Global Policy Forum

By Carlotta Gall

The Yugoslav Parliament passed a long-awaited amnesty law today that will free several hundred Kosovo Albanians held in Serbian prisons since the war in Kosovo in 1999 and will clear thousands of draft dodgers and deserters in Yugoslavia from prosecution by the army. It was the first major piece of legislation passed by the new Parliament and the first real gesture by the new government to reverse injustices suffered by Albanians from Kosovo under Slobodan Milosevic.

United Nations officials in Kosovo and human rights organizations have long called for the release of the 650 Albanians still in Serbian prisons, most of whom they regard as political prisoners. The prisoners were among about 2,000 transferred to Serbia at the end of the war in 1999, when NATO-led peacekeepers took control of Kosovo. The status of those in prison is one of the most explosive issues in Kosovo today, and United Nations officials have repeatedly said their continued imprisonment is a major obstacle to peace and reconciliation.

Despite protests from Mr. Milosevic's Socialist Party, and his wife's Yugoslav Left Party, the law was passed easily in both the upper and lower houses. It will give amnesty to all those charged with and convicted of conspiring against the state, but not to those convicted of terrorism. In addition to the prisoners, the main beneficiaries of the law will be an estimated 28,000 young Serbs and Montenegrins, many of whom fled abroad to avoid serving in the army during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and finally Kosovo, according to Justice Minister Momcilo Grubac. The amnesty, he noted today, was one of the election promises of the government that replaced Mr. Milosevic's.

About 200 of the imprisoned Kosovo Albanians have been charged with terrorism, and their cases will be reviewed separately, he said. But he added that after reviewing the status of the prisoners, he had asked President Vojislav Kostunica to pardon some who had been convicted of terrorism on insufficient evidence. "Those convicted without any evidence will be pardoned," he said, adding that Mr. Kostunica was the one to make the final decision. In particular, he said, 143 men from the town of Djakovica were convicted as a group, apparently without evidence, after several police officers were killed. "The real terrorists escaped, and the citizens were tried without any evidence or proof that they committed this criminal offense," he told Parliament.

Shortly after taking office as president in October, Mr. Kostunica pardoned the best known Albanian political prisoner, Flora Brovina, a pediatrician, along with a Serbian journalist convicted of spying. Since then, Mr. Kostunica has come under criticism for stalling on the release of the remaining 650 Kosovo Albanians. In a recent interview, Mr, Grubac said that there was no political agenda in the delay, but that it had been necessary to review all the cases. Case officers at the independent Humanitarian Law Center, who monitored virtually every trial at the time, suggested that Mr. Kostunica had sought to use the prisoners as leverage in negotiations with the West over Kosovo and over cooperation with the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Nevertheless, passing the law, without amendments, was clearly a success for Mr. Kostunica's ministers, who applauded when it was voted through. The Socialists and Yugoslav Left deputies staged a walkout for the vote, raising banners that read, "You are freeing the butchers and are arresting Serbian generals," and "Free Rade Markovic," a reference to Mr. Milosevic's former secret police chief, who was arrested by the new Serbian authorities over the weekend.