A Village Destroyed, May 14, 1999: War Crimes in Kosovo

By Eric Stover, Fred Abrahams, Fred Abraham

Book Overview

On a warm spring morning in 1999, in the midst of NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia, Serbian security and paramilitary forces descended on the small village of Cuska, near the western Kosovo city of Pec. Soldiers with painted faces and masks rounded up the population and forced them to assemble in the center of the village. The women, children, and elderly were separated from any men who had not managed to flee. The villagers were threatened and robbed of their money, jewelry, and identification papers. Twenty-nine men were divided into three groups and taken into three separate houses, where they were sprayed repeatedly with automatic weapons. Each house was then set on fire and left to burn. This gripping investigative account of the massacre establishes the truth of what happened in Cuska, deepens our understanding of war crimes, and sheds light on the world of paramilitaries who carry out mass killings of civilians in the name of the state.

The events in Cuska are emblematic of the destruction of hundreds of other villages throughout Kosovo. But in this case there was a difference: in each of the three groups of men there was one survivor who managed to crawl from each of the burning houses. They, and many others present that day, told their stories to Human Rights Watch, a research and advocacy organization that monitors abuses in more than seventy countries around the world. Fred Abrahams scanned into his laptop photographs of Serbian security forces apparently left behind when they withdrew from Kosovo, and showed them to victims, who identified the perpetrators.

With an essay by Eric Stover and a collection of arresting photographs by Gilles Peress of the exile and return of Kosovar Albanians to their homes and villages, this book presents a riveting, multifaceted story of unmatched depth and complexity. A final section of "self-portraits" taken by Serbian troops and paramilitaries holds the key to understanding how Serb forces were able to overrun so much territory in so little time.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520233034
• ISBN13: 9780520233034
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 2.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 0.8" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Organized Madness

This book is about one single village in Kosovo and the case against those who destroyed it. The book is broken down into sections about The Victims, The Perpetrators, The Plan, etc. From a roll of undeveloped film found in a field we see pictures and self-portraits of the Serb paramilitary men who wreaked havoc on this small pocket of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999. This event occured well into that war, making one wonder. The majority of the real 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosovo occured after NATO decided to bomb the place to smithereens in a 'humanitarian' intervention that still doesn't make much sense. Milosevic's indictment for Kosovo mostly contains charges of war crimes after the bombing started, making one really wonder about the 'Clinton Doctrine'--literally provoke bad guys into doing worse, and then squash them (and the whole country). Noam Chomsky had a good simile for the 'humanitarian' intervention as practiced in Kosovo: it's like watching someone getting mugged in the street, and instead of stopping it, you pick up a rifle and kill everyone--criminal, victim, and bystander. What's also striking of course, is the suggestion (and common knowledge) that there are many men like the ones being accused here. One of the uglier lessons here is that if you want to be effective at terrorizing a people, you go out and hire professional criminals. There is fascinating testimony from men who were recruited for the 'Lightning' (Munja) paramilitary brigade, or Arkan's 'Tigers'. In a Dirty Dozen-type way of doing things, criminals were recruited from jails to become professional ethnic cleansers, since you just don't get the same results from a conscript army. Lots of brutal images, a reverent book. Should be read with some knowledge of the war to form a better opinion.

War Crimes in Kosovo

May 19, 1999, A Village Destroyed, hundreds of Kosovars are captured in JUST ONE, OF THE KOSOVA villages, by the serbian thieves,criminals,put out of prison "people" wearing police and army uniforms - they get all their valuables then they kill all men just to burn their bodies afterwards. Luckily, two men survive the "Lightning" gang policemans" bullets as they were meant to find themselves under somebody elses body...Shocking true stories from Kosovar victims...Even more shocking confessions by "Lightning" gangs...showing in details what they have done in this village...Their confessions will make you play a detective and search for them in any way possible because after all their crimes against humanity they are still roaming some country's streets and of course they are considered dangerous...anti humans.After all, the book is so informative and honest. This book is on the TRUTH's side - the so many photographs and HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH proves it. You'll finish it in one breath.