Time for eULeX To prioriTize war crimes - Amnesty International ...

Kosovo: Time for EULEX to prioritize war crimes 29
3. Improve communication between units through regular coordination meetings and
evaluation of action plans.
Amnesty International considers that the handover process should be prolonged until
sufficient trained and experienced local staff can be appointed, including, in particular,
forensic scientists with the requisite skills for complex exhumations and the identification of
mortal remains.
POLITICAL WILL
Amnesty International is also concerned that there is insufficient political and budgetary
support from the government of Kosovo for the work of the DFM in the recovery of mortal
remains.
Whilst the Kosovo government should, as in other countries in the region, assume
responsibility for missing persons, the families of missing ethnic Albanians continue to assert
that prior to the recently adopted Law on Missing Persons, the previous government
Commission for Missing Persons had failed to respect the rights of the relatives, or prioritize
their needs. Further, with the exception of Hajredin Kuçi, Minister of Justice and Deputy
Prime Minister, who had supported the provision on new equipment and laboratories at the
DFM, the organization does not consider that the government has shown sufficient political
support for either the relatives or the process of recovering the bodies of the missing. It is to
be hoped that the new Commission, created under the Law on Missing Persons, receives
more political support.
Members of the government also have a role to play in encouraging witnesses to come
forward to help with the identification of burial sites, irrespective of the ethnic identity of the
victims. However, in an interview with the Deputy Minister of Justice in October 2011, it was
made clear to Amnesty International that he was only concerned with the recovery of the
bodies of ethnic Albanians still believed to be buried in Serbia.
As already noted, the whereabouts of some 450 out of 499 missing Serbs, Roma and
members of other minority groups, as well as ethnic Albanians, believed to have been
abducted by the KLA, are still to be established.
The lack of criminal investigations into these abductions has (see section 4) is due in part to
the failure of witness to come forward with information relating to the whereabouts of their
relatives’ mortal remains. Their whereabouts will not be established until conditions are
created that will enable witnesses to alleged crimes by the KLA are safely, and without fear of
retribution, able to come forward to provide information on potential locations of grave sites.
A demonstration of political will by members of the government is needed to ensure that all
mortal remains, including those of Serbs and other minorities, are recovered and returned to
their families.
To this end, the DFM, in their Annual Report for 2011 calls on the Office of the Prime
Minister to strengthen the Government Commission on Missing Persons, who should collect
information regarding burial site locations of non-Albanian missing, and to make this
information available to the ICRC.
Index: EUR 70/004/2012 Amnesty International April 2012