Kosovo/Kosova As Seen, As Told KOSOVO / KOSOVA As Seen, As Told PART V : The municipalities Contents Communities Map Previous Next THE MUNICIPALITIES A human rights map of Kosovo October 1998 to June 1999 The purpose of this section is to give a detailed "map" of human rights and humanitarian law violations in Kosovo, as they were observed by and reported to the OSCE-KVM. It indicates the impact of the conflict, as it unfolded during the time that the OSCE-KVM was operational, on hundreds of communities, large and small, throughout Kosovo. It describes changes in patterns of human rights violations over the reporting period. It also seeks to place the reported human rights violations against the background of the prevailing local security situation, and what can be surmised of the military objectives being pursued by both parties to the conflict. All 29 of Kosovo's municipalities have a separate entry here, presented alphabetically; in addition there is an entry for Pristina/Prishtina city. In the reporting period not all were affected on an equivalent scale, or in the same way. Each municipality entry opens with basic population data, followed by a brief description of the security and human rights climate prevailing at the time of the OSCE-KVM's deployment. Thereafter, events in the municipality are surveyed, location by location, drawing on the information gathered by the OSCEKVM while deployed inside Kosovo, and on statements given by refugees to the OSCE-KVM after its evacuation. The information presented here deriving from refugee statements (indicated by the four-digit footnotes with alphabetical prefix, which is the file number of the refugee's confidential interview record, made in either Albania - prefix A/ - or the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia - prefix M/) should be read with the clear understanding that this is as it was recounted to the OSCE-KVM (see also the "Methodology" section in the Introduction, and Chapter 2: The OSCE-KVM human rights operation). In many cases descriptions are based on the statements of several victims or witnesses to the same incident. Other descriptions are based on the statement of one person only. This is made clear in the text and/or by the footnotes. Where information is acknowledged by the interviewee to be hearsay, rather than the statement of a direct victim or witness, this is noted, as are inconsistencies in the details given by http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/hr/part1/p5intro.htm (1 of 2)12/5/2003 11:47:28 AM