Dear former political prisoners from all decades and years under the occupation of Serbia and Yugoslavia throughout the long 20th century,
Dear former fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army, veterans and war invalids, families of martyrs,
Honorable President of the Association of Former Political Prisoners, Mr. Shefik Sadiku,
Esteemed Acting Minister of Justice, Ms. Albulena Haxhiu,
Dear colleagues from the Government and the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo,
Dear survivors of the Dubrava massacre,
Dear family members of the victims of the Dubrava massacre,
Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, distinguished attendees,
Today, as we gather in the courtyard of the Dubrava prison, we are standing in one of the most gruesome sites of the dark legacy of the war era in Kosovo. This place, this courtyard, the prison’s structures, this land, and the entire surrounding area constitute one of the heaviest zones of suffering and human loss in all of Kosovo.
Every year in May, whenever we return here to remember the Dubrava Massacre, we not only revisit the history of this massacre, but we also rediscover it, enriching it with new testimonies from surviving witnesses and through our own reflection on the time of war, especially this tragic event.
The uncovering of the Dubrava Massacre is, above all, an unearthing of the places where it occurred, of the victims’ bodies, and of the testimonies told by the witnesses. The Dubrava Massacre began to be revealed in the very first days after the war. Thus, on June 27, 1999, only one week after the withdrawal of Serbian armed forces from Kosovo, near here in the village of Rakosh, Italian KFOR soldiers identified a mass grave marked with wooden stelae bearing the inscriptions “NN”, indicating the anonymity of the bodies.
On August 13, 1999, a Spanish forensic team exhumed the bodies of 97 Albanians from that mass grave in Rakosh. The bodies belonged to Albanian prisoners killed in Dubrava prison three months earlier.
A month after the beginning of NATO’s bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, at the end of April and the beginning of May, the Serbian occupying authorities gathered Albanian prisoners and hostages from prisons in Kosovo and Serbia and brought them here to Dubrava prison. This organized operation shows that the massacre that would follow in this prison was premeditated by the highest state authorities of Serbia.
After that, perhaps the most prominent prisoner, the well-known and irreplaceable politician and professor Ukshin Hoti, who was serving the final days of his 5-year sentence issued in 1994, disappeared from Dubrava prison after a staged release on May 16, 1999, one day before the end of his sentence on May 17. This release is documented by witnesses and supported by records from that time.
Three days later, on May 19, 1999, the scenario for the mass killing of Albanian prisoners began to unfold. Serbian police forces, together with prison guards and some of the most criminal Serbian inmates, opened fire and threw bombs at the Albanian prisoners over the course of the following five days. Thus, on May 24, 1999, out of approximately 980 Albanian prisoners gathered in Dubrava prison, one disappeared—Ukshin Hoti, who remains among the forcibly disappeared to this day—117 prisoners were killed, and over 300 others were wounded, including 185 seriously.
But the uncovering of the Dubrava Massacre is also an exposure of its perpetrators, the planners of its scenario, the commanders who gave the orders, and those who executed them. The 117 murdered prisoners, their graves, and their absence among us are the most undeniable proof of this state crime; the majority of the survivors of this massacre are alive, and many of them are here with us today, who have testified and can still testify to this crime committed by the state of Serbia; some of them have published books recounting their testimonies; many have given interviews, submitted documents, photographs, and other satellite images from NATO countries which can also serve as irrefutable evidence of the time, crucial for investigating the scenario behind this criminal chapter of Serbia’s project of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Kosovo.
What is expected to happen, and what I once again call for, is that the Special Prosecutor’s Office of Kosovo initiates investigations into this massacre and begins legal proceedings. And there is no more appropriate place to make this call than precisely here, where we stand strong and alive, never forgetting those who were even stronger than us but are no longer alive because Serbia’s genocidal criminal hand executed them in this field within the prison courtyard.
War criminals, regardless of their rank and responsibility, must be investigated and prosecuted, because war crimes do not expire, they are not forgotten, and they are not forgiven. Never, none of them, under any circumstances.
Investigations and arrests of Serbian war criminals are now being carried out more than ever before. Hardly a week passes without an arrest, but the crimes committed by Serbia are so vast in scale, so deep in brutality, that even this increased frequency of arrests is not enough—it is too little.
One of the survivors of the Dubrava Massacre, Kosovo Security Force General and former MP Enver Dugolli, filed a criminal complaint with the Specialist Chambers of the Special Court. However, even after two years, no action has been taken, despite the prior response stating that these chambers do not deal with only one ethnicity or formation. Two years later, we still see no action aligned with Enver Dugolli’s criminal complaint, and likewise, we see no action from our own prosecution and justice system. Meanwhile, as we know, witnesses are aging, and naturally, with the passage of time, memory fades.
Therefore, it is imperative to act immediately and without delay, based on the documentation we possess and the many living witnesses available, because the conditions and possibilities for doing so are greater than ever before.
Eternal be the memory of those killed here in Dubrava prison!
Deep gratitude and long life to all survivors of this massacre!
Glory to the fallen, and thank you all for your presence and attention!
