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OSCE says no sign of mass burnings found in Kosovo
By FISNIK ABRASHI
Associated Press Writer
January 26, 2001
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Investigators found no evidence that
would substantiate a report that forces loyal to former Yugoslav
leader Slobodan Milosevic burned the bodies of hundreds of ethnic
Albanians in a blast furnace before pulling out of Kosovo, an
international organization said Friday.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was
reacting to a report aired Thursday by National Public Radio.
Prepared by American Radio Works, the documentary unit of Minnesota
Public Radio, the report included interviews with men who said they
were involved in a clandestine operation intended to cover up
atrocities that could lead to war crimes charges.
They said up to 1,500 bodies were burned at the Trepca lead
refinery, accounting for about half the Kosovo Albanians still
missing more than 1 1/2 years after Milosevic's forces pulled out
of the province.
Rumors of such mass burnings have circulated since the pullout
in mid-1999.
"Our people have had a report of this, but they found no
evidence to substantiate it," OSCE spokeswoman Claire Trevena
said.
Along with the United Nations and NATO, the 55-nation
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe plays a key
role in running Kosovo.
Trevena said a French forensic team with sophisticated equipment
called to search for remains of any bodies at Trepca found nothing
there.
At the time of the investigation, in the latter half of 1999,
senior French police officials in Kosovo said the furnace at Trepca
had stopped operating shortly after the start of the crackdown on
Kosovo Albanians in late March and remained unused beyond the time
Milosevic's forces pulled out.
Ashes at the site examined by the team also showed no traces
that would back up the reports, they said.
In Thursday's radio report, the men, identified only by their
first names, said bodies were unearthed from freshly dug graves
later identified by NATO satellites gathering evidence of possible
Serb atrocities in Kosovo.
Milosevic is under indictment by the U.N. tribunal at The Hague,
Netherlands, for alleged involvement in the Kosovo atrocities. But
the new Yugoslav leadership refuses to extradite him.
At The Hague, Graham Blewitt, the U.N. tribunal's deputy
prosecutor, said tribunal investigations at the Trepca mine also
"couldn't confirm" bodies had been disposed of by burning but
suggested it was extremely difficult using traditional methods to
arrive at a definite conclusion.
(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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