Račak massacre

The Račak massacre ( sq, Masakra e Reçakut) or Račak operation ( sr, Акција Рачак/Akcija Račak) was the massacre of 45 Kosovo Albanians that took place in the village of Račak ( sq, Reçak) in central Kosovo in January 1999. The massacre was perpetrated by Serbian security forces in response to Albanian separatist activity in the region. The Serbian government refused to let a war crimes prosecutor visit the site, and maintained that the casualties were all members of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) killed in combat with state security forces.

The killings were investigated by two separate forensic teams, the first a joint Yugoslav–Belarusian team and the second an external Finnish team representing the EU. The first team's report, which was commissioned by the Yugoslav government, concluded that those killed, who included a woman and 12-year-old child, were all separatist guerrillas and not civilians. The findings of the second team sharply contradicted the Yugoslav investigation's report, determining that the deaths constituted killings of unarmed civilians. The lead Finnish investigator, anthropology expert Dr. Helena Ranta, called it a "crime against humanity", though refusing as a scientist to directly label it a massacre or assign blame to any specific party. Details of the Finnish team's findings were left undisclosed for two years. At the time, reporting of the incident varied from publication to publication and country to country. Media outlets covering it more definitively described the event at Račak as a gruesome terrorist atrocity by a repressive Serbian government.

Bill Clinton, then president of the United States, condemned the massacre as a deliberate and indiscriminate act of murder, and the administration sought to convince the American people that intervention in Yugoslavia was necessary. Public support for intervention among Americans remained at only about 50%, even after the extensive media attention on Račak, suggesting that war with Yugoslavia would be less popular than previous conflicts and interventions the US had undertaken in its recent history.

Regardless, the actions taken and bloodshed at Račak represented a "turning point in the war", drawing sympathy from several nations worldwide, and ultimately played a role in NATO's decision to mount an organized military operation known as ''Operation Noble Anvil'' against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. NATO's involvement in the Kosovo conflict in the months following the Račak incident altogether lasted 78 days and consisted of a series of tactical airstrikes against critical targets of military or strategic import.

A memorial exists to the victims of the massacre at Račak. Kosovo annually holds a ceremony to honour the victims of the massacre.

Background

Račak is a small Albanian-inhabited village in the Štimlje municipality of southern Kosovo. By 1998 it had become the scene of activity by the Albanian separatist organization the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). It had a population of around 2,000 people prior to the displacement of most of its inhabitants during Yugoslav military activity in the summer of 1998. By January 1999, around 350 people were reported by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to be living in the village. The KLA was highly active in the region and almost certainly had a presence in Račak itself, with a base near a local power plant.
Kosovo/Kosova: As Seen, As Told
', "Part V: The Municipalities - Stimlje/Shtime", OSCE, 1999

On 8 January 1999, the KLA mounted an ambush on Serbian police units near the city of Suva Reka, resulting in the deaths of three Serbian policemen. The ambush was followed up with a further attack on Serbian police units near the city of Uroševac two days later on 10 January, killing one policeman. The village of Račak had served as a staging area for these ambushes and in response, Yugoslav security forces established a security cordon in the area of Račak and the neighboring communities of Dulje and Caraljevo. At 06:30 on 15 January, the assault on the village of Račak began when Serbian police and KLA units began to exchange fire. Some residents of Račak were able to escape to the nearby village of Petrovo, while KLA units fought their way out to positions outside the village. KLA resistance lasted a number of hours with Serbian police units finally securing the village in the morning, later departing the village at 16:30.

Reports

On 15 January, reports were received by the Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM), an unarmed observer force from the OSCE, of civilians being killed in Račak. KVM monitors attempted to gain access to the area but were refused permission by security forces despite strong protests. Instead, they watched the fighting from a nearby hill. They later gained access to the village, where they found one dead man and a number of injured people and received reports of other deaths and of people being taken away by the Serbian security forces. They were denied permission to interview the villagers or explore the area around the village.

The monitors finally gained access to the surrounding area on 16 January. Accompanied by a number of foreign journalists and members of the European Union's Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission (KDOM), they found a total of 40 bodies in and around the village. Another five bodies had allegedly been removed by family members. In all, 45 were reported killed, including a 12-year-old boy and three women. All had been shot and the KVM team reported that it found several bodies decapitated. KVM head William Walker later described what he had seen:

:"In a gully above the village, I saw the first body. It was covered with a blanket, and when it was pulled back, I saw there was no head on the corpse — just an incredibly bloody mess on the neck. Someone told me that the skull was on the other side of the gully and asked if I wanted to see that. But I said, "No, I've pretty much got this story." hree more bodies were found.They looked like older men, with gray hair or white hair ... They had wounds on their heads, and there was blood on their clothes. hen a larger group of bodies.I didn't count them. I just looked and saw a lot of holes in the head - in the top of the head and the back of the head. A couple had what appeared to be bullet wounds knocking out their eyes. I was told there were other bodies further up and over the crest of the hill, and I was asked by journalists and inspectors if I was going to go up and see the rest. I said, 'I've seen enough.'"

Walker immediately condemned what he labelled "an unspeakable atrocity" which was "a crime very much against humanity". He told the party of journalists accompanying him: "I do not hesitate to accuse the (Serb) government security forces. We want to know who gave the orders, and who carried them out. I will insist that justice will be done. They certainly didn't deserve to die in circumstances like this."

The journalists also provided first-hand accounts of the discovery of the bodies. One of them, the BBC
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