20000322

HR Watch

reports organised

rape by Serbs

in Kosovo

BRUSSELS: Serb and Yugoslav officers were responsible for the organised rape of Albanian Kosovar women during Nato's bombing campaign against Belgrade's forces last spring, Human Rights Watch charged in a report published on Tuesday.

The humanitarian organisation recorded 96 cases of rape committed by Serb and Yugoslav troops just before and during the 11-week campaign of air strikes led by Nato to halt repression of Albanians in the southern Yugoslav province.

But it estimates the number of sex crimes committed between March and June 1999 is much higher, and asked an international war crimes tribunal to charge not only those directly responsible, but also their commanding officers.

The report says the rapes were not rare and isolated incidents, but were used deliberately to terrorize the civilian population, extort money, and push people from their homes.

All the cases in the report were committed by at least two men, it noted.

"These were not occasional acts committed by a few madmen," stressed Regan Ralph, director of the group's womens' rights division.

"Rape was used as an tool of war in Kosovo and should be punished as such. The men who committed these horrible crimes should be brought to justice," he added.

The rapes took place in the victims' homes, and most were committed by Serb paramilitaries "who wore varied uniforms and often bandannas, long knives, long hair and beards."

"In several cases, victims and witnesses identified the perpetrators as belonging to the Serb special police, in blue camouflage uniforms, or Yugoslav Army soldiers in green military uniforms," the report said.

But it did not confirm reports relayed by NATO of camps where Yugoslav and Serb troops raped women in Pec or Djakovica, two small cities in western Kosovo.

And it added that since Nato forces deployed in Kosovo last June, {rapes of Serb, Albanian, and Roma (gypsy) women, sometimes by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK or KLA), have been recorded."

The KLA was officially demilitarised by Nato-led peacekeepers in September and transformed into a civilian disaster response unit, the Kosovo Protection Corps.ÑAFP