Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Kosovo Albanians push for talks about self-determination

A U.N. report will assess Kosovo's progress in key areas this month.

By Beth Kampschror | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

PRISTINA, KOSOVO - The graffiti appears on apartment buildings, in parks, and outside businesses in Pristina, Kosovo's dusty capital. In Albanian, it reads "no negotiations - self-determination."

The message - six years after NATO bombers drove Serbian forces out and the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) came in - is clear.

"We are here, suffocated with UNMIK over our heads, and Serbia over our necks," says Albin Kurti, who started the graffiti campaign. "UNMIK is now six years here without a deadline. We want a deadline. To become independent from a stronger place you need action, not process."

But process is critical, say local decisionmakers. Diplomats and politicians have their own slogan - "standards before status" - which they say is the only way Kosovo can move out of the limbo it has languished in for the past six years.

In a few weeks, a UN envoy is due to release a report on how well Kosovo's provisional government has met certain standards - democracy, a constitutional framework, minority rights - so that it can move to open negotiations about the province's future with both the international community and Serbia, of which Kosovo is still technically a part.

The talks will determine whether Kosovo becomes independent, as its majority Albanians want, or whether it will gain what Serbian President Boris Tadic calls "more than autonomy, less than independence."

So how will Kosovo measure up? "The report will present a very mixed picture, because Kosovo is a mixed picture," says UNMIK head Soren Jessen-Petersen. He notes that while the government has made strides in building its own institutions and police, those have fallen short in making Kosovo's Serb minority feel safe outside the small enclaves in which they live.

Even a bad grade, most residents say, is unlikely to spark Albanian riots similar to the one that engulfed Kosovo last March, leaving 19 people dead, and hundreds of Serb homes and dozens of Orthodox churches gutted. Kosovo's Albanian politicians say they have their eye too firmly on independence to let that happen.

Opposition leader Hashim Thaci could be speaking for all of Kosovo's Albanians - 90 percent of the population - when he says, "There is only one solution, and that is Kosovo as an independent and sovereign country."

Western capitals, including Washington, have indicated that Kosovo can work on standards while talks continue. Officials say they'll work on the standards for as long as it takes to make Kosovo a proper European country.

"We didn't implement standards because of Brussels or the [UN] Security Council - we have done it for ourselves," says Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi, who replaced Ramush Haradinaj in March after he resigned to answer to war-crimes charges at the Hague tribunal.

Mr. Kosumi, like Mr. Haradinaj before him, also extends the olive branch to Kosovo's Serbs, who boycotted last year's election. "Serbs in Kosovo live here in Kosovo," he says. "They should get engaged more in their futures here. I do not expect them to cut their relationship with Belgrade, but these will be the people who will work together with us and decide together about our future."

Kosovo's Serbs, for the most part, aren't buying it. Some 80,000 Serbs live here, mostly in enclaves protected in part by 18,000 NATO peacekeepers. The March riots, the Albanians' choosing a war-crimes suspect - Haradinaj - as prime minister last year, and anxiety about their safety has left them looking to Belgrade, 220 miles north of Pristina, because it's the capital of Serbia proper and is still, on paper, sovereign over Kosovo.

Because he has a job in Pristina, Nenad Maksimovic may not be a typical resident of Gracanica, a Serb enclave about a 10-minute drive southeast of the capital. But he doesn't trust the Kosovo government. Take the constitutional framework, he says. The way things are set up now, Serbs will have at most 40 seats in the 120-seat assembly, leaving them without political clout.

"You can participate, but you don't have substantial influence," he says. "As long as I see Serbs not having influence, I'm not going to vote. I'm not going to vote for a puppet."

The majority of Albanians aren't happy either. Unemployment is gauged at between 33 and 60 percent. A typical monthly wage is about 150 euros ($183). In western Kosovo, which in the late 1990s saw the first clashes between Serbian police and Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas, analysts have noted that weapons and organized crime have proliferated in the past six years.

"If I'd known it was like this, I wouldn't have returned from Germany," says Istref Kelmndi, at his tire shop outside Pec, in western Kosovo. Mafia assassinations in the town, he says, now mean that people driving from Pristina stop at his shop to ask, "Is it safe?" Business, he says, is catastrophic.

Some 30 minutes down the road, Baskim Kryziu still flies the American flag at his sack shop. He lost more than 20 relatives, including his brother, to Serb forces before NATO intervened in 1999, but says he's willing to wait for whatever has to be done before Kosovo becomes independent.

"We have always been patient. If we look at the will of the people, then you have to implement it," he says. "If [the Americans and the international community] don't want to have their investment in Kosovo up until now lost, they'll listen to us."

Kosovo returns minister beaten up in Pristina restaurant

Text of report by Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA

Pristina, 31 August: Slavisa Petkovic, minister for return and communities in the Kosovo government, was beaten up last night in the Cao restaurant outside Pristina.

According to eyewitnesses, Petkovic was manhandled by one of his closest aides Dragisa Vukcevic.

"I did not beat him up - he got a few slaps after we had a debate on whether, as a minister, he has a moral duty to attend the funeral of the two Serbs in Suvi Do village near Lipljan [two Serb youths killed on Saturday evening in drive-by shooting in Strpce]," Vukcevic said.

He stressed that every Serb "should have been there [at the funeral] instead of at political gatherings or visiting other areas".

Source: SRNA news agency, Bijeljina, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 1133 gmt 31 Aug 05

UPDATE 3-Kosovo President Rugova seriously ill - diplomat

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Kosovo's President Ibrahim Rugova was reported to be seriously ill on Wednesday, raising concern about a possible succession ahead of talks on independence for the disputed province.

"He is in very serious condition," a senior foreign diplomat told Reuters in the Kosovo capital Pristina, without specifying the nature of Rugova's ailment. Rugova has been in a U.S. military hospital in Germany for the past four days.

Commenting on speculation that he may return home partly incapacitated, the diplomat said: "Let's see what effect medical treatment might have on his condition."

A pacifist who has championed his people's independence aspirations for the past 15 years, Rugova was flown to the U.S. hospital at Landstuhl on Saturday.

After three days of tabloid speculation, the respected daily Zeri quoted sources on Wednesday as saying he would return by the weekend but continue "rigorous medical treatment".

As president, and a powerful figurehead for the province's 2 million ethnic Albanians, Rugova was expected to take the lead role in steering Kosovo's bitter political rivals into talks.

That now looks doubtful.

The charismatic Rugova, 60, also has no obvious successor in his faction-ridden Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK).

Analysts raised the prospect of an LDK power struggle as United Nations-mediated talks with Serbia draw near on the future of its southern U.N.-run province.

That would probably benefit rival parties which emerged from the 1998-99 guerrilla war to challenge LDK dominance.

PRESERVING COHESION

A U.N. envoy is due to recommend in September whether to launch the talks, probably in October, or delay them.

Rugova hopes to lead Kosovo's 2 million ethnic Albanians to full independence in 2006, seven years after NATO bombing forced the pullout of Serb forces.

Political analyst Baton Haxhiu said that, health permitting, Rugova might stay on as president for the sake of political stability, but cut back considerably on his public role.

"This would be to preserve political cohesion," he told Reuters. "The international community needs calm right now."

Aides said at the weekend that Rugova's health had deteriorated after a bout of flu. They and a Landstuhl official declined to comment on Wednesday.

Kosovo became a de facto U.N. protectorate in 1999 after NATO bombing forced the withdrawal of Serb troops accused of atrocities in a year of combating an insurgency by Albanian separatist guerrillas.

Despite being eclipsed by the rebels, Rugova's popularity rebounded and he has twice been elected president since the war ended six years ago.

The LDK has relied heavily on his personal charisma to maintain a majority share of the vote among Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, but is riven by factionalism.

Rugova took a political gamble in late 2004 when he formed a coalition government with former guerrilla commander Ramush Haradinaj, who became prime minister.

Haradinaj was under investigation at the time by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Once indicted he turned himself in March and the balance of power swung to Rugova.

If he was no longer at the helm of the LDK, the scales could tip once more in favour of Haradinaj's allies and those of another former rebel, Rugova's political nemesis Hashim Thaci.

NATO to reshuffle troops in Kosovo

BRUSSELS, Aug 31 (AFP) -

NATO is to begin a major reshuffle of its KFOR peacekeeping force in Kosovo in October, an official at the transatlantic military alliance said on Wednesday.

"KFOR will transition to a structure based on task forces instead of brigades to improve and facilitate command and control," the official said, on condition of anonymity.

"In addition, operational tactics and techniques will be modified to ensure a closer interaction with the population of Kosovo," the official said.

"There will be an additional headquarters in the southwest of Kosovo, which is going to facilitate command and control."

The official said the transition, expected to take about a year, was being made to improve KFOR effectiveness in the Serbian province and underlined that the capabilities of the peacekeeping force would not be harmed.

Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since a NATO-led bombing campaign ousted Serb troops from the mainly ethnic Albanian province in 1999 to end fighting between Serbian forces and separatist rebels.

Marti Ahtisaari – status negotiator - Update

Koha Ditore on the front page quotes Western sources as saying that former Finnish President Marti Ahtisaari is preferred by all relevant international actors for the post of negotiator for Kosovo’s status and this is expected to be made official in mid-September when the Finnish diplomat will reportedly meet UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Under the subhead The international community is getting ready to start the process of Kosovo’s status, the newspaper notes that Ahtisaari’s appointment would fit the plan mentioned several months ago. According to that plan, should Eide’s report on standards implementation be positive, the UN Security Council will give the green light to the opening of the status process. In the meantime, the UN envoy for status would be tasked with finding the final solution, which would then be approved by the UN Security Council.

Other unnamed international sources reportedly confirmed to the paper that Ahtisaari is a candidate for the post, but they hesitated to refer to the issue as a done deal.

Sources from the EU reportedly confirmed to Koha Ditore that Ahtisaari is the key candidate to be appointed UN special envoy for talks on Kosovo’s final status. However, senior EU officials refused to make official statements on this matter, saying that they don’t want to prejudge the decision of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The same officials said there is agreement within the EU that Ahtisaari would do a good job in this post, that he is experienced and that the EU would gladly cooperate with him. EU is currently cooperating with Ahtisaari who is mediating to solve disagreements in Indonesia.

According to the paper’s diplomatic sources in Brussels, the international community believes that it wouldn’t be good to give the post of status envoy to an official of countries that are permanent members of the UNSC. There are speculations that this was the reason why former EU Foreign Policy Commissioner Chris Patten is out of the game for this post.

‘Annan will most probably decide on someone who is not too linked with the official policy of the Contact Group and UNSC members, because these countries will anyway play a key role in finding a solution for Kosovo and formalising it by the United Nations,’ diplomatic sources told the paper.

The same sources said Ahtisaari undoubtedly has the best chances of leading negotiations on Kosovo’s status. However, EU and NATO sources warned that one should wait for Eide’s report on standards implementation without whose positive’s note there can be no status negotiations.

At the same time, says the paper, independent analysts have positively assessed the news that Ahtisaari could spearhead status talks. ‘This is a good solution. He has tremendous experience with the former Yugoslavia and he knows many of the people involved,’ British analyst Tim Judah told the paper.

Judah also said that Ahtisaari is familiar with the background of the conflict in Kosovo. ‘However, one should not forget that the issue of Kosovo’s status will be an extremely difficult task,’ Judah concluded.

Years After Milosevic, Serbia's Illusions Persist - The New York Times

By ROGER COHEN
International Herald Tribune


Every month officers of the armed forces of Serbia and Montenegro are asked if they have taken any foreign trips. The questioning is a routine matter, a hangover from the communist era.

In come the replies - a family holiday in Turkey, a visit to the Black Sea coast. More officers are traveling these days, often with newly acquired passports, although monthly salaries of about $450 (for a lieutenant colonel) limit foreign sojourns.

There is also a problem, not a new one in Serbia, with defining what is inside and what outside the country. Some officers who have visited Bosnia balk at categorizing the trips as foreign travel. They say they were stationed there and will never be able to consider the former Yugoslav territory as "foreign."

The protests are summarily dismissed: An international border now separates Serbia from Bosnia. But such little confrontations, witnessed and related by an army member, say much about the confused state of Serbia as the fifth anniversary of the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic approaches on Oct. 5.

At its most basic level, this confusion centers on geography. Within the greater question of where Europe ends, a matter of growing debate in Brussels, lies the smaller but still volatile question of where Serbia ends.

The historic Serbian mistake of 1918, when the victorious kingdom gambled on a large country that would take the name Yugoslavia, rather than consolidating a compact state of Serbia, continues to haunt Belgrade. Just how to complete the long pullback from this hubris-driven overreach remains unclear.

The territory governed from Belgrade continues to shrink. Next year, under an accord devised by the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, Montenegro can call a referendum to decide whether to secede.

Its union with Serbia is already something of a fiction - the two republics use different currencies - and many weary Serbs are inclined to say good riddance to the funny federation sometimes called "Solandia."

But Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia's conservative prime minister, is opposed to Montenegrin independence. So is the army. So is the EU, which sees no need for another European mini-state. So are many Montenegrins, who worry about losing access to good Belgrade hospitals and other perks. As a result, the 2006 referendum remains in doubt.

This uncertainty is unhelpful. "The sooner they decide, the better," said Goran Svilanovic, a former foreign minister. "We need to know the answer to this question: Are you in my country or not? People suffer from a chronic identity problem."

The nature of that problem is familiar enough. Belgrade is the capital of a vanishing state that once stretched to the Austrian border. Its peeling stucco and abandoned old cars are emblematic of decline. Nobody needs a thousand guesses to determine who the big loser from Yugoslavia's disintegration was. Slovenia and Croatia have left Serbia in the dust.

But Serbian illusions persist. As the officers' reluctance to qualify Bosnia as foreign suggests, former bigness is hard to reconcile with current smallness. Belief in some Serbian "Sonderweg," or "special way," endures below the surface. That makes acceptance of a mediocre reality difficult.

Part of this reality is that Montenegro is not alone in contemplating the exit. Negotiations are likely to begin later this year on the status of Kosovo, which is formally part of Serbia, in reality a ward of the international community, and in the minds of almost all its ethnic Albanian citizens a putative independent state.

What goes around comes around. Kosovo was the launching pad for the crazed nationalism engineered by Milosevic as Yugoslavia began to crumble. Now it will, in all likelihood, be the last piece of Serbia to go, but not without a bitter struggle over what many Serbs like to refer to as the cradle of their civilization.

When two Serbs were killed last weekend in a shooting in Kosovo, Kostunica and Boris Tadic, the Serbian president, rushed to issue statements of outrage. In essence, their message was that the incident demonstrated how far Kosovo remains from the basic standards Europe and the United States demand of any community with ambitions to self-governance. They had a point.

The problem, however, is that Serbia, ever quick to denounce ethnic Albanian "terrorism" in Kosovo, has scarcely begun to confront the crimes it committed on a vast scale in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s.

A video of Serbs killing Muslims at Srebrenica, shown in June at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, provoked a shock here. That was salutary. It was also a terrible indictment of the degree of Serbian ignorance a decade after the Bosnian war. Six Bosnian Muslims being shot in 1995 were shown in the video. Six! In the early months of the Bosnian war in 1992, tens of thousands of Muslims were driven from their homes, herded into camps and selectively killed. Over that murderous campaign silence reigns. From Kostunica down, obfuscation of the "They-killed-us-we-killed-them" variety is still encouraged.

"If you ask people here about joining the EU, everyone agrees," said Dusan Pavlovic, a political scientist. "But if you ask them about Serbian responsibility for war crimes, most people would say no. And if you ask them how you can integrate with Europe without accepting responsibility, they stare at you in dismay."

Of course, progress toward EU membership will not occur until two chief protagonists of Serbian violence, General Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, are handed over to the international tribunal. Kostunica and Tadic have committed themselves to their capture, but national sentiment seems divided.

Within the army, younger officers, with an eye on potential NATO membership, favor Mladic's handover. But older officers cannot accept his capture. "They say they will never accept the arrest of a man with whom they fought in Bosnia," said the army member.

That's interesting. One of Serbia's, and Milosevic's, many fictions is that the Yugoslav Army never fought in Bosnia and the campaign there had nothing to do with Belgrade. Nonsense, of course, but Serbia remains ambivalent about reality.

E-mail: rcohen@iht.com

Tomorrow: Alan Riding looks at the West through Muslim eyes.

Third Pakistani policeman arrested

Under the subheader Police continues action of dissolving human smuggling network, Koha Ditore reports on the front page that UNMIK Police have arrested a Pakistani policeman suspected of being involved in human smuggling. Unofficial sources told the newspaper that the suspect was arrested in Pristina on the day he returned from leave.

UNMIK spokesman Neeraj Singh told the newspaper that due to ongoing investigations he could reveal no details surrounding the case.

Surroi: EU is facing a dilemma in Kosovo

In a roundtable held in Alpbach, Austria, ORA leader Veton Surroi said the European Union will once again face the Kosovan challenge and will face two basic paths in the process of resolving the status of Kosovo. One path, according to Surroi, is for the EU to create a new form of protectorate, not like Bosnia, by accepting Kosovo’s independence from Serbia and by holding the final recognition in the hands of superpowers.

Surroi said that the other path before the EU in Kosovo is the real recognition of independence and the attempt to develop the policy of conditioning in the new partnership. According to Surroi, the second path is more righteous.

Marti Ahtisaari – status negotiator

Koha Ditore on the front page quotes Western sources as saying that former Finnish President Marti Ahtisaari is preferred by all relevant international actors for the post of negotiator for Kosovo’s status and this is expected to be made official in mid-September when the Finnish diplomat will reportedly meet UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Kosovo president Rugova seriously ill - source

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova, the ethnic Albanian pro-independence leader undergoing medical tests in Germany, is "seriously ill," a senior foreign diplomat said on Wednesday.

The 60-year-old president was flown to a U.S. military hospital at Landstuhl in western Germany on Saturday after aides said his health had deteriorated following a bout of flu.

An official spokesman refused to comment on Rugova's condition. But a senior foreign diplomat told Reuters: "He is in very serious condition."

Rugova has been at the heart of Kosovo Albanian efforts to win independence from Serbia for the past 15 years.

The province became a de facto U.N. protectorate in 1999 after NATO bombing forced the withdrawal of Serb forces accused of atrocities in fighting separatist rebels.

There is no clear successor to Rugova, who has twice been elected president since the war.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Profile: Ibrahim Rugova - BBC

Ibrahim Rugova has spent more than 15 years at the centre of Kosovan politics, pushing to establish the province as a democratic, sovereign state independent of Serbia.

The United Nations - still administering Kosovo - is due to decide in September 2005 whether the province can begin final status talks.

Mr Rugova's long-held vision of a new Balkan future faces a crucial test.

Hailed as the "comeback kid" of Balkan politics when he won Kosovo's presidency in 2002, Mr Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) party was forced to share power after parliamentary elections in 2004.

An atmosphere of mutual distrust has soured relations between the LDK and its main coalition partner, former guerrilla Hasim Thaci's Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK).

With division apparent among Kosovo's majority Albanians, relations with the province's Serb minority have continued to deteriorate.

Few Serbs voted in the 2004 elections, which came months after Albanians went on a violent rampage through Serb enclaves.

With Serbia still vowing to oppose any move towards full independence for Kosovo, Mr Rugova's political legacy is far from secure.

Pushing for change

Mr Rugova was born in western Kosovo in 1944, the son of a shopkeeper who was executed after World War II by the advancing Yugoslav Communists.

Nevertheless the son prospered, going on to study linguistics at the Sorbonne in Paris, before becoming a writer and professor of Albanian literature.

He boasts a passion for poetry, mineral rock samples and Sar mountain dogs from the southern Kosovo border area. Rarely seen without a trademark silk scarf, he cuts a distinctive figure.

He was drawn into politics in 1989 after being elected as head of the Kosovo Writers' Union, which became a breeding ground for opposition to the Serbian authorities.

This activism hardened after Belgrade stripped Kosovo of its autonomy later that year, and led to the establishment of Mr Rugova's LDK.

Throughout the 1990s Mr Rugova was seen as the moderate, intellectual face of Albanian opposition to Slobodan Milosevic's Belgrade regime.

His political support for the Albanian guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) went largely unquestioned as support grew in the West for military action against Serbia's brutal rule in Kosovo.

But his appearance alongside Mr Milosevic at the height of the conflict virtually ruined his reputation in Kosovo. Many felt the man who for years had called for Western intervention was now urging Nato to stop the bombing.

Most Albanians were furious, with some accusing him of treason. As the conflict came to an end Mr Rugova left the Balkans for Italy, his political career apparently over.

Back in charge

But the man sometimes known as "the Gandhi of the Balkans" returned home and used his experience and pedigree as a proponent of Kosovan nationalism to win the presidency in 2002.

Long before the KLA arrived on the scene in the mid 1990s, Mr Rugova led the parallel government which the Albanians declared at the start of Mr Milosevic's brutal crackdown.

The LDK was as much a party as a popular social movement. He built the loyalty and trust of the people, which lasted the course.

When Ibrahim Rugova campaigned on a pledge to push ahead with demands for full independence from Serbia, Kosovans believed him and voted him into office.

Just a day after the vote, Mr Rugova declared that his first priority as the leader of the victorious party would be to press as fast as possible for sovereignty, and then attend to the economic reconstruction of a province still shattered by war.

He duelled with Mr Milosevic, his old enemy, when called to the stand during the former Yugoslav president's war crimes trial in The Hague.

His home and car have been attacked by bombers, although he has escaped unharmed from each assault.

Despite all his efforts, though, the future of Kosovo is not yet clear.

Ibrahim Rugova led passive resistance in Kosovo in the 1990s; Ethnic tension boiled over in divided Mitrovica in 2004

Department of State Daily Press Conference - Excerpt on Kosovo

Q On Kosovo, the president of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, is hospitalized in a U.S. military base in Germany.

I'm wondering if you have anything on that.

MR. MCCORMACK: On Saturday, August 27th, President Rugova traveled to the U.S. Army Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, for consultations. The United States military facilitated his travel there. And any questions about his health, I think, would be best addressed to his spokesman.

Border guard sentenced to year in prison for killing ethnic Albanian youth

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - A Serbian court sentenced a border guard to one year in prison Tuesday for shooting and killing an ethnic Albanian youth in January.

The District Court in Nis, about 180 kilometers (108 miles) southeast of Belgrade, ruled that Dejan Jovanovic, 28, "violated rules in guarding the state boundary" when he fired at Dashim Hajrulahu, 16, while the youth was illegally crossing the border with Macedonia.

The January shooting increased ethnic tensions in volatile southern Serbia bordering Kosovo, which was the scene in 1999-2000 of an ethnic Albanian rebellion.

Jovanovic, a displaced Serb from Kosovo, was serving in the military as a border guard when Hajrulahu tried to cross illegally from Macedonia, where he had visited family relatives.

Judge Radomir Mladenovic ruled that Jovanovic should have fired warning shots in the air before shooting Hajrulahu. The guard said he thought Hajrulahu was armed but no weapon was found.

There was no immediate comment from Hajrulahu's family or local ethnic Albanian leaders.

Years after Milosevic, Serbia's illusions persist

Roger Cohen International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2005


BELGRADE Every month officers of the armed forces of Serbia and Montenegro are asked if they have taken any foreign trips. The questioning is a routine matter, a hangover from the communist era.

In come the replies - a family holiday in Turkey, a visit to the Black Sea coast. More officers are traveling these days, often with newly acquired passports, although monthly salaries of about $450 (for a lieutenant colonel) limit foreign sojourns.

There is also a problem, not a new one in Serbia, with defining what is inside and what outside the country. Some officers who have visited Bosnia balk at categorizing the trips as foreign travel. They say they were stationed there and will never be able to consider the former Yugoslav territory as "foreign."

The protests are summarily dismissed: An international border now separates Serbia from Bosnia. But such little confrontations, witnessed and related by an army member, say much about the confused state of Serbia as the fifth anniversary of the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic approaches on Oct. 5.

At its most basic level, this confusion centers on geography. Within the greater question of where Europe ends, a matter of growing debate in Brussels, lies the smaller but still volatile question of where Serbia ends.

The historic Serbian mistake of 1918, when the victorious kingdom gambled on a large country that would take the name Yugoslavia, rather than consolidating a compact state of Serbia, continues to haunt Belgrade. Just how to complete the long pullback from this hubris-driven overreach remains unclear.

The territory governed from Belgrade continues to shrink. Next year, under an accord devised by the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, Montenegro can call a referendum to decide whether to secede.

Its union with Serbia is already something of a fiction - the two republics use different currencies - and many weary Serbs are inclined to say good riddance to the funny federation sometimes called "Solandia."

But Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia's conservative prime minister, is opposed to Montenegrin independence. So is the army. So is the EU, which sees no need for another European mini-state. So are many Montenegrins, who worry about losing access to good Belgrade hospitals and other perks. As a result, the 2006 referendum remains in doubt.

This uncertainty is unhelpful. "The sooner they decide, the better," said Goran Svilanovic, a former foreign minister. "We need to know the answer to this question: Are you in my country or not? People suffer from a chronic identity problem."

The nature of that problem is familiar enough. Belgrade is the capital of a vanishing state that once stretched to the Austrian border. Its peeling stucco and abandoned old cars are emblematic of decline. Nobody needs a thousand guesses to determine who the big loser from Yugoslavia's disintegration was. Slovenia and Croatia have left Serbia in the dust.

But Serbian illusions persist. As the officers' reluctance to qualify Bosnia as foreign suggests, former bigness is hard to reconcile with current smallness. Belief in some Serbian "Sonderweg," or "special way," endures below the surface. That makes acceptance of a mediocre reality difficult.

Part of this reality is that Montenegro is not alone in contemplating the exit. Negotiations are likely to begin later this year on the status of Kosovo, which is formally part of Serbia, in reality a ward of the international community, and in the minds of almost all its ethnic Albanian citizens a putative independent state.

What goes around comes around. Kosovo was the launching pad for the crazed nationalism engineered by Milosevic as Yugoslavia began to crumble. Now it will, in all likelihood, be the last piece of Serbia to go, but not without a bitter struggle over what many Serbs like to refer to as the cradle of their civilization.

When two Serbs were killed last weekend in a shooting in Kosovo, Kostunica and Boris Tadic, the Serbian president, rushed to issue statements of outrage. In essence, their message was that the incident demonstrated how far Kosovo remains from the basic standards Europe and the United States demand of any community with ambitions to self-governance. They had a point.

The problem, however, is that Serbia, ever quick to denounce ethnic Albanian "terrorism" in Kosovo, has scarcely begun to confront the crimes it committed on a vast scale in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s.

A video of Serbs killing Muslims at Srebrenica, shown in June at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, provoked a shock here. That was salutary. It was also a terrible indictment of the degree of Serbian ignorance a decade after the Bosnian war. Six Bosnian Muslims being shot in 1995 were shown in the video. Six! In the early months of the Bosnian war in 1992, tens of thousands of Muslims were driven from their homes, herded into camps and selectively killed. Over that murderous campaign silence reigns. From Kostunica down, obfuscation of the "They-killed-us-we-killed-them" variety is still encouraged.

"If you ask people here about joining the EU, everyone agrees," said Dusan Pavlovic, a political scientist. "But if you ask them about Serbian responsibility for war crimes, most people would say no. And if you ask them how you can integrate with Europe without accepting responsibility, they stare at you in dismay."

Of course, progress toward EU membership will not occur until two chief protagonists of Serbian violence, General Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, are handed over to the international tribunal. Kostunica and Tadic have committed themselves to their capture, but national sentiment seems divided.

Within the army, younger officers, with an eye on potential NATO membership, favor Mladic's handover. But older officers cannot accept his capture. "They say they will never accept the arrest of a man with whom they fought in Bosnia," said the army member.

That's interesting. One of Serbia's, and Milosevic's, many fictions is that the Yugoslav Army never fought in Bosnia and the campaign there had nothing to do with Belgrade. Nonsense, of course, but Serbia remains ambivalent about reality.

Kosovo leader in German hospital

The President of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, is undergoing medical tests at a US military hospital in Germany amid reports that he is seriously ill.

His spokesman Muhamet Hamiti said the tests would help doctors decide on appropriate treatment. But he refused to specify the president's illness.

Mr Rugova, 61, was re-elected last October. He was flown to Landstuhl near Frankfurt on Saturday.

He was said to be ill with flu last week and cancelled some engagements.

His Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) party won legislative elections in October 2004.

Kosovo has been under United Nations administration since 1999, when a Nato bombing campaign against Serbia stopped Serb forces expelling the ethnic-Albanian majority during an Albanian separatist insurgency.

Mr Rugova, seen as a moderate ethnic Albanian leader, led passive resistance to Serbian rule in the 1990s.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority wants independence, while Serbia fiercely opposes the idea.

Mr Rugova has long campaigned for Kosovan independence

KPC Ceremonial Guard’s sanction suspended one month ahead of time

All dailies report that the KPC Ceremonial Guard will resume its activities as of 1 September as the sanctions have been lifted one month in advance.

Zëri writes on the front page that before leaving Kosovo, KFOR Commander Yves de Kermabon decided, together with the head of UNMIK, to lift the sanction against activities of KPC Ceremonial Guard a month ahead of time.

‘Guard returns’ is the headline of Express. The paper writes that before leaving Kosovo, Kermabon brought KPC the good news.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Berisha and Surroi: No calm in the region without independence of Kosovo

Koha Ditore reports on a meeting ORA leader Veton Surroi had with the head of Democratic Party of Albania and candidate for Albanian PM Sali Berisha in Tirana.

Surroi congratulated Berisha on his party’s victory in parliamentary elections hoping it will bring a turn in the relations between Kosovo and Albania. Berisha assured Surroi that Kosovo will be an important priority of the future Albanian government. Berisha also said that the region cannot be calm without Kosovo becoming independent.

Police Seek Public Help To Find Killers Of 2 Kosovo Serbs

PRISTINA (AP)--Police in Kosovo Monday appealed for the public's assistance in tracking down the killers of two young Serbs shot over the weekend.

Kai Vittrup, the U.N. police chief said no arrests were made and branded the killing an "isolated tragic incident."

Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica blamed the shooting on ethnic Albanians, according to the Beta news agency in Belgrade. He also criticized the U.N. mission in Kosovo for failing to protect the province's dwindling Serb minority, Beta reported.

The shooting occurred late Saturday when four Serbs were traveling on the main road toward southern Kosovo, police said. Another vehicle with three occupants overtook them and opened fire. Two of the victims died on the spot while two others were wounded, police said.

Vittrup seem to contradict Kostunica by saying it was not clear whether the incident was ethnically motivated. However, another senior police official Colin Atkins, said police patrols were increased following the shooting in the areas inhabited by Serbs.

Kosovo has been administered by the U.N. and patrolled by NATO since 1999. Ethnic Albanians have demanded outright independence, while Serbs prefer that it remains part of Serbia. The two communities remain bitterly divided as this province remains disputed over six years since the end of the war.

Nexhat Daci may perform the duty of the President

The paper writes that according to the Kosovo Constitutional Framework, if the President is temporarily unable to perform his duties, this role would be undertaken Speaker of Kosovo Assembly Nexhat Daci. The office of the Speaker, however, told the paper that the issue of temporary replacement had not yet been discussed.

President Ibrahim Rugova travelled on Saturday to a United States Army base in Germany where he is to undergo medical tests.

Lajm quotes advisor to President Rugova, Skender Hyseni as saying there is no need for a temporary replacement as Rugova is able to perform presidential duties even from the hospital in Germany.

Express writes that there is increasing suspicion that President Rugova is not merely suffering from a cold but that his condition is more serious than officially stated.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Two Serbs shot dead in southern Kosovo

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Two Serbs were killed and two wounded on Saturday night when their car was shot at in southern Kosovo, a local political leader and police sources said.

Serbs have been the target of frequent attacks in Kosovo by the ethnic Albanian majority since the end of the 1998-99 war, which led to the withdrawal of Serb forces from the southern Serbian province and the arrival of a U.N. administration.

The four Serb men were fired on from another car shortly after 11 p.m. (2100 GMT) as they drove near the town of Strpce near Kosovo's southern border with Macedonia, town mayor Stanko Rakovljevic told Reuters.

"They were shot at from a Mercedes which had followed them," he said. The Serbs were driving a car with the old "PR licence plates denoting Pristina, rather than the U.N.-imposed "KS" plates used by the ethnic Albanian majority.

A police source confirmed the killings. The condition of the two wounded men was not immediately clear.

The killings are the worst since a Serb teenager was shot dead in June last year in the Serb enclave of Gracanica, for which two ethnic Albanians have been charged.

It comes as a U.N. envoy prepares to submit a report next month on whether Kosovo has made enough progress on democracy and minority rights for negotiations to begin on its "final status".

The 90-percent Albanian majority wants formal independence from Serbia, which Belgrade opposes.

Western powers intervened in the 1999 war with 78 days of NATO bombing to drive out Serb forces accused of killing and expelling thousands of ethnic Albanian civilians.

After the war, an estimated 180,000 Serbs fled a wave of revenge attacks. Some 100,000 stayed, many in isolated enclaves guarded by members of the 17,000 NATO-led peace force.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Breaking News: Kosovo president flown to Germany after his health deteriorates

Sat Aug 27, 2005 06:01 PM ET
By Shaban Buza

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova was flown to a military hospital in Germany on Saturday after his health deteriorated following a bout of the flu.

"On the recommendation of his doctors, President Rugova decided to go for tests and further medical treatment at a U.S. military base in Germany," his office said in a statement.

A spokesman refused to comment on the seriousness of his illness, but a source close to the president said he was having respiratory problems.

Rugova was transported by U.S. military plane to the Landstuhl military hospital having received treatment at the sprawling Bondsteel U.S. military base in southern Kosovo.

The 60-year-old ethnic Albanian has been at the forefront of Kosovo's drive to win independence from Serbia, with U.N.-backed talks aimed at deciding Kosovo's "final status" expected within months.

With his trademark silk scarf and wire-rimmed spectacles, Rugova led almost a decade of passive resistance to Serb rule in the 1990s, creating a virtual underground state.

But the former literature professor was temporarily sidelined in 1998 when the mood swung in favour of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, which took up arms against Serb forces.

The war ended in 1999 with 78 days of NATO bombing to drive out Serb forces accused of atrocities against ethnic Albanian civilians.

Kosovo remains under the control of the United Nations. Rugova, who escaped unhurt when a bomb blast rocked his car in Pristina in March, heads the Democratic League of Kosovo, the largest party in a coalition interim government.

Friday, August 26, 2005

International experts for working groups on status

Kosova Sot reports that all political parties represented in the Political Forum have agreed to include renowned international experts, who have voiced their commitment to developments in Kosovo, in the working groups that will prepare negotiations on status. The paper also notes that the foreign experts will not be invited by political parties but by the Forum.

The political parties have so far proposed the first names of international experts for these working groups but the lists remain open for other experts.

PDK officials told Kosova Sot that they have proposed the first names at the meeting of the Forum’s Secretariat. PDK senior official Hajredin Kuçi said they are experts that participated in the Rambouillet Conference. He also added that Jim Hooper and Jim O’Brien are among the proposed experts.

The AAK is soon expected to prepare its proposed list of international experts which it will present at the next meeting. Party spokesman Ernest Luma said the AAK was currently thinking about Carne Ross, former UNMIK Standards Coordinator.

According to Kosova Sot, ORA, the second-largest political party of the opposition, have proposed several names of international experts: Jim O’Brien, Paul Williams, Gerard Knaus, Mark Weller and Jim Hooper.

In a separate box within the same article, the paper reports that ‘political parties represented in the Political Forum have not reacted to ORA leader Surroi’s request that President Rugova should lead the Forum.’

Thaçi: SRSG has no mandate over political status

According to Koha Ditore, PDK leader Hashim Thaçi says that the SRSG has no mandate over the political status of Kosovo and has called the statement of UNMIK chief, Søren Jessen-Petersen, for a compromise between Pristina and Belgrade, as hasty and problematic.

‘If he had in mind a compromise that implies less than independence for Kosovo, then his statement was hasty and problematic, but if he meant independence for Kosovo, then I agree that independence is a compromise for the people of Kosovo,’ Thaçi said for Koha Ditore.

According to Thaçi there should be no negotiations with Serbia on the political status of Kosovo. ‘There should only be negotiations with the internationals on the way to build the state of Kosovo and not about what status Kosovo should have. There is only one solution for Kosovars and that is respecting of the will of the people of Kosovo for an independent and sovereign state. Any other solution will be in complete contradiction to the will of the people of Kosovo,’ Thaçi said.

Referring to the statement of the SRSG that Kosovo institutions are lagging behind Belgrade in their preparations for status talks, PDK leader said that ‘working groups have been set up and they should accelerate the process of implementation of Kosovo’s statehood, not of negotiations with Belgrade. If the lack of preparedness of the current Government is being talked about in relation to status, then the current Government should not be identified with the will of the people of Kosovo,’ said Thaçi.

Thaçi also said that ‘no sheet of paper will be put on the table of talks unless all KLA senior officials were first released from UNMIK’s prisons,’ adding that for the people of Kosovo they are heroes and are innocent.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

SERBIAN PROSECUTORS ACCUSED OF SERVING POLITICIANS- IWPR

All too familiar calls for judicial reform follow collapse of a case against Marko Milosevic.

By Momir Ilic in Belgrade (BCR No 572, 25-Aug-05)

The collapse of a criminal case against the son of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic proves the Serbian judiciary remains firmly under the thumb of those who wield political power, critics say.

The district prosecutor's office in Pozarevac, a town 85 kilometres south of Belgrade, dropped charges of extortion against Marko Milosevic in early August. Deputy District Prosecutor Dimitar Krstev said he abandoned the case because the alleged victim changed his story.

But observers say the decision was not only a professional blunder but also evidence of the close links between prosecutors and politicians.

Balkan Crisis Report, BCR, has been told by a senior source in Serbia's judiciary that the charges were dropped when Krstev came under pressure from Serbian state prosecutor Slobodan Jankovic, who at a meeting in Belgrade ordered him to release Milosevic "in the best interests of the state and government".

"Pressure was exerted on Krstev for over two hours. He was sweating profusely in an air-conditioned room, trying to put up some resistance," said the source.

Jankovic dismissed all suggestions that the charges against Marko Milosevic were dropped as a result of political pressure.

Krstev, too, has denied coming under any political influence, and insists he dropped the case after the plaintiff, Zoran Milovanovic, came to his office and changed his story to say he had no recollection of a key incident in which Milosevic was alleged to have threatened him with a chainsaw unless he disclosed the founders and financers of Otpor, the opposition movement to which he belonged.

Otpor members have accused Milovanovic of changing his story under pressure from politicians. The witness's mother recently wrote an open letter saying, "I don't want to be listed along with those mothers who have lost their children", but she did not specify who was threatening her son.

Marko Milosevic fled the country in October 2000 after the collapse of his father's regime, and was sentenced in absentia to six months' imprisonment by the Pozarevac Municipal Court. A higher court subsequently reversed that decision and ordered a retrial.

Earlier this year, with Jankovic's consent, a court withdrew an international arrest warrant for Slobodan Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, who had was facing charges relating to property in Belgrade. She has since left the country.

Belgrade lawyer Slobodan Soskic says the cases against both mother and son reflect all too clearly the current state of Serbia's judiciary and prosecution service.

"Prosecutors are straining their ears to hear what the politicians want, and they make their decisions accordingly. This proves that there is no continuity in the healing process within the Serbian judiciary, and also that that this area is great need of far-reaching, comprehensive reform," said Soskic.

Questioning Krstev's judgement and motives, Soskic said it should have been up to the court to decide whether to drop the charges against Milosevic, "The prosecutor should have asked Milovanovic to repeat at the main hearing what he had told him, and thus allow the court to decide which statement it would place its faith in."

Professor Momcilo Grubac, an authority on criminal law who was the chief architect of the Criminal Procedure Act, which is supposed to guide the way prosecutors work, agreed that there was a political connection in both cases.

"The dismissal of charges against Marko Milosevic and the withdrawal of the international arrest warrant are mutually linked, and one may draw the conclusion that the courts and the prosecutors' offices are run from one and the same central location," he said.

Like Soskic, Grubac suggested that Krstev had acted in error. He said prosecutors should not drop criminal charges in cases where a guilty verdict has been issued, then reversed and a retrial ordered.

"Circulating a story according to which Krstev dropped the charges because the plaintiff [Milovanovic] changed his statement is a cheap excuse which can deceive only the ignorant," said Grubac. "The plaintiff can say whatever he likes, but his own wishes have no bearing on the case. The prosecutor is not dependent on the plaintiff and must act in keeping with the law."

The high-ranking Serbian judicial source said the Milosevic and Markovic cases highlight the weaknesses in the current hierarchy of prosecutors.

"Prosecutors have no substantive independence, because [they are] obviously under the control of the executive branch of power," said the source. "The justice minister can suspend the Serbian state prosecutor. If he has such powers over him, then he may exercise similar authority over the entire prosecution service organisation."

Critics say the hierarchical nature of the prosecution service is also conducive to abuse, since senior prosecutors enjoy virtually unrestricted power over their subordinates. They also worry that there is little hope of improvement, citing the most recent draft of the National Strategy for Serbian Judicial Reform, in which the prosecution office is described not as an independent body, but as part of the executive, and linked to the judiciary.

"We are doomed to have cases like Mirjana Markovic and Marko Milosevic repeated over and over again until after the prosecution offices are… removed from the executive branch which currently controls them," concluded the source.

Momir Ilic is a journalist for Blic newspaper and a regular BCR contributor.

Comment: Srebrenica’s Unfinished Business

The arrest of the two top war crimes suspects in Bosnia would have a positive impact locally and internationally.

By Daniel Serwer in Washington (BCR No 572, 25-Aug-05)

The key point about the tenth anniversary of the fall of Srebrenica, commemorated last month, is what is still missing. Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the men accused of being the chief perpetrators of the ensuing massacre – the greatest war crime in Europe since the Second World War - are still at large.

Mladic led the Serb forces at Srebrenica, allegedly working under Belgrade’s command, while Karadzic, as the Bosnian Serb political leader, issued a directive calling for the attack.

In the aftermath of the assault, Serb forces captured and murdered more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys. More than 2,000 of them have now been positively identified.

Karadzic and Mladic are thought to be hiding out in the Serb-controlled parts of Bosnia, in Serbia, and in Serbian monasteries in Montenegro.

Indicted years ago by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, both men are still celebrated figures in their chosen places of refuge, even though they are reviled in the rest of the world.

What difference does it make? The answer to this question looks rather like the concentric circles formed when a pebble is dropped into still water. As each circle spreads, the size of the wave is smaller, but its reach is wider.

Obviously, the issue makes a difference to those whose loved ones were killed. Their lives will never be the same, but they expect justice to be served. They also expect compensation from Serbia, which to date has not accepted responsibility for the crime, despite the profoundly expressed regrets of its current president.

It also makes a difference to those who supported Karadzic and Mladic ten years ago and who continue to harbour them.

Virulent Serbian nationalism thrives on defiance of the Hague tribunal, but once its heroes go on trial, it will be neutered politically in both Serbia and Republika Srpska, RS, the Serb-controlled part of Bosnia. That is what has happened to former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic during his long trial in The Hague: while many people still root for him and his political party helps maintain the current government in Belgrade, he himself no longer counts as a serious political factor there.

The failure to arrest and try the two most prominent war crimes suspects of the Bosnian war has fostered a culture of denial, hatred and distrust in many Serb communities, including the diaspora. If future generations in Bosnia and Serbia are to be free of this burden, those who are accused of the greatest guilt for the crimes committed at Srebrenica have to be held to account. Serbs as a group are not guilty, but there are specific individuals who are.

For the territories in which Karadzic and Mladic are thought to be hiding, how and where they are arrested will make a difference.

If Montenegro’s security forces make an arrest, the republic will highlight that it is distinct from Serbia and that it is prepared to accept its international responsibilities – thus strengthening its claim to independence. If Serbian security forces arrest Mladic - or if he surrenders “voluntarily”- Serbia will quickly find its relations with both the United States and the European Union vastly enhanced.

If RS forces arrest either suspect, the entity will find its relations with both the US and EU improved, but if NATO makes an arrest inside Bosnia, RS will get no credit. If Karadzic gives himself up, as his wife has now publicly requested, he will enhance his own reputation in RS, but little credit will go to the authorities there.

The sad fact is that many in RS - including the governing parties - think little wrong was done at Srebrenica, the argument being that any crimes were retaliation for attacks on Serbs. A fair and public trial will do a great deal to disabuse Serbs of the notion that premeditated mass murder is justifiable as self-defence.

The Balkans region as a whole would benefit from the capture of Karadzic and Mladic. Many in Croatia, Macedonia and Kosovo will regard it as justice if those accused of responsibility for crimes against humanity at Srebrenica go on trial. It will become far easier for Kosovo Albanians, Macedonians and Croatians to accept trials of people from their own groups - some of whom are already in The Hague - if the top Serb indictees are also there.

Croatia is particularly important since it has failed so far to deliver the indicted General Ante Gotovina to The Hague. If Mladic, the Serbs’ war hero, is on trial, Croats will be more willing to accept that their own wartime commander should face judicial proceedings.

More broadly, holding Karadzic and Mladic to account will send a clear signal to those who take up arms against fellow-citizens that they will be held accountable for their actions, whatever they say to justify their cause.

Armies and paramilitaries that are supplied or controlled from a neighbouring territory are common in our post-Cold War world: think of Nicaragua, Democratic Republic of Congo, and East Timor. All too often they are unaware of their responsibilities to protect civilians, and in fact they often target them to displace them from their homes. The rules of war are not just for wars between sovereign states, but also for armed forces everywhere, including self-proclaimed freedom fighters.

Finally, the arrest of Karadzic and Mladic will greatly enhance the credibility and prestige of the United States and the European Union.

Accountability will help prevent future crimes, while impunity will only encourage wrongdoing. The fact that Karadzic and Mladic are still at large is a sign of the international community’s impotence. Their long overdue arrest and transfer to The Hague will signal that justice, though delayed, cannot be denied.

Daniel Serwer is Vice President and Director for Peace and Stability Operations at the United States Institute of Peace. The views expressed here are his own.

Breaking News: Serbian government sacks Kosovo policy coordinator

BELGRADE, Aug 25 (Reuters) - The Serbian government on Thursday sacked its Kosovo policy coordinator because his party, a member of the ruling coalition, failed to support a crucial reform law which scraped through parliament this week.

A statement said that Nebojsa Covic, who heads the leftist Social Democratic Party (SDP), would be relieved of his duties as president of the coordination centre for Kosovo and another body for southern Serbia's Presevo region.

A source close to Covic said the sacking had nothing to do with the close vote but was really about Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's determination to remove Covic, seen as a hardliner, from coming talks on the future of disputed Kosovo province.

"This is the start of the handover of Kosovo," the source told Reuters. Kosovo's 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority is demanding independence from Serbia.

Covic refused to comment on his sacking, telling state news agency Tanjug that he was still on holiday.

TIGHTROPE MAJORITY

On Monday, Kostunica's coalition survived a vote on the future of the state-run oil monopoly NIS after assuring trade unions and opposition parties that restructuring of the company did not mean swift privatisation.

The coalition only just achieved a parliamentary quorum of 126 deputies for Monday's vote in the 250-seat parliament, with 122 deputies voting in favour.

Kostunica on Wednesday asked officials of Covic's SDP to resign from government posts, saying they had acted like an opposition party and not as members of the government.

Two party officials, including Labour Minister Slobodan Lalovic, dissociated themselves from the party and sided with the government while the others refused to resign and said they would wait for Kostunica to sack them.

Kostunica's centre-right minority coalition had 109 seats in parliament when it came to power in March 2004. They rely on the opposition Socialists of Slobodan Milosevic, with 22 seats, for voting majorities. Covic's SDP commands just two seats.

The government also asked for the dismissal of SDP official Slobodan Orlic, the information secretary for the union of Serbia and Montenegro. His removal, however, would have to be endorsed by the union government.

Orlic said that from next Monday the SDP would launch a fierce opposition campaign.

Serbian Economy Minister Predrag Bubalo said the government now had a small but stable majority. "Once it loses that majority it will call an election," he told reporters.

Political analyst Slobodan Antonic told B92 radio that every deputy's vote in parliament would now carry greater weight as the government struggled to stay afloat.

Picture of the Day-Kosovo


Picture of the Day-Kosovo
Originally uploaded by kosovareport.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian director Isa Qosya (L) and lead actor Luan Jaha listen to a question at a news conference ahead of the world premiere of their movie 'Kukumi' in Sarajevo, August 24, 2005. The movie, which runs in the competition for the best regional movie at the Sarajevo Film Festival, tells the story of three mental patients let loose from an asylum and how years of ethnic conflict and uncertainty have de-humanised people in the region. Picture taken August 24, 2005. For release with story Leisure-Film-Kosovo REUTERS/Danilo Krstanovic

Rare Kosovo film highlights province's problems

By Nedim Dervisbegovic

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Kosovo's first film since the 1999 war tells the story of three mental patients let loose from an asylum after the collapse of Serb rule.

Kosovo Albanian director Isa Qosya, who has not made a film for 17 years, said "Kukumi" was his way of showing how years of ethnic conflict had dehumanised people in the region.

The film, shot entirely in Kosovo, received its world premiere late on Wednesday at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

"I felt uneasy during the first years of this whirlwind and felt a certain dehumanisation of people who did not understand and help each other," Qosya told a news conference.

"The whole movie is a metaphor. Freedom is when you help someone and when you understand the other person too," he added.

The three main characters are two men and a woman -- Kukumi, Hasan and Mara.

Despite coming from a mental institution, they often appear to cope better than others with life in postwar Kosovo, with its ethnic tensions, U.N. bureaucrats and the foreign troops who occupied the province.

But a misunderstanding with NATO forces raises the question of whether the characters were better off inside the asylum.

"The role of NATO troops in Kosovo has had positive but also some negative consequences," Qosya said. "I can't understand their role now; it has become totally undefined."

FUTURE UNCERTAIN

Qosya said the province's problems stemmed partly from uncertainty over the future.

Kosovo is still legally part of Serbia. The Serbian government and Kosovo's now-tiny Serbian minority hotly oppose the independence Kosovo Albanians want.

Talks over the final status of the province are expected to start this year or next, depending on progress on issues including human rights and democracy in one of Europe's poorest corners.

"Everything is undefined, and that is accompanied by a lack of character and principle among the people," Qosya said.

Through a simple plot and sparing dialogue, the director portrays the tensions between those people who left Kosovo during Serb rule and the war and those who stayed on throughout.

The main characters seem most at ease when left undisturbed in uninhabited settings, such as when they drive a railway car along deserted tracks, gaze at a lake in an abandoned quarry or convert a rundown stable into their home.

Qosya said he had difficulty raising funds for the movie in a region struggling to provide the population with basic services like health care. But eventually Kosovo's authorities agreed to foot the 600,000 euro bill.

Croatia's Jadran Film provided the equipment, and the all-Albanian cast and Qosya worked without pay. "Kukumi" is in the competition programme for the best regional movie award at the Sarajevo festival.

Lawyers: Haradinaj to return to politics

Citing information broadcast by a Greek news agency, Kosova Sot reports today that former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj has voiced through his attorneys the wish to return to politics.

The news agency noted that ICTY granted Haradinaj provisional release on 6 June, and banned him from making public appearances and contacting politicians for 90 days. As the court’s deadline is expiring, the attorneys have called on the court to review its decision. The attorneys say the former PM could play a role in political developments in Kosovo and especially in respecting minority rights and improving security in the region.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

US envoy urges Serbs to bring war crimes suspects to justice

PANCEVO, Serbia-Montenegro, Aug 24 (AFP) -

The US senior envoy for war crimes Pierre-Richard Prosper warned here Wednesday that all war crimes suspects must answer charges before international or local justice.

"We believe that those who have committed those acts must be brought to (UN tribunal in) The Hague or be tried before local courts," Prosper said while visiting a refugee center in the Serbian town of Pancevo, some 15 kilometers (nine miles) north of the capital Belgrade.

Prosper, who is on a "regular" two-day visit to the country, according to the US embassy in Belgrade, also said he welcomed the "progress" Serbia has made in cooperating with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), charged with prosecuting war crimes during the Balkan conflicts over the past decade.

At the same time, Prosper said that "the work has not been finished yet," insisting that the two most-wanted suspects still at large, the Bosnian Serb war-time political and military leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, must be brought to trial.

The ICTY has indicted Mladic and Karadzic for war crimes and genocide related to atrocities against non-Serbs in Bosnia, notably the 1995 massacre of up to 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica.

The former Bosnian Serb general is believed to be hiding in Serbia, which Belgrade denies, insisting that it has no information on Mladic's whereabouts.

Talking with some 100 Serb refugees who have fled Bosnia, Croatia or Kosovo, finding shelter at Pancevo, Prosper said that the United States was aware that there were also Serb victims in the 1990s Balkan wars that tore apart the former Yugoslavia.

"We know that there were Serbs who were persecuted, murdered, raped, had their homes destroyed, property taken away, forced to relocate," Prosper said.

He added that some of those responsible for such crimes have been indicted by the ICTY, notably Croatian general Ante Gotovina, charged with the murders of at least 150 ethnic Serbs at the end of the 1991-95 Serbo-Croatian war.

Prosper was due to meet late Wednesday with Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and other Serbian officials responsible for war crimes issues.

On Thursday, Prosper was scheduled to visit Serbia's special court for war crimes where he will meet judges and the country's special war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vuckovic.

The United States has been supporting countries of the former Yugoslav Federation in their bid to put on trial locally some of those suspected of war crimes during the Balkan conflicts.

Kosovo is not Serbia's property, party leader says

Prishtina [Pristina], 23 August: Regardless of remarks it may contain, Kai Eide's report on Standards implementation will pave the way for the settlement of Kosova's [Kosovo] final status, leader of the Democratic Party of Kosova (PDK) Hashim Thaci told KosovaLive. "It cannot be a negative report. An open and strategic solution for the political status will be found after Eide's report. I have also promises in this regard," said Thaci.

He said that he and his political party do not support the idea for status talks. However he considers that the Political Forum should form the working groups that will deal with building of Kosova's state. "But, initially, we have to convince the world to recognize the independent and sovereign state of Kosova."

"Political status is not a monopoly or a private property of this or of that leader. What we have here is the will of Kosovar citizens on status, and we, as political leaders, are obliged to implement it," said Thaci.

"Belgrade should play no role over this issue. Kosova is not a property of Serbia. The people of Kosova is that who decides for it," he said.

Thaci also said that a consensus is needed among the Kosovar political parties, and no-one can give to himself the right to destroy the national consensus achieved at the Political Forum.

Thaci said that the Forum is establishing its own groups, and it will be the institution that will play a key role in the future.

He opposed the possibility of being conditioned by the international community to participate in the possible status talks with Belgrade. "This cannot happen with PDK. Conditions could be set only to the team of the current government, which continues to be blackmailed." [Passage omitted]

"For this reason there is a risk that they can enter into a compromise on the political status," said Thaci.

According to Thaci, the government with its people is putting Kosova's political future at risk. "This is government cabinet that is putting the historical chance of Kosovars for an independent and sovereign state at risk," Thaci said. [Passage omitted]

According to the opposition leader, PDK is committed to respect all the rights of the Kosovar Serbs, but it does not accept any project that leads to the territorial division of Kosova. [Passage omitted]

Source: KosovaLive web site, Pristina, in English 23 Aug 05

Thaçi: UNMIK must realise it is redundant in the political process in Kosovo

Epoka e Re carries an interview that PDK leader Hashim Thaçi gave to Voice of America. The headline that the newspaper chooses for the interview is Thaçi’s quote that UNMIK should realise that it is redundant in the political process in Kosovo.

‘Two million Kosovo Albanians have expressed their will for an independent and sovereign state of Kosovo. There are certainly differences as to the path and way of achieving this, but every political leader is obliged to implement the will of citizens. The state of Kosovo or independence is not an invention of some political leader, it is the will of citizens and we as political leaders are obliged to implement it,’ Thaçi was quoted as saying.

Commenting on preparations for final status talks and Philip Goldberg’s statement that the Kosovan side is not prepared for talks, Thaçi said: ‘I think the Kosovan side, the institutions, and political parties are prepared for the political status; the civil society and citizens are determined [to have an] independent and sovereign state. I think the international community should be more prepared to respect the right of Kosovo citizens to express their will for a state. My assessment is that this is a new and positive situation, and the circumstances require Washington, Brussels, the Security Council and the Contact Group to respect the will of Kosovo citizens. The people, institutions and parties are prepared to enter the process of building the independent and sovereign state of Kosovo integrated in Euro-Atlantic structures.’

Thaçi said the time has come to resolve the issue of status but also added that ‘work should be done in order not to negotiate the political status’. ‘It is unacceptable to negotiate on the political status because the will of citizens should in no way be on the table of talks. On the table should be modalities for building the state of Kosovo and not what the status should be.’

Asked on his perception over the future role of the international community in Kosovo, Thaçi was quoted as saying, ‘It should be an important role, same as the role in other independent countries. Of course, UNMIK should gradually realise that it is redundant in the political process in Kosovo. We must have close cooperation with all mechanisms that will remain as advisory offices in Pristina, and at the same time we should focus and invest a lot in having a strong NATO presence here so that even after the resolution of status Kosovo can be part of global security.’

Calmy-Rey to ‘report’ on Kosovo

Koha Ditore reports that despite criticism, Swiss Minister of Foreign Affairs, defends her stance on independence of Kosovo.

The engagement of Switzerland in the independence of Kosovo was discussed in the last meeting of the Swiss government in Bern. Calmy-Rey was criticized for a premature position and she was asked to come up with a report.

Meanwhile, according to Koha Ditore, the Serbian media have attacked the Swiss diplomat Theodor Winkler saying that he was in Pristina to help set up the ‘intelligent service of Kosovo’.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

The Milosevic Era Has Returned - der Spiegel

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Vldan Batic, 56, the former Serbian Justice Minister, talks about how biased the justice system still is in his troubled nation and how the shadow of former President Slobodan Milosevic continues to hover.

Even while on trial for war crimes, Milosevic may still be pulling the strings in Serbia.
Slobodan Milosevic, first became president of Yugoslavia in 1989, but many say his influence is still felt. Currently, he is in the Netherlands, facing charges of war crimes at The Hague. In his first six years in power, Milosevic ignited conflicts in Croatia (1991) and Bosnia (1992) during which thousands of civilians died. In 1997, he earned international disdain when he brutally repressed Kosovo's ethnic Albanian residents. In 2000, he relinquished the presidency to Vojislav Kostunia, but only under popular pressure.

SPIEGEL: In a surprising move, a Serbian court revoked international arrest warrants for former president Slobodan Milosevic's wife Mira Markovic and his son Marko. Already the Serbian people were irate that charges against Marko for allegedly harassing his father's political opponents were dropped and that financial corruption charges against Mira Markovic were dismissed. Some say the dropping of the charges was an inside deal. Is Milosovic once again ruling the nation, this time from his cell at The Hague war crimes court?

Batic: For everyone who lives in Serbia, one thing is clear: The Milosevic era has returned. Almost all of the most important posts in the nation are once again filled with Milosevic's cronies. In Milosevic's wife's case, the chief prosecutor issued "an obligatory order" to his deputy to drop the arrest warrants. Such an order is a first in our judicial history. Behind it all was a deal between Milosevic and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. Kostunica remains in power thanks to the votes of the Socialist parliamentarians, whose party Milosevic once led.


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SPIEGEL: Marko allegedly controlled illicit cigarette smuggling. He was arrested after he allegedly threatened an opposition member with a chainsaw. Now, the defendant has taken back the charges.

Batic: What else can the man do? His mother wrote me a letter in which her terror was clear: Marko's friend threatened him and his family day and night.

SPIEGEL: How seriously can we take the promises to track down and arrest the two most searched-for war criminals, General Ratko Mladic and Radovan Kadadzic?

Batic: Mladic is often in Serbia, mostly in Belgrade. He -- just like other war criminals -- is still being protected by the army, the church and Kostunica. And I don't just mean morally. All of those who have given themselves up as war criminals to the Hague have received up to €500,000 compensation. It's being financed by four business magnates who then are compensated by the Serbian government with lucrative deals.

SPIEGEL: The government of the assassinated Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic which you belonged to, also knew about Mladic's trips to Belgrade. Why didn't you arrest him?

DPA
A mass grave containing the remains of Muslims killed in Kosovo.
Batic: He had the support of the army, not the government. The police could not initiate a war against the army.

SPIEGEL: Djindjic was killed in 2003 and the case against his alleged assassin is threatening to become a farce. Not long ago, the state prosecutor was replaced.

Batic That's because he would not be influenced by the government's attempts to water down the evidence. A few people holding cabinet posts today were directly involved in the killing. That's why the government is waffling on the case.

SPIEGEL: The case has focused completely on one suspect and legitimate questions about his accomplices have been totally ignored. Why?

Batic: The reasons are well known. They were people who had no political perspective under Djindjic -- a group of criminals like the ones sitting in The Hague. The plot was organized by the state and military secret service. The patriarch blessed the plot using the logic that Djindjic was a traitor and it's no sin to murder a traitor.

Talks On Kosovo Future Should Start By End-05-UN Official

PRISTINA (AP)--Kosovo's U.N. administrator said Tuesday that talks to determine the disputed province's future should start by the end of the year.

"I do not see any gains in delaying status talks," said Soren Jessen-Petersen, the top U.N. official in the province. He said the next three months in Kosovo are the "most crucial months in this crucial year."

Kosovo has been disputed between the province's ethnic Albanian majority who want full independence, and the Serb minority and Serbia who insist the province remain part of Serbia-Montenegro, the union that replaced Yugoslavia.

Talks to determine its future depend on the province's ability to meet internationally set standards on democracy, rule of law and civil rights for the Serb minority.

Another U.N. envoy, Kai Eide, who was appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in June to review progress, said Monday that more work is needed to improve tense relations between Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and Serbs before talks can begin.

Kosovo has been administered by the U.N. and patrolled by NATO-led peacekeepers since a 78-day alliance-led air war that halted a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.

Ethnic tensions in Kosovo remain high six years since the end of the conflict. About 100,000 minority Serbs mostly live in isolated enclaves, fearing attacks from ethnic Albanians extremists.

Jessen-Petersen said Kosovo needs to focus on four areas including minority rights, economy and reform of local government in the next few months before the U.N. can appoint an envoy to mediate between Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and Serbia.

Eide: Dissatisfaction expressed in Pristina does not exclude a positive report

‘I would like to see Belgrade offering greater support to what Serbs in Kosovo do. I think that this is important, because it is in the interest of Kosovo Serbs. I hope that Belgrade will support them, namely give them the green light to take part in institutions, especially in Assembly’, Eide is quoted as saying in Belgrade, writes Zëri.

According to the paper, Eide expressed his dissatisfaction with Serbian political leaders and said that his ‘dissatisfaction’ expressed in Pristina about the implementation of the Standards does not exclude ‘a positive assessment’ in his final report.

SRSG: UN to decide about opening status issue in October

Several dailies carry an interview SRSG Søren Jessen-Petersen gave to Radio Free Europe.

‘There is no reason to delay status talks’ is the headline Zëri chooses to give to the interview they carry in entirety. ‘I know, and in fact I would not be surprised if ambassador Eide underlines a number of continuous difficulties. We are aware of these difficulties, but they are not issues and problems that can be solved in a blink of an eye, they simply need to be resolved. As I said earlier, for now, I do not see a reason to delay status talks’.

Koha Ditore reports that SRSG is expecting the UN Security Council to decide in October if conditions for opening negotiations on status talks have ‘ripen’. According to the paper, the SRSG also expressed his concern that Belgrade is not giving the green light to Kosovo Serbs to take part in political processes.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Kosovo: Road linking Serb, Albanian villages inaugurated

Prishtina [Pristina], 22 August: Construction of the road that links Serb and Albanian villages is an indicator that great work can be done only together, the commander of the Kosova [Kosovo] Protection Corps (KPC [TMK in Albanian]), Lt-Gen Agim Ceku, said on Saturday [20 August] at the inaugural ceremony.

The eight-kilometre-long road links the Serb villages Kolloleq and Carakoc with Albanian villages of Dajkoc and Mucivrca. The project for asphalting of the road was funded by USAID [United States Agency for International Development], and implemented by Mercy Corps, whereas US Kfor [Kosovo Force], KPC and Kamenica municipality were engaged in executing the works.

On this occasion the US government through the US Kfor has donated a bulldozer and excavator to the KPC Zone IV.

Source: KosovaLive web site, Pristina, in English 22 Aug 05

Kosovo's Trepca mine resumes work

Mitrovice [Kosovska Mitrovica], 22 August: Minister of Energy and Mines Ethem Ceku said today at the reactivation ceremony that he is confident that Trepca [mine], during these three months of experimental phase, will prove that that is economically sustainable.

He also said that Trepca would have an impact in increasing of the social welfare of Mitrovica region citizens. According to Ceku, Trepca will become self-sustainable in 2006 .

Joachim Ruecker, head of UNMIK's [UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo] Pillar IV, assessed that reactivation of Trepca indicates that Kosova [Kosovo] will be again a base of profitable mines.

"This is an important day since production in Stan Trg's [Stari Trg] mine began again, in the exploitation phase. The world market for mining products is very good at the moment. We are closely working with the government in this issue," Ruecker said.

Ken Yamashita, chief of USAID [United States Agency for International Development] mission in Kosova, said that reactivation of Trepca is a good example of what success can be achieved when having all stakeholders, the government, UN and the donors, working together.

He said that this is only the first step, while he mentioned that the Law on Mines is being processed. "We and Ruecker have many works to do for privatization, so these mines can be effective. We should attract private investors in order they to come in a secure environment," Yamashita said.

Source: KosovaLive web site, Pristina, in English 22 Aug 05

UN envoy urges Belgrade to take constructive role on Kosovo

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro, Aug. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- A UN special envoy said here Monday that he would like to see Belgrade play a constructive role in supporting Kosovo's Serbs' entrance into local institutions.

UN special envoy Kai Eide was appointed by Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, in June to evaluate the degree to which standards have been met in reaching democracy and human rights targets in Kosovo. He started on Monday his third and final visit here before he presents an assessment report in September.

"It is not necessarily true that the ethnic Albanian majority will misuse the participation of Serbs in the work of parliament,"Eide said after holding talks with Serbia-Montenegrin Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic.

Eide said that there was a need for Kosovo Serbs to be more engaged in the processes that are underway in Kosovo.

Although he had earlier expressed dissatisfaction with the situation in Kosovo, he did not rule out the possibility of a better assessment provided constructive progress was achieved in the province.

"It is necessary to achieve greater progress not only in the field of inter-ethnic relations, but also in the area of the rule of law in Kosovo," Eide said.

Draskovic said he was confident that Eide's report to UN would be objective and that Eide would recommend a solution he sincerelybelieved was the best at this point.

"Kosovo is not even close to the point when talks on its final status can start," Draskovic said, adding that the future status of Kosovo can be determined by way of Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.

Draskovic said that Belgrade's plan expressed in the formula "more than autonomy, short of independence" was the best solution for the problems in Kosovo.

Kosovo, which is a province of Serbia, has been under UN administration since the end of Kosovo war in June 1999. Starting talks about its future status is subject to Eide's assessment report to the UN Security Council. Enditem

Kosovo Budget 2006 will be €700 million

Kosovo spending agencies should be more careful when planning their expenses for the next year. The officials of the Ministry of Economy and Finance claim that they are setting main parameters for the 2006 budget, as well as for 2007 and 2008 budgets.

The Director of Budget, Agim Krasniqi, said that the 2006 budget would be €700 million. “The budget should be prepared according to the programs and according to economic sub categories,” said Krasniqi.

According to MEF officials there will be more control over the expenses. At the same time there will be no possibility to transfer budgets from one ministry to another.

The general amount of the initial budget for 2005 was €736 million, but following the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund it was decided to be €22 million less. €330,700,000 will be dedicated for the PISG, €211,700,000 for the reserved power! s and €172,4 million for the Kosovo municipalities.

Kosovo Serb leaders angry with Nebojsa Covic

Koha carries reactions of Serbs regarding the decentralization process in Kosovo and says that unanimous rejection of Plan B by SCC of Nebojsa Covic has brought to the surface a serious gap between majority of Kosovo Serb leaders and Covic.

One of the political representatives of K-Serbs Rada Trajkovic recently asked whether Oliver Ivanovic has the support of his boss Nebojsa Covic, while leader of SNC in Mitrovica Milan Ivanovic asked, ‘Who authorized Oliver Ivanovic to go about and organize meetings on decentralization?’

Eide in better mood for a positive report

Koha Ditore reports that according to some institutional officials, this time Ambassador Eide is in a better ‘mood’ compared to his visit one month ago when he was very critical of the local leaders.

The paper reports that Ambassador Eide is currently in Belgrade and that he will come back to Kosovo again afterwards. According to the paper’s sources, Eide will stay in New York until 26 or 27 August and will return to his mission in Kosovo before September.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Queuing for a stamp in Serbia

By Matt Prodger
BBC News, Belgrade


When Slobodan Milosevic was toppled by a popular revolution in October 2000, the country badly needed political and economic reform but, as Matt Prodger reports, Serbs are still waiting for the change that was promised.

When I was a child, I dimly remember receiving as a birthday or a Christmas present something called a John Bull printing kit.

What this gift allowed children to do was create their own rubber stamps, letterheads and personalised symbols which, with the aid of an ink pad, they could use to make official looking correspondence.

I cannot say it was my favourite toy and it ended up at the back of my cupboard soon after.

But recently I was reminded of the John Bull printing kit as I sat in the dusty waiting room of a Belgrade police station, sweating in the August heat.

You see, I need a stamp. Desperately.

If I do not get this stamp, then the prospect of jail, a fine and eventually deportation loom.

I, like everyone in Serbia and Montenegro, need to register with the police.

Proof of residence

And to register with the police I need somewhere to stay. But officially I do not have somewhere to stay unless I have a stamp on my document to show that this is where I stay.

The trouble is that the old guard which ran Serbia in the 1990s is still here
So my visa, my tenancy agreement, my driving licence, bank statements, passport, press pass, identity card, my contract with the BBC are all redundant.
Because I need the stamp. And, like everything you really need here, you have to queue for it.

My colleague recently told me how upset she was about the death of her grandmother last year.

I expressed my sympathies and asked her if they had been close.

"No," she said, "but when she retired she'd get up every morning at five o'clock and queue. She'd queue to pay our bills, queue to get our documents and queue for visas at the embassies. She was a real professional.

"But now she's gone," she said, "and I've got to do it myself. It's a disaster."

'In transition'

This is a problem familiar to anybody who has ever lived with the crushing bureaucracy of a communist country.

The thing is, Serbia is not communist and has not been for at least 15 years, since the old Yugoslavia disintegrated.

Now it is post-communist or, to give it its proper term, "in transition".

That is a nice phrase - slightly dynamic, suggesting some forward momentum, some progress towards an ultimate goal. The trouble is, it does not apply much to Serbia.

It is nearly five years since Slobodan Milosevic was swept from power by a popular revolution, with a little help from abroad.

Reformists took over, things began to change. And then they stopped changing.

The trouble is that the old guard which ran Serbia in the 1990s is still here. The chairman of the board may be facing war crimes charges in The Hague, but the management is still pretty much the same.

So in recent months a new description of the situation here has emerged: not transition, but slippage.

Red tape

A drift back to the values of the Milosevic era. Nationalism, authoritarianism and corruption.

Serbia's relations with its neighbours - Montenegro, Macedonia and Croatia - have deteriorated.

The party representing ultra-nationalists has become the most popular in the country, and the government relies on the parliamentary support of Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party.

Veterans of the struggle against Mr Milosevic were angered by the announcement that criminal charges had been dropped against the former president's son, who was accused of threatening to cut up a pro-democracy activist with a chainsaw five years ago.

A government minister has admitted advising the alleged victim to change his statement.

And the gangsters who robbed Serbia in the 1990s are still here as well, only now they have swapped their tracksuits for business suits.

Meanwhile, the economic upturn that many Serbs had expected post-Milosevic has not happened. The average monthly wage is about £150, unemployment is about 30% and daily life is still governed by red tape and bureaucracy.

Desperate measures

Back in the police station I can hear the slow tap-tap of one-finger typing as a clerk ever so slowly fills out a report on a rusting typewriter.

A yellowing wanted poster of war crimes suspects hangs on the wall.

And then the John Bull printing kit springs to mind. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I turn to my colleague and say: "Let's buy a stamp. We'll find a stationery shop, get the stamp made up and all our problems will be solved."

"You can't do that," she said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Well, you can't just go into a shop and buy a stamp. You need written permission.

"And a stamp."

Friday, August 19, 2005

Macedonia improves ties with Kosovo to end "age-old dependence" on Belgrade

Excerpt from report by Goran Momirovski entitled "Macedonian government prepares counter-blow against Serbia"posted on Macedonian A1 TV website on 18 August

The Macedonian trade and economic office in Pristina, which opened in March, is most probably going to grow into a liaison office, a diplomatic and economic mission of the type that 26 countries have in Kosovo.

We must egoistically protect our interests, the prime minister said last week. This seems to have heralded the government's intentions to put an end to its age-old dependence on Belgrade and to place Pristina on the same level with Belgrade in terms of its priorities in the Balkans, even if this annoys Serbia.

According to A1 Television reports, the government's initial plan to open a liaison office in Pristina was changed only because of the opposition coming from Belgrade, which sees this act as recognition of Kosovo's independence.

In an attempt to assume a favourable position ahead of the final talks on Kosovo's status, [Prime Minister] Buckovski's office is trying to develop a positive policy towards Kosovo, free of the conservative views of the president, who advocated tough relations with the province.

An additional reason for our changed attitude towards Kosovo is Belgrade nationalist circles' pressure and intention to radicalize relations with Macedonia through the Vraniskovski [imprisoned Bishop Jovan] affair.

Contrary to the opinions expressed by experts and by the government that Skopje-Belgrade relations are at the lowest possible level since 1991 owing to Vraniskovski, today President Crvenkovski tried to alleviate the aggravated communication between Serbia and Macedonia. [Passage omitted]

The Foreign Ministry says that according to the government's decision in May the Macedonian office in Pristina continues to have merely economic powers.

It is nevertheless symptomatic that, starting from 1 September, the new coordinator in our mission in Pristina will no longer come from the Economy Ministry, but from the Foreign Ministry - a professional diplomat who previously served as consul in the Macedonian embassy in Brussels.

Source: A1 TV website, Skopje, in Macedonian 18 Aug 05

Crossing the Pop Pond

James Blunt is an unlikely pop megastar in the U.K. Can he take that success stateside?
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Ginanne Brownell
Newsweek
Updated: 7:52 a.m. ET Aug. 19, 2005


Aug. 19, 2005 - James Blunt needs an attitude adjustment—he’s just too polite to be a rock star. The 28-year-old singer, whose debut single, “You’re Beautiful,” and debut album, “Back to Bedlam,” currently top the British singles and album charts, has a voice that’s reminiscent of a young Rod Stewart. Sexy and sultry in a choirboy-gone-bad way, his lyrics are painfully raw and compelling.

Blunt has been getting attention across Europe this summer, and his album hits America on Oct. 4 with “You’re Beautiful” already getting airplay in New York and Los Angeles. Like his background—he was literally the first British soldier to enter Pristina, Kosovo, during a peace mission in 1999—his rise to the top of the charts has been unconventional. Instead of going with a big marketing campaign, he and his five-piece band played small gigs and slowly gained a dedicated following who then spread the word about his music. “Our shows are something you can understand and follow in an industry that can be so full of marketing ploys and things I do not understand,” says an extremely self-effacing Blunt. During a break from a video shoot recently, Blunt spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Ginanne Brownell. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: How does it feel to have both your single and your album at No. 1 in Britain?
James Blunt: Well, it’s a bit over my head really. That is the kind of thing I never anticipated or expected. It keeps records companies very happy. [Laughs.]

Your music has been promoted in unique way—no marketing campaign per se.
We put [the album] out in October [2004] and did some very small live shows, a couple hundred people. Then we watched how a bunch of people turned up to the next shows but brought a bunch of mates and then those mates at the next shows brought their mates and watching crowds growing in a really natural way.

What is it about your music that is so appealing?
I think these songs are relevant to everyone and though these songs are very personal to me, as humans we are all very similar, and we are all just trying to get through. I hope this is a way for people to relate in their own lives.

Tell me about your time as a peacekeeper in Kosovo. Is it really true that you had your guitar strapped onto the back of your tank?
I wrote “No Bravery” out there. For me, the people on the ground were the ones who were your sounding board, whether things were good or bad or whether we were doing the right jobs or whether we should not be there. But Serbs and Kosovar Albanians were saying, “Your presence here is saving our lives.” One could see the humanitarian benefits. The guitar was strapped to the back because you cannot put it on the inside because there is not enough room. The locals are incredibly hospitable, they would bring you in and feed you and sometimes I would [bring along] my guitar.

How did serving there affect your music?
I do not think it affected my lyrics any but it did on my outlook on life and the human race. The so-called civilization we exist in, the ease at which humans can go from civilized humans to animals in a flash and how individuals can once in a group lose their sense of individuality and moral conscience and become something like “Lord of the Flies.” A group mentality can be quite a frightening mentality. I think my outlook on the human race was deeply affected by that. I met some charming and special individuals on both sides, but when seen in groups there is something else that seems to take over sometimes.

And then you guarded the queen at Buckingham Palace?
I was a Horse Guard, so you ride around the palace, and though I did not write the songs [in my head] while I was on horseback, I knew I would be doing music, and I knew I was destined to do that. The Army was something I had to do to earn the money to be funded through university, and it was a day job.

Rumor has it that you recorded “Goodbye My Lover” in actress Carrie Fisher’s bathroom in Los Angeles. How did that come about?
I met her through my ex-girlfriend, and I rented a room off Carrie. She had an upright piano in her bathroom, though really it does not take up too much room. We did not have the right kind of piano in the studio, and “Goodbye My Lover” is a very special song and to try and get back to the meaning of the song, I wanted to get out of the studio. Late at night we set up a studio in the bathroom, and we got into the song more. I was over the moon with the outcome.

Are you concerned about breaking through in the United States? Is this something you hope to achieve where so many other British artists have failed?
We are going to get to the U.S. and give it our all. It’s just going to be my keyboard player and me and [our goal] is to connect with the crowd. You can make it in the U.K. and Europe but it does not mean it will be success in America at all. You have to try and connect with Americans in a way that they want to. You have to respect it is a whole different ball game there.
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.