Monday, October 10, 2005

Kosovo accepts remarks, exuberant over recommendation

“Eide’s report is balanced, thorough and presents the achievements and weaknesses as well as the work that needs to be done. We, of course, expect UN Security Council to approve the recommendations,’ the paper quotes UNMIK chief Søren Jessen-Petersen.

The paper reports that main political parties of Kosovo have expressed their views on the report. Kosovo Presidency has welcomed Eide’s recommendation for start of status talks. “There are better results in some areas, less progress in others; stagnation and defects as well,” said Spokesman Muhamet Hamiti. PDK’s official Enver Hoxhaj said that the report is “a realistic reflection of the social and economic condition as well as of interethnic relations in Kosovo.” AAK Spokesman Ernest Luma said the report will push forward the start of talks for final status of Kosovo. ORA officials have also welcomed the report and said it presents a realistic picture of the situation in Kosovo.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

what a biased post for a blog. How unethical. How very sad. Can't post the whole truth?

SEE Security Monitor: Serbia & Montenegro

Commentary sees Eide report suggesting limited powers for Kosovo institutions
October 10, 2005
YU

Text of commentary by Koha Ditore chief editor Agron Bajrami entitled "Conditional power" published by the Kosovo Albanian newspaper Koha Ditore on 10 October

The status issue will be opened. [UN Secretary General's envoy] Kai Eide has done his share of the work. Annan made the recommendations, while it is the Security Council that will play its role according to the scenario announced last summer and make the opening of the process official.

Everyone in Kosova [Kosovo] is pleased. In their initial reactions, Kosova institutional and political leaders have welcomed Annan's recommendation to the Security Council and Kai Eide's report.

Based on their statements, however, it seems that most of them have not even read the report before racing to issue optimistic statements and messages. Of the 20 pages in the report, local institutions and political leaders seem to be interested in a single sentence that says: "The time for dealing with the status process has arrived." They have not commented on the fact that the report does not even mention the phrase "final status", but keeps mentioning "a future status" instead.

Meanwhile, the plain truth is that Eide's report contains more than one political recommendation on the opening of the status issue. In addition to assessments on the current political and social situation in Kosova and on the level of Standards fulfilment, the report also contains recommendations on ways to move forward in the process of resolving the Kosova issue, as well as afterwards. And, many things there do match with the statements and commitments of our institutional and political elite.

The language used in Eide's report is very clear. The Norwegian diplomat is very straightforward in his criticism. As could have been foreseen, the most complicated problem that dominates the main part of the report relates to the interethnic situation and the relations of the Albanian majority with the minorities, primarily the Serbs.

Eide describes the situation as gloomy, and while he directs criticism at everyone, he concludes that the leaders of the majority community are the ones who should shoulder most of the burden of ethnic conciliation: "Those who want recognition, integration and investment should express generosity."

Throughout the document, even though he does not give recommendations on Kosova's status, Eide clearly says that any solution should involve guarantees for minorities, especially the Serbs. By this, he leaves room to understand that the Kosova institutions, as they are today, cannot be the guarantee. He openly proposes that Kosova should have an "arrangement" similar to the one in Bosnia, where the high international representative has the power to intervene in any decision by local institutions.

In order to strengthen this impression, Eide repeatedly warns in his report that the transfer of competencies from UNMIK [UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo] to local institutions should be done carefully, while with regard to two new ministries - justice and interior - he says that that transfer of competencies "cannot function without a strong policy of supervision, intervention and sanctioning" from outside.

Eide's position is diametrically opposed to the position of Kosova local officials also when it comes to the decentralization issue. According to him, decentralization is the tool that needs to be used to achieve a sustainable return of minorities. While calling the results of decentralization so far "minor and late", Eide notes that a broad decentralization process, similar to those in Macedonia and the Presheve [Presevo] Valley [southern Serbia], will be necessary in order to create a "breathing space" for the minorities. And this, always according to the report, means creating "a number of new municipalities where primarily Kosova Serbs would have a considerable majority". In these municipalities, according to Eide, Serbs could have more competencies in police, justice, education, culture, media and economy, while "horizontal connections between municipalities with Serb majorities" and "modalities for special connections with Belgrade" could be allowed.

These and other recommendations are more instructions for the future UN special envoy on Kosova's status negotiations, which is expected to be made official by the Security Council by the end of this month. And he, Marti Ahtisaari, will have probably read Eide's report with much more attention than our political elite did.

In order to have a better understanding of the "Pyrrhic victory", Eide's report does not only criticize interethnic relations. In his assessments, the UN special envoy has identified a range of serious difficulties in the areas of the rule of law, police, justice, governmental institutions, property rights, human rights, and so forth. Most of the criticism has to do with the developments in the society which hamper the achievement of the required level of democracy.

While each of the 86 paragraphs of his report deserves at least one newspaper column of comments, the general conclusion could be wrapped up in one sentence: Kosova has the capacity to be an independent European state one day, but its institutions are not able to function independently as an independent European state.

Hence, in addition to the term "conditional independence", the term "conditional power" is now introduced in the debates surrounding Kosova's status. And who do you think is to blame for this?

Source: BBC Monitoring / Koha Ditore, Pristina

Anonymous said...

HAHAHA...NO SHIFTAR COMMENTS ON THE TRUTH. DOESN'T LOOK TO GOOD. LET'S HEAR SOME OPTIMISTIC REPORTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY OF IGNORAMUSES OF HOW CONTINUED OCCUPATION WON'T BE SO BAD.

Anonymous said...

YugoSLUTS the name says it all.

Anonymous said...

Yugosluts? it is the albanians that are traficking women throughout Europe for prostitution. Sad for Europe and Albanian women. Good for Serbia and Montenegro...for the world sees yours as they are. Congrats.

Anonymous said...

Yea we're trafiking Serbian women, that's were the term JugoSLUTS comes from.

Anonymous said...

there you have it folks---the flower of the albanian nation before you. behold it. it is coming to a jail near you.