(Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting)

The State Department's second report on Kosovo -- titled "Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting" -- documents such human rights violations as forced expulsions, looting, burning, detentions, use of human shields, summary executions, exhumations of mass graves,

systematic and organized mass rape, violations of medical neutrality and identity cleansing.

The report, released in Washington December 9, is an effort to come to a better understanding of how to avert future ethnic cleansings. It is a follow-up to the May 1999 report titled "Erasing History: Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo."

The new report's executive summary notes that its information was drawn from refugee accounts, NGO documentation, press accounts, and declassified information from government and international organization sources.

Following is the text of the executive summary:

"Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting" is a new chapter in our effort to document the extent of human rights and humanitarian law violations in Kosovo, and to convey the size and scope of the Kosovo conflict. The information in this report is drawn from refugee accounts,

NGO documentation, press accounts, and declassified information from government and international organization sources. The atrocities against Kosovar Albanians documented in this report occurred primarily between March and late June, 1999. This document is a follow-up to the U.S. Department of State's previous human rights report, Erasing History: Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo, which was released on May 10, 1999. A central question is the number of Kosovar Albanian victims of Serbian forces in Kosovo. Many bodies were found when KFOR and the ICTY entered Kosovo in June 1999. The evidence is also now clear that Serbian forces conducted a systematic campaign to burn or destroy bodies, or to bury the bodies, then rebury them to conceal evidence of Serbian crimes. On June 4, at the end of the conflict, the Department of State issued the last of a series of weekly ethnic cleansing reports, ant of the estimated 1998 Kosovar Albanian population of Kosovo-were forcibly expelled from their homes. Tens of thousands of h

omes in at least 1,200 cities, the border to Montenegro, Albania, or Macedonia. * -Widespread Burning of Homes: Over 1,200 residential areas were at least partially burned after late March, 1999. Kosovar Albanians have reported that over 500 villages were burned after March, 1999.

* -Use of Human Shields: Refugees claim that Serbian forces used Kosovar Albanians to escort military convoys and shield facilities throughout the province. Other reporting indicates that Serbian forces intentionally positioned ethnic Albanians at sites they believed were targets for NATO airstrikes.

* -Detentions: Serbian forces systematically separated military-aged men from the general population as Kosovars were expelled. These men were detained in facilities ranging from cement factories to prisons. Many of these detainees were forced to dig trenches and were physically abused. At least 2,000 Kosovar Albanians remain in detention in around a

dozen Serbian prisons today.

* -Summary Executions: There are accounts of summary executions at about 500 sites across Kosovo.

* -Exhumation of Mass Graves: health care facilities were used as protective cover for military activities; NGOs report the destruction by Serbian forces of at least 100 clinics, pharmacies, and hospitalsers in Serbia are threatened with legal action.