"Kosovars Must Stand Up for Justice and Human Rights For All"
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Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 21:32:52 +0300 (EET DST)
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Subject: "Kosovars Must Stand Up for Justice and Human Rights For All"
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Original sender: International Helsinki Federation <[email protected]>
"Kosovars Must Stand Up for Justice and Human Rights For All"
Attached is the original, English-language version of an editorial by
Aaron Rhodes and Gazmend Pula published on 20 August in Koha Ditore,
Prishtine.
Kosovars Must Stand Up For Democracy, Justice and Human Rights for All
By Aaron Rhodes and Gazmend Pula
Vienna and Prishtina, 19 August 1999. Our organization, the
International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), has been
warning the international community about repression and violations of
the rights of Kosovars by Serbian regimes since the 1980s. We have
published many, many reports; we have undertaken many fact-finding
missions; we have organized international conferences and press
conferences; we have provided briefings to diplomats; we have spoken
in the United Nations and in the OSCE; we have urged support from
powerful national governments and we have voiced our concerns in
Belgrade. We have tried to mobilize action for a just solution of the
issue and to confront all the human rights problems in Kosovo,
especially those originating from the colonial policy of Serbia that
took Kosovo from autonomy to the genocide of recent months.
Many of the members of the Helsinki Federation - the Helsinki
Committees in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Serbia, Montenegro, Germany and
of course our American colleagues in Human Rights Watch - have worked
in the framework of the IHF as we have engaged for freedom, democracy
and dignity of Kosovo and tried to de-politicize and de-ethnicize the
issues by emphasizing support for universal human rights for all
people as people.
Now, in the aftermath of the NATO humanitarian intervention to end the
Serbian repression and humanitarian disaster in Kosovo, Kosovo is in
effect free, but without a legitimate government whose responsibility
would be to protect fully and efficiently the rights of all its
people. Kosovo is becoming an international "protectorate", but the
interregnum is still characterized by serious lack of order and
security. The KFOR, the United Nations, the OSCE, and other
international governmental structures have taken on the responsibility
to provide the only legitimate and legalistic governmental authority
until political processes in Kosovo can be organized that will ensure
fairly and democratically elected representatives to assume office.
In the meantime, when Albanians have been efficiently freed from the
Serbian repression, there is the danger of some reversal of the
direction of repression. Namely publicly available information and
reports of KFOR, UNMIK, UNHCR and other IGO and NGO sources, clearly
indicate that what seems to be organized violence against large parts
of non-Albanian population, driven by revenge sentiments of
authoritarian individuals, groups and structures, are creating a
climate of persecution of Serbs and thus perpetrating their exodus
from Kosova. Some of these hate-and-revenge-driven groups seem to be
lightmindedly ready to challenge even the international liberators and
peacemakers in Kosova, including KFOR segments itself. Such potential
ingratitude and self-destructive recklessness simply must not be
allowed to happen.
While the world is working and trying to help Kosovars, but at the
same time carefully watching how the Kosovars will handle their
new-found freedom, this authoritarian and repressive violence against
non-Albanian population is compromising seriously the image of
Albanians as the massive victims of Serbian ethnic cleansing and
genocide; this despite new mass graves of killed Albanians being
discovered every day, the still-on-going partitioning of Mitrovica and
violence of some remaining and disguised Serbian paramilitary groups
in Kosova. Instead, full cooperation between all the relevant Kosovar
political and other factors with transitional international
authorities in Kosovo should be established without delay.
Cooperation, not confrontation, will secure Kosovo's path to a
democratic future.
It remains to be seen whether or not the people of Kosovo have the
discipline and the commitment to fairness and civil society that
democracy requires. Restraint must be exercised to fight the drive
for revenge and instead attention should be turned to a democratic
future based on full and genuine respect for human rights for all
citizens of Kosova, irrespective of ethnic and other affiliation.
Immense damage has already been done to the image of Albanians in
Kosovo in international public opinion by the ethnic violence. In
turn this could seriously slow down and severely undermine the
eagerness of the international efforts for the reconstruction and
establishment of a prosperous and democratic Kosovo. The potentially
threatening alternative would be the sliding of the long suffering
people of Kosovo into anarchy, chaos, organized crime and civil
violence.
We have denounced acts of violence and revenge against the Serbs and
Roma in Kosovo as unacceptable acts. Many of the Serbs and Roma who
have been killed, injured, and driven from their homes have had no
part whatsoever in the suffering caused by the Serbian regime in
Kosovo, and even if they had, there is no right to take the law into
one's own hands. Justice has to be done by subjecting to legal and
orderly procedures all those responsible or suspected for war crimes
in Kosovo, speedily and efficiently. Revenge-driven self-justice is
unacceptable in the democracy and rule of law toward which Kosovo
should be moving. The community cannot tolerate, cannot excuse, cannot
justify these acts which seem to copy the program of ethnic cleansing
organized by the Serb forces over the past ten years.
Those who have committed these crimes are doing unbelievable damage to
the project of building a democratic Kosovo where human rights are
respected-and they provide grounds for the anti-Albanian Russian and
Serbian propaganda about an alleged new round of ethnic cleansing in
Kosovo, protected by the international community. All the enemies of
a free and democratic Kosovo are capitalizing on these crimes and
using them to embarrass the Kosovo humanitarian intervention and its
noble objectives, Albanians themselves, and organizations-like the
IHF-that have tried to help Kosovo over the years.
These unfortunate and irresponsible actions are proving that, in the
absence of Serb oppression, the worst enemy of human rights in Kosovo
could become the Kosovars themselves. The UNMIK has been slow-much
too slow-in bringing in the necessary international police task force
to provide security and order and thus protect all the citizens of
Kosova. There has been, as a result, the formation of a
power-vacuum, in which some evil, irrational and misguided impulses
are trying to take over rule. Still, the UNMIK is not to blame.
Those who committed the crimes are to blame.
Surprisingly enough, these violent acts, with honorable, albeit
insufficient exceptions not followed by deeds, have not been denounced
strongly and systematically enough by media editorials, political and
other factors or by the self-proclaimed leaders of the community.
Instead, some leaders seem to be calculating about how to gain
popularity and power.
That is why internationals i.e. KFOR and the UNMIK, urgently must
assume a much more assertive and vigorous role in the protectorate
i.e. in Kosova, especially in the domain of security and order,
normalization of life and institution-building. The war phase in
Kosovo was successfully completed by the NATO humanitarian
intervention, and the peace phase should follow suit just as
vigorously.
Leadership that does not stand for human rights has no place in the
modern world and does not do justice to its own people, nor the
international effort to liberate and rebuild Kosovo, nor to the memory
of the victims we mourn. And leadership based on expedient personal
or group self-interest, not on the integrity of the community, is not
leadership at all. It will be a tragedy if Kosovo loses this
exceptional opportunity to build a genuinely democratic and prosperous
future based on strongest respect for human rights and rule of law
that were so tragically denied to the people of Kosovo during the
entire century.
Aaron Rhodes is Executive Director of the International Helsinki
Federation for Human Rights. Gazmend Pula is chairman of the Kosovo
Helsinki Committee.
__________________________________________________
International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights
Rummelhardtgasse 2/18
1090 VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Tel. +43-1-402 73 87 or +43-1-408 88 22
Fax +43-1-408 74 44 E-mail: [email protected]
Internet: http://www.ihf-hr.org
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