UNMIK/PR/805
Today PDSRSG Charles Brayshaw visited the municipalities of Kline/Klina and Istog/Istok as well as two small communities to which displaced Kosovo Serbs have been returning.
Mr. Brayshaw used the occasion to introduce Ms. Peggy Hicks, the new Director of the UNMIK Office of Returns and Communities. General Walter La Valle, commander of MNB-West also participated in the delegation.
With Klina municipal assembly president Rame Manaj and later with community leaders in the village of Shtuplj, Mr. Brayshaw discussed progress on the issue of missing persons. Earlier last week, Mr. Manaj had met with UNMIK Missing Persons Unit chief Jose-Pablo Baraybar in Pristina
“There was not great success in establishing the fate of individuals in the past,” Mr. Brayshaw said. “We have made it a much higher priority.”
He noted the re-organization of the missing persons unit, the work of the Orahovac forensics facility and the ongoing provision of death certificates to families of victims previously examined by ICTY investigators. He said that more information should be available in the coming months and families would be notified as soon as possible.
Regarding Mr. Manaj’s statement on the possibility that Kosovo Albanians remain imprisoned in Serbia, Mr. Brayshaw said: “We’re not confident this information is reliable. Some criminal elements are seeking to use the anxiety of families to exploit them economically with false rumours. If we receive information we think reliable we will pursue it aggressively.”
In his talks with community leaders, Mr. Brayshaw emphasized the importance of working together to establish a legal system in which all people could have faith. “The tragedies which occurred here were the result of no rule of law. We have the best chance for the future if everyone understands the need for the rule of law.”
Regarding the crimes of the past, he said that ‘we’re committed to prosecute those we identify as responsible, but only on the basis of the rule of law…We will not proceed against one community but against individuals, without regard to ethnic background. We’ve carried out cases against numbers of people and our record stands on its own … To place political conditionality on trials is not good for the people of Kosovo.”
Mr. Brayshaw noted the growing acceptance of democratic principles in Kosovo, but noted that “only with participation by all Kosovo’s people in political and economic life will Kosovo progress,”
“All people must recognize there are many communities here and they must live in a society where all groups are respected, integrated and working together to the future…”
On the economy, Mr. Brayshaw said that Kosovo has new legal bases for working toward privatization and investment. But he cautioned that some past enterprises had been established to meet short-term political goals: “As we approach privatization, only those investments seen to have real economic possibilities will be reactivated.”
In Bice, (northern Klina) where some 24 Kosovo Serbs have returned to rebuild their destroyed houses over the last three weeks, Mr. Brayshaw and Mr. Manaj told returnees that all residents had equal rights to live and use services in the community.
Mr. Brayshaw stressed that beyond the physical infrastructure, residents must also rebuild the psychological infrastructure, “which was as destroyed as these houses.”
“Everyone must reach out psychologically to understand what their neighbors went through as well as themselves…As you rebuild your houses, think of what you can do to rebuild your community-- not just the 45 families who lived here, but everyone living in this region…”
The PDSRSG went on the Osojanje (Istok), a destroyed village where reconstruction began one year ago. Currently 250 Kosovo Serb residents have returned, including 40 school children. Some 60 residents still live in containers awaiting housing. More houses, a church and a secondary school are their current priorities, explained community leader Gojko Djuric, as well as jobs for young people and freedom of movement. Farming has resumed, but only in the five by three kilometer safety zone.
Ms. Hicks enjoined the community leaders to reach out to outlying Kosovo Albanian communities in order to ensure that returns would be sustainable.
Finally, the delegation met with Istog/Istok municipal president Fadil Ferati: among issues discussed were his efforts to bring majority and minority children together.
