UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Calls for Immediate Cessation of Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo

29 April 1999

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson on Friday called for an immediate end to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and for a return to diplomacy and peacemaking.

Reporting to the Commission on Human Rights on the situation in Kosovo, Mrs. Robinson said that the conflict victimizes innocent people on all sides -- Serbs as well as Kosovars. It was therefore all the more crucial and pressing that diplomacy and peacemaking be stepped up to bring about a peaceful resolution of the situation respectful of human rights precepts.

"Unless diplomacy succeeds, Kosovo will be thoroughly cleansed of Albanians while Serbs will, on present performance, be bombed without end," Mrs. Robinson said.

The High Commissioner said some essential facts were beyond dispute. From reports of deliberate destruction of the homes of the Kosovar Albanians, the destruction of their property and the looting of their personal belongings, it was hard to avoid the conclusion of a "pattern of ethnic cleansing carried out with cold-blooded determination," Mrs. Robinson said.

Meanwhile in the NATO bombing, large numbers of civilians had incontestably been killed and civilian installations targeted on the basis that they are or could be of military application, the High Commissioner said. NATO remained the sole judge of what is or is not acceptable to bomb, and in this situation, the principle of proportionality must be adhered to by those carrying out the bombing campaign, she noted.

Mrs. Robinson said that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had made it clear that, it had jurisdiction over events in the Federal Republic, including Kosovo. The Prosecutor could investigate war crimes committed by any of the parties to the conflict. The actions of individuals belonging to Serb forces, the KLA, or NATO might therefore come under scrutiny, if it appeared that there had been serious violations of international humanitarian law.

The High Commissioner also announced that she would travel to the Balkans on Sunday to make a first-hand appraisal of the human rights issues and also to assess the co-ordination of the monitoring of human rights violations.