By Paul Mitchell
Fresh revelations have emerged about torture and murders carried out by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia in 1999 and the occupation that followed.
Allegations that the KLA maintained a secret network of prisons in their bases in Kosovo and neighbouring Albania were made on the BBC programmes “Crossing Continents” and “Newsnight,” broadcast April 9. This is probably the fi rst time a major news network has carried out an investigation into the claims which have been largely ignored, even suppressed, for more than a decade. According to “Crossing Continents,” the evidence reveals “another side to the confl ict which the world was not supposed to see.”
Reporter Michael Montgomery, who has spent years investigating the disappearance of thousands of ethnic Albanians, Kosovo Serbs and Roma gypsy civilians during and after the confl ict, spoke to sources, including relatives of those who died and are still missing, and former KLA soldiers.
Many still remain extremely wary talking publicly about what happened. They face intimidation and some have been killed, according to United Nations offi cials. One KLA prisoner explained, “I’ve seen a lot, people beaten, stabbed, hit with steel pipes, left without eating for 5 or 6 days. People had bullet proof vests on and were shot to see if it was working, thrown into tombs, beaten up and killed.”
“What can you feel when you see those things?” he added. “It’s something that is stuck in my mind for the rest of my life. You cannot do those things to people, not even to animals.” Eight former KLA soldiers spoke to Montgomery, some saying they were “disgusted” by the atrocities that took place and others saying that it is time to come to terms with the past now that the goal of Kosovan independence has been reached.
One described how captured Serbs and Roma civilians were hidden from passing NATO troops and probably taken across the border to Albania and killed. “Now, looking back, I know that some of the things that were done to innocent civilians were wrong. But the people who did these things act as if nothing happened, and continue to hurt their own people, Albanians.”
Another recounted how he drove trucks packed with shackled prisoners—mainly Serbian civilians—to Albania where they were tortured and killed: “I was sick. I was just waiting for it to end. It was hard. I thought we were fi ghting a war [of liberation] but this was something completely different.”
Montgomery visited the site where some of these atrocities happened - a derelict factory in the Albanian town of Kukes, which was a strategic KLA military base supplying hundreds of recruits, weapons, food and medicines— and the town of Burrel in the centre of the country, where the KLA operated a barracks.
Information about terrible activities taking place at Burrel fi rst reached the International Centre for the Red Cross in 2000 after KLA fi ghters reported that Serb civilians were taken there in 1999 and their organs removed and sold abroad for transplant operations. An investigation at a farmhouse carried out by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) found syringes, empty bottles of drugs including strong relaxants, drip bags and other surgical equipment. Human blood covered the fl oor.
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