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Attack on Prekaz
Part of Kosovo War
Date March 5, 1998 - March 7, 1998 Location Prekaz, Kosovo, Serbia, FR Yugoslavia Result Decisive Yugoslav victory Numerous civilians killed Jashari family eliminated
Belligerents
Serbian Police SAJ	Kosovo Liberation Army
Commanders and leaders
Goran Radosavljević Sreten Lukić	Adem Jashari  † Hamëz Jashari  †
Strength
100 policemen	28 militants
Casualties and losses
Two policemen killed Seven policemen wounded	28 insurgents killed
64 members of the Jashari family killed, including at least 24 women and children

The Attack on Prekaz, also known as the Prekaz Massacre, was an operation led by the Special Anti-Terrorism Unit of Serbia on March 5, 1998. Police said they were trying to capture "terrorists"; according to Amnesty International, all evidence suggests that the attack was not intended to apprehend armed Albanians, but "to eliminate the suspects and their families".. During the operation, Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leader Adem Jashari and his brother, Hamëz were killed, along with more than 60 other family members, including women and children.

Background

Adem and Hamëz Jashari were members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an militant group of ethnic-Albanians who sought the independence of Kosovo from the Yugoslavia. Adem Jashari had organized the first armed political formation in Srbica in 1991.

There were several terrorist attacks in the area of Srbica for several months before February 1998, which had threatened many key roads. The Yugoslav government responded by setting up police outposts in order to secure safe travel for its citizens. On 28 February 1998, with the start of the Kosovo War, an KLA group led by Adem Jashari attacked a Yugoslav Police patrol, killing four policemen and injuring two. In the same attack, 16 KLA militants were killed.

Operation

On 5 March 1998, the KLA launched another attack on a police patrol in Donje Prekaze, which caused the Serbian police to seek retribution, according to the official Serbian public report. After the second attack, the police prepared a brutal response for the Jasharis. They started hunting down local KLA militants who were forced to retreat to Jashari's compound in the same village. Yugoslav policemen surrounded the group and invited them to surrender, while urging all other persons to clear the premises. The police further alleged that they gave them two hours to comply. Within the given deadline, dozens of civilians complied with the order and dispersed in safety from the stronghold. According to the police, after the two-hour deadline had expired, Adem Jashari, his brother and most of his family-members, however still refused to comply and remained inside the compound. After a tense verbal stand-off, according to the official Serbian statements Jashari's group responded by firing on the police using automatic weapons as well as mortars, hand grenades and snipers, killing two and injuring three policemen. In the ensuing violence, the Yugoslav police killed more than sixty people, including both Jashari brothers. The only survivor was Besarta Jashari, Hamëz Jashari's daughter. She claimed that the policemen had "threatened her with a knife and ordered her to say that her uncle (Adem Jashari) had killed everyone who wanted to surrender."

The evidence gathered later indicated that the attack's intent wasn't the apprehension of armed Albanian militants but the elimination of them and their families as Amnesty International concluded in their report regarding the event. Other houses of Jashari family members were also attacked by the police as well as the residential compound of the Lushtaku family. In response, the UN security council turned to Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter without authorizing the final measure of the chapter which was military intervention.

Burial

The local Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms was contacted by the police to collect the bodies, but when the council requested documentation about the deceased none was made public. According to the Council, the police had moved the corpses to a Pristina morgue before returning them to the Drenica area. On 9 March, the police warned that if the bodies weren't buried by their families they would be buried by the authorities, while the families requested autopsies to be performed.

On 10 March, the police dug a mass grave near Prekaz and placed the bodies, ten of which were still unidentified at that time. A group of doctors from Pristina, the families of the deceased, representatives from the Catholic Church, the Muslim community and International Human Rights organizations were denied access to the area. The heads of the Serbian police accused the organizations that they had smuggled weapons into the region in the past.

Aftermath

The Prekaz attack led to a rapid increase of the KLA's popularity among ethnic-Albanians and village militias were formed in many parts of Kosovo. After the event, Adem Jashari himself was portrayed as a "terrorist" in the Yugoslav media, while the Albanian media depicted him as a "freedom fighter". The casualties of the attack would be described as the fall of "martyrs" in the Albanian media, while in the Serbian media they were reported to be "collateral effects of the fight against terrorism". On 13 March, about 50,000 people demonstrated against the attacks, while on 15 March, the Catholic Church called for masses to be held throughout the region, after which about 15,000 people demonstrated in Pristina.

In late March 1999, more than 100,000 people marched in eight US cities and European capitals to protest the attack.

Eventually, events spiralled out of control and the Kosovo War ensued.

See also

• Drenica massacres

References

1. ^ Krieger, Heike (2001). The Kosovo Conflict and International Law: An Analytical Documentation 1974-1999. Cambridge University Press. p. 96. ISBN 0-521-80071-4.
2. war crimes tribunal collection, John Oppenheim, Willem-Jan van der Wolf, Global Law Association, 2003
3. ^ Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo. Human Rights Watch. 2001. pp. 34, 96–7.
4. ^ "Kosovo killings: Belgrade's official version of events". BBC. 12 March 1998.
5. "Behind the Kosovo crisis". BBC. 12 March 2000.
6. http://sim.law.uu.nl/sim/caselaw/tribunalen.nsf/ae4b0f7b22afa1cdc12571b500329d5e/0f58ad0e96d1e627c12571fe004c8cba?OpenDocument
7. ^ Rights Watch: Violence in Kosovo
8. ^ Kolstø, Pål (2009). Media Discourse and the Yugoslav Conflicts: Representations of Self and Other. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-7546-7629-4. Retrieved 19 April 2012.
9. Hodge, Carl Cavanagh (2002). NATO for a New Century: Atlanticism and European Security. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-275-97594-4. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
10. Hudson, Kimberly A. (2009-03-05). Justice, Intervention, and Force in International Relations: Reassessing Just War Theory in the 21st Century. Routledge. p. 138. ISBN 978-0-415-49025-2. Retrieved 19 April 2012.
11. Clark, Howard (2000-08-20). Civil Resistance in Kosovo. Pluto Press. p. 175. ISBN 978-0-7453-1569-0. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
12. Hockenos, Paul (2003). Homeland Calling: Exile Patriotism & the Balkan Wars. Cornell University Press. p. 247. ISBN 978-0-8014-4158-5. Retrieved 19 April 2012.

• Conflicts in 1998
• Battles involving Serbia
• Military operations of the Kosovo War
• Kosovo Liberation Army
• Serbian war crimes in the Kosovo War