Serbian side. He failed to resolve a single major etnnic crime in Kosovo including murder of Stolic family, River massacre and others. Instead of investing special attention to prevent ethnically motivated crimes and punish the perpetrators Feller, according to testimonies of many of his colleagues, deliberately tried to hide existence of ethnic crimes in the Province. March events, and complete collapse of Fellers "UNMIK police" proved all his rosy talks about alleged improvement of Kosovo situation to be a phantasy. Despite loud criticisms Feller was never ready to take responsibility for his failures. Therefore in the eyes of Kosovo Serbs his replacement comes as a logical and much awaited consequence.

Serbian community sincerely hopes that Feller will be replaced by a person of higher professional abilities, determination and feeling of responsibility.

The Telegraph (UK)

US hunts Islamic militants in Bosnia

By Harry de Quetteville in Sarajevo
(Filed: 26/07/2004)

American military intelligence and the CIA have deployed hundreds of officers in
Bosnia to track suspected Islamic militants amid concern that the country has become a refuge, recruiting ground and cash conduit for international terrorism.

Almost a decade after the end of the war in the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia has become
a "one-stop shop" for Islamic militants heading from terrorist battlegrounds in Chechnya and Afghanistan to Iraq, according to European intelligence officials.

With five months to go before European Union peacekeepers take over from Nato troops
in Bosnia, the United States is preparing for a huge cut in its military presence.

But local sources say that, while its soldiers will leave, about 300 intelligence
personnel will monitor the activities of Muslim foreign fighters who settled peacefully in
Bosnia after the end of the 1992-95 war. They are believed to be providing documents and weapons to active mujahedeen returning to the country after tours abroad.

"There is a flow of people heading in from Chechnya and Afghanistan on to Europe and
back, then to Iraq," said one official. "They are spreading the story that Bosnia is a one-stop shop close to Europe for terrorism needs: guns, money, documents."

Almost 750 suspected militants have come under close surveillance in Bosnia in
recent years. Six Algerians were seized by the United States and deported to the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in 2002, under suspicion of plotting to attack the US embassy in Sarajevo.

In one of the biggest deployments by US intelligence anywhere in the world, the
teams are led from a compound in the unprepossessing suburb of Butmir, south of Sarajevo, where Bosnia's Nato peacekeeping force has its headquarters.

They are combing the country for militant support networks and monitoring Muslim
charities accused of raising funds for terrorists. One, the Saudi-based al-Haramain foundation, was closed in 2002 after the US accused it of channelling millions of dollars to al-Qa'eda.

The US Treasury determined that the group then simply changed its name and continued
operating until late last year, when it was closed once more. Others are thought still to be
active.

Among the recipients of al-Haramain cash was the Active Islamic Youth, a group
dedicated to the same extreme Wahabbi strand of Islam followed by Osama bin Laden.

Wahabbism was first imported into Bosnia during the conflict in the early 1990s,
when Bosnian Muslim soldiers were joined in the fight against Serb and Croat forces by fighters from across the Muslim world.

Most Bosnians now reject Wahabbism. Observers accuse the United States of using a
heavy-handed approach in its anti-terror campaign in the country, detaining and releasing
suspects without charge, and devoting the vast majority of its resources to keeping tabs on local Muslims rather than the hunt for wanted war crimes suspects such as Radovan Karadzic.

"The US intelligence people are concentrating on suspected Islamists and not on
known war criminals," Senad Slatina, of the International Crisis Group, said. "It is effectively becoming a witch hunt."

Other agencies say US operations have begun to sour relations with local people that
were once extremely harmonious.

"The US had everything going for it here," said Madeleine Rees, head of the United
Nations High Commission for Human Rights in Sarajevo. "It stopped the war, set up and funded human rights initiatives. But then it bypassed the local police, courts and legal system, and now confidence in the US has plummeted."

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