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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 07/04
Albanians in Serbian Prisons: Kosovo's Unfinished Business
January 26, 2000
Abstract
With the immense challenges facing the international community in its effort to secure and rebuild Kosovo, one critical outstanding matter that has received very little attention is the ongoing detention in Serbian prisons of several thousand Kosovar Albanians. Arrested by Serbian forces in the course of the Kosovo conflict, these prisoners were hastily transferred to Serbian jails and penitentiaries in the wake of the Kumanovo military-technical agreement, which ended the NATO air campaign and established a timetable for the withdrawal from Kosovo of all Serb forces.
The Kumanovo agreement did not, however, address the issue of the prisoners' release, and this omission would seem to have deprived the international community of any real leverage on the matter.1 Belgrade appears to have little interest in releasing these prisoners, who have effectively become hostages in Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's efforts to keep Kosovo destabilised, jeopardise the success of the international mission there and demonstrate that Kosovo remains under his rule.
