Source: http://www.hrw.org/hrw/reports/1999/glogovac/ Table of Contents / Previous Page / Next Page
FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA
"ETHNIC CLEANSING" IN THE GLOGOVAC MUNICIPALITY On the way to the bus station...a police
officer said to me: Poklek is a relatively wealthy village with two parts - old and new - located on the outskirts of Glogovac. The KLA has been active in and around the area since at least March 1998. Thus, the village has suffered a fair amount of damage, as well as human rights violations, over the past year. A damage assessment conducted for the European Union by the International Management Group in January 1999, determined that 40 percent of New Poklek's (Novi Poklek, or Poklek I Ri in Albanian) seventy houses had been damaged, while 47.6 percent of Old Poklek's (Stari Poklek, or Poklek e Vjetër in Albanian) 164 had been damaged.36 The most serious human rights violation during 1998 took place on May 31 when an estimated 300 special police forces attacked Novi Poklek. Ten local ethnic Albanians were seized that day during the attack; one of them (Ardian Deliu) was later found dead, while the nine others have never been found.37 Poklek remained a dangerous place up until March 1999 because of the presence of Serbian forces in the nearby Feronikl plant. Many villagers had moved to Glogovac or to the neighboring village of Vasiljevo a few kilometers away. A Human Rights Watch researcher visited Vasiljevo in June 1998 and encountered the KLA. None of the abuses that took place in and around Poklek throughout 1998 compare to what happened on Saturday, April 17, 1999, in the old part of the village. According to numerous testimonies, including one survivor, at least forty-seven people were forced into one room and systematically gunned down by a single Serbian police officer or paramilitary. The precise number of dead is unknown, although it is certain that twenty-three children under the age of fifteen died in the attack.38 A Human Rights Watch researcher visited the site of the killings - the house of Sinan Muqolli - on June 25, 1999. The house had been largely burned (which was consistent with witness testimony). The room where the killing took place had bullet marks along the walls and bullet casings from a large-caliber weapon on the floor. The basement below the room had dried blood stains dripping from the ceiling and walls, and a large pool of dried blood on the floor. Surviving family members displayed a cardboard box containing some of the bones allegedly collected from the room and showed us the nearby well where they claimed some of the bodies had been dumped. Human Rights Watch first heard about the Poklek killing on May 8 from a member of the Muqolli family, F.M., who was in the Cegrane refugee camp in Macedonia. The thirty-nine-year-old woman told Human Rights Watch that the police had attacked Poklek on April 17, a rainy day, around 6:00 a.m. She said: The police were first based in the Gorani family compound. The massacre took place about 150 meters from there. At 8:30 a.m. the shooting began. We were running away in a field toward Glogovac. Sometimes we stopped for the group to gather. The police were in a Zastava 101, white jeeps, and a grey Niva. We made it finally to Glogovac, but a second group behind us was blocked by the police and sent back.39 F.M. stayed in Glogovac for eight days before going back to Poklek. When she returned to her village with a cousin, four members of the group that had been turned back eight days before told her what had happened on April 17: They said that they went into the house of Sinan Muqolli. "You will change your clothes here," Sinan told them. "You will be safe here." The police entered and the children screamed. Sinan said, "Don't scream because they won't hurt you." The police counted sixty-four people and said, "Don't leave the house because we have counted you. If you want to save these people, then bring us four people from the UCK." Sinan said he has two sons in Germany and their wives are here. The police asked why all of these women were there. "Where are the men?" they asked. F.M's story is largely corroborated by a fifty-five-year-old member of the Muqolli family who was in Sinan's house and survived the attack. His detailed and damning testimony, as told to Human Rights Watch, is presented here in its entirety: Something happened that you can see nowhere. I think it was April 17. It was Saturday . They [the police] came from the hill. They had tanks and a car. They just started to shoot. We didn't know where to go, but we tried to go to Glogovac. They saw us and came with three cars to the house there [indicates a house close to the town], and they told us, "Just go back, because nothing is going to happen in Poklek." When we came back, they started shooting in the air. We came back and gathered together, four brothers. There
were seven of us. We wanted to stay together. We stayed there all day. At about 5:00 in
the evening they came. Sinan opened the door for them. They told us to get out, all of us.
We went outside. They asked us, "Do you have guns?" We said no. Then they told
us to go inside. We went inside. Then he [sic] called Sinan and Ymer, and he took them out
and killed them. The women started to scream. I was trying to tell the women, "No,
no, they are just shooting in the air." That night, when it got dark, we went out and saw that they had burned the houses, not once, but twice. We were trying to go to the village Vasiljevo. We stayed that night in Vasiljevo, and after four days we came back and found Sinan and Ymer who had been burned and thrown in the well. There are others who were killed and put in the well. They found the mother of Ymer, killed her and put her in the well. Halim was killed, and they put him in the well too. We were trying not to disturb the remains and to hide them from the police. ... Twenty-three or more [of those killed] were children between six and thirteen. Some old women around sixty years old [were also killed]. I lost a daughter, a three-year-old, two nephews - a three-year-old andten-month-old - and a big daughter, twenty-one. There are thirty-four victims from the families of two of my brothers. There was a daughter of my cousin and three children and sister-in-law.40 In response to a question about the identity of the perpetrator, referred to in his testimony only as "he," R.M. responded: I didn't recognize him, but he was uniformed, like a policeman. It was the same man who told us to go outside and go back home. The same man who dropped the bodies in the well. It was one man who threw the bombs and shot. It was the same person who did all of this. List of those believed dead in Poklek (all Muqolli family members, unless otherwise noted): 1. Sinan, m, 55 *************** 36 "Assessment of Damaged Buildings and Local Infrastructure in Kosovo," International Management Group, January 1999. 37 Human Rights Watch, Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1998), pp. 33-37. 38 A list given to Human Rights Watch by Muqolli family members in a Macedonian refugee camp on May 8 had forty-four names and seven unknown victims, while a list given to Human Rights Watch in Poklek on June 25 had forty-eight names. The list presented in this report contains only the names of those who appear on both lists. Media accounts have cited other figures, such as fifty-two (The Irish Times, June 18) and sixty-two (Associated Press, June 17). 39 Human Rights Watch interview with F.M., Cegrane refugee camp, Macedonia, May 8, 1999. 40 Human Rights Watch interview with R.M., Stari Poklek, June 25, 1999. |
Document compiled by Dr S D Stein