In Kosova, Signs of Massacres and a Cover-Up (NY Times)

By DAVID ROHDE

HALLAC, Kosova -- After weeks of unconfirmed reports from traumatized refugees, the first direct evidence that Serbian forces carried out mass killings in Kosova -- and have tried to cover them up -- emerged Sunday at this village, where freshly turned dirt lies just feet from a wall pocked with 10 bullet holes.

A month ago Albanian refugees who fled this village reported that Serbian irregulars had killed 46 people during a two-day rampage in mid-April here and in a nearby hamlet, Ribar.

The signs of recent digging here, along with accounts from villagers who stayed behind, indicate that a mass grave as well as individual graves have been excavated and the bodies reburied. Two dozen burned-out houses in the area also stand as evidence of an attack.

Benjamin P. Ward, an investigator with Human Rights Watch who has been collecting witness accounts of the attacks in the area, said the scene corroborates what he has heard.

"It represents one of the first direct confirmations of witness statements describing the killings of civilians," he said. "Now we have the first evidence confirming that it has happened."

Residents said that in early May the local police exhumed a mass grave holding the bodies of 20 men, carried out autopsies on the victims and then ordered villagers to rebury the bodies in individual graves in the local cemetery.

In nearby Ribar, 26 individual graves of people killed in an attack by irregulars were exhumed, the bodies examined and then reburied, residents said.

Reburying bodies in individual graves and producing autopsies giving an explanation for the killings could make it more difficult to prove in court that the dead had been executed rather than killed in fighting.

Villagers also said that in the days before NATO forces entered Kosova, Yugoslav officials transferred as many as 1,500 Albanians from the prison in the nearby town of Lipljan to a jail inside Serbia proper.

Ejup Pajazi, a 56-year-old taxi driver released from the prison on Saturday, said he was told that the prisoners were taken to a jail in the city of Nis in southern Serbia. He said he did not know why he was not transferred as well.

Pajazi's allegation could not be confirmed, and a guard at the prison, which appeared quiet Sunday afternoon, said its warden was not in.

Other Albanians released from the prison were expelled by Serbian forces to Macedonia last week, saying they were rounded up after NATO air strikes began and accused of having ties to the Kosova Liberation Army. But none have crossed the border in recent days.

Severe beatings to force confessions were a daily occurrence, the former prisoners said.

In Hallac, there is a 10-foot-by-30-foot patch of freshly turned earth in an empty lot, which villagers said once held the bodies of 20 people killed by Serbian irregulars.

Two men's shoes and what appeared to be a twisted and torn shirt lay on the surface of the dark soil, presumably dug up in early May.

Villagers, who gave accounts supporting those given by refugees last month, said the killings in Hallac occurred on April 19. A dozen Serbian irregulars lined up 13 people and shot them in a vacant lot, they said. The victims included a 23-year-old father of two shot in the face after he repeatedly asked to be released, they added. Two men are reported to have survived.

Nine other men were killed in their homes, the villagers said.

Hafize Gashi, 19, gave a painstaking tour of the killing ground around her home. Her father, she said, was killed in the garden, one uncle was shot beside the well, another was shot in front of his adjacent home, and a 26-year-old cousin and a 70-year-old uncle were killed inside Ms. Gashi's home. The irregulars then lit the bodies on fire, she said.

Standing in the charred remains of the family living room, she pointed out what appeared to be a charred human knee joint lying on the floor. "We tried to gather all of the bones for burial," she said.

The irregulars forced local Gypsies to bury all 20 bodies together, villagers said. Police officers from Lipljan then arrived on May 2 and ordered exhumation of the graves.

Blaming the killings on irregulars they could not control, the police officers said the victims should be buried properly. But they barred the villagers from burying all 20 victims side by side in a long row in the graveyard, the villagers said.

Sunday, 20 fresh graves could be seen scattered in clusters in various parts of the community cemetery.

A few miles up the road in the hamlet of Ribar, 26 fresh graves could be seen in the cemetery. The victims there included men, women, children and the elderly, according to the grave markers.

Among them were a 7-year-old girl and her 73-year-old grandfather, shot by irregulars as they ran across a field to escape, residents said.

Villagers' accounts of the attack, which they said occurred on April 18, a day before the Hallac attack, also supported those of refugees who fled into Macedonia last month.

Shemsije Vishesella, a 38-year-old widow still wearing a bandage on her jaw -- which had been shattered by a bullet -- led two reporters on a tour of the gutted home where her two sons and husband were killed.

Standing in the living room in a daze, she described how the family was going through its morning routine when shots rang out outside, signaling the arrival of the Serbian irregulars. "My husband said, 'Don't be afraid,' " she recalled. "He said, 'They are coming but don't be afraid.' "

The irregulars kicked the door in and hustled her husband and their sons, 14 and 17, outside. She was led outside too and found each of them lying face down on the ground. As she showed where each one lay that morning, she stroked the grass as if she were stroking their hair.

Ordered by the irregulars to leave, she hid behind a fence, peered into the yard and was spotted and shot at. When the bullet hit her jaw, she passed out. The irregulars, she was later told, then shot her husband and sons dead, she said, as they lay beneath apple and cherry trees in the family garden.