PART II 

TheVucitrn/Vushtrii

Ethnic Serbs were not the only victims of the March violence. In many areas of Kosovo,
Roma, Ashkali (Albanian-speaking Roma), and other non-Albanian minorities also faced
violence. Among the most severe attacks was the burning of at least sixty-nine Ashkali
homes together with a Serb Orthodox Church in Vucitrn. The town of Vucitrn is
located south of Mitrovica. Even though Vucitrn is in close proximity to two major
French KFOR bases—“Belvedere” and Novo Selo—KFOR or UNMIK did not take an
active part in the defense of the Ashkali community in Vucitrn. The only security force
that played a significant role during the violence in Vucitrn was the predominantly ethnic
Albanian Kosovo Police Service (KPS). While some KPS officers assisted in the
evacuation of Ashkali residents, it appears that other KPS officers played an active part
in the violence, arresting and abusing Ashkalis who attempted to defend their homes.
According to some Ashkali, some KPS officers participated in the burning of Ashkali
homes.
 
Before the 1999 war, some 350 Ashkali families lived in Vucitrn, many of them engaged
in the butcher trade. After the war, many of the Ashkali were attacked by ethnic
Albanians. At least five Ashkalis from the town were abducted and “disappeared” and
more than a hundred Ashkali homes burned. Almost the entire Ashkali community of
Vucitrn fled, with only ten to fifteen families deciding to stay. However, Ashkali families
began to return to Vucitrn in 2001, and by March 2004, some seventy Ashkali families
were again living in Vucitrn. Because of their prominent role in the butcher trade and the
remittances of relatives working in western Europe, many of the Ashkali had significant
wealth and built large homes, making them a target for criminal opportunists.
 
The violence in Vucitrn started at about 4 p.m. on March 18, when a group that included
former KLA fighters burned and desecrated the St. Elias Serbian Orthodox Church in
Vucitrn before joining up with a second group, reportedly led by ethnic Albanian
criminal leaders, and attacking the Ashkali community.103 The crowd numbered about
400-500 and was mostly male, but continued to rapidly grow in size. The Moroccan
KFOR contingent guarding the Orthodox Church had evacuated during the attack on
the church, leaving Vucitrn without a KFOR presence.
 
As soon as the ethnic Albanian crowd reached the Ashkali neighborhood, they began
burning homes:
 
 They had all kinds of weapons—wooden sticks, axes, gardening tools,
and bottles of petrol. I saw when the first Ashkali house was attacked.
They pulled all the people out of the house and set it on fire. They ran
immediately to the second house which had three stories. It had a tall
wall and strong gates. They managed to jump the wall and open the
gates, and the crowd came inside. …The members of that family fled to
the second floor and locked the doors. The crowd immediately set the
car on fire and then set the house on fire, while the family was still
inside.104
 
Many of the Ashkali recalled the terror they felt when their homes were set on fire with
their families inside and no-one came to help them. Nejib Cizmolli, a thirty-seven-year-
old Ashkali butcher, recalled being trapped on the second floor of his burning home
with eleven people, including children aged three, eight, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen.105
 
Almost all the Ashkali made repeated telephone calls to KFOR, UNMIK, and the local
KPS police requesting assistance. Njazi Pllavci, a forty-seven-year-old Ashkali father of
four who returned to Vucitrn from Serbia in November 2003, broke down in tears as he
recalled the lack of KFOR or UNMIK presence: “We called the [KPS] police station
maybe twenty times, asking them to come secure our houses as soon as possible. We
asked for UNMIK and KFOR, but the KPS said they had left….If KFOR would have
sent troops or tanks, what happened would not have happened.”106  The Ashkali village
leader, Abdush Cizmolli, was equally scathing of KFOR and UNMIK: “Nobody is more
to blame than KFOR and UNMIK. If they wanted to, with one tank they could have
saved us—it would not have come to all these problems.”107
 
In private conversations with Human Rights Watch, French KFOR troops explained
that the decision not to deploy to Vucitrn had been based on their conclusion that the
Ashkali community was “militarily indefensible,” and that most French KFOR troops
had been committed to the defense of northern Mitrovica. The view that Vucitrn was
“militarily indefensible” points to a common problem with KFOR highlighted during
Human Rights Watch’s research in Kosovo. KFOR contingents tend to see their
engagement in traditional military terms rather than in more appropriate policing terms.
In the case of Vucitrn, it is unlikely that KFOR would have had to militarily engage the
largely unarmed Albanian crowd by opening fire or otherwise; crowd control tactics
commonly used by civilian police could have had a significant impact. Furthermore, the
Ashkali community in Vucitrn was easily defensible from a crowd control perspective,
since Ashkali homes in the town were closely grouped with only a few access points.
 
The failure of KFOR and UNMIK to come to the defense of the Ashkali of Vucitrn left
the security situation entirely in the hands of the ethnic Albanian KPS police. Ashkalis
interviewed by Human Rights Watch consistently claimed that the KPS had refused to
respond to the burning and rioting until some Ashkalis fired their rifles into the air to
protect their homes. Almost immediately after the shooting, KPS officers came—to
arrest and abuse Ashkalis they suspected of firing at the Albanian protesters. Xhemal
Kelmendi, who lived in the house next to the home from which the shots rang out, was
among those arrested and abused:
 
 I was alone in the garden, my family was inside my house. Then I heard
a big noise at my gate, and it was forced open by the crowd. I was very
happy when I saw it was the KPS police, but I was soon disappointed. I
thought with the arrival of the police, everything would stop. But the
police ordered me to raise my hands and lay on the ground. They tied
my hands, and while I was on the ground they hit me two or three times.
They pulled me up and asked for my machine gun. I said I didn’t have a
weapon. One of the policemen swore at my mother: “I fucked that
Gypsy mother of yours,” and hit me again….They kept hitting me and
asking for weapons. I kept saying I had no weapons. They took me to
the police car, and they kept hitting me with their fists and boots….
When the police took me out of my house, the crowd applauded.108
 
Other Ashkali men arrested that night faced similar beatings and abuse. By contrast,
according to the Ashkali who were taken to the KPS police station, the KPS police
appear not to have arrested a single ethnic Albanian in Vucitrn that day, despite the fact
that it was the ethnic Albanians who were attacking and burning Ashkali homes. In some
cases, it appears that the KPS officers were actively colluding with the Albanian crowds.
When Xhemal Kelmendi was being taken to the police car, a group of Albanians
attempted to attack him. The KPS officers ordered them to stop, saying “We had an
agreement,” and the men retreated.109 Another Ashkali recalled that when the crowd
stoned the KPS vehicle he was being evacuated in, the KPS police officer stopped,
telling the crowd, “You know you should not throw rocks at the police,” and the crowd
stopped—a bizarre admonishment while the crowd was burning Ashkali homes.110 One
Ashkali woman who lived next door to the home of the Ashkali village leader, Abdush
Cizmolli, told Human Rights Watch that she had personally heard the police telling the
crowd to go ahead and burn the house, saying “They are out now, set it on fire.”111
 
Soon after the arrests of several Ashkali men, allegedly for shooting at the Albanian
crowd, the KPS police returned to evacuate the remaining Ashkali families. As soon as
KPS arrived, the Albanian crowd stopped burning homes and retreated, allowing the
KPS to cordon off the main Ashkali Street. The KPS went from house to house,
ordering the Ashkali to evacuate immediately and stating that they could not guarantee
their safety: “If you want us to guarantee your lives, you must come with us.”  The
evacuation happened so fast that most families had no chance to take any possessions
with them. As soon as the Ashkalis were evacuated, the entire Ashkali neighborhood was
burned. Thirty-seven-year-old Ferida Myftare recalled: “I wasn’t even out of our street
when I saw my house burning. I left my house with nothing.”112
 
The evacuated Ashkali were first taken to the grounds of the KPS police training
institute in Vucitrn, and then to the main KPS police station. At the main KPS police
station, many of the Ashkali were surprised to find approximately 100 KPS officers,
most of whom had not responded to the calls for assistance from the Ashkali
community.

The failure of UNMIK and KFOR to respond to the plight of the Ashkali in Vucitrn
certainly contributed to the massive destruction. The limited KPS response did have a
significant impact on pushing back to Albanian crowds, lending credence to the Ashkali
view that a strong UNMIK and KFOR response could have prevented the destruction
of their homes. The KPS response in Vucitrn was deeply problematic, focusing more on
punishing Ashkali for defending their homes rather than fulfilling their obligations to
protect all residents on a nondiscriminatory basis. The allegations that some KPS
officers in Vucitrn actively participated in the violence certainly deserve further
investigation.
 
Kosovo Polje/Fushe Kosove

Kosovo Polje, located about eight kilometers southwest of Pristina, was approximately
25 percent Serb prior to the 1999 conflict, but the Serb population dropped drastically
after the war. Most of the Serbs and other minorities left Kosovo Polje for the nearby
all-Serb villages of Ugljare, Kuzmin, and Batuse, but over one hundred homes in
Kosovo Polje continued to be inhabited by Serbs. Unlike other towns where Serbs
tended to live in tightly knit neighborhoods, the Serbs of Kosovo Polje were more
dispersed, living alongside their ethnic Albanian neighbors.
 
Kosovo Polje, which translates as “field of blackbirds” occupies an important place in
Serb history, as it was the site of the historic 1389 battle between Serb and Ottoman
forces. Slobodan Milosevic also launched his nationalist career with a fiery speech at
Kosovo Polje on April 24, 1987.113  Although the Serb population of Kosovo Polje had
dwindled, it continued to be an important administrative center for Belgrade: it was one
of the few places were Kosovo residents could renew Yugoslav passports.
 
Trouble started in Kosovo Polje in the early afternoon of March 17. According to
several sources, Albanian extremists from the nearby Drenica region, the birthplace and
stronghold of the KLA and Kosovar Albanian nationalism in general, began to arrive in
Kosovo Polje by car and bus.114 The crowd quickly grew larger, and soon included many
ethnic Albanian residents of Kosovo Polje, in particularly youths between fourteen- and
twenty-years-old. Several of the Serbs interviewed by Human Rights Watch stated that
they recognized some of their neighbors among their attackers.

The rapidly growing crowd, numbering several thousand strong by early afternoon,
gathered in front of the Serb hospital and the nearby St. Sava School in Kosovo Polje
and set them alight, completely gutting the structures.115 They then fanned out through
the nearby neighborhoods, carefully locating and burning the Serb homes that were
interspersed with the homes of ethnic Albanians.
 
None of the Serb witnesses or ethnic Albanian KPS officials interviewed by Human
Rights Watch saw any presence of KFOR troops on the streets of Kosovo Polje during
the rioting—apparently, the KFOR troops were either redeployed elsewhere at the time,
or simply failed to respond. Many of the UNMIK police were unavailable, as they had
been asked to assist at Caglavica.116 In effect, the defense of Kosovo Polje—with over
one hundred Serb homes spread out over a substantial town—was left in the hands of
just a few dozen KPS officers, assisted by a handful of UNMIK police.117 KPS officers
lacked tear gas, rubber bullets, riot gear, and many other essential supplies to deal
effectively with a dangerous and volatile crowd.118 The absence of KFOR and a lack of a
substantial UNMIK presence left the KPS with extremely limited options.
 
The performance of KPS varied widely in Kosovo Polje. A small number of KPS
officers acted bravely throughout the crisis, trying to stop the crowds from attacking
Serb homes and evacuating Serbs when the security situation became too severe. Some
of the KPS officers worked tirelessly to evacuate and protect Serb residents. Many
others simply stood by and refused to intervene in the violence. In some cases, KPS
officers may have taken an active part in the violence. 
 
Even when KPS officers attempted to act professionally, they were so outnumbered by
the crowds that they had almost no impact. Dejan Jovanovic, a thirty-two-year-old Serb
who used to work at a multi-ethnic radio station, explained that he watched an ethnic
Albanian crowd he estimated at 5,000 to 6,000 people burn the St. Sava school and the
adjacent clinic. The crowd then began to loot and burn Serb homes in the area. Initially,
a group of KPS and UNMIK police arrived in three cars, and tried to reason with the
crowd. The crowd responded by attacking the police cars and continued to loot and
burn. Jovanovic and his grandmother soon faced a group of fifty to seventy rioters, most
of them young men, who set their home on fire:

When they first came in the garden, they smashed all the windows in the
first house and set it on fire. Then they came to the second house where
we were. They saw me and my grandmother and ran to us, with knives
and sticks. They were calling on us to come out, but I blocked the door
with a stove. They came into the house, but I stopped them from
coming into the room. I saw their faces through the windows—there
were many people I recognized as my neighbors, from the block of flats
behind our house.119
 
As the protesters set the house on fire, two KPS officers arrived. The KPS officers
attempted to stop them, “but it was no use,” Jovanovic explained because “they would
force some out and others would come.” Finally, the protesters went on to other homes,
and the KPS officers helped Jovanovic put out the fire. As Jovanovic and the KPS
officers were attempting to extinguish the flames, a number of protesters came back and
began beating him, simply running around the KPS officers even though the latter had
drawn their guns on the protesters by this stage. Jovanovic saw more protesters arriving
with bats and other weapons, so was forced to flee with his grandmother back into his
home, which was again set on fire. The KPS officers finally were able to evacuate
Jovanovic and his grandmother, leaving behind their burning home.120
 
Nevenka Rikalo, a forty-seven-year-old worker at the multi-ethnic municipality in
Kosovo Polje, told a similar story of an overwhelmed KPS. At about 4:30 p.m. on
March 17, a group of ten youngsters aged between fourteen and seventeen attacked her
home, and began beating her seventy-year-old mother with wooden sticks. Two KPS
police officers came and gave chase to the boys, ultimately arresting two of them.
However, when the KPS officers put the two boys in their police car, ethnic Albanian
protestors attacked the car, and the KPS officers were forced to release the two boys. In
the meantime other rioters had climbed over Rikalo’s fence and were setting the house
on fire from the roof. The KPS officers told the family they had five minutes to
evacuate, and the family was forced to flee with only the clothes they were wearing.
After being taken to the police station, Nevenka assisted the KPS police throughout the
night, taking calls from Serbs under attack and helping the police locate their homes. She
saw only three international UNMIK police at the station, and explained that almost all
of the evacuations had been carried out by just a handful of KPS officers.121

In some cases, KPS officers did little if anything to protect Serbs under attack. Fifty-
three-year-old Zivorad Tonic left the KPS police station to go check on his home at
about 5 p.m., and encountered a crowd of about 200 Albanians armed with wooden and
iron stick who began to beat him severely. Several KPS vehicles occupied by officers
were parked just meters away, but the KPS officers did nothing to try and stop the
beatings. Tonic had to fight his way to the KPS cars and went inside one of the cars to
stop the beating, without any assistance from the KPS officers. When the KPS officers
finally drove away with Tonic in their car, Tonic was in such a bad condition that the
KPS officers initially thought he had died.122 Another Serb, sixty-two-year-old Zlatibor
Trajkovic, was beaten to death in Kosovo Polje around the same time.
 
Ruzica Stevanovic, a thirty-four-year-old mother of three with a bedridden mother-in-
law, similarly received no assistance from KPS officers present as her home was being
attacked. An ethnic Albanian crowd set her house on fire, and she had to push her two
sons through the bathroom windows to help them escape. Her bedridden, sixty-nine-
year-old mother-in-law was trapped inside the burning home. As her home and
neighboring homes were burning, a group of KPS officers arrived—but then stood by
and refused to help her:
 
 When the KPS cars approached, the crowd saw them and stopped
burning and began to disperse. The KPS officers entered the crowd,
shaking hands with some of them and putting their hands on their
shoulders in greeting. Because things calmed down a little, we got some
courage to leave our houses and went to see what happened to my
mother-in-law. We broke a window and found a room filled with smoke
and saw her inside all the smoke, with the door on fire. We somehow
took her out through the window—she was conscious.
 
[We started extinguishing the fire]. In the meantime, the KPS officers
were sitting with some Albanian civilians. I called them a few times to
come help us, but they refused to respond to my calls for help. None of
them ever even came in our yard. They came in five vehicles, two or
three [officers] per vehicle. Some of them were busy dispersing the
crowd, but five or six of them were just sitting close to our homes
talking to the Albanians, they paid no attention to us.123

After Stevanovic extinguished the fire at her home (her mother-in-law’s home was in full
flames by now), two KPS officers approached and told her that it was time to evacuate.
She left with only one bag of belongings. After she left, her home was again set on fire,
and completely destroyed.
 
In at least one case, KPS officers are accused of participating in arson in Kosovo Polje.
Dusan Arsic was the owner of one of the largest homes in Kosovo Polje, and rented out
several rooms in his home to UNMIK police officers. At about 5:45 p.m., as Serb homes
in many other parts of Kosovo Polje were already ablaze, two KPS officers arrived at his
home and told him he had to evacuate immediately because a huge Albanian crowd was
approaching. The KPS took four of Arsic’s relatives in their car, and said they would
return for Arsic and his wife. Arsic and his wife got into their own car and started
driving towards a relative’s home, but noticed the KPS officers return to their home,
probably looking to evacuate them. They saw the KPS officers enter the home and
search for them, and then noticed flames coming out of the home five minutes later. As
the KPS officers were the only persons at the home at the time, Arsic is convinced they
set his home on fire.124
 
The destruction of the Serb community in Kosovo Polje was complete: every single Serb
home and almost every Serb institution in a town once known for its vibrant Serb
community was burned. Among the buildings burned, according to KPS sources, was
the main post office—one of the few multi-ethnic ones operating in Kosovo, but hated
by Albanians as one of the few places they could renew their Yugoslav passports, the
Serbian St. Sava school, the Serbian hospital, and at least one hundred homes.
 
The chaos in Kosovo Polje soon wound down. On the morning of March 18, the First
Battalion of the British Grenadier Guards, a unit with extensive riot control experience,
was mobilized from their base in the United Kingdom, and by the same evening they
were patrolling the streets of Kosovo Polje. The commander of the unit, Major Carew
Hatherley, explained to Human Rights Watch that he was convinced his soldiers could
have controlled the crowd if they been on location at the time. The problem, he
explained, is that few KFOR troops have riot control experience or equipment: “For the
average KFOR soldier, there is nothing in between standing there and taking it from the
crowd, and firing.”125

Obilic/Obiliq

The town of Obilic, located a few kilometers northwest of the capital Pristina, continued
to be home to several hundred Serbs and Roma after the 1999 conflict, although the
Serb and Roma population fell dramatically from pre-war levels.126 The remaining Serbs
lived in several neighborhoods around Obilic, including the Todorovic neighborhood,
the Cerska Ulitsa settlement, the Rudnika Kolonija neighborhood, as well as the high-
rise YU Program apartment buildings which housed mainly displaced Serbs from other
villages.
 
From 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. on March 17, hundreds of ethnic Albanians, most of them
between 10 and 18 years old, took part in a demonstration down the main street of
Obilic, yelling slogans and throwing stones at Serb homes. KPS police officers were
present during the protest march, but did not interfere with the protesters, merely
ensuring that they stayed on the main road. The protesters listened to several speeches in
front of the municipality building, and briefly stoned a Norwegian KFOR contingent
that happened to pass through Obilic on its way to Pristina. The crowd also stoned the
YU Program apartment building in Obilic, which houses displaced Serbs and is located
right across the street from the combined UNMIK and KPS police station. Again, KPS
police officers made no attempt to disperse the crowd or stop the violence. Around 4
p.m., the crowd dispersed, having caused only limited damage to the Serb homes.127
 
The next morning, April 18, Serb residents in Obilic watched Albanian schoolchildren
arrive at school as normal at 8 a.m. However, less than an hour later the schoolchildren
all left the school, together with their teachers, and began attacking and burning the
Serbian Orthodox Church. Olgica Subotic, who lived on the fifth floor of the YU
Program building overlooking the school, recalled:
 
 The school children participated together with their teachers. I saw that
the school children went to school, but after a half hour they came out
together with their teachers. I recognized the teachers, if you show me
pictures I can identify them. Seven or eight teachers were organizing the
crowd.128

A second witness gave a similar account: “All of the Albanian children went to school at
8 a.m., making some plan and then stepping out of their school building together with
their teachers at 8:15 a.m. or so.…Then this huge mass started immediately burning our
church together with the teachers. I know the teachers and saw them there.”129  Also
leading the crowd were three young ethnic Albanian men who were former KLA
fighters.130 
 
The crowd initially focused on burning the church, but had difficulty setting it alight
because it was mostly constructed from concrete. The crowd then set alight the
neighboring house of the Serbian church caretaker, as well as the building of the
Belgrade-sponsored Coordination Center for Kosovo and Metohija before moving on
the Serb neighborhood of the extended Todorovic family. Sreten Todorovic, a resident
from the Todorovic neighborhood, watched as the crowd began setting some of the
houses on fire: 
 
 My family and people from six other houses gathered in one home in
our neighborhood. As they were setting my house on fire, I watched
from ten meters or so away. This is how they did it: two guys would lift
another unto the roof. This guy would take out some roof tiles and
throw a Molotov cocktail [gasoline bomb] into the house.131
 
After burning some of the homes in the Todorovic neighborhood, the crowd returned
to the Orthodox Church and again tried to set it alight by dragging flammable materials
into the church. They then attacked the YU Program apartment building, and moved on
the other Serb areas of Obilic, including the Cerska Ulica and Rudnicka Kolonija areas,
continuing to burn homes.
 
All the Serb residents of Obilic interviewed by Human Rights Watch were unanimous in
stating that the KPS police in Obilic had not taken any steps to prevent the crowd from
attacking Serb homes. Denka Savic, herself a former KPS officer, explained: “I know the
KPS officers who were standing there. They were just walking behind the demonstrators
and did nothing to prevent them from doing these things. But they did not help them
actively either.”132  
 
Other residents said they had personally witnessed KPS officers taking an active part in
the violence. According to one: “[t]he police were just standing by doing nothing. Later
on, the police became actively involved in the demonstrations. I saw KPS officers bring
tires to burn the church and later help destroy homes in the Todorovic
neighborhood….I saw with my own eyes the KPS officers with the crowd, whatever
they could find they threw inside the church and put on fire.”133 Another witness
reported seeing a KPS policeman throwing a Molotov cocktail back at the church after it
had bounced off the wall.134
 
As far as Human Rights Watch is aware, the KPS officers failed to arrest any of the
Albanian demonstrators. However, when a seventy-four-year-old Serb, Stojan Arsic,
threw an explosive device to ward off Albanian demonstrators who were trying to burn
his home, KPS police arrived within minutes to arrest the elderly Serb.135  There are
approximately ten Serb KPS officers in Obilic, but they did not take part in the response
to the riot: the Serb KPS commander for Obilic was in the U.S. for training, and the
Serb KPS officers stayed inside the police station of Obilic, fearing for their own safety.
Several witnesses saw KFOR and UNMIK troops in the center of town during the
rioting. KFOR troops were also deployed to protect the YU Program apartment
building from attack. However, the outnumbered UNMIK and KFOR troops did not
take any steps to prevent or stop the rioting itself, limiting themselves to rescuing the
besieged Serbs. According to Stojan Todorovic: “At no point did KFOR, UNMIK, or
KPS use loudspeakers to tell the crowd to stop, and they didn’t use tear gas or rubber
bullets. There was not attempt to stop the protest.”136
 
Ultimately, the Serb and Roma residents of Obilic were evacuated from their homes by a
combined force of American UNMIK police, Irish KFOR, and some KPS officers. 
When the Serbs left their homes, many of them were still intact. Over the next days,
Albanians were given a free hand to continue burning homes, destroying some ninety
homes and forty apartments belonging to Serbs, and looting the homes of the Roma
who had been forced to flee.

Belo Polje/Bellopoje

Belo Polje was a pilot project in re-creating a multi-ethnic kosovo.netmunity and
recognizing the right of Serbs to return to their former homes and villages, many of
which had been inhabited by their ancestors for generations. Belo Polje is a small Serb
village located just south of the city of Pec, in the western part of Kosovo. The village
was home to some three hundred Serb families before the 1999 war, but all of them fled
to Serbia and Montenegro in the immediate aftermath of the war, after several persons
from the village were murdered. In July 2003, after protracted negotiations with
UNMIK, KFOR, and the provisional Kosovo government (also known as the PISG), it
was agreed that twenty-five homes would be rebuilt in the village, and thirty-four Serbs
returned. The village was considered safe for returns because the main Italian KFOR
base, Villagio Italia, is located only a kilometer away.
 
On March 17, Belo Polje hosted several representatives of former Serb residents of the
village who were also considering returning to the province, and were being shown
around. “As we finished the meeting, we walked around the village to look at the new
houses and to see where we could build more,” Momcilo Savic recalled.137  At about 2:30
p.m., several KPS police officers ran up to the group of residents and visitors, and
advised them that a big Albanian crowd was coming towards Belo Polje. The officers
urged the Serbs to take shelter in their rebuilt Orthodox Church.
 
An ethnic Albanian crowd had gathered in the center of Pec, growing from several
hundreds to thousands as protest leaders using megaphones urged others to join. The
crowd first marched on the local UNMIK and municipality buildings in Pec before
heading to Belo Polje.138  Momcilo Savic and the other residents of Belo Polje watched
the crowd approach: “We saw a huge column of people, maybe as many as 5,000 people.
They were shouting “UCK, UCK,” and insulting us in [the] Albanian [language].”139
 
Even though the main Italian KFOR base was only a kilometer away, fewer than one
hundred Italian KFOR soldiers responded to the crisis in Belo Polje. The Italian KFOR
troops refused to approach the Church where the Serbs were sheltering, forcing the
residents to walk some one hundred and fifty meters through the hostile crowd before
they were evacuated.140 A group of ten or fifteen UNMIK police, most of them
American, had to form a cordon to try and protect the fleeing Serbs as they passed
through the hostile crowd.
 
The KFOR and UNMIK troops were completely overwhelmed by the ethnic Albanian
rioters: “KFOR had shields and were pushing people back, but the mass of people acted
like they didn’t exist.”141 According to several Serb witnesses, there were between fifty
and one hundred ethnic Albanian KPS officers at the scene, but they refused to carry
out their duties: “There were also fifty KPS officers but they had their arms crossed and
were just looking on.”142 Another witness recalled: “The KPS were standing with
crossed arms, almost one hundred of them. There were lots of KPS vehicles and they
moved them to allow the protesters through.”143
 
When the Serbs were ordered to evacuate, the lack of adequate security personnel and
the refusal of Italian KFOR to approach the church where the Serbs were sheltering
almost resulted in tragedy. The fleeing Serbs were attacked by the ethnic Albanian
crowd, and several were stabbed and injured. Only the fatal shooting of one of the
Albanian attackers by an American UNMIK policewoman stopped the attack:
 
 The American [UNMIK] police made a cordon of two lines of police,
and we had to run from the church to the vehicle for about 100 meters.
A mass of Albanians, about one thousand, came to try and block our
way. … There was a killer who knifed an old man three times near his
heart. Rocks were flying everywhere and hitting us. When the killer was
not satisfied with stabbing one person, he went to try and stab a boy. A
policewoman pulled out her gun and said “Stop!” three times in English.
The killer still approached. The American woman shot in the air and
then at him, and he fell down [dead]….Only one group of people
managed to make it to the truck and go to the base. Some of us had to
lock ourselves back into the church.
 
They were throwing Molotov cocktails [gasoline bombs] at the church,
we were lucky that there was no wood floor or we would have burned
down. … The Americans [UNMIK] saw what was happening and came
with their shields. We opened the door and they removed the [burning]
cocktails. An armored vehicle was waiting for us outside so we ran for it.
As we were moving towards the armored vehicle, we were all hit with
rocks and injured.144
 
The Serbs were evacuated to the nearby Villagio Italia KFOR base. Eleven of thirty-four
evacuees required first aid treatment for their injuries. Three seriously injured Serbs had
to be hospitalized in the Prizren hospital. All of the recently reconstructed homes in
Belo Polje were burned down. 
 
The next day, March 18, Ali Lajci, the Democratic League of Kosovo’s (LDK) municipal
president of Pec, led a substantial ethnic Albanian crowd from Pec to Belo Polje, where
he and other Kosovar Albanian officials laid flowers at the site where the knife-wielding
attacker had been shot dead by UNMIK police the previous day.145 
 
Djakovica/Gjakove

The town of Djakovica, located in the south of Kosovo near the Albanian border, was
home to some three thousand Serbs before the 1999 war. By the time of the March 2004
violence, the Serb population of Djakovica had been reduced to just five elderly women.
The women lived around the Serb orthodox church in Djakovica, under constant guard
by Italian KFOR troops to protect them from attack. Seventy-five-year-old Nada
Isailovic, one of the five elderly women, explained to Human Rights Watch how difficult
their life had been:
 
 Everyday I walked from my house to our Church with the Italian
soldiers as an escort. The Albanians would throw eggs and tomatoes,
they did anything they could to destroy us. They did not want to see a
Serb or a Serb house [in Djakovica]. I had Italian soldiers living in my
house for five years. It was surrounded by barbed wire, as was the
church. …We could not buy food from the Albanians because they
refused to sell to us. Thanks to the Italians—we could give them a list of
our needs and they would buy it for us.146
 
Like many other towns in Kosovo, there was a major pro-KLA protest in Djakovica on
March 16. The protest in Djakovica was particularly well attended partly because so
many Albanians remain missing from the 1999 conflict, in addition to the hundreds who
were killed in Djakovica during the 1999 conflict.147
 
On the evening of March 17, at about 6 p.m., a large group of ethnic Albanians
descended on the tiny remaining Serb community in Djakovica—essentially a single Serb
home and a Serb church, protected by Italian KFOR. The Italian soldiers immediately
evacuated the five elderly Serb women from the home and placed them inside the
church, which they then tried to defend from a crowd of several thousand attackers.
According to two of the Serb women interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the thirty to
forty Italian soldiers had orders not to use their guns on the crowd, and lacked riot-
control equipment such as rubber bullets or tear gas.148  The Italian KFOR soldiers
outside the church came under fierce attack from the stone-throwing crowd and had to
retreat to inside the church, where the elderly Serb women helped treat several Italian
soldiers wounded by rocks. At about 8 p.m., the Italian peacekeepers evacuated the Serb
women to their airport base outside Djakovica. Italian KFOR soldiers attempted to
continue defend the church, but were soon forced to abandon their positions.
 
The Serb homes and Serb Orthodox church in Djakovica were utterly destroyed by the
ethnic Albanian rioters after the residents were evacuated and Italian KFOR withdrew.
When Human Rights Watch visited the site a month later, even the rubble of the church
and home had been carted away from the site, leaving only an empty area and erasing the
last evidence of a Serb presence in Djakovica. There were no Serbs left in Djakovica
after the March 2004 violence.
 
Prizren

Like many other cities and towns, Prizren had seen a substantial protest on March 16 by
KLA supporters, particularly because some Prizren-based former KLA commanders had
been arrested in February 2004.
 
Violence broke out in Prizren around 3 or 4 p.m. on March 17. According to a Serb
witness, two buses came to downtown Prizren and stopped in front of a hotel in the
center of the town. Ethnic Albanians descended from the buses with placards and
Albanian flags, and began shouting slogans in Albanian.149  A crowd gathered rapidly.
According to witnesses, the crowd initially appeared confused about what to target,
initially attacking the UNMIK building across the street and burning some UNMIK
vehicles.150  However, they soon changed direction, crossing the river to the hillside Serb
community.
 
During the attack on the Serb community of Prizren, most of them living in the historic
Serbian seminary and nearby buildings, the German KFOR seemed to melt away. None
of the Serbs interviewed by Human Rights Watch saw a single German KFOR soldier in
the area during the attack. According to Ljubisa Pleskonjic, a Serb who lived at the
seminary with his wife and two young children, “[t]he whole time, no one from
UNMIK, KPS, or KFOR came. Normally we would see thousands of them driving
through the streets. Only once the seminary and other buildings were burning, a group
of UNMIK and KPS came, but the crowd was so strong that they ran away.”151
 
In the security vacuum created by the failure of German KFOR to respond, most of the
Serbs in Prizren were left at the mercy of the crowds. Ljubisa Pleskonjic, together with
his pregnant wife, and their two young children, found themselves trapped in their
burning apartment inside the Serbian seminary:
 
 They came to our door and tried to smash it. I put a bench against the
door and was pushing back. Then they tried to break the door with an
axe. When they saw they couldn’t smash the door, they poured petrol on
it and set it on fire. Everything was soon on fire.
 
There was a window in the bathroom, thirty centimeters by thirty
centimeters. I managed to push my wife and children out of the window
unto the roof, but I couldn’t make it [because of my size.]  I kissed my
wife and children goodbye—I thought I was going to die.
 
I went back to the burning kitchen. I smashed the refrigerator into the
wall and cracked a hole in the wall, and went out this way. I found my
family.…The crowd started attacking [a group of UNMIK and KPS
police who had come] and the police ran down the road in panic and left
us behind.

There was a small shop with rubbish bins, and we went to hide there
until 5 a.m., without shoes or anything. I had to keep the children quiet
because they wouldn’t stop crying. At 5 a.m., I went out in the street and
saw an Albanian KPS car. I spoke to them in Albanian and they took us
to the German base.152
 
Several elderly Serbs were beaten at the seminary. One elderly Serb, sixty-one-year-old
Dragan Nedeljkovic, died in the burning of the seminary, and fellow residents of the
seminary claimed they heard him being beaten during the attack.
 
The response of the German KFOR in Prizren presents one of the most fundamental
security failures during the March 2004 riots. Even though one of the largest German
KFOR bases is located right on the outskirts of Prizren, the German KFOR
commanders refused to effectively mobilize their troops during the worst attacks,
repeatedly ignoring pleas from their German UNMIK police colleagues for assistance.153 
UNMIK police commanders in Prizren are convinced that a stronger KFOR response
could have prevented the whole-sale burning of fifty-six Serb houses and five Serb
orthodox churches of historic importance, as well as the terror faced by a Serb
population abandoned to their fate by the international community.
 
An UNMIK official who asked for anonymity explained to Human Rights Watch that
the UNMIK police commanders in Prizren had repeatedly requested for the deployment
of German KFOR troops during the worst rioting. He firmly believed that if one tank
had pulled up during the beginning of the rioting, “the demonstrators would have left.” 
According to the UNMIK official, some four hundred German KFOR soldiers had
prepared themselves to leave the base and respond to the riot situation, but never
received orders to deploy. He blamed the failure of German KFOR to respond on
“commanders who don’t want to make mistakes that could end their careers.”154 
 
The failure of German KFOR troops to respond to the rioting in Prizren left the
security situation in the hands of about three hundred and fifty poorly equipped KPS
police—most of them with only a few years experience—and several dozen UNMIK
police. The Prizren-based Argentinean UNMIK Special Police Unit had been called to
assist with crowd control elsewhere in Kosovo.155 The remaining KPS and UNMIK
police simply did not have the equipment to deal with the crowds: “We don’t have the
necessary equipment. No tear gas, no rubber bullets, no razor wire, no water cannon. We
were simply not prepared for this,” an UNMIK police commander told Human Rights
Watch.156
 
Even though they were clearly overwhelmed by the massive violence faced in Prizren,
many KPS and UNMIK officers conducted themselves professionally. Eighty-year-old
Mladen Gligorijevic, who lived in a private house in Prizren with his seventy-year-old
wife, his sixty-nine-year-old sister, and his daughter, explained that KPS officers came to
check on his family four times during the riot, reassuring the family and urging them to
stay inside their home. On the fourth visit, at about 5 p.m., the same KPS officers came
again, telling him, “Uncle, get ready to leave in a few minutes,” and took the family away
in their car. “All of the time, it was only the KPS, the same group of KPS came each
time. UNMIK and KFOR never came,” Gligorijevic recalled.157  
 
Seventy-five-year-old Milos Necic, who lived in an isolated Serb home by himself, had a
similar account of KPS courage. An Albanian crowd was breaking down his door, a
group of four or five KPS officers scaled over his wall and told him they would have to
evacuate him. Unable to take him out of the front door because of the huge crowd, the
KPS officers had to climb with Necic over the roofs of two neighboring Albanian
homes, using their shields to protect Necic from rock throwing. The KPS were then
forced to call a taxi to go back to the station, because the crowd was attacking KPS cars
as well.158  None of the Serbs in Prizren accused the KPS of involvement in the violence,
although it appears that many KPS officers did not report for duty during the events.159 
 
In addition to destroying the Serb homes and churches in downtown Prizren, ethnic
Albanian rioters also attacked the fourteenth-century Monastery of Holy Archangels
located in the Bistrica/Lumbardhi river gorge several kilometers outside Prizren. It was
the only surviving Serbian Orthodox Monastery in the German Sector. The monastery’s
only access point was a narrow road through the gorge; as such, it should have been
easily defensible. When a group of about 200 ethnic Albanians arrived around 8:45 p.m.,
there were only fifteen German KFOR soldiers guarding the ancient monastery.
According to the Serb monks, as the ethnic Albanian crowd approached, the German
soldiers simply stood on the bridge without attempting to stop them.160  The crowd then
slowly approached, wading through the river around the soldiers on the bridge, and
began throwing Molotov cocktails at the monastery. “The Germans didn’t use their
truncheons or tear gas, and didn’t even fire in the air,” one of the monks recalled.161  As
soon as the crowd began attacking the monastery, the German peacekeepers ordered the
monks to get into KFOR armored vehicles and drove them away, leaving the monastery
to be burned down by the ethnic Albanian crowd.162
 
Rioters in Prizren destroyed virtually every significant Serbian Orthodox monument in
the area, including a number of 14th-century churches. Among the Serbian Orthodox
structures destroyed or severely damaged in Prizren was the modern Seminary of Saints
Cyrillus and Methodius College; the nineteenth-century Saint Georges Cathedral and its
adjacent Bishop’s residence; the fourteenth-century Church of Saint Savior; the
fourteenth-century church of Saint Nicholas; the fourteenth-century Church of the Holy
Virgin Ljeviska; as well as the Monastery of Holy Archangels mentioned above. The
ancient churches in Prizren housed some of the most significant frescoes in Kosovo,
and their loss is a significant one for the Serbian Orthodox church.163
 
 
THE RESPONSE OF THE KOSOVAR LEADERSHIP TO THE VIOLENCE
 
The March 2004 violence initially took the Kosovar political leadership by surprise, and
few ethnic Albanian politicians initially grasped just how severe the attacks on minority
communities were. In the initial period, many ethnic Albanian politicians vacillated
between attempting to gain politically from the violence and calling on the population to
calm down. Caught up with their own political frustrations—the lack of progress with
the resolution of Kosovo’s final status, their fight against Serbian “parallel institutions,”
and their demand for more governing powers—many politicians initially issued
statements that may have helped legitimize the violence in the eyes of many Albanians.
 
On the first day of the violence, the Kosovo Parliamentary Assembly (the province’s
parliament, and part of the PISG) suspended its work. The Assembly took no action to
stop or contain the violence but instead issued a public statement that blamed the
international community and the Serbs for the violence: “The Kosovo Assembly voices
its disagreement with the lack of commitment by UNMIK to provide security for all
Kosovar citizens. The tolerance for Serb parallel structures and criminal gangs that
murder Kosovar citizens is a wrong policy that will destabilize Kosovo.”164  The speaker
of the Parliamentary Assembly, Nexhat Daci, “speaking on behalf of parliament,”
described the injured and killed Albanians from the fighting on March 17 as “people
[who] died fighting for democracy and freedom.”165
 
The Kosovo Democratic Party (PDK)—whose leader, former KLA commander
Hashim Thaci, was on a visit to the United States at the time of the attacks— issued an
equally strong anti-Serb statement: 
 
 Serbs are misusing the Albanians’ goodwill to create an equal society for
all. They don’t want to integrate in Kosovar society. Proof of this is
yesterday’s [children’s drowning] and today’s [Mitrovica violence] events.
Their will has remained in the previous five years only for violence
against Albanians. This can no longer be tolerated.166
 
Many of the statements issued by the ethnic Albanian leadership steadfastly refused to
condemn the violence or even mention the fact that Serbs had been a primary target.
The response of Kosovo’s President Ibrahim Rugova was particularly weak. Rugova
repeatedly failed to condemn attacks against Serbs and other minorities, restricting
himself to passive and pro-forma statements of concern rather than taking an active role
in stopping the violence. During his March 18 appeal for calm, for example, Kosovo
President Ibrahim Rugova expressed his “deepest regret” for the wounding of UNMIK
police officer and KFOR soldiers, but made no mention of Serb victims.167 During
another statement on March 19, Rugova condemned the violence against the
international presence, and again failed to mention the violence against Serbs.168 

On March 18, a joint statement was issued in the name of UNMIK head Harri Holkeri,
NATO Admiral Gregory Johnson, the representatives of the Quint,169 Kosovo President
Rugova, Kosovo Prime Minister Rexhepi, Kosovo Assembly Speaker Nexhat Daci,
Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) chairperson Rramush Haradinaj,170 and the
KFOR commander General Kammerhoff. The statement, which did not refer to attacks
against Serbs, read:
 
 There is no excuse for violence and it must stop immediately. Those
who are engaging in violence are betraying all the people of Kosovo.
The progress of the last few years is in jeopardy and with it prospects
for a better future for everyone. We, the leaders of Kosovo, unite in
denouncing those who practice violence. Now is the time for calm.171
 
Even this statement was too strong for some Kosovo politicians: reportedly, Jakup
Krasniqi, the minister of Public Services and the representative of the PDK in Hashim
Thaci’s absence, refused to sign the statement and walked out of the meeting. Krasniqi
reportedly walked out of the meeting because “Albanians had collaborated too long with
UNMIK and he chose to stand with the people.”172 
 
As the impact of the violence became more apparent to the ethnic Albanian
leadership—and, particularly, as they became more aware of the battering that Kosovo’s
image was suffering internationally—some Albanian leaders issued stronger
condemnations of the violence, but still appeared to refrain from directly condemning
attacks on Serbs. Hashim Thaci, leader of the PDK, cut short his visit to the United
States and issued a televised appeal for an end to the violence on March 18, stating:
 
 Kosovo, NATO, and the West have not fought for a Kosovo only for
Albanians or for a violent Kosovo. Violence is not the way to solving
problems, violence only creates problems. …We must not forget that
Kosovo has its freedom today thanks to the sacrifice of its people and
the Western world.173
 
On March 20, Thaci became one of the first Albanian leaders to directly acknowledge
and condemn the attacks against Serbs, stating that “those who set fire to Serb houses
and to Orthodox churches are nothing more than criminals, who cannot be tolerated.
Kosovo does not just belong to the Albanians.”174
 
The weak response of Kosovo’s interim institutions and political leadership prompted
strong condemnation from the international community. During an April 22 visit to
Pristina, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer stated that he had seen “no
progress” since his post-violence visit in March. De Hoop Scheffer strongly criticized
the Kosovar leadership, saying he had “expected to see more responsibility, rebuilding,
stronger language, and more ambitions.”175 U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also
criticized the “ambivalent” response of the ethnic Albanian leadership, stating in his
report to the U.N. Security Council that they were “generally reluctant to condemn in a
forthright manner the violence in general and later the violence against the Kosovo Serb
community in particular. [Kosovo’s leaders] failed to grasp the seriousness of the
situation and initially attempted to connect it to their own political objectives.”176 The
European Union, while avoiding directly blaming the Kosovar leadership for the
violence, called on “all leaders, especially the Kosovo Albanian leadership, to take
responsibility for the situation and to ensure such acts and threats of violence are not
repeated,” stressing to Kosovar Albanian leaders that “what is at stake is their
credibility.”177
 
While the international community has strongly condemned Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian
leadership for its role during the crisis, it is important to recognize that some ethnic
Albanian leadership did take strong action. While unspecified calls by Kosovar Albanian
politicians for an end to the violence were apparently ignored, direct interventions by
ethnic Albanian leaders appear to have had a positive effect on some occasions. On
March 18, Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi personally went to the fierce clashes at
Caglavica, accompanied by several other ethnic Albanian leaders, and convinced the
crowd to go home within minutes, after promising that the Serb roadblock would be
removed. Rexhepi had similarly gone to Mitrovica on March 17 to attempt to personally
calm the situation, with less success. In Decani on March 18, the municipality head
Ibrahim Selmanaj and the head of the local branch of the KLA Veterans Association,
Avdyl Mushkolaj, personally stopped a crowd that was moving towards the historic
Decani Monastery, intending to burn it down.178  The effectiveness of these sporadic
actions begs the question of how much more destruction could have been prevented if
the entire Kosovo Albanian leadership had taken a more proactive approach to seeking
to end the violence, rather than initially justifying it as some politicians did.
 
After the violence ceased, many ethnic Albanian politicians continued to attempt to
make political capital out of the violence, rather than take responsibility and seek to
prevent future outbreaks of anti-minority violence. President Rugova, for example,
continued to try and seek immediate steps towards independence for Kosovo, arguing
that continuing the stalemate on independence would only allow “extremists” to gain
ground .179
 
While various international officials were quick to condemn the Kosovar political leaders
for their role during the March violence, they have failed to similarly critically examine
the failures of the international organizations themselves. Virtually all of the Albanian
and international actors interviewed by Human Rights Watch were of the unanimous
opinion that UNMIK and KFOR structures, both at the political and security level,
virtually collapsed during the onset of the crisis. Certainly, as this report amply
demonstrates, KFOR and UNMIK were not able to provide effective security for non-
Albanian communities throughout Kosovo. As one diplomatic representative explained
to Human Rights Watch, “KFOR and UNMIK didn’t take control of the situation. In
the end, the demonstrators had enough and decided to go home.”180  No representative
of KFOR and UNMIK has publicly acknowledged the severe failures of their
organizations during the March crisis, calling into question whether the international
organizations have learned important lessons from the experience or are rather
continuing with “business as usual.”

THE SITUATION FOR SERBS, ROMA, AND OTHER NON-ALBANIAN
MINORITIES IN KOSOVO AFTER THE VIOLENCE
 
The March violence left nineteen persons dead, 954 wounded, 4,100 persons displaced,
550 homes destroyed, and twenty-seven Orthodox churches and monasteries burned.
An additional 182 homes and two Orthodox churches or monasteries were seriously
damaged.181 An overwhelming number of the displaced Serbs and other non-Albanians
are elderly and impoverished. They remained behind in Kosovo despite earlier violence
because they were too poor or old to leave. Most of the displaced Serbs and other non-
Albanians explained to Human Rights Watch that they had lost homes that took decades
of hard work and saving to build.
 
More than 2,000 persons remained displaced at the time of Human Rights Watch’s April
research mission, and were often living in miserable and overcrowded conditions. Many
of the families burned out of their homes in Svinjare and Obilic were living in unheated,
unfinished apartment buildings without access to water and electricity in Mitrovica and
Zvecan.182 Human Rights Watch also found displaced Serbs living in metal trucking
containers in Gracanica and Ugljare. Hundreds of displaced persons are also housed in
school buildings in Gracanica and Mitrovica, in crowded conditions that provide no
privacy and inadequate sanitation. Displaced Serbs from Prizren are located at a
gymnasium on the German KFOR base, displaced Serbs from Belo Polje are located at
the Italian “Villagio Italio” KFOR base, while hundreds of displaced Ashkali from
Vucitrn are living in a muddy and crowded tent camp inside the French KFOR base at
Novo Selo. Several families are being housed in single tents. The historic monasteries of
Gracanica and Decani are also housing displaced Serbs.
 
Both the Kosovo Provisional Government (PISG) and the UNMIK institutions have
focused most of their attention on reconstruction of the destroyed homes, eager to
overcome the setback to Kosovo’s image caused by the ethnic violence. However, little
attention has been paid to the actual wishes of the displaced Serbs and other non-
Albanian minorities. When UNMIK and PISG officials held a ceremony in April 2004 to
mark the reconstruction of the YU Program apartment buildings in Pristina, attended by
foreign journalists, they failed to invite the displaced residents, most of them living in
nearby Gracanica, or even to inform them that the event was taking place.183
 
Human Rights Watch found that opinions differed widely among displaced Serbs and
other non-Albanian minorities as to whether they wanted to return to their homes or
leave Kosovo. Ljubisa Pleskonjic, a thirty-six-year-old electrical engineer who voluntarily
returned to Kosovo (Prizren) in September 2003 wanted to leave again: “I left a good
job because I wanted to come back to Kosovo, to my birthplace. Now, I don’t want
people to pay me for [my apartment]. I want four plane tickets in one direction: as far
away from here as possible.”184 Eighty-year-old Mladen Gligorijevic, also from Prizren,
was equally adamant about leaving: “We want to be paid for all of our possessions and
then we want to leave Kosovo. We just want to leave Kosovo and never see Albanians
again. Our [Albanian] neighbors didn’t even help us. There is no living together
anymore.”185
 
On the other hand, there were also many displaced Serbs who wanted to remain. Milos
Necic, also from Prizren, explained: “For me, the alternative to leaving Prizren doesn’t
exist. Prizren had five monuments dedicated to my ancestors, and some of my relatives
were hanged during World War II by the fascists.”186  Many of the displaced elderly
Serbs are too impoverished to start a new life outside Kosovo, and don’t have relatives
who can support them—the primary reason why many have remained despite the daily
difficulties of life as a non-Albanian in Kosovo. Many of those who wanted to return to
their homes insisted on more stringent security. The Serbs of Belo Polje, who were
already preparing to return to their destroyed homes when interviewed in April,
explained:
 
 We didn’t ask for barbed wire—we came at the request of the
government to coexist with the Albanians. But now that we saw the
Albanians don’t want to coexist with us, we want the barbed wire. It is
the only healthy relationship between us and our neighbors.
 
It is important that the PISG and the international institutions listen to the wishes of the
displaced communities, and not force a solution—such as rebuilding of their homes—
on the displaced. Security is a primary concern for all of the displaced—those who want
to leave and those who would prefer to stay in Kosovo—and a necessary pre-condition
for reconstruction and return. But most of all, the displaced persons must be allowed to
make an informed choice, and must be given options, including the possibility of
resettlement outside Kosovo. 
 
Many of the persons affected by the March violence had only recently returned to
Kosovo, some with the assistance of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration. Fedaim Kelmendi
abandoned his application for asylum in Belgium in January 2004, and returned to his
home in Vucitrn after IOM assured him it was safe to return. IOM provided him with
free plane tickets to Kosovo, and provided transportation to his home in Vucitrn. Njazi
Pllavci, an Ashkali, returned to his home in Vucitrn in May 2003 with the assistance of
UNHCR, because he was no longer able to support his family in Serbia. The Serbs of
Belo Polje returned after receiving security guarantees from KFOR and UNMIK, as well
as rebuilding assistance. 
 
The return programs implemented by IOM, UNMIK, and UNHCR should be seriously
reconsidered in light of the March violence. Persons should not be returned to an area
where their safety cannot be guaranteed, as this contravenes the fundamental principle
of voluntary return in safety and dignity. The United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees has clearly enunciated this position following the March 2004 violence:
 
 UNHCR’s position remains that members of all minority groups,
particularly Serbs, Roma, Ashkaelia, Egyptians as well as Bosniaks and
Goranis should continue to benefit from international protection in
countries of asylum. Induced or forced return movements jeopardize the
highly delicate ethnic balance and may contribute to increasing the
potential for new inter-ethnic clashes.…As far as individuals from
Kosovo are concerned who have applied for voluntary repatriation, it is
very important that refugees’ decisions are taken in full knowledge of
the recent deterioration of the security conditions in general and
minorities in particular.187

UNHCR advocates against involuntary returns to Kosovo, and argues that “those
individuals [outside Kosovo] who applied for repatriation prior to mid-March 2004
should be given the possibility to reassess their application.188
 
The ongoing danger to minority communities in Kosovo was underscored in the early
hours of June 5 with a drive-by shooting on a group of Serb teenagers in Gracanica,
despite the presence of KFOR checkpoints in the town.189 The attack left sixteen-year-
old Dimitrije Popovic dead. Although the United Nations announced the arrest of two
ethnic Albanian suspects on the same day, the shooting was a troubling echo of March
15 killing of Jovica Ivic.190
 
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 
This report was researched and written by Peter Bouckaert, senior researcher for
emergencies at Human Rights Watch, based on two weeks of research in Kosovo during
April 2004. Bogdan Ivanisevic, Researcher for the Former Yugoslavia in the Europe and
Central Asia Division, contributed to the research for this report. The report was
reviewed by Benjamin Ward, counsel in the Europe and Central Asia Division; James
Ross, senior legal advisor, Widney Brown, deputy program director, Diane Goodman,
refugee policy director, and Veronika Szente Goldston, advocacy director of the Europe
and Central Asia Division. Manu Krishnan, associate in the Program Division, Anna
Sinelnikova and Victoria Elman, associates in the Europe and Central Asia Division,
provided valuable logistical support during the research mission and production support
after the mission. Tatjana Schuetz helped with the translation of German sources.
Veronica Matushaj, photo editor and associate director in the Development and
Outreach Division, Andrea Holley, manager of outreach and public education, and
Fitzroy Hepkins, mail manager in the Publications Division, contributed to the
production of this report.
 
Human Rights Watch thanks the officials of UNMIK, KFOR, OSCE, PISG, and other
institutions who contributed their comments and views to this report, and who assisted
the research mission in Kosovo. Our criticisms of the performance of their institutions
during the March 2004 violence aims to be constructive, and does not seek to question
the profound commitment many individuals, international and local, bring to their work
in Kosovo.
 
Human Rights Watch acknowledges the generous support of the Open Society Institute

1  For the sake of clarity and consistency, Human Rights Watch provides both the Serbian and Albanian name at
first mention of location. Subsequent references are in the Serbian language only, since this is the English
language practice (for example, Pristina and not Prishtine).
2  See below, Chapter V, Section C, “The Drowning of Three Boys in the Drine River,” for a detailed discussion.
3  “U.N. Details Wide Scale of Kosovo Violence,” Reuters, March 22, 2004.
4  The term “Serb” is used in this report to refer to persons of ethnic Serb origin living in Kosovo. The term
“Serbian” would apply to citizens of the state of Serbia and Montenegro or formal entities, such as the Serbian
Orthodox Church or the Serbian language. The term “ethnic Albanian” refers to ethnic Albanians living in
Kosovo.
5  Some ethnic minorities in Kosovo, such as ethnic Turks, were not targeted by the violence.
6  Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission in Kosovo, Department of Human
Rights and Rule of Law, “Human Rights Challenges Following the March Riots,” p. 4.
7  For a detailed history of the war crimes committed by Serb and Yugoslav forces during the Kosovo conflict,
see Human Rights Watch, Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2001).
8  Human Rights Watch, “Abuses Against Serbs and Roma in the New Kosovo,” August 1999. Not all departures
of Serbs and other non-Albanians from Kosovo were a direct result of anti-minority violence. Some Serbs and
other non-Albanians departed from Kosovo or resettled in majority Serb areas immediately after the 1999
conflict, either because they feared future mistreatment, or because they made a conscious decision they did
not want to live in an ethnic-Albanian dominated state, or, for a minority of those leaving, because they feared
future prosecution for crimes committed by themselves during the conflict. 
9  BBC News, “UN acts over Kosovo killings,” August 14, 2003 [online],
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3150775.stm (retrieved July 6, 2004). Beta, “Gorazdevac Victims Laid
to Rest,” August 13, 2003.
10  “Three Serbs Murdered in Kosovo: UN,” Agence France Presse, June 4, 2003.
11  Amnesty International, “Serbia and Montenegro (Kosovo/Kosova): Minority Communities: Fundamental
Rights Denied,” AI Index EUR 70/011/2003, April 1, 2003 [online],
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGEUR700112003.
12  OSCE, Gjakove/Djakovica: Municipal Profile, October 2003.
13  OSCE, Prizren: Municipal Profile, October 2003. The OSCE estimates the December 2002 Serbian
population of Prizren at 194, but this includes the Serbian population of several Serbian enclaves outside the
city. The actual Serbian population of the city of Prizren prior to the violence was only thirty-six.
14  Kosovo Coordination Centre, Principi organizavanja samouprave nacionalnih zajednice na Kosovu i Metohiji
(“Principles of the Organization of Self-Rule of the National Communities in Kosovo”) (Belgrade: January 2003)
(estimating 129,474 Serbs remained in Kosovo in 2002); European Stability Initiative, The Lausanne Principle:
Multiethnicity, Territory and the Future of Kosovo’s Serbs, June 7, 2004.
15  See UNMIK, “Police and Justice (Pillar I)—Police, Mandate,” n.d. [online],
http://www.unmikonline.org/justice/police.htm (retrieved July 15, 2004).
16  The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), or Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves (UCK) in Albanian, was the dominant
armed Albanian group fighting against Yugoslav and Serbian forces during the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo.
Following the end of the 1999 conflict, the KLA and KFOR signed an agreement on the demobilization of the
KLA. Under the agreement, KLA members were absorbed into the newly created Kosovo Protection Force.
Some KLA commanders were involved in war crimes during the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict, and have been
indicted by both local and international tribunals. Some KLA members have also been accused of having ties to
organized crime and Albanian nationalist elements, and played a significant role in other conflicts in the region.
17  Standards for Kosovo, Number VIII
18  Human Rights Watch interview with diplomatic source, Pristina, April 18, 2004.
19  OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Department of Human Rights and Rule of Law, “Human Rights Challenges
following the March Riots,” p. 6.
2 0  Military Technical Agreement between the international security force (“KFOR”) and the Governments of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia, June 9, 2004 [online],
http://www.nato.int/kfor/kfor/documents/mta.htm (retrieved July 6, 2004). The Military Technical Agreement was
accompanied by a separate agreement between KFOR and the KLA, the “Undertaking of demilitarization and
transformation by UCK,” signed on June 20, 1999 [online], http://www.nato.int/kfor/kfor/documents/uck.htm
(retrieved July 6, 2004).
21  United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, adopted June 10, 1999.
22  See [online] http://www.nato.int/kfor/mnb_northeast.htm (retrieved July 15, 2004) for a detailed description of
its area of responsibility. The Multinational brigade North includes contributing troops from Belgium, Denmark,
Estonia, Greece, Luxemburg, and Morocco.
23  See [online] http://www.nato.int/kfor/mnb_east.htm (retrieved July 15, 2004) for a detailed description of its
rea of responsibility. The Multinational Brigade East includes contributing troops from Armenia, Greece,
Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine.
24  See [online] http://www.nato.int/kfor/mnb_center.htm (retrieved July 15, 2004) for a detailed description of its
area of responsibility. Multinational Brigade Center includes contributing troops from the Czech Republic,
Ireland, Latvia, Slovakia, Finland, and the U.K.
25  See [online] http://www.nato.int/kfor/mnb_southwest.htm (retrieved July 15, 2004) for a detailed description of
its area of responsibility. The Multinational Brigade SouthWest includes contributing troops from Austria,
Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, and
Turkey.
26  See [online] http://www.nato.int/kfor/kfor/msu.htm (retrieved July 15, 2004) for a detailed description.
27  United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, adopted June 10, 1999
28  UNMIK, “Police and Justice (Pillar I)—Police, Mandate,” n.d. [online],
http://www.unmikonline.org/justice/police.htm (retrieved July 6, 2004). 
2 9  By March 2004, the number of international UNMIK civilian police had reduced to 3,248. United Nations
Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in
Kosovo,” April 30, 2004,  ANNEX 1. U.N. Doc. S/2004/348.
3 0  UNMIK, ”Police and Justice (Pillar I)—Police, Mandate.” In December 2003, UNMIK had Special Police Units
from India, Jordan, Romania, Pakistan, Argentina, Poland, and Ukraine.
31  UNMIK, “Police and Justice (Pillar I)—Police, Mandate.” 
32  International Crisis Group, Collapse in Kosovo, April 2004, p. 21.
33  Human Rights Watch interview with UNMIK official, Prizren, April 13, 2004.
34  International Crisis Group (ICG), Collapse in Kosovo, April 2004
3 5  UNMIK Office of Missing Persons and Forensics, OMPF Statistics, June 9, 2004 [online],
http://www.unmikonline.org/justice/ompf/040609_OMPF_SS.pdf (retrieved June 23, 2004). According to
UNMIK, 2,564 of the missing are ethnic Albanians, 570 and Serbs and 206 from other groups. 
3 6  An analysis of the functioning of the justice system in Kosovo is beyond the scope of this paper. For a
discussion of some of the shortcomings of the judicial system in Kosovo see:  OSCE Mission in Kosovo,
Department of Human Rights and Rule of Law, “Human Rights Challenges following the March Riots,” May 25,
2004, pp. 7-14.
3 7  United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim
Administration Mission in Kosovo,” April 30, 2004, para 7. U.N. Doc. S/2004/348.
3 8  “Angry Serbs Protest Shooting of Teenager,” Agence France Presse, March 16, 2004.
3 9  Conor Lanny, “Kosovar Serbs Stone Irish UN troops,” Irish Times, March 17, 2004.
4 0  OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Miklós Haraszti, “The Role of the Media in the March 2004
Events in Kosovo,” April 2004, p. 8. 
4 1  See OSCE Mission in Kosovo - Department of Human Rights and Rule of Law, Parallel Structures in Kosovo,
October 2003.
4 2  See OSCE and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “Tenth Assessment of the
Situation of Ethnic Minorities in Kosovo (Period covering May 2002 to December 2002),” March 2003.
4 3  The Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) was created following the 1999 war to absorb demobilized KLA
members. See Background section of this report.
4 4  Shaban Buza, “UN Police Arrest Four Kosovo former Guerrillas,” Reuters, February 16, 2004.
4 5  UNMIK Media Monitoring: Local Media, March 17, 2004 [online],
http://www.unmikonline.org/press/2004/mon/mar/lmm170304.pdf (retrieved July 6, 2004).
4 6  KosovaLive, “UNMIK applying Serb Laws to Punish Fighters, Say Protesters,” March 16, 2004.
4 7  UNMIK Media Monitoring: Local Media, March 17, 2004.
4 8  OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Miklós Haraszti, “The Role of the Media in the March 2004
Events in Kosovo,” April 2004. 
4 9  United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim
Administration Mission in Kosovo,” April 30, 2004, para 6. U.N. Doc. S/2004/348.
5 0  RTV 21, an independent broadcaster, led their evening report on March 16 with the following: “Two Serbs
chased four Albanian children today around 16:00 in the village of Caber and, while trying to escape from them,
the Albanian children jumped in the Ibar river.”   RTK, the public broadcaster, began its news with the following:
“Three Albanian children, Florent Veseli, 8 years old, Avni Veseli, 11 years old, and Egzon Deliu, 12 years old,
went missing in the waters of the Ibar river, meanwhile Fitim Veseli, 14 years old, has been found. They are
victims of an attack by a group of Serbs in the village of Caber…”  See OSCE, “The Role of the Media,” pp. 7-8.
5 1  Ibid, p. 10.
5 2  UNMIK Press Briefing, April 28, 2004 [online], http://www.unmikonline.org/press/2004/trans/tr280404.pdf
(retrieved July 6, 2004). The U.N. investigators canvassed the houses in Donje Zupce village, where the two
young Serb men had reportedly come from, and found that the residents were predominately elderly Serbs:
“The residents of the village are primarily older Serbs, and, with their children accounted for, no young Serb
males fitting the descriptions provided were identified.”
5 3  For example, KFOR officials repeatedly told Human Rights Watch that KFOR had to chose between
protecting minority lives and protecting minority property during the March violence, and had chosen to focus on
protecting minority lives. Such a characterization is misleading, as it ignores the reality that KFOR played only a
minor role in protecting minority lives in many communities affected by violence, as shown in this report.
5 4  U.N. Security Council press release, “March Violence in Kosovo ‘Huge Setback’ to Stabilization,
Reconciliation, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Tells Security Council,” April 13, 2004, U.N. Doc.
SC/8056.
5 5  United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim
Administration Mission in Kosovo,” April 30, 2004, U.N. Doc. S/2004/348.
5 6  See International Security Information Service, Europe, “NATO Notes,” Vol. 6, No. 2, April 2004 [online],
http://www.isis-europe.org/ftp/Download/NATO%20Notes%20v6n2.PDF (retrieved J une 28, 2004), p.6. 
5 7  UNMIK News, “Kosovo: Norwegian envoy to head UN probe into March violence,” June 11, 2004 [online],
http://www.unmikonline.org/ (retrieved July 6, 2004). 
5 8  Renate Flottau et al., “Deutsche Soldaten: Die Hasen Vom Amselfeld,” Der Spiegel (Germany), May 3, 2004.
5 9  Human Rights Watch interview with senior UNMIK official, June 16, 2004.
6 0  Ibid. KFOR spokesperson Lt.-Col. James Moran similarly described the relationship between Lt-Gen.
Kammerhoff and the Multinational Brigade Commanders: “COM-KFOR cannot give brigade commanders
orders, but the brigade commanders receive guidance from COM-KFOR.”  Human Rights Watch interview with
KFOR spokesperson Lt-Col. Moran, Pristina, April 19, 2004.
6 1  NATO Defense Ministerial, “Final Communique,” December 1, 2003.
6 2  Nebi Qena, “UN accuses Kosovo violence instigators of ‘crimes against humanity,’” Agence France Presse,
March 24, 2004. 
6 3  “NATO chief says Kosovo violence was ‘orchestrated,’” Agence France Presse, March 22, 2004.
6 4  Paul Ames, “EU’s Solana says violence could delay decision on Kosovo’s future,” Associated Press, March
25, 2004. Solana also warned that ethnic violence should not be rewarded: “If some people think that with
violence they can precipitate the decisions of the international community, they are wrong…You cannot imagine
moving toward a decision on status if the standards have not been reached ... burning churches, burning
schools, chasing people out of their homes is [sic] not the type of standards that the European Union is
defending.”
6 5  “Kosovo violence could have been organized—top NATO official,” Agence France Presse, March 18, 2004.
John Nadler, “’Ethnic cleansing’ under way in Kosovo, NATO leader warns; Hundreds of troops dispatched in
effort to end ‘thuggery, mob violence,” Ottawa Citizen, March 20, 2004.
6 6  United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim
Administration Mission in Kosovo,” April 30, 2004, para 2. U.N. Doc. S/2004/348.
6 7  Human Rights Watch interview with diplomat, Pristina, March 18, 2004.
6 8  Email communication with international news photographer Andrew Testa, May 2004.
6 9  ICG, Collapse in Kosovo, p. 44
7 0  Email communication with international news photographer Andrew Testa, May 2004.
7 1  Ibid.
7 2  Ibid.
7 3  ICG, Collapse in Kosovo, p. 45.
7 4  ICG, Collapse in Kosovo, p. 49.
7 5  Human Rights Watch interview with Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi, April 19, 2004.
7 6  Ibid.
7 7  Human Rights Watch interview with Milanka Stefanovic, Mitrovica, April 9, 2004.
7 8  Human Rights Watch interview with Radojka Raskovic, Gracanica, April 17, 2004
7 9  Human Rights Watch interview with Zivka Savic, Gracanica, April 17, 2004.
8 0  Ibid. Several other witnesses claim that the first ev acuation occurred only at 12:30 AM, and the second
evacuation at 2:30AM. 
8 1  Human Rights Watch interview with  Radojka Raskovic, Gracanica, April 17, 2004.
8 2  ICG, Collapse in Kosovo, p. 46.
8 3  Human Rights Watch interview with Zivka Savic, Gracanica, April 17, 2004; ICG, Collapse in Kosovo, p. 46.
8 4  ICG, Collapse in Kosovo, p. 49
8 5  Human Rights Watch interview with Stefanka Tisma, Gracanica, April 10, 2004.
8 6  Ibid.
8 7  Human Rights Watch interview with Brother Randal Denic, Lipljan, April 17, 2004
8 8  Human Rights Watch interview with Joka Vesic, Gracanica, April 10, 2004
8 9  Ibid.
9 0  Ibid.
9 1  Human Rights Watch interview with Aleksandar Vasic, Lipljan, April 17, 2004.
9 2  Ibid; Human Rights Watch interview with Brother Randal Denic, Lipljan, April 17, 2004.
9 3  Human Rights Watch interview with Milos Antic, Mitrovica, April 8, 2004.
9 4  Ibid.
9 5  Ibid.
9 6  Ibid.
9 7  Human Rights Watch interview with Dragan Bjelica, Mitrovica, April 9, 2004.
9 8  Ibid
9 9  Human Rights Watch interview with Milos Antic, Mitrovica, April 8, 2004.
1 0 0 Human Rights Watch interview with Vladimir Savic, Zvecan, April 9, 2004.
1 0 1 Ibid.
1 0 2 Ibid.
1 0 3 ICG, Collapse in Kosovo, p. 51.
1 0 4 Human Rights Watch interview with Xhemal Kelmendi, Novo Selo, April 14, 2004.
1 0 5 Human Rights Watch interview with Nejib Cizmolli, Novo Selo, April 14, 2004.
1 0 6 Human Rights Watch interview with Njazi Pllavci, Novo Selo, April 16, 2004.
1 0 7 Human Rights Watch interview with Abdush Cizmolli, Novo Selo, April 16, 2004.
1 0 8 Human Rights Watch interview with Xhemal Kelmendi, Novo Selo, April 14, 2004.
1 0 9 Ibid.
1 1 0 Human Rights Watch interview with Fedaim Kelmendi, Novo Selo, April 16, 2004.
1 1 1 Human Rights Watch interview with Zaida Cizmolli, Novo Selo, April 16, 2004.
1 1 2 Human Rights Watch interview with Ferida Myftare, Novo Selo, April 16, 2004.
1 1 3 Laura Silber and Allan Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), p. 37-39.
1 1 4 Human Rights Watch interview with Dusan Arsic, Gracanica, April 10, 2004; ICG, Collapse in Kosovo, p. 47.
1 1 5 Human Rights Watch interview with Dejan Jovanovic, Kosovo Polje, April 16, 2004.
1 1 6 Human Rights Watch interview with KPS official, Kosovo Polje, April 16, 2004.
1 1 7 There are only 55 KPS officers in Kosovo Polje, including some Serbs. However, only a few dozen reported
for duty. Others were away at training courses or simply did not report for duty.
1 1 8 Human Rights Watch interview with KPS official, Kosovo Polje, April 16, 2004.
1 1 9 Human Rights Watch interview with Dejan Jovanovic, Kosovo Polje, April 16, 2004.
1 2 0 Ibid.
1 2 1 Human Rights Watch interview with Nevenka Rikalo, Ugljare, April 17, 2004.
1 2 2 Human Rights Watch interview with Zivorad Tonic, Gracanica, April 10, 2004.
1 2 3 Human Rights Watch interview with Ruzica Stevanovic, Gracanica, April 10, 2004
1 2 4 Ibid.
1 2 5 Human Rights Watch interview with Major Carew Hatherley, Kosovo Polje, April 16, 2004
1 2 6 According to a 1998 UNHCR estimate, Obilic had a population of 11,000 “that was 41 per cent Albanian and
27 per cent Serb,” the remainder being other minorities. Cited in OSCE, Kosovo/Kosova: As Seen As Told,
chapter on Obilic/Obiliq, December 6, 1999 [online],
http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/hr/part1/p0cont.htm (retrieved June 25, 2004). Those
proportions would place the pre-war Serb population at approximately 3,000 and other minorities at around
3,500.
1 2 7 Human Rights Watch interview with Olgica Subotic, Gracanica, April 17, 2004.
1 2 8 Ibid.
1 2 9 Human Rights Watch interview with Stojan Todorovic, Mitrovica, April 9, 2004.
1 3 0 The three KLA leaders were identified by name by several Serb residents of Obilic, who personally saw the
three KLA leaders leading the crowd. The names of the KLA leaders, and of the residents who identified them,
are on file with Human Rights Watch.
1 3 1 Human Rights Watch interview with Sreten Todorovic, Mitrovica, April 9, 2004.
1 3 2 Human Rights Watch interview with Denka Savic, Mitrovica, April 9, 2004.
1 3 3 Human Rights Watch interview with Olgica Subotic, Gracanica, April 17, 2004.
1 3 4 Human Rights Watch interview with Streten Todorovic, Mitrovica, April 9, 2004.
1 3 5 Ibid.
1 3 6 Human Rights Watch interview with Stojan Todorovic, Mitrovica, April 9, 2004.
1 3 7 Ibid.
1 3 8 ICG, Collapse in Kosovo, p. 47.
1 3 9 Human Rights Watch interview with Momcilo Savic, Decani Monastery, April 11, 2004.
1 4 0 ICG, Collapse in Kosovo, p. 47.
1 4 1 Human Rights Watch interview with Raiko Savic, DecaniDecani Monastery, April 11, 2004.
1 4 2 Human Rights Watch interview with Momcilo Savic, Decani Monastery, April 11, 2004.
1 4 3 Human Rights Watch interview with Rajko Savic, Decani Monastery, April 11, 2004
1 4 4 Human Rights Watch interview with Momcilo Savic, Decani Monastery, April 11, 2004.
1 4 5 ICG, Collapse in Kosovo, p. 51.
1 4 6 Human Rights Watch interview with Nada Isalovic, Decani Monastery, Kosovo, April 12, 2004.
1 4 7 Human Rights Watch research documented approximately two hundred killings by Serbian police and
paramilitary as well as Yugoslav soldiers in Djakovica city alone, in addition to other killings in neighboring
villages. Some 1,200 ethnic Albanians were missing from Djakovica at the end of the 1999 conflict, the highest
number anywhere in Kosovo by far. See Under Orders, Chapter 6.
1 4 8 Human Rights Watch interview with Nada Isalovic, Decani Monastery, Kosovo, April 12, 2004; Human Rights
Watch interview with  Poleksija Kastratovic, Decani Monastery, Kosovo, April 12, 2004.
1 4 9 Human Rights Watch interview with Ljubisa Pleskonjic, Prizren, April 12, 2004.
1 5 0 ICG, Collapse in Kosovo, p. 47.
1 5 1 Human Rights Watch interview with Ljubisa Pleskonjic, Prizren, April 12, 2004.
1 5 2 Human Rights Watch interview with Ljubisa Pleskonjic, Prizren, April 12, 2004.
1 5 3 Human Rights Watch interview with UNMIK official, Prizren, April 12, 2004; Renate Flottau et al., “Deutsche
Soldaten: Die Hasen Vom Amselfeld,” Der Spiegel (Germany), May 3, 2004.
1 5 4 Human Rights Watch interview with UNMIK official, Prizren, April 12, 2004
1 5 5 Ibid.
1 5 6 Ibid.
1 5 7 Human Rights Watch interview with Mladen Gligorijevic, Prizren, April 12, 2004.
1 5 8 Human Rights Watch interview with Milos Necic, Prizren, April 12, 2004.
1 5 9 Human Rights Watch interview with UNMIK official, Prizren, April 12, 2004.
1 6 0 Human Rights Watch interview with Brother Bojan Dejanovic, Decani Monastery, April 12, 2004.
1 6 1 Ibid.
1 6 2 Ibid.
1 6 3 For a description of the destroyed churches of Prizren, see Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments
of the Republic of Serbia, Cultural Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija (Belgrade, 2002), pp. 109-129.
1 6 4 Koha Ditore, “Assembly Members Stop Their Work; Accuse Internationals for Violence,” reproduced in
UNMIK Media Monitoring: Local Media, March 18.
1 6 5 “Kosovo’s three main parties say independence ‘only way out’ of crisis,” BBC Monitoring European, March
18, 2004.
1 6 6 Translation of PDK provided to Human Rights Watch by international source.
1 6 7 “President Calls for End to Violence, Says Protests Damaging Kosovo,” BBC Monitoring European, March
18, 2004.
1 6 8 Following meeting with Prime Minister Rexhepi and the Speaker of the Parliamentary Assembly Nexhat
Daci, Rugova stated on March 19: “We repeat that attacks against the international presence, both civil and
military, are fully unacceptable and in direct opposition with the vital interests of Kosovo. On this occasion, I
once again stress that destruction of religious and cultural monuments, of public property and houses, is
unacceptable and condemnable for the people of Kosovo.”
1 6 9 The “Quint” is made up of the members of the Contact Group minus Russia, i.e. the United States, the
United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy.
1 7 0 Harudinaj is a former senior KLA commander. 
1 7 1 “UN, KFOR, Kosovo leaders issue statement calling for immediate end of violence,” BBC Monitoring
Newsfile, March 18, 2004.
1 7 2 ICG, Collapse in Kosovo, p. 25. Krasniqi, a former spokesperson for the KLA during the 1998-99 conflict,
changed his position in the following days, stating on March 20 that “we were and are against the violence.
Kosovo does not need the torching of houses and cultural property.”  “Kosovo government ‘profoundly
disturbed’ by deadly inter-ethnic violence,” Agence France Presse, March 20, 2004.
1 7 3 Zeri, “Thaci calls upon citizens to stop protests and not forget the help of NATO,” reproduced in UNMIK
Media Monitoring, Local Media, March 19, 2004.
1 7 4 “Former Albanian Leader Slams ‘Criminals’ Burning Serb Homes in Kosovo,” Agence France Press, March
20, 2004.
1 7 5 Shaban Buza, “NATO criticizes Kosovo leaders’ response to fighting,” Reuters, April 22, 2004. 
1 7 6 United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim
Administration Mission in Kosovo,” April 30, 2004, para. 2. U.N. Doc. S/2004/348.
1 7 7 European Union Council of Ministers, “Conclusions of March 26, 2004 European Council Meeting,” March
26, 2004.
1 7 8Human Rights Watch interview with Father Sava, Decani Monastery, April 11, 2004. Mushkolaj was later
arrested by UNMIK on suspicion of involvement in anti-UNMIK violence in Decani on March 17.
1 7 9 RFE/RL Newsline, “Kosova’s President Calls on British Troops to Remain,” April 5, 2004;  UNMIK Media
Monitoring, Kosovo Press Headlines, Koha Ditore, “Rugova: Without recognition of independence, extremists
will gain ground,” April 6, 2004; Alissa Rubin, “Serb Province Simmers Amid Uneasy Quiet; Three Months After
Deadly Rampages in Kosovo, Ethnic Hatred  and Uncertainty About the Future Remain an Explosive Mix,” Los
Angeles Times, June 30, 2004.
1 8 0 Human Rights Watch interview with diplomatic source, Pristina, April 18, 2004
1 8 1 OSCE, Department of Human Rights and Rule of Law, Human Rights Challenges Following the March Riots,
p. 6.
1 8 2 A small minority of the displaced found more comfortable accommodations in a housing complex built to
accommodate displaced Serb professors from the University of Pristina.
1 8 3 Human Rights Watch interviews with Radojka Raskovic and Zivka Savic, Gracanica, April 17, 2004.
1 8 4 Human Rights Watch interview with Ljubisa Pleskonjic, Prizren,  April 12, 2004.
1 8 5 Human Rights Watch interview with Mladen Gligorijevic, Prizren, April 13, 2004.
1 8 6 Human Rights Watch interview with Milos Necic, Prizren, April 13, 2004.
1 8 7 UNHCR, “UNHCR Position on international protection needs of individuals from Kosovo in light of recent
inter-ethnic confrontations,” March 30, 2004.
1 8 8 Ibid
1 8 9 Shaban Buza, “Serb boy killed as tensions rise in Kosovo,” Reuters, June 5, 2004; Garentina Kraja, “Serb
teenager killed in drive-by shooting in Kosovo,” Associated Press, June 5, 2004.
1 9 0 UNMIK Press release, “SRSG’s statement on the killing Gracanica [sic],” [UNMIK/PR/1194], June 6, 2004.