THE international prosecutor for the Balkans revealed yesterday that investigators had exhumed more than 2,000 bodies in Kosovo and identified 529 grave sites, but she said that there may never be a full "census of the dead".
Carla del Ponte, who was recently appointed to oversee war crimes prosecutions in the Balkans and Rwanda, told the United Nations Security Council that attempts had been made to hide the evidence of atrocities and that many bodies had been burnt.Nevertheless, investigators with the international tribunal in The Hague had completed work at 195 of the 529 grave sites in which 4,256 bodies are said to have been buried. To date, 2,108 bodies have been dug up.
"The figures themselves may not tell the whole story and we would not expect the forensic evidence in isolation to produce a definitive total," Ms del Ponte said.
Unconfirmed estimates by humanitarian agencies have put the total number killed in the three-month war much higher than the forensic teams have so far been able to reach. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said it believed the total was not lower than 4,600, based on painstaking interviews with refugees during the war and in its immediate aftermath.
Since the conflict, a controversy has grown up over estimates of the number of people killed. Although initial reports spoke of mass graves, Ms del Ponte said her investigators had found a pattern of "a large number of relatively small sites".
She said: "We do not, typically, find hundreds of people buried together. A few sites did contain the remains of approximately 100 people, but often the number is much smaller and sometimes the reports of victims buried are not borne out at all."
The tribunal has publicly indicted 91 suspected war criminals, but only 34 have been taken into custody. Ms del Ponte denounced Belgrade's "total defiance" of UN demands to surrender the accused, adding that Croatia was also failing to co-operate.

>>>By Hairy mary ( - 216.34.56.10) on Wednesday, June 28, 2000 - 07:26 am:
IGOR..Read with great interest your posting on the captives. I find it absolutly tragic how little respect for life (especialy for whites) these lowlife Muslim criminals have. Whether it be Chechnya, Afganistan, remember the PLO or the Middle East. Also let us not forget all the plane hijackings when the hijackers, hiding behind masks, tortured, killed innocent people and blew up planes, or when these same cowards blew up business establishments in major city centers, causing severe injuries if not death to again, innocent passerbys. All in the name of ALLAH and the Jihad? Bull sh'ite, that's just an excuse. It's in their blood.

Their all farcan animals and deserve to be treated, if not today, than someday in a manner in which they understand. Maybe by the families of those that these lowly, gutless Muslim cowards tortured and/or killed in captivity. >>>

You are falling into a trap by generalising.

I wonder if you had ever met with a muslim person, and had a meaningful discussion?

Just because USA is a country with one of the highest rate of murder in the world, should I say all americans are gutless murderers? Or, since most of the prostitutes are from Christian denomination, should I say every christian woman is a prostitute?

If you don't agree with my generalisation, you should avoid making similar generalisations for Muslims. Where did you get the idea that Islam condones criminal behaviour?

On the contrary, real muslims believe in the day of Judgement, when all sins shall be punished by the hell fire. How can a muslim commit any crime against other humans, if he is a believer. By definition, if he is not a believer, than he is not a Muslim.

Please don't be emotional, but try to be logical.

Recent Albanian violence in Kosovo has cast a shadow over KFOR's efforts to repatriate Serb refugees.
By Radosa Milutinovic in Kosovska Mitrovica (BCR No. 149, 16-June-00)
Sheltered in the mountains 30 miles east of Pristina, Slivovo appears empty and desolate. A KFOR military encampment sits atop a plateau overlooking the village. Alliance helicopters circle the area continuously
Slivovo is one of a cluster of villages in central Kosovo abandoned by most of their Serb residents in June 1999 following the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from the province. KFOR is now attempting to encourage the refugees to return by securing the area.
But within the last two weeks Operation Trojan has been jeopardised by a spate of ethnic violence across Kosovo, which has left eight Serbs dead and a dozen injured. In the ethnically-mixed village of Cernica in south-east Kosovo, for example, three people died, including a four-year-old boy, in a drive by shooting on June 4.
The upsurge in violence has undermined Serbian confidence in the international forces' ability to protect them. Most of the unrest has occurred outside central Kosovo, but the area has not escaped the troubles.
Major Mathew McDonald, the Canadian officer in charge of planning for Operation Trojan, had already indicated the need to relocate the Gracanica market, where on June 6 unknown assailants lobbed a hand grenade into a group of Serbs, injuring three people.
During a subsequent protest by local Serbs, KFOR troops guarding the zone commander, General Richard Shireff, shot and wounded a demonstrator.
Shireff, who has been praised by some Serb community leaders for his efforts to improve safety in central Kosovo, said of the attacks, "I have no difficulties in describing what I have seen in the last two days as terrorism."
"We are engaged in solving problems such as freedom of movement, communications, health services, education and trade," Shireff said. "[Operation] Trojan is supposed to increase the security level and quality of life for Serbs in the zone of our responsibility."
Prior to the latest wave of violence, Father Sava, one of the leaders of the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija, said the association fully supported Operation Trojan. After the Gracanica events, the SNC suspended co-operation with the international administration. Council president, Bishop Artimje, said many in the Serb community were boycotting his colleagues "almost as if we were guilty of the victims."
McDonald insisted, however, that Operation Trojan had brought considerable improvements for the Serb community. "We noticed at checkpoints that the roads were only being used by Albanians," McDonald said. "Serbs from Kosovo Polje were using strange roundabout routes to get to Gracanica. So we decided to work out where Serbs wanted to go to and when, not only to provide an escort, but to repair the roads."
As a result, KFOR has built around 20 km of roads between the various Serb communities and is also working on a rail link from Lipljan to Kosovo Polje and onto Zvecan, McDonald said.
In the last two weeks, bus routes had been re-established to Gracanica and Mitrovica, two larger Serb enclaves. Phone lines now work between Caglavica, Laplje Selo and Gracanica, and via radio relay with Kosovo Polje and Pristina.
One Slivovo resident, Stana Simic, welcomed the new bus routes. "I went to Gracanica yesterday to phone my children. I hope they will return to live here like before. I told them it is safe here and that we have no problems," Stana said. "We get along well with the army."
In addition to providing escorts for farmers out in their fields, McDonald said KFOR has introduced a radar system called Coyote to monitor the area at night. Any suspicious signals are investigated by helicopter patrols. "We recently discovered a group of people trying to bury automatic rifles and mortars," McDonald said.
Captian Tom Bateman of the Scottish Dragoons leads a joint British-Swedish force, of just over a hundred men, which patrols the wider forested area between the Gracanica and Pristina municipalities. There are six Serbian villages in the area, including Slivovo, surrounded by Albanian communities.
"Our initial aim is to return 15 Serbian families to Slivovo from Gracanica where they are now," Bateman said. "Also a dozen men come every day to Perovici village, under our protection, to prepare houses for their own return."
Bateman said he was sure the KFOR troops in his area had the security situation under control.
Stojna Marinkovic from Slivovo said it seems the villagers are free to go where they want nowadays. But she added, "I still keep close [to home] unless my husband goes with me."
Marinkovic fled Slivovo on June 19 last year along with virtually all the other villagers. Her son Goran, 19, disappeared the same day in the near-by village of Labljani. She returned three weeks later, escorted by Swedish K-for soldiers.
"Perhaps there are Serbs with blood on their hands and they are afraid to come back. My son was not guilty. He was a victim. If he had been guilty he would have escaped immediately. He wouldn't have stayed," Marinkovic said.
Danijela Pavic, 18, returned to Slivovo this February. Danijela, like many who fled Slivovo, ended up in Smederovo in Serbia, where she lived for 10 months. "We didn't have our own houses there so we came back," she said. "We feel safe here now."
Bateman hopes that word will get back to others in Smederovo and that people will start thinking about returning home. He said a medical surgery, school and distribution centre were soon to be opened in a house near the KFOR military camp.
Shireff believes the priority at the moment is for people who want to return, to come back and see for themselves whether they think the situation is secure.

Radosa Milutinovic is an IWPR contributor.

THX 1138
When comparing the state of affairs in Eastern and Western Europe, you seem to forget one monumentally paramount flaw: The party dictation which Soviet Russia adhered to presented a greater threat to individualism than any apocalyptic nightmare a corporation could ever induce. I see that you use many themes from Mr. Lucas' film. The greatest one I found to contradict your own sentiment is the fact that Soviet Russia had a greater emphasis on the greater entity (nation, or rather party dictation) than individualism. If you say the American corporations oppressed the Europeans more than an authoritarian regime, you've contradicted your entire notion. The least you could have stated was that Europe was forced into equally undesirable outcomes. To me, this argumentation upon your behalf is foolishly one-sided.

TURK

I agree, indeed there is good and bad elements within any society and generalizations cannot be made by the actions of some. However, you mis-understood the msg. If you take another look at my posting, I believe it to be quite clear that I am only refering to the criminal elements within the Muslim faith "funde-MENTAL-ist" who seek to cause harm to those "who they assume to be" non believers to be exploited, raped, beaten, sodomized, tortured, maimed, blown out of the sky, ransomed, murdered etc. All of which is subject to the approval of ALLAH who promises marterdom for those partaking in the Great Jihad against all evil, non believing, white westerners. No generalization here, just the truth which cannot be denied.

TURK

Wondering if you know of any Christian groups kidnapping Muslims for ransom or have you ever heard of a Westernor hijacking or blowing up a Middle East owned aircraft with passengers on board, or raiding an oceanliner and picking out Muslims to be executed, can you provide examples of Westerner Christians declaring a "JIHAD" on Muslims. I can go on and on. Hopefully you'll take off your blinders and see the truth for what it is.

Now don't you be so emotional on us...just face the facts as current history clearly bears out.

Hairy,

I will not call you Mary as you are polluting the name of great biblical personality

The western history is nothing but rape, genocide, environmental catostrophe and nuclear holocast. Ask the natives in several continents. Thank God the two world wars were not against so called fundamentalists. Europeans were at the forefront of the most brutal wars in history of mankind and this Hairy idiot tells us that there are no westerners involved in crime. They are involved in the crimes against humanity that has no parallel in history. Even in Chechnya the rapist Clinton is supporting the genocide of the Russian bandits

mr. djuma:
the word 'genocide' is sorely misused enough as it is: "Russian bandits" do not 'qualify' as a 'race' of their own. don't be ridiculous.
==
igor:
filled up the tank today at $1.61 per gallon, the lowest price i can find in the immediate area.cost me over $26.00 to fill that baby up. oy...
my band is playing at a festival in another state this saturday; round trip gas costs will be at least $75.00; perhaps closer to $100.00....quite a bit more than we are likely to be paid for playing.
==
suleyman:
consider this in deference to the respect others here have shown you.

i didn't ignore your note/questions; i didn't like the way it was 'framed' by you. as such, i was not sure what your objective was, and not inclined to respond.
i know more american history than you apparently think;
as for war....um, no. my father was a high-ranking, combat-decorated officer in the USMC; 'low top brass', to use such a phrase. this goes far towards explaining why we do not communicate w/each other, and why we live on opposite coasts of this country. i learned as much about war as i could stand, thank you, having grown up in the marines.
==
and finally, bernsteeen/antonio [again].
what a sad excuse for a life these individuals must have, to leave [for not nearly long enough] and subsequently return, spouting [or is that _mewling_] exactly the same long-discredited rubbish. get a fookin' _life_, gentlemen.

toss in mr.djuma and y'all would still need one more to play bridge.
any takers?

MY POOR MIS-GUIDED DJUMA:

Please re-read my posting of 12:27 as it relates to CURRENT HISTORY and provide answers to the questions as presented. Thank you.

Better yet..BLIND MAN, I'll answer them for you. You can't find cases of people from the west performing these disaterly activities against Muslims MENTALIST under the guise of religion "JIHAD" in the annuals of current history or events. But be assured, when the MENTALIST violate the laws of international society and humanity, when possible, we prosecute their stinky asses. Hopefully, when incarcerated, their fellow inmates will provide them the same hospitality they extended westerns when they were hijacked and/or kidnapped for ransom. Side bar, this unwarranted, so called "JIHAD" will not continue, the world is fed up.
MARY, MARY, MARY, MARY, MARY, MARY, MARY, MARY
ps: Did you curb your camel today?

AND FURTHER MORE DJUMA

MARY MARY MARY MARY MARY MARY MARY MARY MARY MARY is my name and on behalf of the innocent revenge is my game. No I'm not one of those poor Muslim women who are abused and surpressed by their MENTALIST husbands. Rather I am a free standing liberated western women who will stand up and fight for the rights of Muslim women who are subjected to the disasterly coward MENTALIST scondrals of this world.

Enough said, now go plug that leak in your head.

AND FURTHER MORE DJUMA

MARY MARY MARY MARY MARY MARY MARY MARY MARY MARY is my name and on behalf of the innocent revenge is my game. No I'm not one of those poor Muslim women who are abused and surpressed by their MENTALIST husbands. Rather I am a free standing liberated western women who will stand up and fight for the rights of Muslim women who are subjected to the disasterly coward MENTALIST scondrals of this world.

Enough said, now go plug that slow leak in your head.

Hairy,

'Liberated' to sell your charms to the mankind. Don't try to sympathize with Muslim women who are treated lot better than the so called liberated women in the west who are constant object of abuse and are used as mere commodity in the western 'markets' to sell 'their' products. Jih

Djuma,
Muslim women who are treated alot better than western women? Do they have the freedom to wear whatever they want, the freedom to choose relationships they want, the jobs they want, treated as an equal, when was the last time a women of western society was stoned by an angry mob for commiting adultry? Is a muslim women in the east able to attain an equal education as her male captor?

"""Don't try to sympathize with Muslim women products... """


Or what??? You gonna try to give Mary some spanking? Drop the commanding tone, urod - who the hell listens to you here anyway? [rhetorical]

By drake ( - 128.101.39.28) on Tuesday, June 27, 2000 - 08:29 pm:
o.k. when
how about anti-american pluralistic crap 🙂