Fighting between Serb forces and Kosovo Albanians has led to horrific attacks on civilians by armed forces on both sides, Amnesty International said yesterday. In an attempt to draw world attention to the violence, the human rights organisation called for independent human rights monitoring of the southern Serb province of Kosovo.
"War crimes are being committed in Kosovo today," Mr Pierre Sane, Amnesty's secretary general, said. "The international community must see Kosovo as a human rights crisis."
Abuses against local inhabitants by both sides ignored international human rights law and were on a par with crimes committed during the war in Bosnia, he continued.
Amnesty accused Serbs and Kosovo Albanians of deliberately targeting civilians during the recent upsurge in violence, which has fanned international fears of a wider Balkan war.
Civilians have been killed, tortured or driven from their homes in a bloody conflict between ethnic Albanians demanding independence and Serb forces determined to maintain Belgrade's control over the province.
"A properly constituted human rights monitoring mission must be at the centre of the international community's presence on the ground," Mr Sane said. Human rights experts could work with United Nations representatives and deliver their findings to the UN's Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal, he added.
Amnesty has been documenting the crisis in Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians have been daily victims, since 1989. But world attention had been taken up by the conflicts in Bosnia and Croatia, Mr Sane said.
Amnesty estimated that approximately 45,000 people - mostly Kosovo Albanians - have had to leave their homes since the conflict began, while hundreds are missing or detained.
The fighting has resulted in the deaths of over 250 people and sent thousands of refugees fleeing over the mountains to Albania.
Macedonia and other states in the region back the stand of the major powers, including Russia and NATO countries, that Kosovo should remain part of Yugoslavia but be granted extensive autonomy.
Meanwhile, European officials say the new US ambassador to the UN, Mr Richard Holbrooke, has identified one of the right issues - getting a representative ethnic Albanian delegation to the table, one which can control the gunmen who now hold about 30 per cent of Kosovo.
But they complain they have not been briefed on US contacts with leaders of the radical Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas, fighting for the independence of the southern Serbian province. And some question the wisdom of talking to the gunmen.
The Austrian Foreign Minister, Mr Wolfgang Schuessel, warned on Monday against undermining the elected leader of the Kosovo Albanians, Mr Ibrahim Rugova - a view echoed by Greece, which opposes legitimising the armed struggle.
The German Foreign Minister, Mr Klaus Kinkel, confirmed that the West no longer considered the withdrawal of Serbian troops and special police from Kosovo a prior condition for negotiations. The military advances of the KLA had complicated the situation, he said.