Risk: 23 years from the massacre of 350 Albanians, read about the horror Serbs committed in Meja (File)

23 years ago, a 24-hour operation of Serbian paramilitary forces in Gjakova, on April 27th and 28th 1999, marked the largest massacre in Kosovo.

350 Albanians were deported from their homes to be massacred later. Also known as the Mejashiha Massacre, it would be one of the most terrible massacres in Kosovo.

Serbian forces had prepared in detail this operation, known as Operation Rekaʹ. But who was behind this operation? What are the names that organized everything, and who cared for what, and how would it be accomplished in these villages of Gjakova?

How did volunteers come from Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia to participate in this massacre, and who were they? What was their number? What was Arkan's role in this massacre?

As Slobodan Milosevic ordered evidence of the crimes in Kosovo, including the Meja massacre, to disappear. Periscope brings you thrilling details from the file Operation Recaí, files that you can find full. THESE!

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On April 27th and April 28th 1999, a joint operation of the Yugoslav Army (UJ) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MPB) has been conducted in western Kosovo. During this operation, members of Serbian forces have killed at least 350 Kosovo Albanian civilians, while thousands have been deported to Albania. The bodies of 309 people killed were found in 2001 at the mass secret cemetery in the outskirts of Belgrade. Serbian forces' attack on the civilian population in the Valley of Reka, according to the number of victims, is the worst crime committed against civilians during the Kosovo war, and is one of the largest in the wars in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, it says on the website of the Humanitarian Law Fund, which has also published the complete file of Operation Recaí.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (GJNPJ), in judgments against Vlastimir Djordjevic and the so-called five of Kosovo (Salinoviqi and others), has largely revised the circumstances of this crime, including the role of the UJ and the MPB, the matrice of crime and the operations of troop cover. Operation Reka has been devised by the AJ's Pristina Corps and the top MPB superiors, with the aim of ousting Kosovo Albanians from the villages of the Gjakova municipality, as well as revenge on Kosovo Albanian men because of the murder of four members of Gjakova's SPB. The operation has led members of the KKP command from a command seat in Gjakova.

Early on the morning of April 27, 1999, soldiers and policemen, co-ordinated from the northern section of the Reka Valley and moving south, have entered the villages inhabited by Albanians (Dobrosh, Ramoc, Racaj, Korenica, Moliq, Brovian, Guska, Neveoza and others). They have entered their homes and ordered villagers to go to Albania, heading them towards Gjakova. During the expulsion of civilians from their homes, members of Serbian forces have killed dozens of civilians. Mostly civilians, 68, have been killed in the village of Korea.

Tens of thousands of villagers who have been expelled from the villages have formed two tractor columns, heading toward the city of Gjakova. The columns, in the village of Mea, from Gjakova, have been passed through two workshops, which were formed by police from Gjakova's SPB. In the workshop, police have stopped tractors and separated males, while women, children, and elders have been ordered to continue on their way to Albania. Police have divided 274 males, among whom there have been 36 not aged, who have been killed in more unknown locations. Mortories of 252 have been found in 2001 in the mass cemetery in Batajnica, ten in Me and the surrounding villages, while 12 are still being researched.

The way the killing of 274 boys and men separated at the workshop in Me is not fully known. This crime is one of the rare mass crimes in Kosovo, in which there are no survivors who would testify to it. The way certain groups of civilians killed in Mea witnessed UJ members who participated in Operation Reka.

For crimes in Operation Reka pre-JNPJ has been sentenced almost the entire military and police leader of RFJ leader Vladimir Lizzareviqi, former commander of the UJ Pristina Corps Nebojsa Pavkoviqi, commander of the US 3rd Army and the subordinate of Lizzarevqi, as well as Dragoljub Ojdaniqi, UJ Chief of General Staff Sreten Luqi, former head of the Republic of Serbia's Ministry of Internal Affairs for Kosovo, and Vlasmir Djordjeevqi, former assistant minister of affairs and chief of public security.

Before the courts in Serbia to date, no person has been prosecuted for crimes in Operation Reka, as well as for hiding victims' bodies in the mass cemetery in Batajnica, in other words, for hiding traces of crimes. Even though the War Crimes Prosecutor (PKL) since 2004 has started working on this subject and has warned the investigation initiated, until the release of this file has not occurred.

According to available data, the Reka operation has taken part in the following military and police units of the Republic of Serbia: UJ's 549th motorised brigade, UJ's 63rd Preparatists, the 52nd Battalion of Military Police, the 52nd Brigade of UJ missile artillery, UJ's Motorized Brigade 125, military-territorial 113, members of the SPB of Gjaova and several Special Forces of Police Departments (A) NPP.

PJ E FROM DOS EXRACTION REKAH

The operation of the Yugoslav Army and the Serbian MUP, dubbed éka Rekaʹ, began about 6:00 a.m. He ended up tomorrow at 6:00.

In the operation, 500 members of the Yugoslav Army and 400 members of the MUPA were involved. At least 350 civilians were killed during the operation.

According to the file, Part of which Periscope brings, Those who participated in this operation said that they had done so in order to prevent KLAA soldiers from entering from Albania to Kosovo. But from the testimony of some of the participants in the operation, it was never proven that there were indicators that members of the KLA would come from Albania to Kosovo.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has found that all victims killed in Operation Reka were civilians, as well as there was no evidence that any of them were armed or had participated in any operation on the Serbian Army.

An order issued by Yugoslav Army Commander Dradan Zivanovovic confirmed that the object of the operation was illegal and was directly conceived against Albanian civilians.

But on his order, he had written that about 200 Albanians from the villages of Racaj, Sheremet and Dobro were participating in operations against the Serbian Army, even though they were dressed as civilians and looked like refugees. Three days after that order, civilians in these villages became the target of the Serbian paramilitary army.

But before that, there had been a murder in the village of Mej. A high officer of MUPUS Milutin Prascevic was killed in this village with three other members of the Serbian MUPU, which led to the idea of the entire operation ukka.

AYSET IMPORTANT SERBIVING PLACE IN THE MASAKE

Tigers of the Arkan

The so-called Tigers of Arkan, led by Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan, were active and volunteers in Meja between April 27th and April 28, 1999. Nike Peraj, a Yugoslav Army officer, had witnessed this too.

In his testimony before the Court, Yugoslav Army Deputy Security Service Chief Aleksandar Vasiljevic had said 30 members of the Arkan's Tigrave were present at Meja.

The Arkan tigers had come from Montenegro. Members of the notorious group were brought from Montenegro to Kosovo and their base was in Mitrovica for a while, then at the Grand Hotel in Pristina, as well as at the Pacific Hotel in Gjakova.

The members of this group were dressed in camouflaged green uniforms that were led by tiger helmets on their heads. Their armor was grenades and knives.

White Eagles

Even this notorious Serbian Army unit participated in the operation, Rhaka. He had witnessed this before the Court, Nicka Peraj. They were on operation with MUP forces. They were wearing black uniforms. On their head, they wore eagles - shaped hats and were recruited by volunteers from the Serbian Radical Party.

Brigade from Republika Srpska

The testimony of Nike Peraj, a Serbian Army officer, says a number of 1,000 people had arrived in early March 1999 in Kosovo. Their commander was Lieutenant Colonel Vukovic (name according to the file is unknown). The brigade had tanks and missile defense system. It was stationed in Gjakova.

NJ E CRYESOR FOR OPECTION ORGANITION

Momir Stojanovic was one of the leading leaders of the operation. He was head of the Department of Security within the army. He was responsible for the technical organisation of operations.

Momir Stojanovic was born in Gjakova. During the war in Kosovo, he held the post of head of the Department for Security. Even after the war in Kosovo, I became head of the Department of Operations in the Serbian Army.

During 2003 ▪ 2004, he served as head of the Military Security Administration Service and as head of the Military Security Agency.

Stojanovic became involved in politics in 2007. He joined the Serbian Radical Party. In 2008 he joined the Serbian Progressive Party, where he served as an MP until 2012.

In April 2015, I NTERPOL issued an order against Stojanovic and 16 others for Operation Reka. In a newspaper for Serbian media, commenting on this mandate of INTERPOL, war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevik had declared that the Court had watched some documents that could involve Stojanovici in the Meja massacre, but had not found anything to connect with this.

(Photo: Momir Stojanovic)

HOW U n ♪ EXPLAIN THE PROVAT CRIME IN COSOVA, SERBIE TRUPAS

On an unknown date right, but has been in March 1999, Slobodan Milosevic had met with Serbian MUPCH and many members Vlajko Stojiljković and Serbian MUPCH members.

Milosevic had ordered that all measures be taken so that all evidence involving the crimes would be eliminated. Vlajko Stojiljlovic after this meeting with Milosevic had followed his order to all MUP and Serbian military structures. According to the file "Operation Rekaʹ, he had ordered all dictatorships of the army to clean up the terrain in Kosovo, wherever they would potentially suspect that crimes had been committed.

Vlastimir Djordjevic man responsible for eliminating evidence in Kosovo

All those who have participated in transporting victims' bodies to Kosovo and shifting them from mass graves have been co-ordinated and under Vlastimir Djordjevic's orders. They also had special means to transport victims, as well as all other technical issues. /Dafina Demaku/Periscopi/ Will PLODAY 

(Photo: Slobodan Milosevic and Vlastimir Djordjevic)