A/HRC/37/55/Add.1 Lasting peace and reconciliation require no less. The Special Rapporteur refers to the many reports of widespread attacks against and destructions of mosques, historic centres, kullas (traditional houses) and cultural sites such as archives committed by Serbian security forces and paramilitaries in 1998/99 in Kosovo, as well as against churches committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army and others in the summer of 1999. She also refers to the intentional destruction of, or damage to, in particular, at least 35 listed Orthodox monuments and churches between 17 and 19 March 2004,18 followed by numerous attacks and incidents against Serbian Orthodox cultural heritage, reportedly including cemeteries and icons, since then; and retaliatory attacks during and after the events of March 2004, including on the workshop of well-known Kosovo Albanian sculptor Agim Čavdarbaša in Pristina, against two mosques in Niš and Belgrade and on two Ottoman-era tombstones in the Citadel Museum in Belgrade, the last reportedly by a curator. 72. The Special Rapporteur heard in the voices of victims of and eyewitnesses to such acts, and those of groups particularly affected, the same shock, pain and loss. She deplores all these destructions of cultural heritage, which constitute violations of the right to access and enjoy cultural heritage. No act of destruction of cultural heritage justifies another. All necessary steps must be taken to prevent any repetition and to hold perpetrators accountable, in accordance with international norms. 73. One purpose of the destruction has been to deprive displaced people of anything to which they could return, as well as to erase the history of their presence and claim a monopoly or monolithic identity in particular locales. While noting the information that many displaced persons from Kosovo do not necessarily wish to return there in the current situation, the Special Rapporteur also heard some express the hope of seeing their heritage restored as a prelude to their being able to at least re-establish relationships with their places of origin or, indeed, to return to their former homes. 74. The Special Rapporteur deplores the high level of politicization of cultural heritage issues. This instrumentalizes cultural heritage, undermines its protection and heightens the risks to it, produces monolithic discourses not appropriate in diverse societies and impedes implementation of a wide range of human and cultural rights for all. Hence, Serbia and Kosovo must depoliticize these issues and de-link cultural heritage matters from nationalistic agendas. Cultural heritage is not a weapon: it is an issue of universal human rights. 75. Destructions have created huge impediments to the exercise of the right to access and enjoy cultural heritage, and jeopardize the rights of future generations. Some of the heritage sites can no longer serve as sources of knowledge and mutual understanding, as places to conduct rituals and cultural practices and as venues for social interaction or friendship-building across groups, irrespective of affiliation. B. Cultural heritage in Serbia 76. The Special Rapporteur visited Stare Sajmište, a former fairground site which was used as a concentration camp for women and children during the Second World War, and is located in the centre of Belgrade.19 After the war, Sajmište was populated by Roma, some of them descendants of the camp inmates, and refugees from the wars in the 1990s. The location had its protected status revoked in 1992, which enabled companies to open businesses and obstruct its preservation and commemoration. A number of civil society organizations have campaigned for the site to be protected and used as a memorial to all 18 19 Some Serb interlocutors argued that these events were concerted, not spontaneous, something which some Kosovo Albanian interlocutors denied. There have been some trials related to these events in Kosovo courts. These have been criticized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for, inter alia, failure to account for the “ethnic motive” and lenient sentences for setting religious monuments on fire. See OSCE, Four Years Later: Follow Up of March 2004 Riots Cases by the Kosovo Criminal Justice System, 2008. For historical background, see Milovan Pisarri, The Suffering of the Roma in Serbia during the Holocaust, Forum for Applied History, Belgrade, 2014. 13