[balkanhr] HLC-Fear and violence main reasons for leaving Kosovo for nyteeu@ursula; Fri, 11 Feb 2000 21:53:48 -0500 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - Panayote Elias Dimitras HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER COMMUNIQUE Fear and violence main reasons for leaving Kosovo 7 February 2000 By the end of January, displaced persons from Kosovo had submitted to the Humanitarian Law Center 1,327 complaints against the violation of their property rights. The HLC started receiving these complaints on 4 October last year, in the expectation that an ombuds office would be established in Kosovo with a mandate to consider complaints lodged by individuals against the violation of property rights. Twenty percent of the complainants said they were made to leave their apartments or houses under threat of death or were forcibly evicted by unidentified ethnic Albanians, who were most frequently armed and wearing Kosovo Liberation Army uniforms. This group of displaced said they were subjected to physical and psychological abuse even before being thrown out of their homes. Many called the Kosovo Force or the UN Mission in Kosovo police for help but neither were able to provide them with adequate protection. Eighty percent of the displaced said they left their homes and property and fled to Serbia or Montenegro out of fear of reprisals, being murdered or abducted, lack of confidence in KFOR, and a feeling of personal insecurity after the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army and Serbian police force from Kosovo. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nyteeu-02.11.00-21:53:41-28488