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http://www.thenewsmexico.com/noticia.asp?id=23303 War crimes officials exhume Albanians said shot by Macedonian forces AFP - 4/12/2002 -A NATO force has been stationed in Macedonia since the peace accord was signed. During a visit to Macedonia last November, Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor of The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said she would explore if there were grounds for issuing indictments for war crimes in Macedonia. SKOPJE - War crimes investigators on Thursday exhumed the bodies of two ethnic Albanians allegedly executed by Macedonia government forces during last year's conflict, radio reported here. UN war crimes tribunal experts began Monday exhuming a graveyard in the village of Ljuboten following allegations of war crimes against ethnic Albanians in the Balkan country. The radio report said local people had identified the two exhumed bodies as those of two brothers called Bajram and Kari Sarim. They were later re-buried. UN officials working with Macedonian police have been digging up some dozen graves at a cemetery in the northern village 10 kilometers (six miles) north of the capital Skopje. Local ethnic Albanians claim about a dozen victims were killed in a government attack there last August. Ljuboten was one of the villages involved in a seven-month-long ethnic Albanian guerrilla insurgency in the north and west of the former Yugoslav republic, in what rebels said was a fight for greater rights for minority Albanians. The experts are seeking to establish whether the victims killed by Macedonian security forces were civilians, as alleged by local residents and ethnic Albanian politicians and media. Macedonian security forces deny the charge, saying those buried in the cemetery were guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (NLA) - the ethnic Albanian rebel force -- killed while firing on police. Albanians make up almost a third of Macedonia's two million people. The government and the rebels signed a peace agreement last August, and the country's constitution was changed in November to offer the minority population more rights. This week's exhumation was overseen by officials of the European Union, NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). A NATO force has been stationed in Macedonia since the peace accord was signed. During a visit to Macedonia last November, Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor of The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said she would explore if there were grounds for issuing indictments for war crimes in Macedonia. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/ --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
