Kosovo/Kosova As Seen, As Told the OSCE-KVM inquired of the police about the 125 men; they were told that all but 23 were released the previous night. The acting Police Commander in Kacanik promised to provide a list of the 23 men who had been brought to Urosevac for further interrogation. detained gave the following statement to the OSCE-KVM: 20 After their release, one of the those My family and I were remaining in our village of Laj (210 inhabitants) even if we were aware of the police offensive. We did not want to escape. We have been living in a camp for 12 days. On 8 March, the police came to the village at around 13:00 hours and separated the men from the women. They told the women that their brothers, fathers and husbands would be brought to the police station for informative talks and that they would be brought back home soon. Twenty-two men from 15 to 58 years were put in a truck and sent to the Kacanik police Station. We stayed approximately half an hour in front of the police station and then we were brought to the Urosevac police station. We were beaten in the hall of the police station, punched, kicked by both police officers with uniforms and civilians clothes. Then, we were brought to a sports centre near the police station on the road to Stimlje where we stayed all night long. We had to put our elbows on the wall while they were beating us on our back. I was three or four times unconscious. I was there with my two brothers and my father. They told us we were UCK members. I denied and swore I was only a simple civilian taking care of his family. They asked us questions such as: `who told you to get out of the village, who gave you weapons..?" 21 After the OSCE-KVM's evacuation, and with the large displacement of population, the pattern of rounding up people and mass arrests intensified to dramatic levels. The OSCE-KVM interviewed dozens of individuals who were subjected to such practices, taking place more or less all over Kosovo and even 22 in southern Serbia proper. By late April and early May, dozens of men were being taken on a daily basis and sent to various prisons, notably Pristina/Prishtina, Smrekovnica/Smrekonice (Vucitrn) and Lipljan/Ljipan. The OSCE-KVM interviewed a large number of men who indicated how they were rounded up as the IDP column they were in was stopped. A large number of men was also arrested when the Yugoslav and Serbian forces conducted arrest operations in particular areas of some of the main towns in Kosovo, particularly Pristina, Kosovska Mitrovica/Mitrovice, Glogovac/Gllogovc, Djakovica/ Gjakova, and Pec/Peja. All of these men ended up spending weeks in harsh detention conditions (see Chapter 6, Torture and ill-treatment, and the entries in Part V for Vucitrn and Lipljan municipalities) during which time they were regularly ill-treated or even tortured, before being released, only to be driven to the border with Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia effectively in order to be deported. On 30 March an interviewee and 13 other men were arrested in Decani/Decane. They and 60 other Kosovo Albanians were first held in a storehouse for several hours and then placed on a truck and brought to Pec police station where they had to stand up in a packed narrow room all night. On 31 March they were beaten by police and prison guards wearing black uniforms, and were interrogated about the UCK by five police officers. In the evening they were taken out of the building and ordered to remove their shoes, and had their hands and feet hit with batons while being questioned about the UCK. http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/hr/part1/ch9.htm (7 of 16)12/5/2003 11:52:05 AM