UN Envoy urges Kosovars to forgo revenge and speak out against violence.
DECEMBER 10 -- The Head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), D. Bernard Kouchner today urged Kosovars to resist extremists seeking revenge and to speak out against violence.In an opening address to the Kosovo International Human Rights Conference in Pristina, Dr. Kouchner pleaded with Kosovars to give information to the police and not become silent accomplices to crimes and human rights violations.
"We cannot let vengeance or retribution replace truth and justice," Dr. Kouchner said stressing that the majority of Kosovars deplored violence and wanted peace. "We must all unite to form a genuine coalition for law, order and justice."
Dr. Kouchner said that on Monday, together with KFOR commander General Karl Reinhardt, he would announce a detailed plan of action for order and the rule of law aimed at improving security for all in Kosovo.
He warned that Kosovo was "in danger of being criminalized" and that human rights activists around the world who rallied to the cause of Kosovars in the decade of oppression are becoming more and more disillusioned and discouraged when they learned of ethnically motivated violence in Kosovo.
Inflicting violence on others "gives your former oppressors a victory they do not deserve", Dr. Kouchner said. "Every Serb killed is a victory for Mr. Milosevic."
German forensic experts give Kosovo evidence to UN war crimes court.
DECEMBER 9 -- The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia today received evidence and reports from a team of German forensic experts working in Kosovo over the past six months.A representative of the German police turned over the evidence, which will be used by the Tribunal's Prosecutor to build her case on Kosovo, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said in a press briefing today in New York.
Germany is one of the 14 countries that have provided forensic expertise to assist the Tribunal's investigation in Kosovo. Partial results from virtually all of the teams have been submitted to the Tribunal, which is located in The Hague. The Prosecutor now expects to receive information and evidence from the teams' national police agencies, Mr. Eckhard added.
Kosovo reports document grim catalogue of human rights violations.
DECEMBER 6 -- The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) released today two human rights reports that document extensive human right violations in Kosovo.The reports give a grim account of human rights violations including murder, mutilation, rape, abductions and house burning.
OSCE said in a press release that the reports present probably the most extensive and systematic survey to date of human rights in Kosovo.
The first report, "Kosovo/Kosova - As Seen, As Told", covers the period from December 1998 to June 1999 and concludes that Yugoslav and Serbian forces committed extensive human rights abuses and violated the laws of armed combat. Their victims were overwhelmingly Kosovo Albanians.
The second report, "As Seen, As Told, Part II", covers the period between 14 June and 31 October 1999 and details human rights violations, the majority against Serbs and other minorities deemed to have supported the Serbs. The violations include executions, abductions, torture, expulsions and house burning committed by elements of ethnic Albanians in search of revenge. The report calls for thorough investigations into the allegations and an increase in international police and judicial experts.
The Head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Dr Bernard Kouchner describes the second report in his foreword as "sobering reading" and a "challenge to everyone in Kosovo and UNMIK to do more to address the root causes of abuses". Dr. Kouchner further says that impunity cannot be tolerated and those involved must be punished. The human rights abuses now cannot be compared to the situation before the war when there was "a systematic policy of apartheid" in Kosovo.
In a foreword to the first report, former Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Justice Louise Arbour says the report is an important contribution to the documentation of human rights abuses in Kosovo.
"A reliable database of this kind goes a long way towards establishing a solid foundation for deciding upon appropriate measures to restore and maintain international peace and security in the region," she said.
