10.11.2008, 16:55
|
#1 |
| |
Citim: Kosovo village's widows and orphans still struggling
Krusha e Vogel, a small village near Prizren, close to the Albanian border, has a population of 700 -- including 82 widows and 145 orphans. On March 26th 1999, Serbian forces rounded up 70% of the village men, 114 in total, and executed them. They burned the bodies; authorities have recovered and identified only 23 of them to date.
Around 2,000 people remain missing since the conflict -- and the 91 males from Krusha e Vogel are among them. Six Albanian males from Krusha e Vogel survived the massacre and managed to escape. One of the survivors, Qamil Shehu, lost his two sons, three brothers and seven nephews. He saw them dying after being shot with machine guns. Two of the survivors from Krusha e Vogel testified before the International Tribunal on the War Crimes in the former Yugoslavia in The Hague against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
Today, Krusha e Vogel is a typical Kosovo village where widows, their children and orphans compose the majority of the population. With 70% of the male population dead or missing, women must support their families and raise their children. They grow tomatoes, potatoes and peppers and sell their produce at the Prizren market. Most families depend on social assistance, which was recently increased from 45 euros a month to 130 euros a month.
Agron Limani, 41, an electrical engineer, is writing a book on the events during the conflict in Krusha e Vogel to publicise the needs of the widows and orphans.
Limani says that life in his village is difficult. People can afford to buy only the basics: flour, cheese, tea, milk and macaroni.
"It happens quite frequently that we remain without any money," says Limani. Recently, a local company sent milk to the children of Krusha e Vogel, but, as Limani points out, "What would really help ... is some type of small business that would offer jobs".
"The war wiped out most of the men and left women and children in poverty," says Limani, who is filling pages with testimonies of one of the worst massacres in Kosovo.
In 2006, the Kosovo National Assembly passed a law allocating special funds to aid veterans and civilian victims of the war. The payments began on March 1st 2008.
In July 2007, the government started drafting a law on behalf of families of missing persons. Local and international institutions, representatives of the families and associations for missing persons' relatives are helping draft the law.
The draft foresees an increase in financial assistance, the right to know and a right to information. It also includes the right of relatives to mark gravesites and memorials as a tribute to the missing.
The families tried hard to make authorities prosecute the murderers. The Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) reported that the village's bereaved families wanted legal action against 54 Serbs and two Roma they named responsible for their relatives' abduction in late March 1999. Encouraged by a network of local NGOs, they submitted their case, the first of its kind in Kosovo, to the public prosecutor at the Pristina district court.
IWPR also quoted Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre lawyer Teki Bokshi as saying that "until now justice has been sought only for those who died during the war in Kosovo, but it is not fair for the missing to be deprived of justice just because they don't have a body to prove the crime -- massive hostage-taking is a crime too."
The families of the missing and their supporters believe the hope of conviction will ultimately lead to some degree of justice and at the very least discourage Kosovo Serbs implicated in the crime from returning to the region, IWPR said.
War crimes files still need review. The new European mission in Kosovo will have to take care of them with its judges and prosecutors. This will be one of the most difficult tasks, one neglected for almost ten years now.
But what families of the missing men of Krusha e Vogel want above all is a clear sign the killers will not be able to escape unpunished forever. "Justice has not been done yet," Limani says.
http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setime...0/reportage-01 | |
| | |
|
|  |