UNMIK/PR/34

Press Release

27 August 1999

Statement by Bernard Kouchner, Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, On Missing and Detained Persons

PRISTINA - Bernard Kouchner, the Special Representative of the Secretary General, joined a protest today for the release of political prisoners still being held in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and urged the international community to exert pressure for the release of these detainees and missing persons.

Dr. Kouchner marched with hundreds of demonstrators, who were trying to call attention to the more than 5,000 Kosovar Albanians still believed detained in Serbia. The silent march of relatives and friends of the detained and missing was organized by the Organization Council of Protest.

"I fully support your demonstration," Dr. Kouchner told the protesters, many waving placards and holding photographs of their missing loved ones. "I shall issue a strong statement on prisoners and missing persons. We are trying to organize here in Pristina a big conference of high level human rights fighters."

Dr. Kouchner told the demonstrators that the Kosovo Transitional Council will create a special working group, made up of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), human rights activists, NGOs and family members, to address this issue.

Dr. Kouchner said he had received details from the ICRC describing the 1,924 detainees held in Serbian jails that the organization had been allowed to visit. Most of them are being held without trial and have been charged with terrorism.

Dr. Kouchner urged that more pressure be exerted on behalf of those people who are still missing and called on international human rights organizations to help seek information on those Kosovar Albanians that are still missing. 

"We will try harder with you to help you find your people," Dr. Kouchner told the crowd. "It is against all the laws of human rights and the Geneva Convention not to tell these families about their relatives. This is barbarism to treat people this way and you will be helped by the United Nations and all the nations of the world."