The Recak massacre

In 1999 in the village of Recak, about 25 kilometres from Prishtina, 45 Albanian civilians were massacred by Serb forces, the vast majority of them men and boys. The youngest was just 12 and the oldest 99 years old.

The massacre, one of the bloodiest that occurred in Kosovo up to that point, led to massive international pressure on Serbia to stop their ethnically motivated killings of innocent civilian Albanians.

In the early morning of 15 January, 1999, forces from Serbian Interior Ministry (MUP) and Yugoslav Army (VJ) moved into the village with tanks and began to shoot at houses sheltering civilians. After ransacking all the houses, they gathered 28 Albanian men and boys and ordered them to head towards a hill outside the village for questioning. There they were sprayed with machineguns and 23 of them died. Only five survived by pretending they were dead. Another 22 people were shot and/or decapitated at different places in the village. Some in a ravine behind the village, while others in front of their houses.

A few months earlier Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) had deployed a verification mission in Kosovo. They had responsibility to monitor the situation and report back to international organizations dealing with Kosovo. The head of the mission, William Walker, was first denied access, but after pressure from the internationally community he was allowed to visit the village and inspect the bodies.

Terrified by what he had seen, Walker told journalists: "I've seen all the ingredients of a massacre ... a lot of bodies up there, a lot of men who have been shot in various ways, but mostly very close up ... It's horrendous. It's a horrible sight...The villagers told us that it was the Serbian police." Walker did also state that Serb forces had committed “a crime against humanity”.

The Serbian Government rejected committing massacre on civilians and claimed the executed people belonged to a KLA brigade, something immediately denied by the families, and later also Western forensic experts.

BBC correspondent, Jacky Rowland, was among the first journalists to arrive in Recak.

"I counted more than 20 bodies lying in a gully on a hill. All the victims were men, most of them had been shot in the head or the neck...None of them was wearing uniform and some of the men were above fighting age," said Rowland to BBC.

On the 29th of January Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement categorically denying Serb claims that the victims were KLA fighters. After conducting an investigation, HRW said Serbian army were “indiscriminately attacking civilians, torturing detainees, and committing summary executions” and that Serbian police and army had directly been ordered to kill in Recak all men above the age of fifteen.

Due to the confusion caused by Serb claims that the massacred Albanians were KLA fighters or killed by KLA in order to attract international sympathy, EU decided to send to Kosovo a forensic expert team directed by Finnish world known forensic expert, Helena Ranta, today professor at University of Helsinki. The team were allowed access to the dead bodies only on 22nd of January, one week after the massacre. Senior officials from the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague (ICTY) were barred from entering Kosovo.

In the report issued by the team after the end of investigation, the following was stated: “No ammunition was found in the pockets. It is likely that no looting of the bodies has occurred, because money (bank notes) was found on them. The clothing bore no identifying badges or insignia of any military unit. No indication of removal of badges or insignia was evident. Based on autopsy findings (e.g. bullet holes, coagulated blood) and photographs of the scenes, it is highly unlikely that clothes could have been changed or removed. Among those autopsied, there were several elderly men and only one woman. There were no indications of the people being other than unarmed civilians.”

Helena Ranta, the head of the team, was even clearer while speaking to BBC Radio in 1999. “They were unarmed civilians” said she.

Recak massacre was one of the charges in the indictment against Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague. One of the witnesses was Helena Ranta. While testifying she reconfirmed that the victims were civilians. She sharply denied accusations by Milosevic her being the target of any kind of manipulation.

In 2001 an international judge panel in Kosovo under auspices of United Nations convicted Zoran Stojanović, a Kosovo Serb, to fifteen years in prison for participating in the Recak massacre. He is so far the only one to be sentenced for the role in the massacre.

Last year, on the same day, then Prime Minister of Kosovo, Agim Ceku, turned the first spade of earth to mark construction start for a memorial dedicated to those massacred.

During the 1998-1999 Kosovo war, about 12 000 Kosovo Albanians were killed by the Serb forces. Today, more than 8 years later, 2 000 Albanians taken by Serbs are still missing.

By: A. Hyseni 

Comments (4)

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Anonymous said:

Replying to the comments of Mactare, during the Kosovo war, people of all ages, genders were massacred in the most inhumane manner. Houses were burned down, women were raped, people were burned alive...thousands and thousands! Even the Serbian civilian community in Kosovo committed inhumane crimes to help ethnically cleanse the Albanian population...and you think that is too much media regarding the crimes against Albanians? The crimes were so horrendous that it captured international attention. you would already have known this if you had a little common sense in you. Get your facts straightened before writing shallow comments!

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February 12, 2008
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Mac Tíre said:

I must say, there does tend to be an overwhelming weight placed on the wrongs committed by Serbs in the Balkan conflicts. We very rarely hear about similar things which happened and happen to Serbs, the media just do not report it. For example, the events of March 17 a few years ago when dozens of medieval Serb-Orthodox monasteries were burned to the ground. Nato did nothing to prevent despite warnings and allowed the destruction of nothing short of a world heritage site. One photograph even depicts a Nato APC parked in front of the smoking ruins of one such monastery on the top of which was a French flag.

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February 11, 2008
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Chris Blaku said:

A popular misconception among Serbians is the historic population structure of Kosova, a region that most Serbs have never visited. As taught by their state-run media, and their state-run schools, the Serbs claim that a massive migration of Albanians from Albania settled in Kosovo (mostly during Ottomon occupation, but also after World War 2). When coupled with the high birthrate among Albanians, many patriotic Serbs feel the explanation to be sufficient. The truth, however, is vastly different. Historians note that there has always been a majority Albanian population in the province (Noel Malcolm), and there is no evidence from religious and Ottoman government records that indicates a massive migration from Albania into Kosovo. The most obvious problem with their theory of migration from Communist Albania into Kosovo is the fact that Albanians from Albania were not allowed to leave Albania freely enough to migrate en masse to Kosovo. Additionally, most migration in that period occurred vice-versa, with many Albanians escaping persecution in Kosovo for Albania, despite Enver Hoxha's tight grip on society there. In addressing the absurd claim that Albanians out-bred Serbs in Kosovo, according to Yugoslav population figures, Kosovar Serbs had an equal birthrate to Kosovar Albanians, as comparing the birthrate to Serbs from Serbia proper has generally sufficed in the population manipulation usually enacted by Serb propagandists. In addressing the writer's claim that the US and the EU will bleed Kosovo dry and move on, the actions of all nations are for the betterment of themselves and their allies, and Kosovo should be no different. However, it was the misbehavior of the Serbs that enticed the West to intervene above all. Serbs often claim that the KLA provoked Serb forces into committing massacres on civilians, in the hope that the West would intervene. This myth is expanded upon and repeatedly reinforced by Noam Chomsky, and otherwise knowledgeable scholar whose knowledge of Balkan affairs is more geared toward anti-Americanism than actual fact. The KLA could not have possibly believed that provoking Serbs was a reasonable strategy, because the precedent for Western intervention in the Balkans had not been set. Over a quarter-million Bosnians had been killed by Serbian forces in Bosnia, mostly massacred in places like Srebrenica, and the West had yet to intervene. There was absolutely no reason for the KLA to believe that their plight would be any different, considering they were from a poorer, less recognizable region, and their numbers were less than the Bosnians. Chomsky and his Serbian counterparts argue this point strongly, and suggest that the mass exodus of Albanians was created by the NATO bombing, not by Serbian forces. This point, however, is contradicted by nearly all of the Albanians in refugee camps, who suggest they were forced out at gunpoint by proper Serb military, as well as armed militiamen, a militia containing their neighbors, who now claim they are the innocent victims.

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February 11, 2008
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lightning said:

Kosovo is a political interest zone for the west. Not many of there interventions are fueled by humanitarian concerns otherwise they would already be in Kenya to put a stop to it's civil unrest which too includes military and civilian battles. Kosovo during Yugoslavia was a backwater forgotten by Tito with a great deal of resources being squandered and given freely to anyone living there because they were considered undeveloped. The problem of illegal immigration was never properly addressed by Tito and the Albanian population grew, lured from Albania by the economically stronger northern neighbor. They refused to learn Serbian or anything that was taught by our schools or teachers and they still do. They were never persecuted for unpaid taxes or bills to any significant length. And now when Yugoslavia fell apart they saw an opportunity to take our most mineral rich region by force. The KLA enticed conflicts and killed many Serb civilians which I never see mentioned in articles like this. People have herd so many times of Albanian suffering that they are unaware that any Serbs suffering ever took place to an extent that they are bending international law to accommodate for endangered Albanian majority. Serbs were killed too, I'm not saying that no Albanians were killed however you must understand how that part of the world works. Albanian family like in the movie godfather is inseprable and dies for it's secrets. Civilians take up arms, it is not unheard of, alqeida does it all the time, they dress in civilian clothes to conceal their identity and kill well trained and well equipped army personel more easily, and I doubt that the KLA was unaware of that idea. For soldiers it is not so easy to distinguish targets and when 90% is Albanian and all are potential KLA where do you start? I'm not excusing what they did but I'm saying that the USA and the EU did worse and that these rhetorics and this victamisation of Albanians is beyond normal truith and law and is in the relm of significant finantial gain for those who want kosovo independence. And seeing the title of this site I somehow doubt that you will post my comment as you spell Kosovo as Kosova which indicates your obvious Albanian roots. However if this comment somehow survives your moderation I hope that means that you can be reasonable and neutral on a topic. Somehow I doubt that the Albanians will gain much from independence other than the shackles of the EU and USA which will squeze you for all you got and then throw you away.

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