The State Department web site below is a permanent electronic archive of information released prior to January 20, 2001.  Please see www.state.gov for material released since President George W. Bush took office on that date.  This site is not updated so external links may no longer function.  Contact us with any questions about finding information. NOTE: External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein.

Erasing History: Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo Report released by the U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, May 1999

OVERVIEW

What began in late February 1998 as a Serb government campaign against the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has evolved into a comprehensive, premeditated, and systematic program to ethnically cleanse the Serbian province of Kosovo of its roughly 1.7 million ethnic Albanian residents (also referred to as Kosovar Albanians). Because Serbian authorities have denied access to international monitors, documentation efforts have been too fragmented to estimate definitively the number of missing and dead.

Serb military, paramilitary, and police forces have forcibly expelled over 1 million Kosovars from their homes. Since March 1998, approximately 700,000 Kosovars have fled to neighboring states, including Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and the Republic of Montenegro. As many as an additional 600,000 Kosovars could be internally displaced. In the process, Serbian forces have conducted summary executions, separated military-age men from their families, raped women and girls, destroyed mosques and churches, converted medical facilities to military outposts, and looted and burned homes and villages.

The term "ethnic cleansing" first came into use during the mass expulsions of ethnic Muslims from towns in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992; since then, media outlets, human rights groups and governments have used it on enough occasions to require careful definition. As used in this report, ethnic cleansing is defined as the systematic and forced removal of the members of an ethnic group from a community or communities in order to change the ethnic composition of a given region. In Bosnia, many ethnically cleansed towns and regions were eventually reoccupied by members of another ethnic group (who themselves often had been cleansed).

From the beginning, the regime in Belgrade has deliberately misled the international community and its own people about its ethnic cleansing campaign. Counterinsurgency operations against the KLA began in late February and early March 1998, when Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs Police (MUP) attacked the villages of Likosane and Cirez. These attacks resulted in the death of 25 Kosovar Albanians, of which as many as 14 may have been summarily executed. Since then, the MUP, Yugoslav Army (VJ) forces, and paramilitary units have made little effort to distinguish between KLA fighters and civilians.

In late March 1999, Serbian forces dramatically increased the scope and pace of their efforts, moving away from selective targeting of towns and regions suspected of KLA sympathies toward a sustained and systematic effort to ethnically cleanse the entire province of Kosovo. To date, Serb forces conducting ethnic cleansing operations have not yet tried to repopulate the over 500 towns and villages from which residents have been evicted. Some villages are now used as cover for Serb military emplacements. Many, however, remain depopulated. NATO is committed to ensuring the return of all Kosovars to their homes.

Since the March 19, 1999 departure of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that over 700,000 Kosovars have fled to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (211,000), Albania (404,000), Bosnia-Herzegovina (17,000) the Republic of Montenegro (62,000), and elsewhere (as of May 5, 1999). The Governments of Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia, and Montenegro have provided land for camps, logistical support, and protection. NATO forces in Macedonia and Albania have helped establish transit camps. Other governments have begun to accept varying numbers of refugees to ease the pressure on the so-called "front-line" states. Even with such support, however, the front-line states will continue to bear the brunt of these mass expulsions, which has badly burdened the economies and upset the political balances of these states.

Although the media has focused almost exclusively on the story of the hundreds of thousands of exhausted refugees arriving at camps in Macedonia and Albania, another story has escaped their attention, in large part because Serbian authorities have not permitted entry into Kosovo. Those left behind in Kosovo - known as internally displaced persons, or IDPs - suffer under much worse conditions than even those faced by refugees. While independent sources have not been able to confirm reports of starvation among IDPs in Kosovo many in all likelihood are experiencing food shortages, malnutrition, health problems, and other types of deprivation as a result of having to hide from Serbian forces for weeks in neighboring mountains and forests. Needless to say, they also likely face attack by Serbian forces. According to some reports, VJ units have thrown grenades from helicopters at fleeing IDPs. Shelling of civilians reportedly has been used to herd groups of refugees for later deportation.

Reports of the detention and summary execution of military-aged men continue to increase. In recent weeks, refugees have reported that Serbian forces have undertaken mass executions and individual summary executions in at least 70 towns and villages throughout the province. Overhead imagery confirms the presence of mass grave sites in Pusto Selo and Izbica (see figure 2 and figure 3); there may be other sites in Drenica, Kaaniku, Malisevo, Rezala, and the Pagarusa valley. Anecdotal refugee accounts suggest that Serbian forces have executed at least 4,000 Kosovars. This number is likely to increase with the collection of additional data as will the already much larger number of persons unaccounted for.

In recent weeks, refugees have reported a new method of execution: Serbian forces order unarmed ethnic Albanian men to run away, and then shoot them. Serb authorities apparently favor this method so that they can portray the murders as collateral casualties of military operations.

There are increasing numbers of reports of the rape of ethnic Albanian women by Serbian security forces, both on an organized basis and by individual members of Serbian forces. According to refugees, organized rape has occurred in Djakovica and at the Hotel Karagac in Pec.

[end of section]
Next page
Table of Contents