While the demolition of the building erected on the mass grave with buried Albanian victims in Raška is pending, Serbs are awaiting justice for Serbian victims, too.
Preparations are ongoing for the excavation at location Rudnica near Raška, suspected of being the mass grave of Kosovo Albanians who went missing in 1998 and 1999.
Head of the Kosovo government’s Missing Persons Commission Prenk Gjetaj, said to RTK2 that he hails the decision of the Serbian government to investigate location in Rudnica.
“I welcome the steps taken toward investigation. Demolition of the building erected on the location suspected of being the mass grave will start tomorrow and we’ll see how it will go. Plan is in place, there is international factor present as well, and I think there won’t be delays there, it was promised that there won’t be breaks. Eulex and ourselves will be observers, while experts from Serbia will have the leading role,” said Gjetaj.
Gjetaj stressed that there is no discrimination in the process of the search for missing persons and that Serbian victims are also discussed, whereas this time is about the location where it was confirmed that there are buried bodies.
However, Association of Kidnapped and Missing Persons from Gračanica/Graçanicë claims that international community is favoring Albanian community.
Chairperson of the Association Silvana Marinković believes that all locations suspected of being mass graves should be checked, and not only those for which Albanian side insists on.
“We believe that international community is favoring Albanian community, and that they are showing that shamelessly, what is not right. They should be neutral, there must not be any Albanians or Serbs for them, they should work on what they arrived here for, and to carry out searches and excavations at all location suspected for having buried bodies,” said Marinković.
Minister without portfolio in charge for Kosovo Aleksandar Vulin, said yesterday in Gračanica/Graçanicë that international community has waited too long to take over obligations and investigate all war crimes, and punish the perpetrators of those crimes.
“We can always be suspicious, there can always be deficiencies, our experience teaches us that they happened quite often, while this might be an opportunity for international community’s redemption. This might be an opportunity for them to show that all victims are actually the same,” said Vulin and added
Vulin said that he expects creation of the impartial special tribunal in order that we don’t wait for ‘another 14 years on the first verdict to come’.
“There was no court for Serbian victims so far, there was no punishment for Serbian victims so far, here is the chance for that to happen. I am pleased that international community has started to fulfill its obligations which they took over by their own will, no one forced them to do that,” said Vulin.
