Kosovo/Kosova As Seen, As Told them. Additionally, threats were often made against the interviewed individual or members of his or her family, so as to force the individual to act as an informant for the security forces. The talks usually ended with the interviewed person being released on having promised further co-operation with police and having agreed to report to the police at a later date. During the time the OSCE-KVM was deployed in Kosovo, the practice of "informative talks" continued to be reported regularly, and even increased, apparently for two reasons. First, as OSCE-KVM scrutiny increased so did the attempts by the Serbian authorities to evade that scrutiny while still satisfying their own requirements for information. Second, while in 1998 security officials could disregard legal requirements more easily, particularly in relation to the duration of detention, OSCE-KVM monitors now requested that officials account for the whereabouts of individuals, particularly if the detention became prolonged. In this context, the use of more informal "informative talks" proved useful, since the victim's family and others might only learn of the arrest after or at about the time of the victim's release. In the period after the OSCE-KVM's withdrawal, many people who had been employed by the OSCEKVM and others who had had a closer relationship with the organization, such as lawyers, intellectuals and political activists, were systematically summoned for "informative talks" and questioned about the OSCE-KVM's activities, which were often considered spying by the Yugoslav authorities. Later, after the passing of the state of war legislation, refugees interviewed by the OSCE-KVM did not report "informative talks" as being a common occurrence. The reason for this appears simple: in contrast to the pre-evacuation period, the Serbian authorities did not need to disguise their actions to the same extent, as the state of emergency gave them even wider powers to infringe personal liberty. They could arrest, interrogate and detain persons for as long as they pleased and, as indicated further, did so en masse. The need to adhere to the legal standard of criminal procedure, already watered down by state of war legislation, was practically eclipsed. Mass arrest in the context of forced displacement When the Serbian police began a new series of arrests, in early 1998, it usually meant that individuals, or small groups of persons with particular links, would be sought and taken into custody. By midsummer of that year, with military operations taking place in many parts of Kosovo, large groups of villagers were being chased out of their homes and forced to move to other locations. The Serbian forces then used these movements of people as an opportunity to round up people and detain them. A pattern emerged in these incidents: IDPs would be assembled in a particular village or area, whereupon men would oftern be separated from women and detained in particular enclosed buildings, often school compounds. A first "screening" would be conducted in situ, and some of the detainees would be released while others would be taken to the local police station for further questioning or the "paraffin glove test" to establish whether they had residues of explosives on their hands. This pattern was found repeatedly throughout the whole period: On 19 May 1999 [the victim], his fiancée and cousin were together in the apartment of the fiancée [in Pristina]. Four police officers [forced the door, entered the apartment] and http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/hr/part1/ch9.htm (5 of 16)12/5/2003 11:52:05 AM