Missing persons' families protest to UNMIK

The Association of Families of Missing and Kidnapped Kosovo Serbs has sent a protest note to UNMIK Chief Lamberto Zannier. In it they protest at the fact that the international mission has done nothing in the past ten years to resolve the issue of kidnapped and missing Serbs and other non-Albanians in the province. Missing persons' families protest to UNMIK Association representatives handed the letter to Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic today and asked him to present it to Zannier, who is due to visit Belgrade on Thursday. The relatives of Serbs kidnapped or listed as missing in Kosovo between 1998 and 1999 point out in the letter that Association representatives outlined their problems and made specific demands at their meeting with Zannier in September last year. During the meeting, they were given strong assurances, just like many times before, that international representatives would look carefully into the matter, but, as is pointed out in the letter, not one of the Association’s demands has been fulfilled in the meantime. “In spite of the fact that a list with the first and last names of 300 kidnappers and perpetrators of crimes has been presented to UNMIK and the Hague Tribunal, no one has been tried for the crimes so far, not even in terms of command responsibility,” it is stated in the letter. “On the contrary, these people are now top officials and UNMIK is cooperating with them, although for most of them there is evidence and witnesses that can prove that they, or their subordinates, are responsible for the abduction of over 1,000 and the murder of 2,500 Serbs and other non-Albanians,” the Association claims. “The families of kidnapped and murdered Serbs are angry at the fact that UNMIK has done nothing in the past ten years, ever since their loved ones were expelled from their homes, and that the property of these poor people, which ethnic Albanians have seized and are now using without any right, has not been returned to them. In the meantime, they are now forced to fight for survival in woods and hovels, having received no kind of compensation whatsoever,” the letter to Zannier concludes. Lamberto Zannier (Tanjug, archive)

Missing persons' families protest to UNMIK

Association representatives handed the letter to Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić today and asked him to present it to Zannier, who is due to visit Belgrade on Thursday.

The relatives of Serbs kidnapped or listed as missing in Kosovo between 1998 and 1999 point out in the letter that Association representatives outlined their problems and made specific demands at their meeting with Zannier in September last year.

During the meeting, they were given strong assurances, just like many times before, that international representatives would look carefully into the matter, but, as is pointed out in the letter, not one of the Association’s demands has been fulfilled in the meantime.

“In spite of the fact that a list with the first and last names of 300 kidnappers and perpetrators of crimes has been presented to UNMIK and the Hague Tribunal, no one has been tried for the crimes so far, not even in terms of command responsibility,” it is stated in the letter.

“On the contrary, these people are now top officials and UNMIK is cooperating with them, although for most of them there is evidence and witnesses that can prove that they, or their subordinates, are responsible for the abduction of over 1,000 and the murder of 2,500 Serbs and other non-Albanians,” the Association claims.

“The families of kidnapped and murdered Serbs are angry at the fact that UNMIK has done nothing in the past ten years, ever since their loved ones were expelled from their homes, and that the property of these poor people, which ethnic Albanians have seized and are now using without any right, has not been returned to them. In the meantime, they are now forced to fight for survival in woods and hovels, having received no kind of compensation whatsoever,” the letter to Zannier concludes.