VUKSANOVIĆ CALLS FOR PROBE INTO HOW PRIŠTINA GOT ADDRESSES OF DISPLACED SERBS

BELGRADE, OCTOBER 8 /SRNA/ - Slaviša Vuksanović, representative of the Association of Families of Kidnapped and Missing Persons from Kosovo and Metohija, said the circumstances should be established under which Priština obtained the addresses in central Serbia of internally displaced Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija, to whom indictments and court summonses are being sent as international mail.

"These are addresses that the services in Kosovo and Metohija do not have, so they obtained the information from Serbia, and I do not know how. This should be examined separately and it should be established whether the individuals concerned actually received summonses from the Priština institutions," Vuksanović said.

Vuksanović said indictments and court summonses were being sent through third countries, including Slovenia, Austria and Switzerland, in order to increase pressure on Serbs not to return to the southern Serbian province, where, he said, they are already treated as a national minority rather than as a constituent people.

He reminded that secret indictments against Serbs and lists of individuals had existed since 2000, creating the possibility for any participant in the war, even someone who had only been passively involved, to be arrested, taken into custody and subjected to criminal proceedings over alleged war crimes.

He said 250,000 ethnic Serbs had left Kosovo and Metohija since the war, including 164,000 in the first six weeks following the arrival of KFOR and the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement in August 1999.

"Additional pressure was exerted after the 2004 pogrom," Vuksanović added, stressing that the aim of what he called the Priština institutions was to reduce the number of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija to a minimum so they would not have status.

Zoran Anđelković, director of Postal Service of Serbia, said earlier that the Priština Prosecutor's Office was sending indictments and court summonses to citizens in central Serbia as international mail through third countries, including Slovenia, Austria and Switzerland, and that accepting such a letter enabled Priština to indict that person and try them in absentia.