Dogs and Bones

The invitation was extended by the Institute for forensic medicine and “approved” by the Yugoslav foreign ministry. Last Tuesday, the European Union replied that experts from Finland and other EU countries would come to Gornje Obrinje and other locations where atrocities have reportedly occurred.

Doctor Branimir Aleksandric, a member of a medical team that identified 34 bodies found near Djakovica, says that his colleagues from Helsinki have not sent an official reply yet. In spite of claims by Serbian police that they will investigate reports blaming the massacre on special forces that fought in the area of Cicavica, there is still no evidence that an investigation has actually started. Unofficial and unreliable reports say that special forces never actually entered the area, either because it was full of mines or because they could not find it.

Meanwhile, public attention here and abroad has been diverted by NATO threats to launch air strikes against Yugoslavia, encouraging Serbian police to “forget” about the promised investigations concerning a number of reported massacres.

Last week’s discovery of a graveyard in an abandoned mine pit near Volujak was helped by dogs who started dragging away the bones of the victims. Like Klecka, Glodjane and Rznic, Volujak was a KLA stronghold. The Kosovo Information Centre credited the Serbian authorities with the discovery of the graveyard, saying that they had exhumed and buried four ethnic Albanians killed on May 18 in Grabanica. The investigating judge, Veselin Cadjenovic, posed for a photo with the bones of the victims and promised that forensic experts from Pristina would take part in the investigation.

When they found human bones in Klecka, the Pristina forensic experts produced nothing more than promises that international teams would take part in the identification of Serb victims.

It is the competence of any investigating judge to choose experts to investigate crimes of this nature. The trouble with the Volujak case is that it came at a time when the Serb authorities were inviting CSCE officials, Kofi Annan, Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin to come here and avert a military intervention.

The international community has made it clear that its representatives would go to all locations where atrocities had reportedly been committed only once they have been positively identified and conditions have been created for their safe arrival. Without much doubt, this was a heavy blow for the Serbian authorities in their attempt to prove to the rest of the world that they are up against terrorism in Kosovo.

There is no particular message. There is also no point in asking why all those fighting for “sacred Serbian land” haven’t invested any efforts to identify perpetrators of atrocities in Kosovo. They are in control all the time, while forensic experts are on stand by.