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KOSOVO-METOHIJA SERB DETAINEES WILL NOT END HUNGER STRIKE KOSOVSKA MITROVICA - Detained Serbs in the district prison in U.N.-ruled Kosovska Mitrovica refused on Monday to end their hunger strike, now in its 34th day, despite grave health problems, until their demands were met. The detained Serbs, some of whom have been in jail for upward of ten months without a trial, are demanding an investigation into their alleged crimes and a fair trial. They were speaking to Zoran Balinovac and Jovica Jovanovic of the Yugoslav committee liaising with the U.N. mission to Kosovo-Metohija (UNMIK) and to reporters in connection with Monday's letter from the Serbian Orthodox Church leader urging them to end the strike. Patriarch Pavle of the Serbian Orthodox Christian Church said in his letter that, while respecting their reasons for the hunger strike, he was begging them to end it in the name of the sanctity of life, as suicide is the gravest crime for a Christian. The detainees answered their hunger strike was a sin of the international community, not theirs, and that they were prepared to explain personally to Patriarch Pavle the reasons that had motivated them to start it and why they would not end it. Twenty Serb women outside the prison gates, who have themselves been on hunger strike for seven days now in support of their menfolk, were on Monday urged by the detainees, speaking through the committee members and reporters, to end the strike. Toma Jovanovic, aged 62, the mother of 49-year-old Dragan Jovanovic who has been in prison since July 1999, vowed on behalf of the women the strike would continue, adding that, "if this world has decided to destroy us, then it shall sin before God, not we." Goran Kostic was taken from prison to the Serb hospital on Monday due to severely impaired health. tanjug, 16.05.2000
