VZCZCXRO5565
PP RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA
RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHPS #0379/01 1351238
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 151238Z MAY 07
FM USOFFICE PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7343
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 0951
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 1148
RHFMIUU/AFSOUTH NAPLES IT
RHMFISS/CDR TF FALCON
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RUEPGEA/CDR650THMIGP SHAPE BE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
RUFOANA/USNIC PRISTINA SR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PRISTINA 000379 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE 
NSC FOR BRAUN 
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI 
EUR/ACE FOR DMAYHEW 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KCRM KDEM PGOV PINR PREL YI UNMIK EAID PHUM
SOCI 
SUBJECT: KOSOVO ALBANIANS COMMEMORATE KOSOVO'S NEW MISSING 
PERSONS DAY 
 
REF: A. 03 PRISTINA 1823 
 
     ¶B. 06 PRISTINA 282 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED, PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY 
 
¶1.  (SBU) SUMMARY.  The Kosovo government officially 
recognized April 27 as Missing Persons Day.  By changing the 
date from the internationally-observed August 30 to the 
anniversary of one of the largest massacres of Kosovo 
Albanians in 1999, the government scored some unnecessary PR 
points against Belgrade but may have complicated the actual 
task of a final accounting of the missing.  The main 
commemoration took place in Meja, where Kosovo Albanians 
buried 22 Muslim and Catholic victims of that massacre. 
Thousands of people participated in the event and paid their 
respects to the families of the victims.  PM Ceku addressed 
the crowd, saying that Serbia should apologize for the deaths 
that occurred during the war.  This change in focus is 
unfortunate since it does nothing substantive to find the 
missing; it turns the wrenching issues of missing persons and 
other atrocities into a bludgeon with which to make political 
points.   END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Starting in 2000, Kosovo Albanians have held annual 
commemorations on April 27 in a large field outside Meja 
(Gjakove/Djakovica municipality, in southwestern Kosovo). 
The field marks the site where over 350 Kosovo Albanians went 
missing during one of the largest massacres of the 1999 
conflict.  In the early years the commemorations were for 
honoring and remembering the victims.  Most of the bodies 
were later found in mass graves in Serbia, and over time they 
have slowly been identified and repatriated.  The field has 
been transformed into a cemetery and the annual 
commemorations turned into burials (reftels).  Gjakove has a 
mixed Kosovo Albanian Catholic and Muslim population, and 
this cemetery is the only one in Kosovo where Catholics and 
Muslims are buried side by side. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) In February 2007, the Kosovo Assembly voted to 
officially designate April 27 Kosovo Missing Persons Day. 
Previously, Kosovo commemorated the International Day of 
Missing Persons on August 30.  This year on April 27, members 
of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) buried 22 Muslim and 
Catholic Kosovo Albanian victims of the 1999 Meja massacre. 
Thousands of Kosovo Albanians participated in the event, 
holding their right hands over their hearts as they slowly 
filed past the weeping family members, who stood near the 
open graves with pictures of their loved ones.  It was a warm 
spring day, and as Kosovo Protection Corps members brought 
the simple wooden coffins one by one onto the field, each 
draped with a red Albanian flag, at least ten people were 
overcome with heat and grief and had to be whisked away on 
stretchers by the Red Cross. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku addressed the 
crowd, saying that Serbia can never move forward until it 
distances itself from the past.  He added that Serbia should 
apologize for the deaths that occurred in Kosovo and 
elsewhere.  During a subsequent speech, a representative of 
the family member associations singled out Valerie Brasey, 
director of UNMIK's Office of Missing Persons and Forensics 
(OMPF), for special thanks for the work OMPF has done to 
return these and other victims to their families. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) COMMENT.  Progress on resolving the fate of 
Kosovo's missing remains slow, and family members are 
understandably frustrated.  However, the government's 
changing of International Missing Persons day to the 
anniversary of a particularly horrific massacre does nothing 
substantive to find the missing, and actually sets back 
efforts at reconciliation between Kosovo Albanians and Serbs. 
 Our ongoing policy approach will be to act on the basis of 
our desire to see justice done while at the same time 
 
PRISTINA 00000379  002 OF 002 
 
 
disassociating ourselves from efforts -- irresistable for 
most Kosovars -- to use past injustices as grounds for 
current and future ones.   END COMMENT. 
KAIDANOW