PRISHTINE STUDENT LEADER, ALBIN KURTI, age 24

ARRESTED AND SEVERELY BEATEN APRIL 28, 1999

from: KOSOVA ACTION NETWORK

Alice Mead, Coordinator (aloosnon@aol.com, 1-207-767-728)

On April 28, Albin Kurti and the males members of his family were arrested in conditions of "extreme brutality", with the owner of the house where they were staying and the owners sons. Tne owner and sons, as well as Albin's fifteen year old brother were released after beatings. No one has sees nor heard from the Kurti family since.

Beginning in August, 1997 through March, 1998, Kurti organized a series of non-violent student demonstrations described by the Western media and diplomats "as the last hope for a peaceful solution" to Kosova. For 20.000 young Albanians, the Student Union was an active democratic alternative to the radicalism of the KLA. Kurti was an admirer of Martin Luther King's methods. Yet in the Reverend Jackosn's recent visit to the former Yugoslavia to free the American soldiers, Albin Kurti's imprisonment was never mentioned. Neither was Dr. Fehmi Agani, another moderate, peace-loving leader of the Albanians. Nor was the missing journalist Veton Surroi mentioned. Nor was the human rights lawyer Bairam Kelmendi, who was executed with his two young sons. Yet all of these people valued democracy and human and civil rights so much that they were willing to live and die for this cause.

Reverend Jackson remained silent on their behalf. But he wasnt the only one. Albanian leaders have been all but forgotten both by media and the NATO alliance, which has done nothing to provide them with protection or to secure their releases. So much for the U.S. policy of supporting democracy within the bounds of what should now honestly be called "Greter Serbia", especially if Milosevic is left in power.