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TITLE: SERBIA-MONTENEGRO HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE: FEBRUARY 1995
SERBIA-MONTENEGRO
The United States and the international community do not
recognize Serbia-Montenegro as the successor state to the
former Yugoslavia and have suspended the "Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia" ("FRY") from participation in the United Nations,
the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE),
and other international organizations.
Serbia-Montenegro is dominated by Slobodan Milosevic, who is
serving his second 5-year term as President of Serbia. He
controls the country through his Socialist Party of Serbia
(SPS), which lacks majorities in both the "Federal" and Serbian
Parliaments but holds the key administrative positions. The
SPS abolished the political autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina in
1990, and all significant decisionmaking since that time has
been centralized under Milosevic in Belgrade.
As a key element of his hold on power, Milosevic wields strong
control over the Serbian police, a heavily armed force of
perhaps 100,000 which is guilty of extensive, brutal, and
systematic human rights abuses, including extrajudicial
killings. Another important factor in Milosevic's rise to
power and almost total domination of the Government is his
control and manipulation of the media. Freedom of the press is
greatly circumscribed. The Government discouraged independent
media and resorted to surveillance, harassment, and eventual
suppression to inhibit the media from reporting its repressive
and violent acts. At year's end, the Government's legal moves
against a major independent newspaper threatened to still its
voice. Police elements routinely monitor opposition leaders,
human rights workers, and political dissidents.
In addition to the absolute power which Milosevic wields over
Serbia-Montenegro, until August his Government actively
fostered violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina by providing
military, economic, political, and moral support to ethnic
Serbs responsible for massive human rights abuses including
"ethnic cleansing." The Government of Serbia-Montenegro
announced at that time that it would stop the flow of all
nonhumanitarian aid across its boundaries into Bosnia and
Herzegovina; in September, it allowed the deployment of a
mission sponsored by the International Conference on the Former
Yugoslavia (ICFY) to observe adherence to border controls. In
return, the United Nations Security Council voted to suspend
temporarily some of the sanctions previously imposed on
Serbia-Montenegro so long as ICFY observers continue to verify
that the border remains closed.
U.N. economic sanctions continued to impact the economy for the
third successive year. An economic stabilization program
introduced in January succeeded in bringing hyperinflation
under control, but by year's end the program was beginning to
show serious cracks. The hard currency black market had
reappeared, consumers struggled under the double burden of high
prices and a shortage of local currency, unemployment continued
at levels in excess of 50 percent, and independent labor unions
tried unsuccessfully to mobilize labor protests. The net
results were the reduction of a once thriving middle class to
near subsistence levels and concomitant increases in crime,
including organized drug trafficking.
The Government continued to inflict egregious abuses on the
one-third of the population who are not ethnic Serbs, and
repressed voices of opposition in the ethnic Serb community as
well. Government officials carried out sanctioned extrajudicial
killings, torture, brutal beatings, arbitrary arrest, and a
general campaign to keep the non-Serb populations repressed.
While an atmosphere of fear and violence pervades all of
Serbia-Montenegro, the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo and the
Muslims of Sandzak suffer the heaviest abuses. Repressive acts
against these minorities increased dramatically after the
Government refused to extend the mandate of the CSCE monitoring
missions in 1993.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
Freedom from:
a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing
Political violence in Serbia-Montenegro, including killings by
police, resulted mostly from direct and indirect efforts by
Serbian authorities to suppress and intimidate ethnic majority
groups. Leaders of minority communities in Kosovo and Sandzak,
and to a lesser extent Vojvodina, reported numerous acts of
violence and intimidation aimed at repressing non-Serbs and
Muslims. The level of violence was most severe in the Albanian-
populated region of Kosovo, where police repressed expressions
of political and community life, and in the Muslim-populated
region of Sandzak, where "ethnic cleansing" continued, with
homes inhabited by Muslims being turned over to Serbs.
According to the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and
Freedoms (CDHRF), a monitoring organization based in Pristina,
Kosovo, 17 ethnic Albanians were killed by police during the
year; 11 of them were shot by police, and the others died while
in police custody, reportedly due to mistreatment or beatings.
In most cases, the authorities claimed that those killed were
shot while fleeing or resisting arrest. Police, however,
appear to have resorted to deadly force with little or no
attempt to apprehend the alleged suspects by other means. A
Serbian police officer in July shot and killed a 6-year-old
ethnic Albanian boy, Fidan Brestovci, while he was riding in
his parents' car. The officer later claimed he had mistaken
the car for one driven by a wanted felon.
In March, following an argument in a Kosovo Polje restaurant, a
Serbian police officer shot and killed Faik Maloku and
seriously wounded Xhevat Bejzaku. Maloku evidently failed to
produce a personal identity card on demand. The officer was
detained for investigation, but no formal charges were filed
against him. In early August, a large Serbian police
contingent killed Hasan Ramadani, a former political prisoner,
while searching his house in Podujevo for illegal weapons. In
September, when violence broke out in the town of Decani during
a police raid on market day, Serbian police fired
indiscriminately, according to eyewitnesses, and killed a young
Albanian mother of two while she was watching from a window.
b. Disappearance
The reduced level of paramilitary activity in Serbia-Montenegro
led to a sharp drop in the number of kidnapings and
disappearances. Human rights agencies reported no new cases of
disappearance or officially sanctioned kidnaping.
In May Serbian authorities "extradited" the notorious
paramilitary figure Milan Lukic to Bosnian Serb authorities in
the "Serbian Republic" (RS) where he is believed to have been
set free. Lukic was scheduled to stand trial for his role in
the Strpci kidnapings in February 1993 when 17 ethnic Muslims
and 2 Croats were taken from the Belgrade-Bar train as it
crossed a narrow strip of Bosnian territory. None of those who
disappeared have been heard from. Paramilitary forces are
presumed to have murdered them, but their families continued to
petition the Government for information on their fate.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment
While the law prohibits torture, police in Serbia routinely
beat people severely when holding them under detention or
stopping them at police checkpoints, especially targeting
ethnic Albanians. According to human rights agencies, police
beat thousands of Kosovar Albanians and Sandzak Muslims during
searches for illegal weapons, and extracted "confessions"
during interrogations that routinely included beating the
suspects' feet, hands, and genital areas with fists and
nightsticks, use of electric shocks, and verbal intimidation.
In late November, Ismail Raka, an ethnic Albanian from Kaganik
in southeast Kosovo, died while in police custody. His family
was told he had committed suicide by jumping from a fifth-floor
window; photographs of his body show evidence of torture and
severe beatings. Sabit Vllahia died in Podujevo in early
December, and Hasan Cubolli, age 81, died in Podujevo on
December 27 while being held by the Serbian police.
The use of excessive force in Kosovo and Sandzak was both
routine and capricious. Police allegedly beat Sylejman Bytuqi
when they raided his home in Malisheva and found an
unregistered gun. Four days later, local police severely beat
Mustafe Rukovci in Gnjilane after failing to uncover any
weapons in a search of his home. Serbian police beat and
harassed the family members of suspected political activists or
those they believed to be in possession of illegal weapons.
Apparently confident there would be no reprisals, police often
beat their victims in public view or in front of their
families. On February 21, police reportedly searched the house
of Ibrahim Havoli, an ethnic Albanian, and, because Havoli was
not at home, beat his brother. Amnesty International reported
that 2 days later, 40 police officers searched the home of
Shemsi Gashi in Pristina, brutally beating him, his 2 sons, and
2 guests in front of the rest of the family. In Pec, police
took an ethnic Albanian secondary student off a school bus in
April, beat him, and carved Serbian nationalist symbols into
his chest.
Police allegedly told one beaten man that they would drop
criminal charges against him if he signed a statement saying he
had not been beaten. They warned another one that he would
have trouble with notorious paramilitary leaders Zeljko "Arkan"
Raznjatovic and Vojislav Seselj if he talked. In May police in
Kosovo stopped two men for no apparent reason as they drove
their children to school and beat them so severely they were
hospitalized for 3 days. When it turned out that the men were
ethnic Serbs, officials at all levels demanded that proceedings
be started against the police.
Prior to 1994, the Government of Montenegro had generally
displayed more tolerance toward its ethnic minorities than had
its Serbian counterpart. In February and March, however,
Montenegrin police beat and tortured 25 Sandzak Muslims active
in the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) whom they had arrested
on a variety of weapons charges. According to defense lawyers,
Harun Hadzic was beaten for 48 hours without a break, given
electric shocks, and forced to wear a painfully hot asbestos
cap. Police beat Hadzic and the other victims with truncheons,
making them count the number of blows out loud, tied them to
radiators, deprived them of food, water, and sleep, and
threatened to kill them. Police allegedly forced a truncheon
first into Avdea Ciguljin's anus and then into his mouth.
Sandzak Muslim political leaders and human rights activists
believed the beatings were aimed at creating a climate of fear
in the Muslim community to destroy the SDA and ultimately alter
the demographic balance in the region by causing Muslims to
flee.
In the Sandzak region, Serbian authorities were similarly
abusive. The Humanitarian Law Fund (HLF), a Belgrade-based
human rights organization, documented numerous instances in
which local authorities used torture and physical abuse during
a series of massive house-to-house searches carried out in
Prijepolje between January 27 and February 17. Many of those
beaten singled out district chief Mileta Novakovic as having
been particularly brutal. Some beatings were clearly
politically motivated. One victim told an HLF representative
that his interrogation began with a berating for his political
activities followed by a severe beating. Fadil Osmanovic, a
teacher and vice president of the SDA in Berane, committed
suicide after being tortured at a police station and ordered to
report to the police again. In May police beat Mustafa Dzigal
in a Novi Pazar prison after questioning him about his contacts
with CSCE representatives.
Nearly 100 Kosovar Albanians and Sandzak Muslims have been
convicted over the past 2 years and are serving prison terms on
the unsubstantiated grounds of conspiring to undermine the
integrity of the State. Insofar as the real grounds for these
charges appear to have been that these persons were active in
ethnic Albanian and Sandzak Muslim political parties, they may
be said to have been prosecuted for their political associations
rather than for criminal activity.
d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile
Federal law permits police to detain suspects without a warrant
and hold them incommunicado for up to 3 days without charging
them or granting them access to an attorney. After this
period, police must turn a suspect over to an investigative
judge, who may order a 30-day extension and, under certain
legal procedures, subsequent extensions of investigative
detention up to 6 months. Police routinely held suspects well
beyond the 3-day statutory period. It is generally during this
initial period that detainees experience the worst treatment
and abuse. During investigative detention, detainees
theoretically have access to legal counsel, although in
practice access is only occasionally granted.
Defense lawyers in Kosovo and Sandzak have filed numerous
complaints about flagrant breaches of standard procedure which
they believed undermined their clients' rights. The courts
ignored those complaints. In November and December, police
began a massive roundup of some 200 ethnic Albanian former
members of police and security forces in Kosovo. Lawyers
reported that most of those detained were subjected to harsh
beatings and electric shock torture, held longer than the law
permits before charges were brought, and subjected to more
beatings after appearing in court.
A group of 25 Montenegrin Sandzak Muslims arrested between
January 26 and March 20, most of them active in the SDA, were
held without charge for longer than the law allows. They were
not allowed to contact defense lawyers until February 8, when
the high court in Bijelo Polje, Montenegro, overturned a ruling
by the investigative judge that suspended their right to
counsel. In the interim, police interrogated the defendants in
the absence of their lawyers and, after subjecting them to
brutal physical torture including the use of cattle prods,
obtained incriminating statements from them. In June the
Montenegrin investigative judge widened the scope of the
investigation to include another 12 suspects, further delaying
the trial date. On December 28, 21 defendants were sentenced
to prison terms ranging from 2 to 7 years for "attempting to
undermine the territorial integrity of the State." The head of
the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) in Montenegro, Hajrun
Hadzic, received the stiffest sentence of 7 years, to begin
immediately rather than after the appeals process.
Defense lawyers and human rights workers have also complained
of excessive delays in filing formal charges and opening
investigations. The ability of the defense to challenge the
legal basis of their clients' detention was further hampered by
the difficulty they encountered in gaining access to copies of
the official indictment and the decision to remand the defendant
into custody. In some cases, prosecutors have failed to share
material evidence with the defense in a timely fashion, and
judges have prevented defense attorneys from reading the court
file. The investigative judges, formally responsible for every
aspect of the investigation, often delegate most or all
responsibility to the police or state security service.
Although this is allowed under law, the free hand given to the
police often reduced the role of the investigative judge to one
of pure formalism. Defense lawyers frequently complained of
difficulty in gaining access to their clients, even during
questioning by the investigative judge, a restriction rarely
placed on public prosecutors.
In a country where the majority of ethnic Serbs are armed,
police selectively enforce the laws regulating the possession
and registration of firearms so as to harass and intimidate
ethnic minorities. Serbs are rarely, if ever, charged with
similar crimes although they are equally well armed, generally
with illegal or unregistered weapons. An exception occurred in
September when Serbian President Milosevic moved against
members of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS).
One SRS parliamentary deputy, Vakic, was stripped of his
parliamentary immunity for illegal possession of explosives and
automatic weapons.
Often, police in Sandzak and Kosovo simply order a member of an
ethnic minority to turn in a certain weapon and a specified
number of bullets within a set time, on threat of detention or
torture. The victim, if not in possession of a weapon, is
generally forced to purchase one on the black market in order
to turn it in to the police. Police do not similarly harass
ethnic Serbs, and despite high crime rates arrests of Serbs for
possession of illegal weapons are rare.
In January Serbian police arrested Rivzat Halilovic, leader of
a faction of the Macedonian Party of Democratic Action while he
was in Serbia, on highly suspect charges of espionage. The
"secret maps" that he was accused of handing over to Pakistani
agents could be purchased at any Belgrade book store.
In Kosovo, Serbian police continued a policy of frequent,
arbitrary detention of political activists. Following a
concert in Urosevac commemorating the death of 5 ethnic
Albanians in violent clashes with police, Serbian authorities
ordered the arrest of some 40 of those present, including
prominent members of several local branches of the Democratic
League of Kosovo (LDK). The police allegedly beat them in the
course of interrogation. The arrests were designed strictly to
intimidate and were not connected to the concert in any way.
On February 4, three unidentified men kidnaped Veljko Dzakula,
a former "vice president" in the self-proclaimed "Republic of
Serbian Krajina" (RSK), from a busy street in downtown
Belgrade. The night before his disappearance, he gave an
interview to independent television Studio B highly critical of
the Yugoslav army. Five days after he disappeared,
representatives of the RSK "interior ministry" admitted to
holding Dzakula in Glina prison on charges of espionage. A
Belgrade-based human rights lawyer claimed that Serbian police,
working closely with the RSK state security service, kidnaped
Dzakula and "extradited" him to the "RSK" without allowing him
to defend himself. Although the territory of the "RSK" is
internationally recognized as a part of Croatia, Dzakula was
charged with a crime under the "FRY" Criminal Code.
Exile is neither legally permitted nor routinely practiced. No
specific instances of the imposition of exile as a form of
judicial punishment are known to have occurred.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The authorities frequently deny this right to non-Serbs and to
persons they believe oppose the regime (see below).
The court system comprises local, district, and supreme courts
at the republic level, and a Federal Supreme Court to which
republic Supreme Court decisions may be appealed. There is
also a military court system. According to the Federal
Constitution, the Federal Constitutional Court rules on the
constitutionality of laws and regulations, relying on the
republic authorities to enforce its rulings. The Federal
Criminal Code of the former Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia still applies.
Under federal law, defendants have the right to be present at
their trials and to have an attorney, at public expense if
needed. Both the defendant and the prosecutor may appeal the
verdict.
Article 116 of the Yugoslav Criminal Code, which allows for
sentences of up to 10 years for "undermining the territorial
integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," is often used
selectively to convict Kosovar Albanians and Sandzak Muslims on
flimsy or circumstantial evidence. In February Kosovo district
courts sentenced more than 30 ethnic Albanians to terms ranging
from 1 to 10 years under Article 116 for allegedly organizing
"illegal defense forces" under an independent Republic of
Kosovo. According to Amnesty International, defense lawyers
complained that statements taken during interrogation--and
subsequently used in prosecuting the Kosovar Albanians--were
solicited under severe physical and psychological pressures.
Delays and seemingly arbitrary changes in the charges similarly
marred the ongoing trial of another group of 25 Muslim
political activists on weapons charges in Novi Pazar, Serbia.
Defense lawyers did not deny that their clients were in
possession of illegal arms but maintained that the laws were
being selectively enforced and used as a means of intimidating
the Sandzak Muslim community. The trial ended in a conviction,
but the original weapons charges were suddenly changed to the
more serious criminal charge of attempting to undermine the
territorial integrity of the State.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
Correspondence
Federal law gives republic ministries of the interior sole
control over the decision to monitor potential criminal
activities, a power routinely abused. Authorities regularly
monitored opposition and dissident activity, eavesdropped on
conversations, read mail, and tapped telephones. In December
human rights advocates objected to an announcement by the
Federal post office that it had been registering all mail from
abroad, ostensibly to protect mail carriers from charges of
theft.
Although the law includes restrictions on searches, officials
often ignored such restrictions. In Kosovo and Sandzak, police
systematically subjected ethnic Albanians to random searches of
their homes, vehicles, and offices, asserting they were
searching for weapons. The CDHRF reported that in the first 3
months of 1994 police searched over 1,000 Kosovar Albanian
homes, often physically abusing the inhabitants.
As an example of such methods, on a typical day in Kosovo (July
22), police raided Hetmen and Nezir Makolli's Pristina home and
seized a licensed hunting rifle, searched the home of Hysen
Hasani and his sons in Lipljan, and raided the home of Hasan
Fetaj in Suva Reka, threatening to draft him into the Yugoslav
army. Similar scenes were repeated thousands of times in
Kosovo and Sandzak.
In January and February, police conducted a series of massive
house-to-house searches in Prijepolje (Sandzak). Police also
routinely stopped private vehicles in Kosovo and Sandzak and
searched them and the passengers without probable cause.
Authorities often confiscated foreign currency from drivers and
passengers, although it is not illegal to possess foreign
currency.
g. Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian
Law in Internal Conflicts
The Government's decision to close the border with Bosnia in
August, exempting only food, clothing, and medicine, was an
implicit acknowledgement of the support it has provided to the
Bosnian Serbs and their policy of ethnic cleansing since the
beginning of the Bosnian war. (See the report on Bosnia and
Herzegovina for an account of excessive force and violations of
humanitarian law which the Milosevic regime consistently aided
and abetted.) There were numerous credible reports of Yugoslav
army units operating in eastern Bosnia as "volunteers."
Following the downing of four Galeb-type planes by NATO forces
in February, an obituary of one of the pilots appeared in the
major Serbian daily Politika. Although Serbian authorities
officially denied any involvement in the incident, the obituary
announced that the pilot, a Montenegrin citizen, died fighting
for his country--"Greater Serbia."
In Serbia itself, authorities frequently subjected members of
ethnic minorities to intimidation, with the goal of provoking
their emigration. Ethnic Albanians and Muslims were severely
punished for even the slightest violation of laws that were
selectively enforced by Serbian police and judicial
authorities. Harassment and intimidation of ethnic Croats in
the multiethnic province of Vojvodina continued. Documented
incidents of harassment and intimidation of ethnic minorities
in Vojvodina were at lower levels compared with previous years,
but the official statistics provided little comfort to those
who still retain bitter memories of forced conscription and
physical abuse from the recent past. While overt forms of
harassment were down, ethnic Croats and Hungarians complained
about more subtle forms of abuse, including alleged plans by
the Serbian government to alter the ethnic composition of
communities by forcibly resettling Bosnian and Croatian Serb
refugees. In February a self-described "Chetnik" held Sinisa
Vidakovic at gunpoint and threatened to kill him if he and his
family did not move out of town. In Sremska Kamenica on May 7,
an unknown person threw several crude, home-made bombs at the
residences of local Croats. A similar bomb exploded in front
of the Franciscan church in Subotica in June. Local
authorities did little to investigate the incidents.
Although Serbian authorities prosecuted one former paramilitary
leader for crimes committed in Bosnia and claimed to be about
to charge others, many other known and suspected war criminals
were never the targets of a formal investigation. Some
individuals suspected of criminal activity connected to the
conflict in Bosnia and the earlier war with Croatia hold
prominent positions in the Serbian, Montenegrin, or "FRY"
governments. Other suspected war criminals serve as members of
Parliament.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and the Press
Although freedom of press and speech is provided for under law,
this right is not respected in practice. Republic authorities
use provisions of the Federal Criminal Code to restrict freedom
of speech. For instance, the person of the President is
protected by law from criticism. Federal laws are being used
to overturn privatization processes and subvert independent
media into state controlled media (Borba and Studio B).
Federal law has also been used to set up progovernment radio
and television stations run by local party heads throughout
Serbia. The regime controls frequency allocations for
broadcasters and has enormous influence on supplies and
revenues for the print media. Although it continued to
tolerate the independent but low-circulation print media of
Borba and Vreme in Belgrade, both often critical of the
Government, most of the population nationwide is dependent for
its news on electronic media firmly under government control.
The Government again blocked the attempts of independent
television station Studio B and independent radio station B-92
to expand transmission of their broadcasts.
Milosevic's control of the media, particularly state
television, is vital to the strength of his regime. Through
Serbian Radio and Television (RTS), the Government exerts
editorial control over all news programming. The regime
abandoned the most blatant forms of anti-Muslim propaganda in
1994, except in the tabloid press, but news concerning non-Serb
ethnic minorities continued to receive very slanted and hostile
coverage. The authorities generally tolerated publication of
material critical of the Government as long as dissident voices
were kept off television and out of mass-market publications.
They dismissed the editor of the semi-independent Television
Politika from his position in August and fired him from the
company after he gave prime-time coverage to one of Milosevic's
most consistent critics.
Shortages of newsprint caused by the deteriorating economy
enabled the Government selectively to direct supplies to
favored publications and to reduce financial support of
independent journals. Serbian customs authorities seized
several shipments of equipment and newsprint provided by the
Soros Foundation for Belgrade independent daily Borba and radio
B-92 They later negotiated a reduction in the initial demand
for a ransom amounting to thousands of dollars. In December,
Borba was forced to reduce its circulation and number of pages
because it could not obtain sufficient newsprint.
The Serbian government, a minority shareholder in the semi-
independent Belgrade daily Borba, tried to use its 17-percent
share to exercise full control over the newspaper. In
September the Government began court proceedings against Borba
claiming the means by which it had formed its stock company
were illegal. In late December, federal government authorities
through manipulation of the federal courts took over management
of Borba, installing the head of the Federal Secretariat for
Information as editor. In Vojvodina, the Hungarian-language
independent newspaper Magyar Szo continued to resist attempts
to merge with a Serbian publishing house, fearing financial
mismanagement would force it to close. B-92 has not yet been
officially licensed and must continue to operate as a "pirate"
radio station.
Proposed legislation to regulate foreign investment in domestic
media would make Serbian press connections with foreigners or
foreign support of Serbian media illegal under most
circumstances. In April the "FRY" Ministry of Information
stripped a total of 13 correspondents and staff working for
foreign news agencies (most of them ethnic Serbs) of their
accreditations for allegedly engaging in "anti-Serbian
activities." It did not explain why it had singled out these
journalists. One American reporter who spoke with
representatives of the Serbian independent media on the record
about the revocation of credentials was given 5 days to leave
the country.
Studio B continued to struggle for survival. It faced eviction
from its premises in favor of a proregime firm. Although
Serbian authorities finally approved repeater stations for it,
they refused to vacate the allocated mountaintop areas,
preventing the station from extending its range of reception
beyond Belgrade. Studio B lost an important sponsor and was
forced to cancel a planned folk festival when RTS threatened
the singers with loss of their RTS recording contracts if they
cooperated with the station.
In March federal authorities prohibited ham radio operators
from transmitting messages to Bosnia. For many people in
Serbia-Montenegro, the estimated 15 private radio clubs were
their only link to friends and relatives still in Bosnia.
Military and civilian officials, accusing the radio operators
of espionage and passing militarily significant messages to the
Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, began confiscating radio
equipment and harassing the operators.
Despite a precarious existence, the only Albanian-language
newspaper, Bujku, continued to be published, and a number of
new Albanian-language weeklies began publication. Bujku, which
is independent of Belgrade and uncensored, clearly reflects the
views of the Kosovar Albanian LDK leadership. As such, it is
the main source of information for the Albanian community.
Radio and Television Pristina, however, remain firmly under the
control of RTS and the ruling Socialist Party. In June
Belgrade student radio Indeks went on strike to protest the
appointment of a new editor in chief forced on the station by
the Socialist Party's youth movement. For some time, Indeks
played only the MTV satellite audio signal; it is now off the
air, pending "studio refurbishment."
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
Although the Federal Constitution provides for freedom of
peaceful assembly and association, the authorities severely
restricted these freedoms, applying the laws and regulations in
a capricious fashion. Kosovo was singled out for particular
restrictions of assembly, and Serbian authorities targeted
so-called parallel ethnic Albanian social structures for
harassment. In February and March, local authorities in
Pristina shut down both the independent Kosovo Academy of Arts
and Sciences and the Institute for Albanian Studies, beating
Institute director Sadri Fetiu and several staff members in the
process. Local authorities, who had been threatening to close
the Academy of Arts and Sciences for more than 2 years,
considered it a symbol of the Kosovar separatist movement.
As of midyear, police conducted some 420 raids on schools in
the parallel Albanian educational system. In February they
arrested Tafil Bahimja, director of an Albanian-language
primary school in Kraljane, and interrogated him about the
school's curriculum, threatening him with physical harm.
The authorities also severely restricted Albanian political
organizations. The then Serbian district chief for Kosovo
issued two separate public calls for a ban on all LDK activity
in May. Arkan and his Party of Serbian Unity (SSJ) made
similar repeated, public demands. Although the district chief
was subsequently dismissed, Belgrade authorities did not
dispute his contention that the LDK was actively working to
undermine the Serbian constitutional order. In July police
raided a meeting of the Social Democratic Party in Kosovo
Mitrovica, beating up the general secretary and three members
of the presidency. The president, Bilim Bislimi, was
subsequently arrested.
In Sandzak, Serb authorities have arrested and harassed
politically active Muslims, primarily because of their
membership in the Party of Democratic Action. With most of the
Muslim leadership in prison or in exile, the Serbian
authorities succeeded in forging an association between
political involvement and police harassment that inhibited the
exercise of free political expression and made political
activity a visibly risky proposition.
c. Freedom of Religion
There is no state religion, but the Government gives
preferential treatment to the Serbian Orthodox Church, to which
the majority of Serbs belong--including access to state-run
television for religious events.
There are no legal restrictions on the practice of religion,
but police condoned periodic violence against religious
facilities used by ethnic minorities and their investigations
into the fire-bombing attacks on Catholic churches in Vojvodina
or vandalism of mosques in Sandzak were perfunctory.
One human rights organization based in Novi Pazar reported that
police summoned even more people than usual for interrogation
on Muslim religious holidays. The Serbian Orthodox hierarchy
in 1994 adopted a more stridently nationalistic tone in regard
to events in Bosnia, a development that had a chilling impact
on members of other faiths and non-Serb ethnic groups.
d. Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation
The Constitution provides for freedom of movement. The regime
generally does not require exit visas except for travel to
Albania, and makes passports available to most citizens, while
restricting the right to travel of many Kosovar Albanians.
Serbian authorities have generally allowed ethnic Albanian
leaders, including LDK leader Ibrahim Rugova, to leave the
country and return, even though they consider his party and
other ethnic Albanian parties illegal.
Ethnic Albanians have frequently complained of harassment at
border crossings, generally when entering from Hungary or at
the border between Kosovo and Macedonia. There have been
numerous reports of border guards confiscating foreign currency
or passports from travelers, as well as occasional complaints
of physical ill-treatment. Serbian border guards and customs
officials harassed Kosovar Albanians returning from abroad,
sometimes refusing to recognize the validity of legitimate
passports held by ethnic Albanians repatriated from Western
European countries.
Montenegrin authorities "deported" Serbian ultranationalist
Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj to Serbia for making
comments at a political rally that were deemed "offensive to
the Republic of Montenegro and its leaders." It also expelled
34 other Radical Party deputies to Serbia on a government-owned
airplane. Seselj's expulsion, almost certainly sanctioned at
the highest political levels, was a direct violation of the
constitutional guarantees on freedom of movement.
Many refugees from the Bosnian conflict who had been living in
collective centers or with host families in Serbia-Montenegro
returned to their homes in Bosnia (or to homes that had been
"cleansed" of their previous Muslim tenants). Serbian and
Montenegrin authorities encouraged this exodus by threatening
to strip refugees of their status or force them to serve in the
Bosnian Serb army. In violation of both international
convention and Serbian law, the Yugoslav army cooperated
closely with the Bosnian Serb military in a roundup of refugees
in January and February. In May Serbian authorities stripped
over 100,000 people of their refugee status. Although they did
not forcibly expel them, they induced many to return to
"liberated" eastern Bosnia. Lawyers counseling the refugees
who were called up for military service believed that both the
Serbian Red Cross and the Serbian Committee for Refugees were
supplying the military with the names and addresses of
draft-age males.
Many people succeeded in evading military service, and the
authorities did not pursue draft dodgers systematically.
However, the Government threatened to begin proceedings against
ethnic Albanians living abroad who had avoided military service
if they were repatriated to the "FRY." More typically, police
who picked up young Kosovar Albanians found to be evading draft
notices took them to army barracks where they were beaten and
eventually released.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens
to Change Their Government
The Constitution provides for this right, but in practice
citizens are prevented from exercising it by the Milosevic
Government's monopoly of mass media and of the electoral
process. In the December 1993 elections, the authorities
denied opposition parties equal access to the state-run media
and omitted many voters from the registration lists. Observers
noted numerous voting irregularities and raised serious
questions as to the accuracy of the vote count.
Slobodan Milosevic dominates the political system in Serbia-
Montenegro. Although formally president of Serbia, one of the
two constituent republics in the so-called Yugoslav Federal
Republic, Milosevic first weakened the authorities of the
Federal Government through his control of the Serbian police,
the army, and the state administration, and then placed his
followers in key positions, including the Federal President and
the Federal Prime Minister. Milosevic greatly circumscribes
the Montenegrin government's sphere for independent action as
he does not tolerate significant divergence from the Serbian
party line.
The domestic political opposition, hamstrung by these
extralegal means of political control, proved incapable of
providing an effective alternative to the ruling Socialist
Party (SPS). Although the SPS does not control an absolute
majority of seats in the Serbian Parliament, it managed to
coopt one of the opposition parties, allowing the Socialists to
form the Government in January. In Montenegro, where the
ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) enjoys an absolute
majority, opposition parliamentarians complained that the
Government often railroaded legislation through Parliament
without time for adequate debate. In both Serbia and
Montenegro, the ruling parties have effectively blocked
legislation that would loosen their control over the state-run
media.
Ethnic Serbs dominate the political leadership in Serbia. Few
members of other ethnic groups play any role at the top levels
of government or the state-run economy. The same is true of
women (see Section 5), although in both instances there are no
legal restrictions preventing advancement. Ethnic Albanians,
as a matter of principle, refuse to take part in the electoral
process, and therefore have little representation.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations
of Human Rights
Local human rights monitors (Serbs as well as members of ethnic
minorities) worked under difficult circumstances amid public
insinuations by ultranationalist leaders and sometimes
government officials that they were traitors. Police routinely
searched human rights offices in Kosovo, confiscated documents,
and harassed their employees.
A number of independent human rights organizations exist in
Serbia-Montenegro, researching and gathering information on
abuses and publicizing such cases. Several operate out of
Kosovo, including the Council for the Defense of Human Rights
and Freedoms and the Kosovo Helsinki Committee. In the Sandzak
region, a separate Council for the Protection of Human Rights
and Freedoms monitors abuses against the local Muslim
population and produces comprehensive reports.
The Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Fund and the Center for
Antiwar Action (CAA) have a broader scope of activities,
researching human rights abuses throughout the "FRY" and, on
occasion, elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia. The CAA also
sponsors symposia and lectures and runs a small publishing
house. CAA members set up a hot line providing legal counsel
to refugees who received military induction notices and formed
the Committee to Free Veljko Dzakula when the Serbian security
service kidnaped him in January (see Section 1.d.). Serbian
authorities carefully monitor the activities of independent
human rights agencies but generally do not subject them to
overt harassment.
The governments of Serbia and Montenegro formally maintain that
they have no objection to international organizations
conducting human rights investigations on their territories.
However, they hindered such activities and regularly rejected
the findings of human rights groups. Serbian authorities
refused to issue visas to representatives of a number of human
rights organizations, including Amnesty International. "FRY"
authorities soundly rebuffed numerous approaches about allowing
the reintroduction of the CSCE Long-Duration Missions to
Kosovo, Vojvodina and Sandzak. Officials on all levels
maintained that the CSCE must first reinstate the "FRY" before
it would be allowed to operate in Serbia-Montenegro.
Diplomats from various CSCE countries stationed in Belgrade and
traveling in groups were frequently denied meetings with
Serbian authorities who considered them de facto CSCE observers
carrying out an expired mandate. In May Foreign Ministry
officials made veiled threats to expel Embassy personnel who
took part in CSCE-sponsored trips outside Belgrade. In October
the Foreign Ministry again complained about CSCE Embassy
members traveling to Kosovo, Sandzak, and Vojvodina.
Repressive acts against ethnic minorities have increased
significantly since the CSCE missions in Kosovo, Sandzak, and
Vojvodina departed. In Kosovo, five members of the Pec ethnic
Albanian communal leadership, on trial in early December for
"violating the territorial integrity of the state," were
questioned extensively in court about their contacts with the
former CSCE observer mission, even though they pointed out that
the mission had been present legally and with the permission of
Serb authorities.
In a change from previous public statements that they would not
cooperate with the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal, Serbian officials
in 1994 stated they would offer limited cooperation with the
Tribunal to the extent the law allowed. Both the Serbian and
Federal Constitutions forbid extradition. The Government
stated it will try those who committed war crimes within the
country, and has begun proceedings in the case of the Vukovic
brothers who are accused of killing Muslims in Bosnia.
Section 5 Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion,
Disability, Language, or Social Status
While federal and republic laws provide for equal rights to all
citizens, regardless of ethnic group, religion, language, or
social status and prohibits discrimination against women, in
reality the system provides little protection to such groups.
Women
Traditional patriarchal ideas of gender roles, which hold that
women should be subservient to the male members of their
family, have long subjected women to discrimination. The
hostile atmosphere of oppressive nationalism fostered by the
regime's war on non-Serbs and the increasingly precarious
financial situation of most families have exacerbated the
traditionally high level of domestic violence. The majority of
Serb refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina moved in with
relatives or friends and received only minimal support from
international refugee agencies. The strain of living for
2 years in poverty and overcrowded conditions resulted in
family violence, particularly wife beatings, which human rights
organizations report was largely ignored by authorities. While
legal recourse is theoretically available to victims of
domestic violence, few women, most of whom are fearful of being
rejected by their family, are willing to risk making a formal
complaint. Police rarely investigate women's complaints
seriously.
In the early 1990s, women's rights organizations in Serbia,
originally formed around a strictly antiwar agenda, expanded
the scope of their activities as they recognized the growing
need to help female victims of the Yugoslav wars. The Center
for Antiwar Action, in cooperation with a number of women's
rights groups, opened a hot line for rape victims. The flood
of calls overwhelmed the small staff, and programs geared
towards assisting and counseling victims of rape have
proliferated. In the summer of 1994, two of the largest
organizations, Women in Black and the SOS hot line, opened a
center for juvenile females and sponsored assistance programs
for women refugees in camps throughout the country.
The apolitical character of Serbia's feminist organizations
allowed them to operate with little overt opposition from local
authorities who, however, regularly ignored their protest
demonstrations. Women in Black continued to hold weekly silent
protest meetings, for which they received explicit police
permission. Police, however, refused permission for a protest
meeting that was to be held on a major Belgrade bridge in order
to draw attention to the destruction of the Mostar bridge in
Herzegovina. Feminist groups organized and held conferences in
Belgrade and Novi Sad with the participation of women activists
from abroad.
Women are entitled to equal pay for equal work. However, they
are vastly underrepresented at the top levels of government,
state-run industry, and academic institutions. Maternity leave
is usually granted for 1 year. President Milosevic rejected a
law limiting the availability of abortion as a restriction on
women's rights, the first time the feminist community has found
itself allied with the Serbian President.
Children
Police violence against non-Serb children (see Section 1.c.) is
the primary abuse. Otherwise, there is no pattern of
governmental or societal abuse against children, nor is child
prostitution condoned. Children are not conscripted into the
army.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
The ethnic minorities of Serbia-Montenegro suffered
discrimination in all respects as the "FRY" continued its
policy of "ethnic cleansing" as a means of creating "Greater
Serbia" (see Section 1). In addition to the abuses described
elsewhere in this report, there were credible reports that
qualified Muslims or ethnic Albanians continued to be fired
from their jobs on the basis of religion or ethnicity.
Members of ethnic minorities were badly treated in the armed
forces in which they were viewed with suspicion and often
outright hostility. In Kosovo, court proceedings, formerly
conducted in the defendant's language, are now conducted in
Serbian; an interpreter is provided if necessary.
Traditional societal discrimination against the substantial
Roma population remains widespread. The two Roma parties are
not well organized and do not play a role in the political life
of the country commensurate with their numbers. The Roma have
the right to vote, and there is no legal discrimination.
However, local authorities apparently condone and even
participate in their harassment and intimidation.
Religious Minorities
In the former Yugoslavia, religion and ethnicity are so closely
intertwined as to be inseparable. "Muslims," for example, are
considered an ethnic rather than a religious minority, although
they are increasingly referred to as "Serbs of Muslim faith" in
official propaganda.
Serious discrimination and harassment of Serbia's religious
minorities continued, especially in the Kosovo and Sandzak
regions. Violence against the Catholic minority in
Vojvodina--largely made up of ethnic Hungarians and
Croatians--is also a continuing problem. Individual Catholics
were targeted for harassment by Orthodox "Chetniks," and a
number of Catholic churches were bombed (see Section 2.c.).
People with Disabilities
There is no formal legislation to provide equal rights for the
disabled. Only public buildings are required to provide access
for the disabled. Plans for the Belgrade metro envisage
elevator access for the disabled at all stops.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
All workers (except military personnel) have the legal right to
form or join unions. Unions are either official
(government-affiliated) or independent organizations. Workers
in the official unions, whether Serb or non-Serb, have little
real voice in their unions, and their bargaining leverage is
circumscribed by the Government. Consequently, they have
achieved little in terms of bettering their condition. They
are ostensibly permitted to join the independent unions, but
these are so weak that they have been largely ineffective.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
While this right is guaranteed in law, collective bargaining is
rudimentary. Individual unions tend to be very limited and
pragmatic in their aims, unable to join with unions
representing workers in other sectors and bargain together for
a common purpose, such as to eliminate safety hazards in the
workplace or to provide certain minimum health conditions. The
overall result is a highly fragmented labor organizational
structure composed of workers who relate to the needs of their
individual union but rarely to those of other workers.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
Forced labor is prohibited by law and is not known to occur.
d. Minimum Age for Employment of Children
The minimum age for employment is 16, although in villages and
farming communities it is not unusual to find younger children
at work assisting their families. With the fall in industrial
production by two-thirds compared with 1989, factories and
stores have retained only their most experienced and senior
workers. Over the past year it was extremely unusual to find a
teenager in Belgrade working at any full-time or even part-time
job. Unemployment, which unofficially ran in excess of 50
percent, was concentrated more highly among young, unskilled
workers.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
The economic decline, which began at the beginning in 1991 and
was accelerated by the onset of U.N. economic sanctions in May
1992, continued to exert a major influence on the conditions of
work. While the Government succeeded in stabilizing prices
through much of 1994, a large gap remained between prices and
wages. By November the average monthly wage had risen to about
$94 (255 dinars) at the current black market rates. While
there is no official poverty line in Serbia-Montenegro, banking
and finance officials have used 250-300 dinars as an
"unofficial" poverty level for the average wage earner. The
minimum wage, which is established in December by negotiation
among the Government, the chambers of commerce, and the unions
(both official and unofficial) was about $37 (90 dinars) at the
black market exchange rate.
While the official workweek was listed as 40 hours, many
employees worked fewer hours due to the economic slowdown.
These employees remained, for the most part, on enterprise
payrolls, continuing to draw a minimum monthly salary--between
$29.50 and $59 (50 and 100 dinars)--plus food supplements as
available. The Government, which previously assumed
responsibility for providing redundant workers with a minimum
"unemployment" payment, shifted this responsibility in the last
half of the year to enterprises. Many enterprises attempted to
trim these workers, but concerted action by both official and
independent unions may have helped to prevent further massive
layoffs in the economy.
Federal and republic laws and regulations regulate occupational
health and safety, but enforcement is lax.
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