Text of report in English by independent internet news agency KosovaLive
Prishtina [Pristina], 8 May: Prime Minister Agim Ceku said today that, after the status, the government will focus all its efforts in implementing of the tasks for European Union [EU] membership.
He made these comments at a ceremony on the Europe Day, which was attended by international and local representatives.
Prime Minister Ceku said that, at this moment, Kosova [Kosovo] is facing a historical opportunity, adding that "in few years we could become part of the European family."
He said that the EU integration is not a dream which cannot be fulfilled, however the experience in standard implementation will help accomplishing the membership obligations.
"The government today embraces similar values with those of EU: peace, economic development, solidarity, freedom of movement for all the citizens," he said.
Ceku said that the future of Kosova is identified with status settlement, standards implementation and very often with education, which is a crucial mechanism in making decisions.
The international representatives attending today's ceremony called on Kosovars to work harder on their path towards EU integration.
Giorgio Mamberto, the Head of the European Commission Liaison Office in Prishtina said that European Union is open for all the countries which make great integrations, including Kosova.
"You must work and engage to become part of the European values," said Alexander Bayerl, the Chief of the Austrian Liaison Office in Prishtina.
Source: KosovaLive website, Pristina, in English 9 May 06
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20 comments:
One has to admire the beauty of double negatives.
Njera nga adresat qe perdorni ka skaduar. Shikoni ta rinovoni para se t'i kujtohet ndonje te prapi.
interesting how the now all but inevitible independence of Kosovo is simply referred to now as "the status"
inevitible independence? Says who?
Are you not supposed to have other aprty to agree to that as well?
Those standards that Ceku wants to deal with later are the very same standards which will speed European integration.
Its ironic that he is talking about how he wants to become part of Europe but wants to delay implementing standards until status is settled.
This means that an independent Kosovo's road to Europe will be even slower than it might be.
This just goes to show Ceku is not interested at all at providing a safe environment for Serbs, and that his first priority will be their expulsion from Kosovo.
Botched Kosovo intervention dims hopes for peace
By Christopher Deliso
Originally published May 10, 2006
SKOPJE, MACEDONIA // Averting a humanitarian catastrophe was NATO's stated justification for bombing Serbia and its Kosovo province in 1999. But initial successes quickly succumbed to the reverse ethnic cleansing of more than 200,000 Serbs and other minorities by Albanian militants.
Now, despite seven years of U.N. policing and donor largess, Kosovo's remaining minorities still live in fear, and the economy and infrastructure remain in shambles.
Behind their façade of optimism, Western leaders negotiating Kosovo's future status are panicking. Realizing that Albanians will violently contest any continued affiliation with Serbia, they believe independence alone can ensure peace. Yet Kosovo is a classic quagmire, one with ominous repercussions for peace.
Deciding Kosovo's rightful ownership is difficult. It pits two peoples, and two hallowed principles, against each another. Albanians - 90 percent of the population - invoke self-determination to justify independence. Yet Serbian cultural legacy goes back seven centuries in Kosovo, which was only independent when Adolf Hitler's Albanian allies briefly enjoyed their Nazi puppet state. Further, U.N. Resolution 1244 in 1999 affirmed Yugoslav sovereignty.
Kosovo's independence will be conditional, promises the West, on its treatment of minorities. Yet nothing can realistically enforce compliance. If the Albanians continue intimidating Serbs, penalizing them by delaying NATO or European Union accession will have little impact; an advanced Balkan candidate, Macedonia, won't enter NATO before 2008, or the EU before 2013.
A well-informed international official predicts remaining Serbs will flee within 10 years of Kosovo's independence. So by the time Kosovo gets anywhere near NATO or EU accession, the minority issue will be moot.
Albanian attacks against Serbs still occur amid an atmosphere of a siege mentality. If the last Serbs are expelled, Belgrade's remaining argument for possession will vanish. Its first argument, for cultural heritage, no longer applies because since 1999, over 100 Orthodox churches, some 700 years old, have been damaged or destroyed by Albanians - thus eliminating Kosovo's most lucrative tourist attractions.
Further, the United Nations dismayed Kosovo's minorities by making a man who once terrorized them prime minister. Albanian war veteran Agim Ceku, whose name was removed from Interpol's wanted list after fierce U.N. lobbying, is accused of widespread atrocities while serving in Croatia's military and while leading the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1999.
Mr. Ceku's close associate and another veteran, Ramush Haradinaj, was indicted by the Hague Tribunal. Nevertheless, Mr. Haradinaj is now free to participate in Kosovo politics though he's technically an indicted war criminal awaiting trial.
Such privileged treatment reveals the fatal flaw of the U.N. mission. Canadian police Detective Stu Kellock, who headed the U.N. Regional Serious Crimes Unit in 2000 and 2001, says investigations implicating Albanian politicians or their associates were routinely blocked. The orders came directly from Washington, London and Brussels. Mr. Ceku and Mr. Haradinaj control Kosovo's militant factions and are considered heroes by Albanians. An anxious United Nations continually has sought to stay on their good side through appeasement.
Independence is a mere panacea for Kosovo's Albanians. They will remain poor. Erstwhile Albanian refugee workers - Kosovo's real breadwinners - will be sent home by European governments sensitive to popular anti-immigrant sentiments. Minorities will flee as nationalist militants remobilize to purge Serbs and annex Albanian-inhabited areas of Macedonia and Montenegro.
Bosnian Serbs, as well as Bosnian Muslims in Serbia's Sandjak region, also could demand self-determination.
Alarmingly, the West has no Plan B for ensuring Balkan peace. Plan A - open borders through eventual NATO and EU membership for all - is far off and ignores the anti-expansion sentiment among EU electorates. Membership may never arrive. The Balkans might well drift aimlessly.
In early 1999, Kosovo was a brutal but contained local conflict, relegated to villages. Botched Western intervention has made it a potential precedent for multiregional warfare.
Christopher Deliso is an American freelance journalist in Macedonia and director of an independent Balkan-interest Web site. His e-mail is cdeliso@balkanalysis.com.
Copyright © 2006, The Baltimore Sun | Get Sun home delivery
Have you noiced how the number of the serbs increases ever time deliso and co write about them. Fact there has never been more han 200000 serbs in Kosova.
Deliso's a well-known idiot of the Buchaninist right. "If the last Serbs are expelled, Belgrade's remaining argument for possession will vanish."
Doesn't occur to him that Belgrade making "arguments for possession" of someone else's country is exactly one of the factos driving some extremist Albanians to attack Serbs. Obviously that doesn't justify it, and I for one reckon the Kosova government ought to double or triple efforts to prevent attacks - there's not many now but it's still unacceptable and you can't deny there is still fear for many minorities.
But when a neighbouring country that in recent history attempted to annihilate the Albanians still lays claim to it, as if it has some kind of "right" to do so, that is the biggest provocation. What is worse for the Kosova Serb minority is that most of its leaders, now with a coiple of noble exceptions, identify with Belgrade's ambitions on this. Don't these "leaders" give a fuck about ordinary Serbs?
The best way to help end or at least mend the climate of fear, to dradtically reduce attacks even further, to help mend fences, is for Kosova Serb leaders to say unambiguously, no bullshit, "we agree that you should never again have to be ruled by Belgrade in any way, you have a right as a vast majority to unconditional independence, and we will help you build that independent Kosova as a new multi-ethnic nation." With this attitude up front and public, they would be in a damned good position to push for their own needs for security, self-rule in some areas perhaps, whatever - ie, we recognise your democratic right to independence, you recognise our democratic right to equality.
For those who say instead, OK, Albanians have a right to independence and so Serbs also have a right to independence form Kosova and to stay with Serbia, I say, "have a brain." The only part of Kosova with a compact Serb majority is the far north, which has a minority of the Kosova Serb population. You brilliant Serbs that suggest this road haven't figured that this will leave the remaining Serbs, scattered in smaller groupings, in less compact areas, not bordering Serbia, surrounded by Albanians, even more isolated and vulnerable, while the Albanians around them will be even crankier about losing the economically valuable north.
If the Serbs still want international trops to protect them, well and good, the Albanians aren't objecting to that. Actually what the Albanians should be pointing out is that if the international troops would finally just get off their backs, stop trying to run their country for them for years and years, then the number of international troops there would be way plenty to more effectively protect the minorities. Why spread themselves thin and be less effective just because the west doesn't want to believe that the natives can look after their own affairs when the only damned palce they are needed is to protect minorities in the awful atmosphere after the war created by Serbia's attempted genocide?
First of all a Serb would never say anything but Kosovo.
Second Kosovo has been linked to Serbs for hundreds of years and they have the monuments to prove it.
A Kosovo government led by Serb hating war criminal Ceku will only encourage attacks on Serbs.
Serbia=Kosovo
Kosovo=Serbia
Hopefully its Ceku.
"Imagine that at the end of World War II, Nazi Germany had not been defeated but rather awarded territory in which to establish an ethnically "pure" republic, in which the lives of Jews and anti-fascists would have been in danger. This is the Republika Srpska today."
Same with north kosova.
Serbia's shame, on film
By Jasmila Zbanich, JASMILA ZBANICH is the director of "Grbavica," which won the award for best film at the Berlin Film Festival.
April 14, 2006
'WHORE, YOU think that the Serb heroes would have raped those hideous Muslim women? They are repulsive. They stink," reads a letter sent to actress Mirjana Karanovic. The letter was written in Cyrillic on an old typewriter.
I am shocked. Mirjana is calm.
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"In this one, at least they don't threaten me," she says, as I examine the letter to see where it was mailed. A stamp with the image of a rare flower bears a Swiss postmark.
Our film, "Grbavica," named for a district of Sarajevo that was occupied by the Serb military during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, has yet to be screened in Switzerland, so the anonymous sender cannot have seen it. However, the mere fact that Mirjana, Serbia's best-known film actress, accepted the role of a Bosnian Muslim woman raped in a Serbian-run prison camp is enough to motivate hate mail "on the Serbs' behalf."
"My friends in Belgrade congratulate me for how well I am coping with the situation, for being brave," Mirjana tells me as we have lunch in a Sarajevo restaurant. I light a cigarette, although I promised myself that I would quit smoking.
Mirjana's friends are congratulating her because for more than a month she has been exposed to a mudslinging campaign by radical Serbian media, depicting her as a Serb traitor for appearing in the Bosnian film I directed and urging that she be blacklisted from appearing in theaters or on film anywhere in her country.
Undaunted, she is talking in public about the events of the recent war that most citizens of Serbia do not want to hear about. "I don't see anything courageous in what I do. I think it's normal," says Mirjana. She is a strong woman, which was among the reasons I offered her the main role.
"After I gave birth, I said, 'I don't want her. Take her away…. ' I heard her crying, I heard her through the walls…. On the second day, my milk started coming. I said, 'OK, I will feed her. Once.' When they brought her … when I took her … she was so tiny and … so beautiful. I had forgotten that there was anything beautiful in the world."
This is an excerpt from the monologue in which Mirjana's film character describes her decision to keep the baby born of her rape. Mirjana plays the role with volcanic strength and deep emotion. Audiences in Berlin, Sarajevo and Belgrade have had equally powerful reactions. However, there are people who do not want this movie shown. In fact, unless something changes, it will not be shown in the Serb-run part of Bosnia, the Republika Srpska.
This is not an official ban. The owner of the only cinema there had seen the film before it premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. He thought it was excellent and not offensive, so we agreed to show it in the Bosnian Serb city of Banja Luka in March. But he changed his mind after the reactions among radical Serbs in Bosnia and Serbia to my speech in Berlin, in which I called for the arrest of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.
More than a decade ago, the United Nations war crimes tribunal indicted Karadzic and Mladic for war crimes and genocide committed during the Bosnian war, in which about 100,000 people were killed and 2.5 million expelled from their homes. They remain on the run.
The cinema owner was afraid that pro-fascist Serb groups established in support of war criminals would demolish his cinema or use their official connections to audit his taxes, inspect his theater and otherwise ruin him under cover of law. His fears were well-founded, given that Karadzic and Mladic enjoy the support of government officials in Serbia and the Republika Srpska and are widely perceived as national heroes.
Imagine that at the end of World War II, Nazi Germany had not been defeated but rather awarded territory in which to establish an ethnically "pure" republic, in which the lives of Jews and anti-fascists would have been in danger. This is the Republika Srpska today.
The Council of Europe's film fund, Euroimages, issued a statement protesting the decision not to screen the movie, saying it violated the principle of freedom of expression. However, Euroimages cannot protect the cinema owner from the real danger of mobs attacking his audiences.
Eleven years after the war, war criminals still direct our daily lives.
I stub out my cigarette. I am definitely quitting.
A friend from Banja Luka sends me a text message: "A pirated copy of 'Grbavica' is being sold underground here. I hear it's selling like crazy."
Good. I am losing financially, but it is important to break the isolation of the people in the Republika Srpska.
It is spring in Sarajevo. The streets are full of people; the outdoor cafes are open. The city smells of blossoms. Mirjana and I enjoy the beauty of the day.
UPDATE: Man Linked To Kosovo Camp Arrested In Germany
(Updates item published at 1238 GMT with details from German police, Kosovo sources.)
BERLIN (AP)--A man sought by the U.N. administration in Kosovo on charges of illegally imprisoning and abusing fellow ethnic Albanians in 1998 has been arrested in Germany, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Frankfurt prosecutors said the man was sought for on suspicion of genocide and was a member of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, which fought against Serbian security troops in Kosovo. He was arrested Monday evening in the German town of Seeheim-Jugenheim, south of Frankfurt, and was being held pending extradition.
The suspect is alleged to have run a camp in 1998 in Drenovac, where he " mistreated, and in some cases killed" prisoners, prosecutors said in a release.
The suspect - identified only by his initials, X.G. - was born in 1967, federal police spokeswoman Hildegard Becker-Toussaint said.
It wasn't clear when he might be extradited, Becker-Toussaint said.
The U.N. submitted a formal request to German authorities for the provisional arrest of X.G. based on an international arrest warrant and for the purpose of his prosecution for war crimes and other serious offenses committed in Kosovo, said Neeraj Singh, a U.N. spokesman in Pristina.
In Kosovo, international and local sources identified the suspect as Xhemajl Gashi, who was known as "the German" during Kosovo's 1998-99 war, which pitted ethnic Albanian rebels against Serb forces loyal to the former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. The war ended in mid-1999 after North Atlantic Treaty Organization air strikes forced the Serb military to pull out of Kosovo, leaving the U.N. and NATO in control.
Gashi was the commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army headquarters in Drenovac during the conflict. He was indicted by the U.N. in Kosovo along with five other former rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army, but was never arrested. The rest of the group were arrested in February 2004 and their trial is underway in Kosovo.
He is charged with illegal imprisonment, torture and killing of seven fellow ethnic Albanians who allegedly collaborated with Serb authorities in mid-1998 in the central Kosovo village of Drenovac.
According to the indictment, Gashi ordered the arrest and detention of civilians and that in concert with others, he participated in their torture and killing of a number of them.
At the time of the formal indictment in 2005, Gashi held the rank of staff sergeant and served in the Kosovo Protection Corps, a civilian emergency organization which mainly consists of former rebels of the now-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army.
It wasn't clear how long he had been in Germany.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
05-10-061210ET
Copyright (c) 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Carla Del Ponte hates Serbs. She only prosecuts Albanians who killed injured only ALbanians. She's horrible.
You serbs are just banch of rats , your place is in Hague,some one mentioned orthodox churches. All those orthodox churches build recently in Kosovo are backdated!!which means you rats build those churches trying to steal GREAT KOSOVO .
you are fucking shameless animals
Serbs in Kosovo face Genocide said...
"First of all a Serb would never say anything but Kosovo."
Who cares?
"Second Kosovo has been linked to Serbs for hundreds of years and they have the monuments to prove it."
No, this is in your head. before being forcefully annexed to Serbia in 1913 it had been "linked" to the Ottoman Empire for about 500 years - so it should be part of Turkey?? So before that it ws part of some medieval Serb empire. Was probably part of the Bulgarian empire before that, and the Byzantine. Lots of monuments? So since Russia's origins were in Kiev, which is now in Ukraine, Russia should annex Ukraine? Because there are loads of Greek monumnents in Turkey, like Agia Sophia in Istanbul, so Greece should go annex a quarter of Turkey? Like those Hindu fanatics who destroyed a 400 year old mosque in India because they reckon there was once upon a time a Hindu temple there? Wow what a world your headspace flies around in.
"A Kosovo government led by Serb hating war criminal Ceku will only encourage attacks on Serbs."
Look Ceku I reckon is no angel and I don't reckon any state in the Balkans is run by angels with clean hands. What, Kostunica after all was photographed in Kosova with murdering paramilitary scum. Get used to it. Look at what Ceku is doing now, like visiting Serb villages every week to hold talks, speaking Serbian in parliament etc. The Albanians want him there and so you can't do anything about it. Deal with that reality. Why don't you answer what I wrote about how I think the attacks on Serbs can be limited? No answer, just rhetoric.
At 11:24 AM, ivan said...
Anonymous,
>" The only part of Kosova with a >compact Serb majority is the far >north, which has a minority of >the Kosova Serb population."
"Thats after you ethnically cleansed the other areas. If you want to have a democratic society, then allow the serbs to vote in the areas where they have been driven out. Then the picture will look totally different."
Ivan you're dreaming mate. The number of serbs who either fled, either guilty ones or innocent ones, or who were driven out or ethnically cleansed, or who have left due to fear of attack, insecurity or unemployment, is about half the number remaining. So instead of 5% you'll have 10% if they all return. That does not change anything I said. Even then the only large, compact bloc of Serbs will be in the north. Perhaps a small bloc on the Macedonian border. The rest? Where? Lots of Serbs in the east, Kamenica region, but lots of Albanians too. Completely mixed. Can't annex that. Both sides have to learn to live with each other in an independent Kosova, whether you like it or not, so better to start working on iit now than later, like with the way I sugested. Gracanica? Yeh, you can have a big region of Serbs around there, but as I said, no border with Serbia, surrounded by Albanians. Comes back to the north splitting away, and like I said, leaving the rest of the Serbs in smaller, more isolated pockets here and there.
>"You brilliant Serbs that suggest >this road haven't figured that >this will leave the remaining >Serbs, scattered in smaller >groupings, in less compact areas, >not bordering Serbia, surrounded >by Albanians, even more isolated >and vulnerable,"
"If you siptars are so peaceful loving people, why would those serbs be vulnerable? The problem is your terrorist mentality."
Firstly, I'm not Albanian, I hope othes are allowed to have opinions here, so don't blame me.
Secondly, one reason they will be vulnerable is like I said and you don't answer, exactly because their "leaders" mostly insist on being pawns of Belgrade's expansionist dreams, and ludicrously insist that they - 10% of the pop'n - should be able to tell the 90% that they have to stay under the rule of the state that recently tried to annihiltate them. Try putting yourself in those shoes Ivan, you'd be cranky too. Sure doesn't justify what some of them do, fortunately much less then before, but that crankiness is just the reality in that situation and so you ought to count on a couple of nutters among na cranky crowd.
Thirdly, the next reason for isolated pockets of Serbs being 'vulnerable' if the north splits is the very next thing I wrote:
>"... while the Albanians around >them will be even crankier about >losing the economically valuable >north."
"Dont forget that Kosovo is Serbian, and its not siptars that are losing economically valuable land, but it is Serbia that is being robbed. You have your own country, and nobody is stealing anything away from Albania."
That of course is a matter of opinion, and with all due respect to your opinion, since the 90% majority have a different opinion about that, my point above - how it will make people more 'cranky' - still holds.
>"Why spread themselves thin and >be less effective just because >the west doesn't want to believe >that the natives can look after >their own affairs when the only >damned palce they are needed is >to protect minorities in the >awful atmosphere after the war >created by Serbia's attempted >genocide? "
"the problem is that you can look after your own affairs by killing innocent serbs, so you can create a serb free state"
Sorry that doesn't make sense - I said that if the internationals would get off the Albanians backs they would be more effectively able to protect minorities, for as long as they need protection. I also said that once the Albanians independence is guaranteed and noone is threatening it, I reckon they'll also calm down and eventually noone will need protecting because noone will have any motive to attack. You ignore all that because you can't answer it. Instead you try to tell me that the Albanians want to kill Serbs so thhey can have a "Serb-free state." But whhy? Since Serbs are only 10% of the population, there is no need for Albanains to expel them to have the right o an indeopdnent state. Nowhere in the world does being 10% of the pop'n give you the right to stop the 90% from doing what they want, so why woould they need the place "Serb free"? They don't. The only reason some attack you now, apart from the odd bit of left over revenge perhaps, is exactly because your "leaders" still insist in trying to shove them back under the Serbian jackboot. If you gave up that crap, they wouldn't. It isn't like Republika Srpska, where there was no Serb majority, no historical, geographical or ethnic or any other borders of such a non-existent place, and where Muslims and Croats made up about half the population, so in order to *create* a Republiks Srpska that didn't previously exist, Miloseivc and Karadzic and their fascist bands had to ethnically cleanse about one and a half million non-Serbs. No, this is different, there is already an absolute Albanian majority, so it's in Kosova Serbs' interest to get used to it.
Let me answer one of the last points put by anon.
'I also said that once the Albanians independence is guaranteed and noone is threatening it, I reckon they'll also calm down and eventually noone will need protecting'
Do you think its good enough that this is just a 'reckon' on your part? You do remember that we are talking about real people here dont you? And not just Serbs either but other minorities in Kosovo.
Call me old fashioned if you want but I belong to the school of thought that nation state status should not be awarded to those potential states if on that very territory ethnic minorities safety is infringed. To put it more openly there isnt total freedom of movement (in some areas its better than others but this most basic of all rights hasnt been fufilled).
So you 'reckon' that once the internationals have stopped ruling that those who target ethnic minorities will cease? Im aware of this argument because its used by those such as Veton Suroi but I'd like some specific examples from other situations to prove the point.
Your 'motive to attack' is also interesting. That implies that the attacks are simply because Kosovo may not get independent (even though almost 100 percent of Kosovo Albanians believe they will get this). Then why do these attacks include theft. Are farm animals and tractors stolen from non Albanians beacuse the thieves are afraid they wont get independence. When you think a little deeper that whole argument is empty.
So, by all means say, if you must, that Kosovo independence is inevitable or even desirable but please dont reckon things will improve based on some form of hope.
Why cant people like you (and other Albanians) support conditional independence and constantly emphaise how important it is to honour human rights obligations instead of lecturing the Serbs?
After all if these obligations are fufilled you will take away an argument used by the Serbs and the internationals will slowly start to pack their bags.
Mitrovica I dont use that kind of argumentation. I am not saying that Albanians are thieves by nature.
All Im saying is that when you take a simplistic explanation and theory like 'as soon as the Albanians are given independence attacks will cease' it suggests that the attacks are made through Albanian anger at not having an independent state.
My point is that most of these attacks are not made because Kosovo Albanians are worried about not getting independence. They are carried out for a variety of reasons, some of the time there are ethnic reasons, some of the time the motivation is personal profit (criminal). And sometimes its combined.
So, take the internationals away (or award Kosovo independence) I dont see how the situation for non Albanians in Kosovo can improve. Dont misunderstand me I know how arrogant the internatinals can be. I know that they help create or contribute to more prostitution wherever they operate.
I think if the internationals do grant Kosovo independence, and this looks like the most likely outcome, with that they must ensure that minorities (and Albanians) are safe to walk about and live life normally. They must also pump a lot of money into Kosovo and try to undermine organised crime. After all its no good improving standards lower down if there are some crooks operating close to the top.
Probably you read about the airport in Kosovo. Thats a classic example of UNMIK not doing its job properly for fear of upsetting powerful networks and interests.
Then we are in agreement on the broad issue. Good.
But of course, the status will be resolved, and as the last Contact Group meeting clearly stated the will of the majority will be respected. Clearer it cannot be.
And to some of you, try to sound different from horny sailors with your language. You are not achieving anything. Instead exchange emails, and spare us of your immature comments, and keep exchanging emails full of swears 24/7. G'night.
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