Rebellion Poses Quandary for G.I.'s in Kosovo
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo - Mirad Neziri, dressed in orange prison fatigues, represents a new dilemma for the United States as it tries to keep peace in the Balkans.
The 25-year-old Albanian was detained in November by the United States Army, which insists that he is part of a dangerous insurgency in a nearby region of Serbia. Mr. Neziri denies the allegation. But while that might sound like a matter that could be settled by a Kosovo court, he has no lawyer, and no trial has been set.
Mr. Neziri, in fact, is one of 60 people suspected of being rebels who are jailed at the Bondsteel Detention Facility. The Army says the detentions are necessary to contain the rebellion at Kosovo's doorstep.
But after 18 months of preaching respect for the rule of law if Kosovo is to become a democracy, the American military now finds itself in the uncomfortable position of detaining Albanian prisoners who have virtually no legal rights.
"We are kind of in a quandary," said Col. Thomas M. Gross, the chief of staff for the Army peacekeeping force here. "We very much believe in human rights. We also have a mandate to disrupt the insurgency as much as we can."
When the Army was sent to Kosovo as part of an international force, nobody expected that it would end up running a jail for rebels. But the equation was changed by the Albanian insurgency that emerged last year in a strip of Serbian territory outside Kosovo, the province of Serbia inhabited mostly by Albanians.
Fearful that the rebellion might destabilize the Balkan region, peacekeepers began seizing shipments of arms intended for the rebels.
Trying to contain the insurgency, the peacekeepers have detained suspected members of a rebel group who have ventured back and forth across Kosovo's boundary. The group, the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, is known by its initials in Albanian as the U.C.P.M.B.
The crowd of prisoners at the Bondsteel Detention Facility is one result. As many as 16 inmates live together in small, windowless wooden bungalows, each of which is surrounded by a wire mesh fence. There is little room for exercise, and the prisoners amuse themselves by smoking, talking and playing chess.
The detainees are fed M.R.E.'s, or "meals ready to eat," as the Army rations are called. Every fourth day they get the cafeteria-style food that the American soldiers at the base receive every day.
In addition to suspected rebels, the center houses murderers and other criminals who cannot be handled by Kosovo's fledgling criminal justice system. There is no effort to separate the insurgents from the criminals, but Albanians and Serbs are kept apart, as are minors and adults.
"The original policy was no females, no minors, no mental cases - but the U.C.P.M.B. kind of threw a wrench in all that," said Capt. Richard Millett, the commander of the 530th Military Police Company, which runs the detention center.
American and British officers say they are acting under the authority of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, which authorizes the peacekeeping force to provide a safe and secure environment.
Suspected guerrillas can initially be held for 72 hours under current procedures. Longer detentions must be approved by Lt. Gen. Carlo Cabigiosu, the Italian commander of the international peacekeeping force. The United States Army provides a list of detainees to the Kosovo courts and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Family members are allowed to visit.
"We are not disappearing people," said Capt. Paula I. Schasberger of the command's judge advocate office.
Mr. Neziri was one of two prisoners The New York Times was allowed to interview. He said the conditions in the detention center were generally good but complained that his legal rights were being violated.
Raised in the Kosovo town of Kamenica, Mr. Neziri said he had fought with the Kosovo Liberation Army - the now formally disbanded Albanian rebel group founded in the late 1990's - against the Yugoslav military during the 1999 war.
He and 10 other Albanians were detained while trying to return to Kosovo on Nov. 22, a period when the insurgents had stepped up their attacks against Serbian policemen in southern Serbia. The Army says the group was carrying weapons.
Mr. Neziri said he believed that the rebels' cause was just. But he denies being a member of the rebel group.
"There are people here just because they have a beard and are suspected of being U.C.P.M.B. members," he said. "There is no paper that says I can go to court, and no basis for me to have a lawyer."
Shpetim Krasniqi, 29, an Albanian from Kamenica, said he was being detained because he was suspected of taking banned ammunition from Kosovo to Serbia proper. After 44 days in detention, he was also eager for his day in court.
Army officials insist that they would like nothing more than to turn some of their cases over to the Kosovo courts. The problem, they say, is that local judges, almost all Albanian, have little desire to punish their fellow Albanians.
After British troops caught 13 suspected rebels crossing the boundary with a shipment of heavy machine guns and other arms on Dec. 20, the case was referred to the court in Gnjilane, an Albanian-dominated town in southeastern Kosovo.
The Gnjilane judge ordered that nine of the suspects be set free, a decision the United States has rejected. The Army plans to turn the suspects over to the United Nations so that their case can be decided by international judges sent to Kosovo to shore up its makeshift justice.
The Army's effort to contain the rebellion has not always gone smoothly. The Army had a senior rebel leader, Shefqet Musliu, in custody last summer for carrying weapons but released him after 30 days. That was before the rebels stepped up their attacks.
Given the peacekeepers' energetic effort to patrol the border, the 530th Military Police Company has contingency plans to expand the detention center. "We are reluctant to be releasing anyone right now knowing that they may go right back across the border and pick up where the left off," Colonel Gross said. "The quandary is that we are holding them based on some intelligence and perhaps not based on judicial evidence that would go forward in a court of law. That flat-out is the truth."