(WiPC/IFEX) – WiPC is finally able to confirm the good news that two writers who were reported by NATO at the outbreak of the war in Kosovo as having been among five writers and intellectuals assassinated on 29 March 1999, are alive and well. Teki Dervishi, a well-known Albanian poet, is currently living in Skopje, […]
(WiPC/IFEX) – WiPC is finally able to confirm the good news that two writers
who were reported by NATO at the outbreak of the war in Kosovo as having
been among five writers and intellectuals assassinated on 29 March 1999, are
alive and well. Teki Dervishi, a well-known Albanian poet, is currently
living in Skopje, Macedonia. Writer Din Mehmeti’s exact whereabouts are
unknown to PEN at present, but reliable sources suggest that he is living in
Gjakovo, Kosovo.
**Updates IFEX alerts of 1 April, 31 March and 30 March 1999**
It is now apparent that none of the five persons said by NATO to have been
assassinated on 29 March while attending the funeral of a leading human
rights lawyer, himself executed with his sons a few days earlier, were
killed on that day. Baton Haxhiu, the editor of “Koha Ditore”, had been in
hiding in a cellar in Pristina at the time, alongside Dervishi. Both
eventually made their separate ways to Macedonia. They learned of their
“deaths” through satellite television news. Not so fortunate was Fehmi
Agani, another of those mentioned in the erroneous report as killed on 29
March. A writer and a leading Albanian representative who had been present
at the Rambouillet peace talks, Agani was to be executed a month later. He
had stayed on in Pristina, where he is said to have been writing a book on
his experiences. However, in early May, finding the situation in Pristina
untenable, he attempted to flee Kosovo, only to be apprehended at the border
by Serb forces and returned to Pristina where he is said to have been
executed. Neither the identity nor the fate of the fifth alleged victim have
been clarified.
