PODGORICA, Serbia and Montenegro, Feb 28 (Reuters) - The Adriatic coast republic of Montenegro will hold a referendum on on May 21 to determine if it remains in a union with much larger Serbia or strikes out on its own as an independent state.
"It has been agreed to hold a referendum on May 21, 2006, and to postpone regular local elections until autumn, and to hold them together with a general election," Montenegro's three pro-Serbia opposition parties said in a statement on Tuesday.
The ruling parties, which favour independence and have long campaigned for the referendum, declined to say officially that a date had finally been set. But government sources confirmed it.
Both sides held talks on Tuesday with a European Union envoy, Miroslav Lajcak, who has been brokering an accord on the rules of the plebiscite. Terms and date were to expected to be endorsed by the 77-seat parliament on Wednesday and Thursday.
Montenegrins will be asked to decide whether to declare independence or remain linked to their much larger neighbour in the three-year-old State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, a body critics say is totally dysfunctional.
If Montenegro chooses to quit the union, it could leave Serbia even before Kosovo, the Albanian-dominated province whose future status is now the subject of U.N.-mediated talks, wins a widely predicted "conditional independence".
EU THRESHOLD AGREED
On Monday the pro-independence ruling party and the pro-union opposition agreed to EU-proposed referendum rules, which set a threshold of 55 percent of over half the electorate for a Yes vote for independence to be ruled valid.
"Montenegro has sent Europe a very responsible and very European message and that is very good for Montenegro," Lajcak said.
Serbia and Montenegro are all that is left of the six-member Yugoslav federation which broke up in war in the 1990s.
The EU persuaded them to stay together three years ago, fearing a split would create further instability in the Balkans. But it conceded Montenegro could ask its people this year to decide this year whether to stay in the union or break away.
The latest opinion poll, carried out in December, showed 41.4 percent support independence, 32.3 percent oppose it, 14.9 percent are undecided and 11.4 percent would not say.
Present-day Montenegro was populated by Slavs in the sixth century, and later came under Byzantine and Ottoman control. It became de facto independent in the late 18th century and proclaimed a kingdom in 1910, but was incorporated into Serbia after the First World War.
Of Montenegro's 650,000 people, some 62 percent say they are Montenegrin, some 10 percent Serb, 15 percent Muslim, 7 percent Albanian and the rest 'other'.
Roughly the size of Northern Ireland, it got its name -- which means Black Mountain -- from the thick forests that cover almost 55 percent of the land. (Additional reporting by Ellie Tzortzi)
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
BALKANS: SERBIA TRIED ON HISTORIC GENOCIDE CHARGE AT THE HAGUE
BELGRADE, Feb. 27, 2006 (IPS/GIN) -- Hearings began Monday in a case where Serbia and Montenegro is charged with genocide, crimes of war and aggression in the 1992-95 conflict, the first time a country rather than its leaders has had to face charges of genocide.
"The case is of immense importance for my state," lawyer for Bosnia-Herzegovina Sakib Softic said as hearings began at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague. The ICJ is the court founded by the United Nations (UN) to deal with disputes among states.
"It (the aggression and war) was like a man-made tsunami that destroyed the very essence of my country, where non-Serbs were taken down the road of hell through horrifying loss of lives, youth, property, towns and villages," Softic said. "If it is possible to recover at all, we'll need several generations to heal, reconstruct and build normal lives again."
Bosnia-Herzegovina launched the case against the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in March 1993 while the war was still raging. It said the former Yugoslavia and its Belgrade-based army backed Bosnian Serbs in their genocidal effort to exterminate Bosniak Muslims and other non-Serbs.
The case now is against Serbia and Montenegro because that is what remains of former Yugoslavia.
The aggression in the 1990s led to the death of thousands, and the devastation of the economy of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Bosnia-Herzegovina government in Sarajevo has demanded $100 billion in compensation.
"This is a historic case," international law professor Vojin Dimitrijevic told IPS. "If pronounced guilty, Serbia and Montenegro will be the first state in history pronounced as genocidal by this court."
The war ended in 1995 and the wartime leaders are gone from the political scene, but Sarajevo refused offers by the new authorities of Yugoslavia, which became Serbia and Montenegro in 2003, for a negotiated settlement.
Former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic fell from power in 2000. He faces trial for war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo before the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague.
"This is a highly, crucially important case," said Sulejman Tihic, Muslim member of the Bosnia-Herzegovina presidency that is now shared between Muslim, Croat and Serb leaders. "The case should bring truth, see that justice is done and help establish new relations of mutual trust between two neighborly nations, Bosnia and Serbia," Tihic told Belgrade media.
Sarajevo media view the case as already won and have called it the final punishment for Serbia.
But legal experts say it will be extremely hard to prove that a state, in this case what is now Serbia and Montenegro, together with Bosnian Serbs, had planned the genocide or extermination of one group.
"Such things are extremely hard to prove, despite all the events that took place in Bosnia," Dimitrijevic said. "There are no documents, records or any real things in writing that would indicate deliberate intention to exterminate non-Serbs."
Sakib Softic and legal experts in Sarajevo have said that proof could come from the sentences pronounced by the ICTY.
"Rulings in cases dealing with Srebrenica (in Bosnia-Herzegovina) clearly named genocide, in the cases of (Bosnian Serb commanders) Radislav Krstic and Vidoje Blagojevic," Softic said.
The two were found guilty by the ICTY of genocide when Bosnian Serb forces massacred up to 8,000 Muslim boys and men after overrunning Srebrenica in July 1995.
"Regardless of charges of genocide, the aggravating circumstances for Serbia's involvement and support to the Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) in the war might come from the material dealing with Ratko Mladic," military analyst Aleksandar Radic told IPS.
Former BSA general Ratko Mladic, who led the operation on Srebrenica, has been a fugitive from justice for years.
Serbia is under strong pressure to find and extradite him to face trial at the ICTY. Serbia faces cancellation of talks for joining the European Union if it fails to hand him over soon.
Military archives made available to the Serbian public in the past couple of weeks show clear connections between Mladic, his BSA and the army of former Yugoslavia.
But Serbian lawyer in the case Radoslav Stojanovic told IPS that "the state cannot be found responsible for genocide. It is extremely hard to establish the intention of a state, to define it. It is also gravely unjust to put the blame on the whole Serbian nation, people who live in Serbia, for the wrongdoings done in the name of Serbs in general."
Stojanovic and other international law experts say there are contradictions in the ICJ where Serbia is concerned.
When Serbia tried to launch a case against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing in 1999, the ICJ ruled that this was outside its jurisdiction because at that time Serbia was not a member of the United Nations.
"Serbia was not a member of the U.N. in 1993 as well (when war raged in Bosnia), and we'll try to dispute the jurisdiction of this court in this case now," Stojanovic said.
Serbia was expelled from the United Nations in 1992 due to its involvement in wars in Croatia and Bosnia. It was re-admitted only after Milosevic fell from power in 2000.
Croatian international law expert Ivo Josipovic told IPS that "any decision by the ICJ will have its place in the history of law, political history and history itself, as this court had no prior case dealing with the implementation of the U.N. conventions on prevention of and punishment of crimes of genocide."
The court will sit until May this year and is expected to pronounce its verdict by the middle of next year.
"The case is of immense importance for my state," lawyer for Bosnia-Herzegovina Sakib Softic said as hearings began at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague. The ICJ is the court founded by the United Nations (UN) to deal with disputes among states.
"It (the aggression and war) was like a man-made tsunami that destroyed the very essence of my country, where non-Serbs were taken down the road of hell through horrifying loss of lives, youth, property, towns and villages," Softic said. "If it is possible to recover at all, we'll need several generations to heal, reconstruct and build normal lives again."
Bosnia-Herzegovina launched the case against the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in March 1993 while the war was still raging. It said the former Yugoslavia and its Belgrade-based army backed Bosnian Serbs in their genocidal effort to exterminate Bosniak Muslims and other non-Serbs.
The case now is against Serbia and Montenegro because that is what remains of former Yugoslavia.
The aggression in the 1990s led to the death of thousands, and the devastation of the economy of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Bosnia-Herzegovina government in Sarajevo has demanded $100 billion in compensation.
"This is a historic case," international law professor Vojin Dimitrijevic told IPS. "If pronounced guilty, Serbia and Montenegro will be the first state in history pronounced as genocidal by this court."
The war ended in 1995 and the wartime leaders are gone from the political scene, but Sarajevo refused offers by the new authorities of Yugoslavia, which became Serbia and Montenegro in 2003, for a negotiated settlement.
Former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic fell from power in 2000. He faces trial for war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo before the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague.
"This is a highly, crucially important case," said Sulejman Tihic, Muslim member of the Bosnia-Herzegovina presidency that is now shared between Muslim, Croat and Serb leaders. "The case should bring truth, see that justice is done and help establish new relations of mutual trust between two neighborly nations, Bosnia and Serbia," Tihic told Belgrade media.
Sarajevo media view the case as already won and have called it the final punishment for Serbia.
But legal experts say it will be extremely hard to prove that a state, in this case what is now Serbia and Montenegro, together with Bosnian Serbs, had planned the genocide or extermination of one group.
"Such things are extremely hard to prove, despite all the events that took place in Bosnia," Dimitrijevic said. "There are no documents, records or any real things in writing that would indicate deliberate intention to exterminate non-Serbs."
Sakib Softic and legal experts in Sarajevo have said that proof could come from the sentences pronounced by the ICTY.
"Rulings in cases dealing with Srebrenica (in Bosnia-Herzegovina) clearly named genocide, in the cases of (Bosnian Serb commanders) Radislav Krstic and Vidoje Blagojevic," Softic said.
The two were found guilty by the ICTY of genocide when Bosnian Serb forces massacred up to 8,000 Muslim boys and men after overrunning Srebrenica in July 1995.
"Regardless of charges of genocide, the aggravating circumstances for Serbia's involvement and support to the Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) in the war might come from the material dealing with Ratko Mladic," military analyst Aleksandar Radic told IPS.
Former BSA general Ratko Mladic, who led the operation on Srebrenica, has been a fugitive from justice for years.
Serbia is under strong pressure to find and extradite him to face trial at the ICTY. Serbia faces cancellation of talks for joining the European Union if it fails to hand him over soon.
Military archives made available to the Serbian public in the past couple of weeks show clear connections between Mladic, his BSA and the army of former Yugoslavia.
But Serbian lawyer in the case Radoslav Stojanovic told IPS that "the state cannot be found responsible for genocide. It is extremely hard to establish the intention of a state, to define it. It is also gravely unjust to put the blame on the whole Serbian nation, people who live in Serbia, for the wrongdoings done in the name of Serbs in general."
Stojanovic and other international law experts say there are contradictions in the ICJ where Serbia is concerned.
When Serbia tried to launch a case against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing in 1999, the ICJ ruled that this was outside its jurisdiction because at that time Serbia was not a member of the United Nations.
"Serbia was not a member of the U.N. in 1993 as well (when war raged in Bosnia), and we'll try to dispute the jurisdiction of this court in this case now," Stojanovic said.
Serbia was expelled from the United Nations in 1992 due to its involvement in wars in Croatia and Bosnia. It was re-admitted only after Milosevic fell from power in 2000.
Croatian international law expert Ivo Josipovic told IPS that "any decision by the ICJ will have its place in the history of law, political history and history itself, as this court had no prior case dealing with the implementation of the U.N. conventions on prevention of and punishment of crimes of genocide."
The court will sit until May this year and is expected to pronounce its verdict by the middle of next year.
Minority Rights Guaranteed In Any Kosovo Settlement -UN
BRUSSELS (AP)--Minority rights will be guaranteed in any final settlement for Kosovo, the top U.N. official in the province said Tuesday, calling on Kosovo Serbs to take an active part in shaping the province's future.
"The (ethnic Albanian) majority will have to understand they can't stabilize Kosovo if they don't recognize the right of the minority to be protected," Soren Jessen-Petersen said after meeting senior E.U. and NATO officials.
"In the status settlement there will be a provision for minority protection that can be monitored and verified" from outside, he said.
Jessen-Petersen said a federal government, based in Pristina, and a regional government for Kosovo's Serbs would be the best way to protect the rights of the Serb minority. He urged Belgrade and Kosovo Serbs to stop what he called " boycotting" the idea.
"There will be a limit to how much you can achieve in the area for the minorities if the minorities are not taking an active part in the process. As long as you continue the policy of boycott it's very difficult," he said.
Kosovo has been run by the U.N. since a 1999 NATO bombing campaign ended a Serb crackdown on independence-minded ethnic Albanian rebels.
The first round of negotiations between Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and Serbian officials on the province's future status was held Feb. 20-21 in Vienna and the dispute over its future is expected to be resolved by the end of 2006.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority insists on full independence, while the Serbs want it to remain part of Serbia.
Western diplomats have said Kosovo's quest for independence is conditional on the province becoming a democracy that respects minority rights.
"The (ethnic Albanian) majority will have to understand they can't stabilize Kosovo if they don't recognize the right of the minority to be protected," Soren Jessen-Petersen said after meeting senior E.U. and NATO officials.
"In the status settlement there will be a provision for minority protection that can be monitored and verified" from outside, he said.
Jessen-Petersen said a federal government, based in Pristina, and a regional government for Kosovo's Serbs would be the best way to protect the rights of the Serb minority. He urged Belgrade and Kosovo Serbs to stop what he called " boycotting" the idea.
"There will be a limit to how much you can achieve in the area for the minorities if the minorities are not taking an active part in the process. As long as you continue the policy of boycott it's very difficult," he said.
Kosovo has been run by the U.N. since a 1999 NATO bombing campaign ended a Serb crackdown on independence-minded ethnic Albanian rebels.
The first round of negotiations between Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and Serbian officials on the province's future status was held Feb. 20-21 in Vienna and the dispute over its future is expected to be resolved by the end of 2006.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority insists on full independence, while the Serbs want it to remain part of Serbia.
Western diplomats have said Kosovo's quest for independence is conditional on the province becoming a democracy that respects minority rights.
UN Mediator For Kosovo Meets With Serb Officials
(Updates an item timed at 1107 GMT with Serbia's prime minister reiterating his offer for Kosovo's autonomy; comment from Serbia's president; statement from Serbia-Montenegro foreign minister; comment on minority rights from top U.N. official in Kosovo.)
BELGRADE (AP)--The U.N. mediator for Kosovo met with Serbian officials Tuesday to discuss the future of the southern province, whose ethnic Albanian population wants independence.
Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president appointed by the U.N. to lead Kosovo talks, met with Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, who has warned that allowing secession of Kosovo would lead to a spiral of violence in the Balkans.
"A solution for the future status of the province must be an agreed one and in accordance with international law and European values," Kostunica said in a statement after the meeting. He also reiterated his government's offer for " substantial autonomy for Kosovo, within Serbia."
Kosovo's predominantly ethnic Albanian population, however, demand outright independence. Ahtisaari was to meet Wednesday with Kosovo Albanian leaders in Pristina.
The meetings are a follow-up to the first, and mostly inconclusive, round of internationally sponsored talks, held Feb. 20-21 in Vienna.
Kosovo has been an international protectorate since 1999, when NATO bombing ended a Serb crackdown on Kosovo's ethnic Albanian separatists.
The U.N. envoy also met with Serbia's pro-Western President Boris Tadic who also vows never to agree to secession of the province, which Serbs cherish as their historic heartland.
Tadic, however, told Ahtisaari he was ready to meet directly with Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leader, Fatmir Sejdiu.
The U.N. envoy also discussed Kosovo with Serbia-Montenegro's Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic who proposed "all rights for the (ethnic) Albanian majority, with full protection of rights for Serb and other minorities" in the contested province.
The Serb population in Kosovo declined sharply after the 1999 change of authority.
"Our side is ready for a compromise but it must be respected that we have the same rights and dignity like all other states," Draskovic said after the meeting.
Soren Jessen-Petersen, the top U.N. official in the province, said in Brussels on Tuesday that minority rights would be guaranteed in any final settlement, and called on Kosovo Serbs to take an active part in shaping the province's future.
"The (ethnic Albanian) majority will have to understand they can't stabilize Kosovo if they don't recognize the right of the minority to be protected," Jessen-Petersen said after meeting senior E.U. and NATO officials.
BELGRADE (AP)--The U.N. mediator for Kosovo met with Serbian officials Tuesday to discuss the future of the southern province, whose ethnic Albanian population wants independence.
Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president appointed by the U.N. to lead Kosovo talks, met with Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, who has warned that allowing secession of Kosovo would lead to a spiral of violence in the Balkans.
"A solution for the future status of the province must be an agreed one and in accordance with international law and European values," Kostunica said in a statement after the meeting. He also reiterated his government's offer for " substantial autonomy for Kosovo, within Serbia."
Kosovo's predominantly ethnic Albanian population, however, demand outright independence. Ahtisaari was to meet Wednesday with Kosovo Albanian leaders in Pristina.
The meetings are a follow-up to the first, and mostly inconclusive, round of internationally sponsored talks, held Feb. 20-21 in Vienna.
Kosovo has been an international protectorate since 1999, when NATO bombing ended a Serb crackdown on Kosovo's ethnic Albanian separatists.
The U.N. envoy also met with Serbia's pro-Western President Boris Tadic who also vows never to agree to secession of the province, which Serbs cherish as their historic heartland.
Tadic, however, told Ahtisaari he was ready to meet directly with Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leader, Fatmir Sejdiu.
The U.N. envoy also discussed Kosovo with Serbia-Montenegro's Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic who proposed "all rights for the (ethnic) Albanian majority, with full protection of rights for Serb and other minorities" in the contested province.
The Serb population in Kosovo declined sharply after the 1999 change of authority.
"Our side is ready for a compromise but it must be respected that we have the same rights and dignity like all other states," Draskovic said after the meeting.
Soren Jessen-Petersen, the top U.N. official in the province, said in Brussels on Tuesday that minority rights would be guaranteed in any final settlement, and called on Kosovo Serbs to take an active part in shaping the province's future.
"The (ethnic Albanian) majority will have to understand they can't stabilize Kosovo if they don't recognize the right of the minority to be protected," Jessen-Petersen said after meeting senior E.U. and NATO officials.
Monday, February 27, 2006
EU gives Serbia a month to deliver Mladic
ark John and Ingrid Melander
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union told Serbia on Monday it had a month to deliver war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic to justice or risk seeing its long-term bid to join the bloc put on ice.
One of the top two war crimes suspects in the Balkans, Mladic has been a wanted man since 1995 and is said to have enjoyed high-level protection from renegade members of the military and intelligence services in Serbia.
"It is high time Serbia reached full cooperation with ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia) that should lead to the arrest and transfer of Ratko Mladic," EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told a news conference.
"That is the way to avoid a disruption of negotiations, to avoid them being put on hold," Rehn said, noting complaints from ICTY chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte that Serbia's cooperation with her tribunal had been deteriorating over the past year.
Diplomats said a final statement by foreign ministers warned only that talks risked being "disrupted" rather than suspended so as not to encourage anti-EU figures in Belgrade who wanted just that outcome.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told reporters the 25-nation EU would adopt a "go-slow" approach to future contacts with Belgrade, which could start with the cancellation of a next round of talks due on April 4-5.
"If Serbia continues to fail to cooperate, then it risks a total suspension of the talks," Straw said.
Del Ponte thanked the EU for sending what her spokeswoman called a clear message to Serbia: "If Mladic is not arrested Belgrade will have to face the consequences: the negotiations scheduled on April 5 will not take place, which means clearly that they will be suspended."
DELIVERABLE
Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic, in Brussels to meet his EU counterparts, was optimistic Mladic could be delivered.
"No explanations, no excuses for the fact that we are dramatically late in fulfilling our Hague obligations...I hope that we'll do that this time," he said, insisting nonetheless that his government did not know where Mladic was.
Indicted by the United Nations in 1995 for genocide in the massacre that year of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica and the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo, Mladic went underground only in 2001.
Responding to a week of rampant media speculation that Mladic was under arrest or about to surrender, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said last week that the former Bosnian Serb army chief was still at-large but insisted that Serbia was "doing everything in its power" to bring him to justice.
The current talks between the EU and Serbia are the first rung on the ladder to eventual membership for Belgrade -- something which is far from certain given the cold feet about future waves of enlargement in many EU capitals.
The EU will in coming weeks increase pressure on Belgrade, with Draskovic due to meet his EU counterparts later on Monday and again in mid-March.
Del Ponte has urged the EU to suspend its discussions with Belgrade, saying that similar hardline tactics worked with Croatia. The arrest of leading war crimes suspect Ante Gotovina in December cleared the path for its EU accession talks after months of warnings and pressure.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union told Serbia on Monday it had a month to deliver war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic to justice or risk seeing its long-term bid to join the bloc put on ice.
One of the top two war crimes suspects in the Balkans, Mladic has been a wanted man since 1995 and is said to have enjoyed high-level protection from renegade members of the military and intelligence services in Serbia.
"It is high time Serbia reached full cooperation with ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia) that should lead to the arrest and transfer of Ratko Mladic," EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told a news conference.
"That is the way to avoid a disruption of negotiations, to avoid them being put on hold," Rehn said, noting complaints from ICTY chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte that Serbia's cooperation with her tribunal had been deteriorating over the past year.
Diplomats said a final statement by foreign ministers warned only that talks risked being "disrupted" rather than suspended so as not to encourage anti-EU figures in Belgrade who wanted just that outcome.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told reporters the 25-nation EU would adopt a "go-slow" approach to future contacts with Belgrade, which could start with the cancellation of a next round of talks due on April 4-5.
"If Serbia continues to fail to cooperate, then it risks a total suspension of the talks," Straw said.
Del Ponte thanked the EU for sending what her spokeswoman called a clear message to Serbia: "If Mladic is not arrested Belgrade will have to face the consequences: the negotiations scheduled on April 5 will not take place, which means clearly that they will be suspended."
DELIVERABLE
Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic, in Brussels to meet his EU counterparts, was optimistic Mladic could be delivered.
"No explanations, no excuses for the fact that we are dramatically late in fulfilling our Hague obligations...I hope that we'll do that this time," he said, insisting nonetheless that his government did not know where Mladic was.
Indicted by the United Nations in 1995 for genocide in the massacre that year of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica and the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo, Mladic went underground only in 2001.
Responding to a week of rampant media speculation that Mladic was under arrest or about to surrender, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said last week that the former Bosnian Serb army chief was still at-large but insisted that Serbia was "doing everything in its power" to bring him to justice.
The current talks between the EU and Serbia are the first rung on the ladder to eventual membership for Belgrade -- something which is far from certain given the cold feet about future waves of enlargement in many EU capitals.
The EU will in coming weeks increase pressure on Belgrade, with Draskovic due to meet his EU counterparts later on Monday and again in mid-March.
Del Ponte has urged the EU to suspend its discussions with Belgrade, saying that similar hardline tactics worked with Croatia. The arrest of leading war crimes suspect Ante Gotovina in December cleared the path for its EU accession talks after months of warnings and pressure.
Serbia faces genocide charge
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- The International Court of Justice assembled for hearings Monday on a suit by Bosnia accusing Serbia of genocide, the first time an entire nation has faced trial for humanity's worst crime.
Although individual Bosnian Serbs have been convicted on genocide charges, the U.N.'s highest court will hear lawyers argue whether Serbia can be held responsible for the actions of its allies in the neighboring republic and its own leaders during Yugoslavia's brutal secessionist war in the early 1990s.
The stakes potentially include billions of dollars and history's judgment.
The session began with the swearing in of new judges by the court's newly elected president, British Justice Rosalyn Higgins, to the tribunal, also known as the world court. Higgins, 68, adjourned the meeting for a brief break after the judges took their oath.
The 16 judges, in black robes and white bibs, filed into their chairs behind a long raised table before an assembly of lawyers from the two nations and representatives of the diplomatic corps.
Oral arguments were being heard 13 years after Bosnia filed the lawsuit against Serbia-Montenegro -- the successor state for the defunct Yugoslavia -- charging it with a premeditated attempt to destroy Bosnia's Muslim population, in whole or part.
"Not since the end of the Second World War and the revelations of the horrors of Nazi Germany's 'Final Solution' has Europe witnessed the utter destruction of a people, for no other reason than they belong to a particular national ethnical, racial, and religious group as such," said the lawsuit's opening paragraph, drafted for the Bosnian government by American lawyer Francis A. Boyle.
It is one of the most complex and far-reaching rulings ever sought from the tribunal. Arguments are scheduled end May 9, and it likely will be a year before the judges deliver their verdict.
The case hinges on whether the court is persuaded that the Serbian state, and not just a group of individuals, had the specific intent to wipe out the Muslims of eastern Bosnia as a distinct community.
If the judges rule in Bosnia's favor, they would decide later whether to award financial reparations, which could total billions of dollars. The court's rulings are binding, and a refusal to abide by them could be referred to the U.N. Security Council for action.
Croatia, another republic that splintered from the crumbling Yugoslav federation, has a similar genocide case against Serbia pending at the world court.
Bosnian survivors started a vigil Monday outside the neo-Gothic Peace Palace where the court sits.
Bosnia submitted the lawsuit in March 1993, less than a year after Yugoslav-backed Serb paramilitary forces began attacking Muslim villages adjacent to Serbia. The Bosnians claim the Serbs intended to drive out the residents and create a Greater Serbia.
In a horrific roster of atrocities, the lawsuit cites case after case of the slaughter of civilians, mass rape, the systematic destruction of mosques and cultural heritage sites, and the creation of "extermination camps."
Within weeks, the court issued an interim order against "Yugoslavia and its agents and surrogates" to halt their campaign of "ethnic cleansing," including the murder, bombardment and starvation of the Muslims.
But worse was to come.
Two years after the documents were filed in The Hague, Bosnian Serb forces commanded by Gen. Ratko Mladic massacred about 8,000 Muslims during one blood-soaked week in the U.N.-declared safe haven of Srebrenica.
A separate U.N. court in The Hague -- the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia -- already has ruled that genocide occurred at Srebrenica.
The Yugoslav tribunal convicted two Bosnian army officers of complicity or aiding genocide, and several other suspects struck plea bargains to evade genocide charges. It is currently trying former President Slobodan Milosevic.
Mladic remains at large, branded one of the world's most-wanted fugitives. He is believed to be hiding in Serbia with protection from hard-liners in the Serb military and police -- loyalists of Milosevic.
In recent days, reports of Mladic's imminent capture circulated, but they have so far proven false. In Belgrade, the Blic daily newspaper said negotiations on his surrender were under way and that Mladic allegedly "refuses to make a deal" with authorities.
Bosnia faces a European Union deadline to surrender Mladic by Feb. 28 or have its membership talks with the bloc frozen. The EU's council of ministers scheduled a Monday meeting in Brussels, Belgium, to decide whether to punish Belgrade if Mladic is not captured.
"Serbia knows that negotiations may be suspended or may never be concluded if Belgrade fails to cooperate fully," chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said this week.
Genocide was not specifically outlawed until the 1948 Genocide Convention, prompted by the Holocaust.
The first genocide conviction came 50 years later, when a special U.N. court on Rwanda sentenced a former mayor, Jean-Paul Akayesu, to life imprisonment for complicity in the deaths of thousands of Tutsis. The Rwanda court has handed down a score of convictions since then.
Unlike the Rwanda or Yugoslav tribunals, the International Court of Justice does not try individuals. It deals only with claims among U.N. member states, but rarely in claims of this scope. In its 60 years, it has most often has adjudicated border or maritime disputes.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Although individual Bosnian Serbs have been convicted on genocide charges, the U.N.'s highest court will hear lawyers argue whether Serbia can be held responsible for the actions of its allies in the neighboring republic and its own leaders during Yugoslavia's brutal secessionist war in the early 1990s.
The stakes potentially include billions of dollars and history's judgment.
The session began with the swearing in of new judges by the court's newly elected president, British Justice Rosalyn Higgins, to the tribunal, also known as the world court. Higgins, 68, adjourned the meeting for a brief break after the judges took their oath.
The 16 judges, in black robes and white bibs, filed into their chairs behind a long raised table before an assembly of lawyers from the two nations and representatives of the diplomatic corps.
Oral arguments were being heard 13 years after Bosnia filed the lawsuit against Serbia-Montenegro -- the successor state for the defunct Yugoslavia -- charging it with a premeditated attempt to destroy Bosnia's Muslim population, in whole or part.
"Not since the end of the Second World War and the revelations of the horrors of Nazi Germany's 'Final Solution' has Europe witnessed the utter destruction of a people, for no other reason than they belong to a particular national ethnical, racial, and religious group as such," said the lawsuit's opening paragraph, drafted for the Bosnian government by American lawyer Francis A. Boyle.
It is one of the most complex and far-reaching rulings ever sought from the tribunal. Arguments are scheduled end May 9, and it likely will be a year before the judges deliver their verdict.
The case hinges on whether the court is persuaded that the Serbian state, and not just a group of individuals, had the specific intent to wipe out the Muslims of eastern Bosnia as a distinct community.
If the judges rule in Bosnia's favor, they would decide later whether to award financial reparations, which could total billions of dollars. The court's rulings are binding, and a refusal to abide by them could be referred to the U.N. Security Council for action.
Croatia, another republic that splintered from the crumbling Yugoslav federation, has a similar genocide case against Serbia pending at the world court.
Bosnian survivors started a vigil Monday outside the neo-Gothic Peace Palace where the court sits.
Bosnia submitted the lawsuit in March 1993, less than a year after Yugoslav-backed Serb paramilitary forces began attacking Muslim villages adjacent to Serbia. The Bosnians claim the Serbs intended to drive out the residents and create a Greater Serbia.
In a horrific roster of atrocities, the lawsuit cites case after case of the slaughter of civilians, mass rape, the systematic destruction of mosques and cultural heritage sites, and the creation of "extermination camps."
Within weeks, the court issued an interim order against "Yugoslavia and its agents and surrogates" to halt their campaign of "ethnic cleansing," including the murder, bombardment and starvation of the Muslims.
But worse was to come.
Two years after the documents were filed in The Hague, Bosnian Serb forces commanded by Gen. Ratko Mladic massacred about 8,000 Muslims during one blood-soaked week in the U.N.-declared safe haven of Srebrenica.
A separate U.N. court in The Hague -- the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia -- already has ruled that genocide occurred at Srebrenica.
The Yugoslav tribunal convicted two Bosnian army officers of complicity or aiding genocide, and several other suspects struck plea bargains to evade genocide charges. It is currently trying former President Slobodan Milosevic.
Mladic remains at large, branded one of the world's most-wanted fugitives. He is believed to be hiding in Serbia with protection from hard-liners in the Serb military and police -- loyalists of Milosevic.
In recent days, reports of Mladic's imminent capture circulated, but they have so far proven false. In Belgrade, the Blic daily newspaper said negotiations on his surrender were under way and that Mladic allegedly "refuses to make a deal" with authorities.
Bosnia faces a European Union deadline to surrender Mladic by Feb. 28 or have its membership talks with the bloc frozen. The EU's council of ministers scheduled a Monday meeting in Brussels, Belgium, to decide whether to punish Belgrade if Mladic is not captured.
"Serbia knows that negotiations may be suspended or may never be concluded if Belgrade fails to cooperate fully," chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said this week.
Genocide was not specifically outlawed until the 1948 Genocide Convention, prompted by the Holocaust.
The first genocide conviction came 50 years later, when a special U.N. court on Rwanda sentenced a former mayor, Jean-Paul Akayesu, to life imprisonment for complicity in the deaths of thousands of Tutsis. The Rwanda court has handed down a score of convictions since then.
Unlike the Rwanda or Yugoslav tribunals, the International Court of Justice does not try individuals. It deals only with claims among U.N. member states, but rarely in claims of this scope. In its 60 years, it has most often has adjudicated border or maritime disputes.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Serbia and Montenegro on Trial for Genocide
Bosnian lawyers face the daunting task of proving not only that genocide occurred in Bosnia, but also that responsibility lay with an entire state.
By IWPR staff in The Hague (TU No 441, 24-Feb-06)
Bosnian lawyers launching a genocide case against Serbia and Montenegro at the International Court of Justice, ICJ, the first such state-level lawsuit, will face a formidable challenge when proceedings begin on Monday, February 27, IWPR has established in a far-reaching investigation into the case.
On the face of it, Sarajevo’s case appears strong, drawing as it does on many years’ worth of research into the atrocities that became the gruesome hallmark of the conflicts that ripped through the Balkans in the Nineties.
But this first ever attempt to prove something as problematic as state responsibility for a crime as complex as genocide is set to throw up a whole host of thorny legal issues.
Over a decade has passed since Sarajevo first registered its complaint against Belgrade at the Hague court, accusing what was then Yugoslavia of genocide against Bosnia’s non-Serb population.
Next week, the two sides’ legal teams will finally take their seats in the imposing wood-panelled expanse of the court’s Great Hall of Justice in order to launch the opening salvoes in a battle that could change the fragile political balance of the Balkans forever.
In the intervening period, the Sarajevo legal team has had access to a growing body of evidence generated by prosecutors working for another Hague-based United Nations court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY.
Prosecutors at the ICTY have established that at least one episode of the war in Bosnia — the slaughter by Serb troops of thousands of Muslim men and boys from the town of Srebrenica in 1995 — constituted a genocide.
Two years’ worth of evidence against the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at the same court has also thrown a great deal of new light on Belgrade’s links with this and other atrocities. The evidence that has emerged has satisfied judges that he does have a case to answer about genocide in Bosnia.
But for the Bosnian team, securing a ruling in Sarajevo’s favour at the ICJ will still be no mean feat.
Besides convincing a new court that the notoriously complex crime of genocide occurred in Bosnia, the Bosnian lawyers will also face the daunting task of showing that responsibility for it lay not just with a set of individuals but with an entire state.
This generates a multitude of intractable legal questions, not least surrounding the fact that the crime of genocide necessarily requires a particular mindset — namely the special intent to destroy a population — which, on the face of it at least, appears difficult to attribute to a state.
What is more, the way in which Belgrade is purported to have committed the crime — largely through covert support for proxies, in a war that its own military wasn’t officially involved in — makes the case infinitely more complex.
The case stands in stark contrast to many that have gone before it at the ICJ, which is usually better known for its role in arbitrating such weighty issues as border disputes and rows over maritime boundaries.
Its proceedings are also often technical and slow — though none so slow as this latest case, which has already spent some 13 years on the court’s docket — and devoid of even a modicum of drama.
Once the technicalities are out of the way this time, however — and there is still a chance that the suit will be dismissed on grounds of jurisdiction — the Great Hall of Justice will play host to testimony from a series of live witnesses. The court has so little experience of this practice that until recently, staff had no idea where they would even place them.
The stakes are also high. If the 17-judge panel at the World Court upholds Bosnia’s case, Serbia and Montenegro, as the successor state to Yugoslavia, could be faced with billions of dollars in reparations payments.
Even more seriously in many people’s eyes, it would also become the first country ever to receive the indelible black mark of a legal ruling declaring it an official sponsor of the crime of crimes.
If Bosnia’s case comes crashing to the ground, on the other hand, ecstatic celebrations in Belgrade will be matched by mass political recriminations in Sarajevo.
Ultimately, those on both sides hope that this showdown before the world’s highest civil court might at least answer once and for all one of the most central and intractable questions surrounding the break-up of Yugoslavia: to what extent was Belgrade responsible for the horrors that overwhelmed the people of Bosnia in the aftermath of that crisis?
IWPR has spoken with all the main players in the case — lawyers from both sides and the new president of the ICJ — and has sought comment from a host of academic and legal experts.
In this report, we explore in detail the Bosnian case and the Serbian response, analyse the legal issues involved, and discuss the likely consequences should either side win.
THE HISTORY
Bosnia and Hercegovina filed its case against the now defunct state of Yugoslavia on March 20, 1993, arguing that the latter had “planned, prepared, conspired, promoted, encouraged, aided and abetted and committed” genocide against its population.
Francis Boyle, the University of Illinois professor of law who instigated the legal proceedings on behalf of Bosnia, told IWPR that the aim was “to shake up the entire world, so they realised that genocide was going on in Bosnia although everyone was denying it”.
The suit cited specific alleged crimes including the murders of over 80 civilians by Serbian paramilitaries in the village of Zaklopaca, the deaths of dozens of Muslim inmates every day at the “Omarska extermination camp” and the destruction of non-Serb villages.
But Belgrade may not have breached only the UN genocide convention, it is also claimed that it may have reneged on its obligations under the Geneva conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other aspects of international law.
Those specifically to blame, said the Bosnian lawyers, were “public officials” and “constitutionally responsible rulers” of Yugoslavia, as well as “certain private individuals” who were controlled by them or cooperated with them.
Bosnia asked the court to order Belgrade to pay reparations for damages to persons, property and the environment, as well as to its economy.
When the case opens next week, the Sarajevo legal team will have seven days to lay out their evidence for the suit, before handing the floor to Serbia to reply. The 17 judges overseeing the proceedings will then hear from witnesses and experts.
THE QUESTION OF JURISDICTION
Even with hearings getting under way, however, a number of issues remain outstanding which could stand in the way of the case being seen through to its natural conclusion.
One such potential obstacle is the question of whether the ICJ has the authority to hear the case.
In June 1995, the Belgrade team filed a response to Sarajevo’s suit, arguing that the court had no jurisdiction over it. They claimed, among other things, that Yugoslavia had no involvement in Bosnia; that Bosnia was not party to the genocide convention; and that, even if it was, its accession would have occurred after the crimes in question, meaning that they couldn’t be the basis for a case.
In July the following year, judges at the ICJ threw out these objections and found that the court had jurisdiction to deal with the case. Serbia and Montenegro subsequently failed in an attempt to have the decision overturned.
But Serbian lawyers say the legal situation has since changed in such a way as to support fresh jurisdiction objections.
In 1999, Belgrade filed a separate case at the ICJ against a number of western states, accusing them of committing genocide during the bombing campaign launched by NATO in March that year to halt alleged ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Later, however, as Belgrade itself sought to edge towards NATO membership, its legal team scuppered their own case by arguing that the ICJ had no jurisdiction over it, since Yugoslavia had not been a member of the UN during the relevant period.
That case was thrown out unanimously in 2004. While the judges were split almost down the middle on the grounds on which they should reject Serbia’s suit, one vote tipped the balance in favour of the argument about Belgrade’s non-membership of the UN.
The new president of the court, Judge Rosalyn Higgins of the United Kingdom, was amongst those who disagreed with that argument, warning that the court may be creating a problem for itself in future cases — clearly casting ahead to the now imminent Bosnia case.
Pieter Bekker, an international lawyer who was working in the ICJ’s registry department when Bosnia launched proceedings against Belgrade and has since written for legal journals on the case, told IWPR that the court now faces a dilemma.
“Serbia is likely to make an argument that if [it] can’t sue NATO countries then the court should be consistent and rule after all that [it doesn’t] have standing to be a defendant in this genocide case,” he said.
“The court is in a bit of a predicament there,” he added.
Sakib Softic, an advisor for constitutional and legal affairs to the Bosnian presidency, dismisses such talk. “In 1996, the ICJ ruled that it has jurisdiction over this case and all the facts were known even then... Nothing has changed since then that would alter that decision,” he told IWPR.
Nottingham University law expert Dr Robert Cryer agrees. “In the past they got nowhere with that argument,” he told IWPR. “My guess is that [Serbia and Montenegro] will attempt to raise the matter again but it’s not going to get anywhere.”
The ICJ is in the enviable position of not having to follow any precedents set in previous rulings by its judges. Cryer, though, told IWPR that in practice “the court has a consistent policy of citing its own decisions and would only depart from a previous one in very rare circumstances”.
This was confirmed by President Higgins, who told IWPR, “We are extremely aware of our own prior judicial decision making and we certainly try to be consistent.”
Maintaining consistency between two such apparently opposed rulings on jurisdiction though may be one of the first tasks facing the ICJ’s new president.
THE QUESTION OF SABOTAGE
Before the case has even come to court, the Sarajevo legal team have also been forced to deal with fierce resistance from the whole Balkans region, and even from within Bosnia itself.
Complaints have emerged from various quarters about the expense of the proceedings. In January this year, Professor Radoslav Stojanovic, who is representing the Serbian side at the forthcoming proceedings, told a daily newspaper from Republika Srpska, Nezavisne Nedjeljne Novine, that the cost of the lawsuit amounts to around three million euro.
“Why would we spend all this money on accusing one another, when it could be used for improving mutual understanding and compensation for the victims of the war?” he asked during the Nezavisne Nedjeljne Novine interview.
Softic has defended the cost, however, saying that the lawyers on the Bosnian side are charging lower fees than normal, content in the knowledge that they will be rewarded “through the professional reputation they’ll get for taking part in this case”.
“The whole case will cost less then two million euro, which is less then what [Vojislav] Seselj demands for his own defence,” he told IWPR, in reference to the notorious hard-line nationalist Serb politician on trial for war crimes at the ICTY.
In addition to such protests, Bosnian Serb politicians have been actively seeking ways to get the suit withdrawn. But it was originally launched on behalf of the state by Bosnia’s collective wartime presidency — which included, at least technically, representatives of the country’s Muslim, Croat and Serb populations — and it cannot be retracted without all three parties agreeing.
In a last ditch attempt to sink the case, the current Serb member of Bosnia’s collective presidency, Borislav Paravac, persuaded the country’s foreign minister — also a Serb — to send a letter to the ICJ, asking it to temporarily suspend the genocide proceedings until Bosnia’s constitutional court had ruled on whether the lawsuit was legal.
But the letter was due to be sent via Bosnia’s ambassador to the Netherlands — a Muslim — who refused to do it, insisting that the only person with authority to communicate directly with ICJ is Bosnia’s legal representative, Sakib Softic.
The next session of the constitutional court in Sarajevo is not until the end of March, too late to affect the start of the case, even if judges there decide that they have jurisdiction over the matter.
Softic told IWPR he was confident that the moves against the case from Bosnia’s Serb community would come to nothing. “Governments of any of the two entities of the Bosnian state can not in any way jeopardise the case, which has been initiated on the state level,” he said.
TO PROVE GENOCIDE
The suit against Serbia and Montenegro — as the successor state to Yugoslavia — will be the first case ever heard by the ICJ taking as its foundation the UN genocide convention, which was drafted in the wake of World War Two and entered into international law over fifty years ago.
According to the convention, genocide is defined as certain acts “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
But the ICJ won’t be the first court to hear such allegations.
The first judgement against an individual was handed down in Arusha at the Rwanda Tribunal in a case against a former mayor — Jean-Paul Akayesu — who was found guilty of genocide in 1998.
At the ICTY, judges have already determined that genocide occurred in Bosnia, when troops of the Bosnian Serb Army, VRS, executed thousands of Muslim men and boys captured after the fall of the Srebrenica enclave in July 1995. VRS commanders Radislav Krstic and Vidoje Blagojevic have since been given prison terms for their roles in the crime of genocide during that episode.
Many senior Serbs have also been indicted by the ICTY for genocide elsewhere in Bosnia — as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing intended to drive Muslims and Croats from huge swathes of the country earmarked for a future Serb state — though none have yet been convicted on such charges.
There is little doubt by now that the Bosnian war — in which, according to the latest figures, around a 100,000 people lost their lives — was a vicious and brutal conflict.
“That the crimes were committed isn’t going to be debated, those days are long gone,” Mark Ellis, a Balkan expert and director of the International Bar Association, told IWPR.
The challenge for the Bosnian lawyers appearing before the ICJ, however, is to secure a ruling from that court that the crimes amounted to genocide, and to provide evidence for longstanding allegations that Belgrade funded and otherwise supported the Bosnian Serb military and paramilitary units responsible.
In some ways, establishing these facts in civil proceedings at the ICJ might be easier than it would be before many other courts. The degree of certainty which judges at the ICJ are typically required to feel in order to come down on one side of any given case is lower than what is required at institutions, such as the ICTY, which deal with questions of individual criminal responsibility.
“The ICJ can decide to convict on the balance of probabilities, rather than beyond all reasonable doubt,” explained Cambridge University international law expert Roger O’Keefe.
ICJ president Higgins told IWPR, however, that the case in hand presents a particular challenge in this respect. “You’re in an overlap area where you’ve got something like genocide, where it is a crime under international law,” she said, adding that the judges were in the process of considering the “difficult questions” thrown up by this blurring of boundaries between criminal and civil law.
BOSNIA’S CASE
Bosnian representatives told IWPR that they were confident they would be able to establish Belgrade’s culpability.
“I personally have no doubts about the positive outcome of the lawsuit against Serbia and Montenegro, and I believe that documents we have at our disposal are sufficient,” said Softic.
Francis Boyle — who is no longer a member of the Bosnian team — added that, given the strength of the evidence, the case had been “won already”.
A number of independent legal experts told IWPR that it was also their belief that the Bosnia case had a good chance of success.
Ellis told IWPR that Serbia would face “an uphill battle on this”, and Cryer expressed a similar view, pointing out that the ICTY’s findings that genocide occurred in Bosnia would be very useful to the Bosnian case.
The Bosnian team will be calling a number of witnesses to shore up its case, including British general Richard Dannatt, who served in Bosnia with the UN Protection Force, UNPROFOR. Dannatt is apparently set to speak about the role played in Bosnia by the Yugoslav military, including its active support of the VRS.
Also due to testify is Andras Riedlmayer, a Harvard expert in Islamic art and architecture, who will give evidence about the destruction of cultural and religious buildings and monuments in Bosnia.
Meanwhile, United States historian Robert Donia will describe the history of the Bosnian war.
Besides witness testimony, Softic told IWPR that documents will also make up a significant part of Bosnia’s case at the ICJ.
Members of the Bosnian legal team have said in the past that they intend to draw much of the documentary evidence for their case from what has gone before at the ICTY.
The ICTY’s dealings with the Srebrenica massacre — already established by that court as an instance of genocide — will most likely form a key part of their case.
Even though the Srebrenica atrocity occurred in 1995, two years after Bosnia first filed its suit, Bekker said evidence relating to that crime would still be admissible.
“The court is likely to look at the whole of the Bosnian war… Bosnia can argue that Srebrenica was a continuing violation of international law,” he told IWPR.
Dr Rachel Kerr, from the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London, told IWPR that there is reason to think that far from just being relevant to the case, Srebrenica will in fact be of special interest to the Bosnian team.
Witness testimony from the enclave clearly showing that men and boys were separated and executed on the grounds of their ethnicity helps to show quite unambiguously that what happened there really was genocide, she explained.
It could be “very difficult”, she added, for Sarajevo lawyers to prove that murders elsewhere in Bosnia were carried out with such clear genocidal intent.
In the course of a decade of work by the ICTY, numerous pieces of evidence have emerged which suggest the existence of relatively direct links between the Srebrenica massacre and the Milosevic regime in Belgrade.
Evidence presented at the trial of Milosevic himself includes a written order for units which included operatives of the Serbian interior ministry to take part in fighting in the Srebrenica area around the time of the massacre.
Last June, further evidence of the alleged link became public in a brutally graphic manner, first in the Milosevic trial courtroom and later on television screens across the world, in the form of a video apparently showing the executions of a number of Srebrenica prisoners.
Those carrying out the murders were apparently members of a paramilitary group known as the Scorpions, who prosecutors say were responsible to Belgrade in the early Nineties. Since the video was first shown, one former Scorpions member has been convicted of the murders by a court in Zagreb. A further five have gone on trial in Serbia.
Material has also emerged in proceedings against Milosevic and others at the ICTY which backs up prosecutors’ claims of much broader financial and logistical support provided to Bosnian Serb forces. This could be employed by the Sarajevo lawyers to try to show that Belgrade was responsible for genocide elsewhere in the country.
Included in the mountains of documentation which help to make up the case against Milosevic are records of wartime meetings of the Bosnian Serb assembly. In one, from May 1994, Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic declared, “Without Serbia nothing would have happened. We don’t have the resources and would not have been able to make war.”
Elsewhere, Milosevic himself is recorded as telling the assembled politicians, “Do not tell us that you feel abandoned…. We shall continue to help you.”
In fact, when prosecutors wrapped up their two-year case against Milosevic in February 2004, the judges overseeing the trial said they had heard enough prima facie evidence to convict him of genocide in Bosnia. Now in the defence stage of his trial, Milosevic is in the process of trying to counter this evidence.
But a crucial bulk of evidence which may have helped the chamber come to this conclusion appears destined to remain out of reach of the lawyers representing Bosnia at the ICJ.
The documents in question, records of meetings of the Supreme Defence Counsel, SDC, a top decision-making body in Yugoslavia, were used extensively in the Milosevic trial to flesh out allegations that Belgrade supported Serb fighters in Bosnia.
Former Yugoslav president Zoran Lilic has testified in the trial that the SDC decided in 1993 to formalise support for officers of the Bosnian Serb military by establishing a body within the Yugoslav army called the 30th personnel centre.
Elsewhere, portions of the SDC records which have been made public suggest that Belgrade was paying the salaries of VRS officers as late as 1998, long after the war in Bosnia reached its bloody end.
As part of a deal brokered between ICTY prosecutors and Belgrade, however, the bulk of these documents remain under seal at the court. During an IWPR investigation into this matter last year, a Serbian official said that a major concern was that this evidence might influence the ICJ case.
Softic acknowledged to IWPR that “the [SDC] documents are very important and they would be very useful in our case”. But since ICJ judges only have access to material provided by the two sides, they seem likely to remain out of reach.
SERBIA’S DEFENCE
Despite the wealth of evidence available to the Bosnian lawyers and their very public confidence that they will win the case, the Belgrade legal team is equally confident and determined to fight its corner to the last.
Stojanovic told IWPR that a key part of the defence case will focus on the issue of the intent which is a part of the very definition of genocide. “Genocide has to [include] the intent to destroy a people, in whole or in part,” he explained. “The intent doesn’t exist in the Serbian case.”
“There are of course maybe individuals who had the intent,” he acknowledged, “but in the ICJ we're talking about the responsibility of the state.”
It seems clear that attempting to prove that Yugoslavia, at a state level, intended to destroy at least part of the non-Serb population in Bosnia will be a challenge for the Sarajevo lawyers.
But legal observers have told IWPR that it is in fact possible to establish state responsibility for a crime like genocide precisely by looking at the actions and mindsets of senior officials, irrespective of whether these were supported or even known about by the population as a whole.
“People are represented by their government,” said Judith Armatta of the Coalition for International Justice, CIJ, adding, “When the state commits a wrong — through those exercising state power, the state is liable whether or not its population approved.”
This principle is supported by the UN International Law Commission, a body responsible for developing international law. One of its draft statutes states that the conduct of a person or group of persons can be considered to have been carried out by a state as long as, in acting, they are exercising “elements of governmental authority”.
As a result, Gerry Simpson, from the International Law Department at the London School of Economics, told IWPR that in the Bosnian case “there will be a — possibly fictitious — representation of [the Yugoslav political elite] as acting on behalf of the whole state”.
Simpson went on to explain that there are two established methods of seeking to show that a state acted on the basis of genocidal intent — arguably a critical element if the state is to be found responsible for committing the crime of genocide.
The first is called “Nuremberg method”, in reference to its widespread use in the war crimes trials that followed World War Two. It involves first showing that actions have been carried out on the ground with the clear intent to destroy, at least in part, a particular population. After that, a chain of command is established linking these crimes directly and explicitly to the leadership of the state in question.
The alternative to this method, which has been favoured at the ICTY, is often used when there is little clear evidence of a chain of command between events on the ground and the state that is said to be responsible for them.
Under this approach, says Simpson, less emphasis is placed on painstakingly illustrating links between the leadership and events on the ground, while more effort goes into showing how much the events look like the natural consequences of the stated policies of the authorities in question.
For instance, at the ICTY, prosecutors of Serb leaders have often sought to show that the Serb nationalist ideal of creating a “new Serb-dominated state” necessarily involved the displacement of the non-Serb populations in large swathes of Bosnia and Croatia. Evidence of attacks by Serbs on the ground can therefore be related back to this clearly-documented political intention.
However, genocide expert Professor William Schabas, director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland in Galway, warned IWPR that such “displacement” may show intent for ethnic cleansing, but not necessarily for genocide.
“The core debate is about how broadly genocidal intent is interpreted,” he said.
Schabas’ contention is that the only ICTY case where genocide has been proven is the Krstic case, and even here, the judges’ decision emphasises the fact that there was not a universal genocidal intent inherent among the Serb leadership. Rather, the judgment states that the genocidal intent crystallised only a few days before the Srebrenica massacre.
“Srebrenica was one manifestation of a general policy, but from my reading of the Krstic decision, it was more the exception than the rule,” said Schabas.
The Serbian side may therefore argue that there is a lack of evidence that senior Yugoslav officials, even as individuals, had special genocidal intent to destroy a particular part of the Bosnia’s population at all.
Indeed, during the whole of the prosecution case against Milosevic, little clear evidence arose in public to suggest that he himself had this specific kind of genocidal intent.
Professor Vojin Dimitrijevic, the director of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, told IWPR that there are even suggestions that Milosevic had no idea in advance of what would happen at Srebrenica, pointing to reports that Milosevic was angry with Mladic in the period that followed.
Even this kind of approach, however, could be undermined by a legal ruling by judges in the Milosevic trial suggesting that an individual, at least, does not need to have genocidal intent in order to commit genocide.
The judges in that case appeared to argue that it is enough for a person to be convicted of genocide if they create a situation where genocide could occur, continue to assist those who are intent on committing it and do nothing to prevent it from happening despite it being within their power to do so.
It is also important to note that under the UN genocide convention which Bosnia accuses Serbia and Montenegro of having broken, the various ways of commiting genocide include complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and incitement to commit genocide.
Armatta told IWPR that jurisprudence laid down so far in relation to genocide is inconclusive as to whether genocidal intent is a necessary element in these crimes. One decision issued by the judges overseeing the Milosevic trial, she said, suggests that it is not.
“One can take the philosophical position that only the small number of conspirators who planned and set the genocide in motion should be held responsible for such a heinous crime. Or one can take the position that genocide could never occur without broad involvement; therefore, those who knowingly participate should also be held responsible for the crime of crimes,” explained Armatta.
When considering such matters, one must obviously bear in mind the flexibility that judges at the ICJ enjoy when it comes to deciding whether to follow legal precedents. Armatta added, “It will be interesting to see how the ICJ approaches it.”
The complex problems surrounding the questions of genocidal intent and state responsibility are not the only defence available to the Belgrade lawyers in their efforts to fend off the Bosnian genocide charges.
Another key factor in the defence case, Dimitrijevic told IWPR, will be a ruling made by the ICJ in 1986, as part of a case in which Nicaragua sued the US for supporting the Contra insurgency against the Sandinista authorities.
The court found in favour of Nicaragua, ruling that Washington had in fact contravened its treaty obligations by “training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying” military and paramilitary activities in the country.
But, crucially, the judges went on to say that this was still not enough for the US to be held directly responsible for acts committed by the Contras.
Dimitrijevic told IWPR that the standards set by this ruling could prove to be an important consideration for judges determining whether Belgrade’s involvement in Bosnia made it directly responsible for genocide there.
Even if particular episodes of genocide were shown to have occurred, he said, “you have to prove that the Yugoslav government not only paid the salaries [of those responsible] but that they also controlled the operation [in question]”.
Cryer agreed that the Nicaragua case set a “very high threshold” for the evidence required to prove that a state was directly responsible for the actions of another party, so much so that the ruling has been criticised by legal observers.
Significantly, these critics have included judges on the appeals chamber at the ICTY who, during proceedings against the Bosnian Serb Dusko Tadic, said the so-called “Nicaragua test” seemed inconsistent with international law and state practice.
Only a few months ago, the ICJ ruled that Uganda violated international law by giving military and financial support to armed groups operating in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
As part of their efforts to flesh out their case, the Belgrade side will also call a number of witnesses to give evidence in person over a period of five days.
They will include Zoran Lilic, Milosevic’s predecessor as Yugoslav president; retired Yugoslav army general Aleksandar Dimitrijevic; television journalist Lazar Lalic; and former Serbian interior minister Dusan Mihajlovic.
Perhaps more surprisingly, the list also includes Bosnia’s human rights ombudsman Vitomir Popovic and the former commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia, General Michael Rose.
JUDGEMENT
According to the court schedule, proceedings will end on May 9, 2006. At that stage, it can typically take about a further six months for judges at the ICJ to issue a judgement.
After that the judges will take soundings to try to settle on a majority view. The discussions are guided by the president in the judges’ deliberation room. The most junior judges, seated at the ends of a horseshoe-shaped table, are encouraged to give their opinions first, before their senior colleagues, seated nearer to the president, offer theirs.
The panel of judges will be 17 strong, with each side having the right to appoint their own ad hoc judge to the 15 already on the bench. The Serbian judge, Milenko Kreca, has been on every one of the recent Serbia cases. Meanwhile, the Bosnians have selected Ahmed Mahiou, a Frenchman of Algerian origin.
The role of the ad hoc judges is to represent each side during the deliberation process, and ensure that the final judgment is informed with local knowledge and full explanation of each state’s point of view.
ICJ president Higgins is particularly keen to maintain the court’s tradition that the judges write “every word” of any given decision themselves, despite the fact that this can be a time-consuming process.
“If we get a ruling before the end of the year that will be a quick result,” Bekker told IWPR.
Whatever decision the court takes, there will then be no room for the parties to object. By signing the ICJ’s charter, UN member states automatically agree to take the court’s first-instance judgements as being binding, final and without appeal.
REPARATIONS
If the court finds against Serbia and Montenegro, the judges could just provide a moral condemnation of wrongs which they consider to have been committed. Alternatively, they could order Belgrade to pay reparations to Sarajevo.
Paying “blood” money to the Bosnians is anathema to the majority of the Serbian public. “It is a ton of money at stake,” Edgar Chen, of the CIJ, told IWPR. “Something they fear is that the economy could be damaged if an award is made against them.”
If successful, however, what exactly the Bosnians would ask for remains unclear. In the event of reparations being ordered, the Sarajevo team may return to the court to request a separate procedure by which reparations would be calculated.
At the end of last year, the ICJ ruled that Uganda would have to compensate the Democratic Republic of Congo for invading and supporting armed groups on the latter’s territory. But no settlement has yet been reached in that case.
The only time the court itself has set an amount for reparations was in its very first case, all of 60 years ago, in which Albania was found responsible for damage to British navy ships and the deaths of sailors caused by mines in Albanian waters.
Once compensation has been ordered, the obligation to pay it is backed up by the threat of referral to the Security Council.
After the ICJ found against the US in the Nicaragua proceedings and told it to pay reparations, Washington — a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council — was able simply to ignore the order. Serbia and Montenegro would not have that option, nor could they rely on such support at the UN.
“It would be hard for any state to veto a resolution saying ‘Serbia who has been found responsible for genocide and must pay this compensation’,” said Cryer, although he added that he found it hard to imagine the Security Council slapping Belgrade with sanctions over the matter.
If Belgrade is asked to pay a large sum in recompense to Bosnia, Param-Preet Singh, of Human Rights Watch’s international justice programme, told IWPR that this might well encourage other post-conflict states to follow suit and sue for genocide and war crimes.
The implications of such a settlement would go even wider: Croatia is also suing Belgrade at the ICJ for committing genocide on Croatian territory in the early Nineties. It has set its claim at 29 billion dollars — more than Zagreb’s total external debt.
The prospect of reparations have also helped to spark debate in human rights circles as to whether cases like this — in which the state of Serbia and Montenegro itself stands charged with genocide and the population as a whole might have to shoulder compensation payments — could reinforce perceptions of collective guilt.
It has long been one of the ICTY’s stated aims to battle such perceptions by finding and punishing the actual individuals responsible for atrocities.
“Some would argue that it is not beneficial in the long run to be moving in a direction that talks about collective responsibility versus individual responsibility,” said Ellis.
But he added that while he understood where that opinion stemmed from, he didn’t subscribe to it himself. “I feel that any legal process that allows the truth to be brought out [and] allows assessment to be made by an independent court or arbitrator is a healthy thing to do,” he said.
Param-Preet Singh told IWPR that her organisation, HRW, also considers that generally “this kind of mechanism is a good thing”, though she added, “We are mindful that the ICJ could be abused, and we believe this is something to monitor.”
THE BROADER CONSEQUENCES
A debate is also raging about the possible political consequences if the ICJ judges rule in Bosnia’s favour.
“Once the judgment comes, Serbia and Montenegro will be the polecat of Europe for the rest of time,” Boyle told IWPR. “They will have to play a part in rebuilding Bosnia if they are going to establish themselves again in Europe.”
Ellis agreed that such a judgement would be an enormous stigma for Belgrade.
“You certainly don’t want to be tainted in history as being [responsible for] state-sponsored genocide,” he told IWPR. “That is an indictment that any country wants to avoid, certainly a country trying to emerge from the wreckage of the Yugoslav wars and join back into the international community.”
Higgins, who has a strong reputation as one who can balance legal argument with a well-grounded pragmatism, told IWPR that solely political concerns could not be allowed to sway the ICJ’s legal reasoning.
“What I think the court must never do is to say we know ‘x’ is the right legal answer, but we mustn’t give it because there might be negative political implications if we did,” she said
At the same time, however, many observers think the proceedings could in fact have positive consequences for regional relations in the long-term, by forcing people in the Balkans to look history in the face.
“In Serbia, people want to move on without addressing the past,” said Chen, of the CIJ. “Things like European Union membership and the economy are done at the expense of coming to terms with involvement in the war.”
Ellis said he believed he was already witnessing “a fundamental shift in the minds of Serbs in Belgrade” towards recognising the realities of what happened during the wars of the early Nineties, influenced by trials at the ICTY and especially by war crimes proceedings launched locally, in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia.
“That to me is much more important than whatever was going to happen in the ICJ,” he said.
But others think that the ICJ case itself can and should form an integral part of the same process.
“Only a judgment in Bosnia’s favour can really help build a friendly relationship between our two nations,” Softic told IWPR. “Only when the full truth about the past is uncovered can we start working on our future.”
Sonja Biserko, president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, expressed a similar viewpoint in a posting on the Bosnia Institute website in October last year, “It is only by deconstructing and demystifying the Serbian project in relation to Bosnia and Hercegovina that the region can achieve stability and peace.”
“Serbia has to come to terms with this part of its past and finally close this chapter,” agreed Mirsad Tokaca, whose Sarajevo-based Research and Documentation Centre is drawing up a tally of those killed during the Bosnian war. “We can build our future only when this issue is settled.”
“Nothing would improve good neighbourly relations between our two states better than establishing the fact that Milosevic's regime was responsible for the genocide in Bosnia, not Serbia's citizens,” Tokaca added.
Others hope that a ruling in Bosnia’s favour could even have welcome, concrete consequences for the wider world for a long time to come.
“Once the court says the genocide did take place in Bosnia, we will have some guarantee that it won’t happen again,” Softic told IWPR. “At least, the chances for history to repeat itself will be much smaller.”
This report was compiled by Janet Anderson, IWPR’s International Justice Programme Director; Mike Farquhar, a London-based contributor to IWPR’s tribunal output; and Helen Warrell, an IWPR reporter in The Hague. Lisa Clifford, a journalist based in London, and Merdijana Sadovic, a regular contributor to IWPR’s tribunal project, also provided material for this report.
Also in this Issue
By IWPR staff in The Hague (TU No 441, 24-Feb-06)
Bosnian lawyers launching a genocide case against Serbia and Montenegro at the International Court of Justice, ICJ, the first such state-level lawsuit, will face a formidable challenge when proceedings begin on Monday, February 27, IWPR has established in a far-reaching investigation into the case.
On the face of it, Sarajevo’s case appears strong, drawing as it does on many years’ worth of research into the atrocities that became the gruesome hallmark of the conflicts that ripped through the Balkans in the Nineties.
But this first ever attempt to prove something as problematic as state responsibility for a crime as complex as genocide is set to throw up a whole host of thorny legal issues.
Over a decade has passed since Sarajevo first registered its complaint against Belgrade at the Hague court, accusing what was then Yugoslavia of genocide against Bosnia’s non-Serb population.
Next week, the two sides’ legal teams will finally take their seats in the imposing wood-panelled expanse of the court’s Great Hall of Justice in order to launch the opening salvoes in a battle that could change the fragile political balance of the Balkans forever.
In the intervening period, the Sarajevo legal team has had access to a growing body of evidence generated by prosecutors working for another Hague-based United Nations court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY.
Prosecutors at the ICTY have established that at least one episode of the war in Bosnia — the slaughter by Serb troops of thousands of Muslim men and boys from the town of Srebrenica in 1995 — constituted a genocide.
Two years’ worth of evidence against the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at the same court has also thrown a great deal of new light on Belgrade’s links with this and other atrocities. The evidence that has emerged has satisfied judges that he does have a case to answer about genocide in Bosnia.
But for the Bosnian team, securing a ruling in Sarajevo’s favour at the ICJ will still be no mean feat.
Besides convincing a new court that the notoriously complex crime of genocide occurred in Bosnia, the Bosnian lawyers will also face the daunting task of showing that responsibility for it lay not just with a set of individuals but with an entire state.
This generates a multitude of intractable legal questions, not least surrounding the fact that the crime of genocide necessarily requires a particular mindset — namely the special intent to destroy a population — which, on the face of it at least, appears difficult to attribute to a state.
What is more, the way in which Belgrade is purported to have committed the crime — largely through covert support for proxies, in a war that its own military wasn’t officially involved in — makes the case infinitely more complex.
The case stands in stark contrast to many that have gone before it at the ICJ, which is usually better known for its role in arbitrating such weighty issues as border disputes and rows over maritime boundaries.
Its proceedings are also often technical and slow — though none so slow as this latest case, which has already spent some 13 years on the court’s docket — and devoid of even a modicum of drama.
Once the technicalities are out of the way this time, however — and there is still a chance that the suit will be dismissed on grounds of jurisdiction — the Great Hall of Justice will play host to testimony from a series of live witnesses. The court has so little experience of this practice that until recently, staff had no idea where they would even place them.
The stakes are also high. If the 17-judge panel at the World Court upholds Bosnia’s case, Serbia and Montenegro, as the successor state to Yugoslavia, could be faced with billions of dollars in reparations payments.
Even more seriously in many people’s eyes, it would also become the first country ever to receive the indelible black mark of a legal ruling declaring it an official sponsor of the crime of crimes.
If Bosnia’s case comes crashing to the ground, on the other hand, ecstatic celebrations in Belgrade will be matched by mass political recriminations in Sarajevo.
Ultimately, those on both sides hope that this showdown before the world’s highest civil court might at least answer once and for all one of the most central and intractable questions surrounding the break-up of Yugoslavia: to what extent was Belgrade responsible for the horrors that overwhelmed the people of Bosnia in the aftermath of that crisis?
IWPR has spoken with all the main players in the case — lawyers from both sides and the new president of the ICJ — and has sought comment from a host of academic and legal experts.
In this report, we explore in detail the Bosnian case and the Serbian response, analyse the legal issues involved, and discuss the likely consequences should either side win.
THE HISTORY
Bosnia and Hercegovina filed its case against the now defunct state of Yugoslavia on March 20, 1993, arguing that the latter had “planned, prepared, conspired, promoted, encouraged, aided and abetted and committed” genocide against its population.
Francis Boyle, the University of Illinois professor of law who instigated the legal proceedings on behalf of Bosnia, told IWPR that the aim was “to shake up the entire world, so they realised that genocide was going on in Bosnia although everyone was denying it”.
The suit cited specific alleged crimes including the murders of over 80 civilians by Serbian paramilitaries in the village of Zaklopaca, the deaths of dozens of Muslim inmates every day at the “Omarska extermination camp” and the destruction of non-Serb villages.
But Belgrade may not have breached only the UN genocide convention, it is also claimed that it may have reneged on its obligations under the Geneva conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other aspects of international law.
Those specifically to blame, said the Bosnian lawyers, were “public officials” and “constitutionally responsible rulers” of Yugoslavia, as well as “certain private individuals” who were controlled by them or cooperated with them.
Bosnia asked the court to order Belgrade to pay reparations for damages to persons, property and the environment, as well as to its economy.
When the case opens next week, the Sarajevo legal team will have seven days to lay out their evidence for the suit, before handing the floor to Serbia to reply. The 17 judges overseeing the proceedings will then hear from witnesses and experts.
THE QUESTION OF JURISDICTION
Even with hearings getting under way, however, a number of issues remain outstanding which could stand in the way of the case being seen through to its natural conclusion.
One such potential obstacle is the question of whether the ICJ has the authority to hear the case.
In June 1995, the Belgrade team filed a response to Sarajevo’s suit, arguing that the court had no jurisdiction over it. They claimed, among other things, that Yugoslavia had no involvement in Bosnia; that Bosnia was not party to the genocide convention; and that, even if it was, its accession would have occurred after the crimes in question, meaning that they couldn’t be the basis for a case.
In July the following year, judges at the ICJ threw out these objections and found that the court had jurisdiction to deal with the case. Serbia and Montenegro subsequently failed in an attempt to have the decision overturned.
But Serbian lawyers say the legal situation has since changed in such a way as to support fresh jurisdiction objections.
In 1999, Belgrade filed a separate case at the ICJ against a number of western states, accusing them of committing genocide during the bombing campaign launched by NATO in March that year to halt alleged ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Later, however, as Belgrade itself sought to edge towards NATO membership, its legal team scuppered their own case by arguing that the ICJ had no jurisdiction over it, since Yugoslavia had not been a member of the UN during the relevant period.
That case was thrown out unanimously in 2004. While the judges were split almost down the middle on the grounds on which they should reject Serbia’s suit, one vote tipped the balance in favour of the argument about Belgrade’s non-membership of the UN.
The new president of the court, Judge Rosalyn Higgins of the United Kingdom, was amongst those who disagreed with that argument, warning that the court may be creating a problem for itself in future cases — clearly casting ahead to the now imminent Bosnia case.
Pieter Bekker, an international lawyer who was working in the ICJ’s registry department when Bosnia launched proceedings against Belgrade and has since written for legal journals on the case, told IWPR that the court now faces a dilemma.
“Serbia is likely to make an argument that if [it] can’t sue NATO countries then the court should be consistent and rule after all that [it doesn’t] have standing to be a defendant in this genocide case,” he said.
“The court is in a bit of a predicament there,” he added.
Sakib Softic, an advisor for constitutional and legal affairs to the Bosnian presidency, dismisses such talk. “In 1996, the ICJ ruled that it has jurisdiction over this case and all the facts were known even then... Nothing has changed since then that would alter that decision,” he told IWPR.
Nottingham University law expert Dr Robert Cryer agrees. “In the past they got nowhere with that argument,” he told IWPR. “My guess is that [Serbia and Montenegro] will attempt to raise the matter again but it’s not going to get anywhere.”
The ICJ is in the enviable position of not having to follow any precedents set in previous rulings by its judges. Cryer, though, told IWPR that in practice “the court has a consistent policy of citing its own decisions and would only depart from a previous one in very rare circumstances”.
This was confirmed by President Higgins, who told IWPR, “We are extremely aware of our own prior judicial decision making and we certainly try to be consistent.”
Maintaining consistency between two such apparently opposed rulings on jurisdiction though may be one of the first tasks facing the ICJ’s new president.
THE QUESTION OF SABOTAGE
Before the case has even come to court, the Sarajevo legal team have also been forced to deal with fierce resistance from the whole Balkans region, and even from within Bosnia itself.
Complaints have emerged from various quarters about the expense of the proceedings. In January this year, Professor Radoslav Stojanovic, who is representing the Serbian side at the forthcoming proceedings, told a daily newspaper from Republika Srpska, Nezavisne Nedjeljne Novine, that the cost of the lawsuit amounts to around three million euro.
“Why would we spend all this money on accusing one another, when it could be used for improving mutual understanding and compensation for the victims of the war?” he asked during the Nezavisne Nedjeljne Novine interview.
Softic has defended the cost, however, saying that the lawyers on the Bosnian side are charging lower fees than normal, content in the knowledge that they will be rewarded “through the professional reputation they’ll get for taking part in this case”.
“The whole case will cost less then two million euro, which is less then what [Vojislav] Seselj demands for his own defence,” he told IWPR, in reference to the notorious hard-line nationalist Serb politician on trial for war crimes at the ICTY.
In addition to such protests, Bosnian Serb politicians have been actively seeking ways to get the suit withdrawn. But it was originally launched on behalf of the state by Bosnia’s collective wartime presidency — which included, at least technically, representatives of the country’s Muslim, Croat and Serb populations — and it cannot be retracted without all three parties agreeing.
In a last ditch attempt to sink the case, the current Serb member of Bosnia’s collective presidency, Borislav Paravac, persuaded the country’s foreign minister — also a Serb — to send a letter to the ICJ, asking it to temporarily suspend the genocide proceedings until Bosnia’s constitutional court had ruled on whether the lawsuit was legal.
But the letter was due to be sent via Bosnia’s ambassador to the Netherlands — a Muslim — who refused to do it, insisting that the only person with authority to communicate directly with ICJ is Bosnia’s legal representative, Sakib Softic.
The next session of the constitutional court in Sarajevo is not until the end of March, too late to affect the start of the case, even if judges there decide that they have jurisdiction over the matter.
Softic told IWPR he was confident that the moves against the case from Bosnia’s Serb community would come to nothing. “Governments of any of the two entities of the Bosnian state can not in any way jeopardise the case, which has been initiated on the state level,” he said.
TO PROVE GENOCIDE
The suit against Serbia and Montenegro — as the successor state to Yugoslavia — will be the first case ever heard by the ICJ taking as its foundation the UN genocide convention, which was drafted in the wake of World War Two and entered into international law over fifty years ago.
According to the convention, genocide is defined as certain acts “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
But the ICJ won’t be the first court to hear such allegations.
The first judgement against an individual was handed down in Arusha at the Rwanda Tribunal in a case against a former mayor — Jean-Paul Akayesu — who was found guilty of genocide in 1998.
At the ICTY, judges have already determined that genocide occurred in Bosnia, when troops of the Bosnian Serb Army, VRS, executed thousands of Muslim men and boys captured after the fall of the Srebrenica enclave in July 1995. VRS commanders Radislav Krstic and Vidoje Blagojevic have since been given prison terms for their roles in the crime of genocide during that episode.
Many senior Serbs have also been indicted by the ICTY for genocide elsewhere in Bosnia — as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing intended to drive Muslims and Croats from huge swathes of the country earmarked for a future Serb state — though none have yet been convicted on such charges.
There is little doubt by now that the Bosnian war — in which, according to the latest figures, around a 100,000 people lost their lives — was a vicious and brutal conflict.
“That the crimes were committed isn’t going to be debated, those days are long gone,” Mark Ellis, a Balkan expert and director of the International Bar Association, told IWPR.
The challenge for the Bosnian lawyers appearing before the ICJ, however, is to secure a ruling from that court that the crimes amounted to genocide, and to provide evidence for longstanding allegations that Belgrade funded and otherwise supported the Bosnian Serb military and paramilitary units responsible.
In some ways, establishing these facts in civil proceedings at the ICJ might be easier than it would be before many other courts. The degree of certainty which judges at the ICJ are typically required to feel in order to come down on one side of any given case is lower than what is required at institutions, such as the ICTY, which deal with questions of individual criminal responsibility.
“The ICJ can decide to convict on the balance of probabilities, rather than beyond all reasonable doubt,” explained Cambridge University international law expert Roger O’Keefe.
ICJ president Higgins told IWPR, however, that the case in hand presents a particular challenge in this respect. “You’re in an overlap area where you’ve got something like genocide, where it is a crime under international law,” she said, adding that the judges were in the process of considering the “difficult questions” thrown up by this blurring of boundaries between criminal and civil law.
BOSNIA’S CASE
Bosnian representatives told IWPR that they were confident they would be able to establish Belgrade’s culpability.
“I personally have no doubts about the positive outcome of the lawsuit against Serbia and Montenegro, and I believe that documents we have at our disposal are sufficient,” said Softic.
Francis Boyle — who is no longer a member of the Bosnian team — added that, given the strength of the evidence, the case had been “won already”.
A number of independent legal experts told IWPR that it was also their belief that the Bosnia case had a good chance of success.
Ellis told IWPR that Serbia would face “an uphill battle on this”, and Cryer expressed a similar view, pointing out that the ICTY’s findings that genocide occurred in Bosnia would be very useful to the Bosnian case.
The Bosnian team will be calling a number of witnesses to shore up its case, including British general Richard Dannatt, who served in Bosnia with the UN Protection Force, UNPROFOR. Dannatt is apparently set to speak about the role played in Bosnia by the Yugoslav military, including its active support of the VRS.
Also due to testify is Andras Riedlmayer, a Harvard expert in Islamic art and architecture, who will give evidence about the destruction of cultural and religious buildings and monuments in Bosnia.
Meanwhile, United States historian Robert Donia will describe the history of the Bosnian war.
Besides witness testimony, Softic told IWPR that documents will also make up a significant part of Bosnia’s case at the ICJ.
Members of the Bosnian legal team have said in the past that they intend to draw much of the documentary evidence for their case from what has gone before at the ICTY.
The ICTY’s dealings with the Srebrenica massacre — already established by that court as an instance of genocide — will most likely form a key part of their case.
Even though the Srebrenica atrocity occurred in 1995, two years after Bosnia first filed its suit, Bekker said evidence relating to that crime would still be admissible.
“The court is likely to look at the whole of the Bosnian war… Bosnia can argue that Srebrenica was a continuing violation of international law,” he told IWPR.
Dr Rachel Kerr, from the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London, told IWPR that there is reason to think that far from just being relevant to the case, Srebrenica will in fact be of special interest to the Bosnian team.
Witness testimony from the enclave clearly showing that men and boys were separated and executed on the grounds of their ethnicity helps to show quite unambiguously that what happened there really was genocide, she explained.
It could be “very difficult”, she added, for Sarajevo lawyers to prove that murders elsewhere in Bosnia were carried out with such clear genocidal intent.
In the course of a decade of work by the ICTY, numerous pieces of evidence have emerged which suggest the existence of relatively direct links between the Srebrenica massacre and the Milosevic regime in Belgrade.
Evidence presented at the trial of Milosevic himself includes a written order for units which included operatives of the Serbian interior ministry to take part in fighting in the Srebrenica area around the time of the massacre.
Last June, further evidence of the alleged link became public in a brutally graphic manner, first in the Milosevic trial courtroom and later on television screens across the world, in the form of a video apparently showing the executions of a number of Srebrenica prisoners.
Those carrying out the murders were apparently members of a paramilitary group known as the Scorpions, who prosecutors say were responsible to Belgrade in the early Nineties. Since the video was first shown, one former Scorpions member has been convicted of the murders by a court in Zagreb. A further five have gone on trial in Serbia.
Material has also emerged in proceedings against Milosevic and others at the ICTY which backs up prosecutors’ claims of much broader financial and logistical support provided to Bosnian Serb forces. This could be employed by the Sarajevo lawyers to try to show that Belgrade was responsible for genocide elsewhere in the country.
Included in the mountains of documentation which help to make up the case against Milosevic are records of wartime meetings of the Bosnian Serb assembly. In one, from May 1994, Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic declared, “Without Serbia nothing would have happened. We don’t have the resources and would not have been able to make war.”
Elsewhere, Milosevic himself is recorded as telling the assembled politicians, “Do not tell us that you feel abandoned…. We shall continue to help you.”
In fact, when prosecutors wrapped up their two-year case against Milosevic in February 2004, the judges overseeing the trial said they had heard enough prima facie evidence to convict him of genocide in Bosnia. Now in the defence stage of his trial, Milosevic is in the process of trying to counter this evidence.
But a crucial bulk of evidence which may have helped the chamber come to this conclusion appears destined to remain out of reach of the lawyers representing Bosnia at the ICJ.
The documents in question, records of meetings of the Supreme Defence Counsel, SDC, a top decision-making body in Yugoslavia, were used extensively in the Milosevic trial to flesh out allegations that Belgrade supported Serb fighters in Bosnia.
Former Yugoslav president Zoran Lilic has testified in the trial that the SDC decided in 1993 to formalise support for officers of the Bosnian Serb military by establishing a body within the Yugoslav army called the 30th personnel centre.
Elsewhere, portions of the SDC records which have been made public suggest that Belgrade was paying the salaries of VRS officers as late as 1998, long after the war in Bosnia reached its bloody end.
As part of a deal brokered between ICTY prosecutors and Belgrade, however, the bulk of these documents remain under seal at the court. During an IWPR investigation into this matter last year, a Serbian official said that a major concern was that this evidence might influence the ICJ case.
Softic acknowledged to IWPR that “the [SDC] documents are very important and they would be very useful in our case”. But since ICJ judges only have access to material provided by the two sides, they seem likely to remain out of reach.
SERBIA’S DEFENCE
Despite the wealth of evidence available to the Bosnian lawyers and their very public confidence that they will win the case, the Belgrade legal team is equally confident and determined to fight its corner to the last.
Stojanovic told IWPR that a key part of the defence case will focus on the issue of the intent which is a part of the very definition of genocide. “Genocide has to [include] the intent to destroy a people, in whole or in part,” he explained. “The intent doesn’t exist in the Serbian case.”
“There are of course maybe individuals who had the intent,” he acknowledged, “but in the ICJ we're talking about the responsibility of the state.”
It seems clear that attempting to prove that Yugoslavia, at a state level, intended to destroy at least part of the non-Serb population in Bosnia will be a challenge for the Sarajevo lawyers.
But legal observers have told IWPR that it is in fact possible to establish state responsibility for a crime like genocide precisely by looking at the actions and mindsets of senior officials, irrespective of whether these were supported or even known about by the population as a whole.
“People are represented by their government,” said Judith Armatta of the Coalition for International Justice, CIJ, adding, “When the state commits a wrong — through those exercising state power, the state is liable whether or not its population approved.”
This principle is supported by the UN International Law Commission, a body responsible for developing international law. One of its draft statutes states that the conduct of a person or group of persons can be considered to have been carried out by a state as long as, in acting, they are exercising “elements of governmental authority”.
As a result, Gerry Simpson, from the International Law Department at the London School of Economics, told IWPR that in the Bosnian case “there will be a — possibly fictitious — representation of [the Yugoslav political elite] as acting on behalf of the whole state”.
Simpson went on to explain that there are two established methods of seeking to show that a state acted on the basis of genocidal intent — arguably a critical element if the state is to be found responsible for committing the crime of genocide.
The first is called “Nuremberg method”, in reference to its widespread use in the war crimes trials that followed World War Two. It involves first showing that actions have been carried out on the ground with the clear intent to destroy, at least in part, a particular population. After that, a chain of command is established linking these crimes directly and explicitly to the leadership of the state in question.
The alternative to this method, which has been favoured at the ICTY, is often used when there is little clear evidence of a chain of command between events on the ground and the state that is said to be responsible for them.
Under this approach, says Simpson, less emphasis is placed on painstakingly illustrating links between the leadership and events on the ground, while more effort goes into showing how much the events look like the natural consequences of the stated policies of the authorities in question.
For instance, at the ICTY, prosecutors of Serb leaders have often sought to show that the Serb nationalist ideal of creating a “new Serb-dominated state” necessarily involved the displacement of the non-Serb populations in large swathes of Bosnia and Croatia. Evidence of attacks by Serbs on the ground can therefore be related back to this clearly-documented political intention.
However, genocide expert Professor William Schabas, director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland in Galway, warned IWPR that such “displacement” may show intent for ethnic cleansing, but not necessarily for genocide.
“The core debate is about how broadly genocidal intent is interpreted,” he said.
Schabas’ contention is that the only ICTY case where genocide has been proven is the Krstic case, and even here, the judges’ decision emphasises the fact that there was not a universal genocidal intent inherent among the Serb leadership. Rather, the judgment states that the genocidal intent crystallised only a few days before the Srebrenica massacre.
“Srebrenica was one manifestation of a general policy, but from my reading of the Krstic decision, it was more the exception than the rule,” said Schabas.
The Serbian side may therefore argue that there is a lack of evidence that senior Yugoslav officials, even as individuals, had special genocidal intent to destroy a particular part of the Bosnia’s population at all.
Indeed, during the whole of the prosecution case against Milosevic, little clear evidence arose in public to suggest that he himself had this specific kind of genocidal intent.
Professor Vojin Dimitrijevic, the director of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, told IWPR that there are even suggestions that Milosevic had no idea in advance of what would happen at Srebrenica, pointing to reports that Milosevic was angry with Mladic in the period that followed.
Even this kind of approach, however, could be undermined by a legal ruling by judges in the Milosevic trial suggesting that an individual, at least, does not need to have genocidal intent in order to commit genocide.
The judges in that case appeared to argue that it is enough for a person to be convicted of genocide if they create a situation where genocide could occur, continue to assist those who are intent on committing it and do nothing to prevent it from happening despite it being within their power to do so.
It is also important to note that under the UN genocide convention which Bosnia accuses Serbia and Montenegro of having broken, the various ways of commiting genocide include complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and incitement to commit genocide.
Armatta told IWPR that jurisprudence laid down so far in relation to genocide is inconclusive as to whether genocidal intent is a necessary element in these crimes. One decision issued by the judges overseeing the Milosevic trial, she said, suggests that it is not.
“One can take the philosophical position that only the small number of conspirators who planned and set the genocide in motion should be held responsible for such a heinous crime. Or one can take the position that genocide could never occur without broad involvement; therefore, those who knowingly participate should also be held responsible for the crime of crimes,” explained Armatta.
When considering such matters, one must obviously bear in mind the flexibility that judges at the ICJ enjoy when it comes to deciding whether to follow legal precedents. Armatta added, “It will be interesting to see how the ICJ approaches it.”
The complex problems surrounding the questions of genocidal intent and state responsibility are not the only defence available to the Belgrade lawyers in their efforts to fend off the Bosnian genocide charges.
Another key factor in the defence case, Dimitrijevic told IWPR, will be a ruling made by the ICJ in 1986, as part of a case in which Nicaragua sued the US for supporting the Contra insurgency against the Sandinista authorities.
The court found in favour of Nicaragua, ruling that Washington had in fact contravened its treaty obligations by “training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying” military and paramilitary activities in the country.
But, crucially, the judges went on to say that this was still not enough for the US to be held directly responsible for acts committed by the Contras.
Dimitrijevic told IWPR that the standards set by this ruling could prove to be an important consideration for judges determining whether Belgrade’s involvement in Bosnia made it directly responsible for genocide there.
Even if particular episodes of genocide were shown to have occurred, he said, “you have to prove that the Yugoslav government not only paid the salaries [of those responsible] but that they also controlled the operation [in question]”.
Cryer agreed that the Nicaragua case set a “very high threshold” for the evidence required to prove that a state was directly responsible for the actions of another party, so much so that the ruling has been criticised by legal observers.
Significantly, these critics have included judges on the appeals chamber at the ICTY who, during proceedings against the Bosnian Serb Dusko Tadic, said the so-called “Nicaragua test” seemed inconsistent with international law and state practice.
Only a few months ago, the ICJ ruled that Uganda violated international law by giving military and financial support to armed groups operating in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
As part of their efforts to flesh out their case, the Belgrade side will also call a number of witnesses to give evidence in person over a period of five days.
They will include Zoran Lilic, Milosevic’s predecessor as Yugoslav president; retired Yugoslav army general Aleksandar Dimitrijevic; television journalist Lazar Lalic; and former Serbian interior minister Dusan Mihajlovic.
Perhaps more surprisingly, the list also includes Bosnia’s human rights ombudsman Vitomir Popovic and the former commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia, General Michael Rose.
JUDGEMENT
According to the court schedule, proceedings will end on May 9, 2006. At that stage, it can typically take about a further six months for judges at the ICJ to issue a judgement.
After that the judges will take soundings to try to settle on a majority view. The discussions are guided by the president in the judges’ deliberation room. The most junior judges, seated at the ends of a horseshoe-shaped table, are encouraged to give their opinions first, before their senior colleagues, seated nearer to the president, offer theirs.
The panel of judges will be 17 strong, with each side having the right to appoint their own ad hoc judge to the 15 already on the bench. The Serbian judge, Milenko Kreca, has been on every one of the recent Serbia cases. Meanwhile, the Bosnians have selected Ahmed Mahiou, a Frenchman of Algerian origin.
The role of the ad hoc judges is to represent each side during the deliberation process, and ensure that the final judgment is informed with local knowledge and full explanation of each state’s point of view.
ICJ president Higgins is particularly keen to maintain the court’s tradition that the judges write “every word” of any given decision themselves, despite the fact that this can be a time-consuming process.
“If we get a ruling before the end of the year that will be a quick result,” Bekker told IWPR.
Whatever decision the court takes, there will then be no room for the parties to object. By signing the ICJ’s charter, UN member states automatically agree to take the court’s first-instance judgements as being binding, final and without appeal.
REPARATIONS
If the court finds against Serbia and Montenegro, the judges could just provide a moral condemnation of wrongs which they consider to have been committed. Alternatively, they could order Belgrade to pay reparations to Sarajevo.
Paying “blood” money to the Bosnians is anathema to the majority of the Serbian public. “It is a ton of money at stake,” Edgar Chen, of the CIJ, told IWPR. “Something they fear is that the economy could be damaged if an award is made against them.”
If successful, however, what exactly the Bosnians would ask for remains unclear. In the event of reparations being ordered, the Sarajevo team may return to the court to request a separate procedure by which reparations would be calculated.
At the end of last year, the ICJ ruled that Uganda would have to compensate the Democratic Republic of Congo for invading and supporting armed groups on the latter’s territory. But no settlement has yet been reached in that case.
The only time the court itself has set an amount for reparations was in its very first case, all of 60 years ago, in which Albania was found responsible for damage to British navy ships and the deaths of sailors caused by mines in Albanian waters.
Once compensation has been ordered, the obligation to pay it is backed up by the threat of referral to the Security Council.
After the ICJ found against the US in the Nicaragua proceedings and told it to pay reparations, Washington — a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council — was able simply to ignore the order. Serbia and Montenegro would not have that option, nor could they rely on such support at the UN.
“It would be hard for any state to veto a resolution saying ‘Serbia who has been found responsible for genocide and must pay this compensation’,” said Cryer, although he added that he found it hard to imagine the Security Council slapping Belgrade with sanctions over the matter.
If Belgrade is asked to pay a large sum in recompense to Bosnia, Param-Preet Singh, of Human Rights Watch’s international justice programme, told IWPR that this might well encourage other post-conflict states to follow suit and sue for genocide and war crimes.
The implications of such a settlement would go even wider: Croatia is also suing Belgrade at the ICJ for committing genocide on Croatian territory in the early Nineties. It has set its claim at 29 billion dollars — more than Zagreb’s total external debt.
The prospect of reparations have also helped to spark debate in human rights circles as to whether cases like this — in which the state of Serbia and Montenegro itself stands charged with genocide and the population as a whole might have to shoulder compensation payments — could reinforce perceptions of collective guilt.
It has long been one of the ICTY’s stated aims to battle such perceptions by finding and punishing the actual individuals responsible for atrocities.
“Some would argue that it is not beneficial in the long run to be moving in a direction that talks about collective responsibility versus individual responsibility,” said Ellis.
But he added that while he understood where that opinion stemmed from, he didn’t subscribe to it himself. “I feel that any legal process that allows the truth to be brought out [and] allows assessment to be made by an independent court or arbitrator is a healthy thing to do,” he said.
Param-Preet Singh told IWPR that her organisation, HRW, also considers that generally “this kind of mechanism is a good thing”, though she added, “We are mindful that the ICJ could be abused, and we believe this is something to monitor.”
THE BROADER CONSEQUENCES
A debate is also raging about the possible political consequences if the ICJ judges rule in Bosnia’s favour.
“Once the judgment comes, Serbia and Montenegro will be the polecat of Europe for the rest of time,” Boyle told IWPR. “They will have to play a part in rebuilding Bosnia if they are going to establish themselves again in Europe.”
Ellis agreed that such a judgement would be an enormous stigma for Belgrade.
“You certainly don’t want to be tainted in history as being [responsible for] state-sponsored genocide,” he told IWPR. “That is an indictment that any country wants to avoid, certainly a country trying to emerge from the wreckage of the Yugoslav wars and join back into the international community.”
Higgins, who has a strong reputation as one who can balance legal argument with a well-grounded pragmatism, told IWPR that solely political concerns could not be allowed to sway the ICJ’s legal reasoning.
“What I think the court must never do is to say we know ‘x’ is the right legal answer, but we mustn’t give it because there might be negative political implications if we did,” she said
At the same time, however, many observers think the proceedings could in fact have positive consequences for regional relations in the long-term, by forcing people in the Balkans to look history in the face.
“In Serbia, people want to move on without addressing the past,” said Chen, of the CIJ. “Things like European Union membership and the economy are done at the expense of coming to terms with involvement in the war.”
Ellis said he believed he was already witnessing “a fundamental shift in the minds of Serbs in Belgrade” towards recognising the realities of what happened during the wars of the early Nineties, influenced by trials at the ICTY and especially by war crimes proceedings launched locally, in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia.
“That to me is much more important than whatever was going to happen in the ICJ,” he said.
But others think that the ICJ case itself can and should form an integral part of the same process.
“Only a judgment in Bosnia’s favour can really help build a friendly relationship between our two nations,” Softic told IWPR. “Only when the full truth about the past is uncovered can we start working on our future.”
Sonja Biserko, president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, expressed a similar viewpoint in a posting on the Bosnia Institute website in October last year, “It is only by deconstructing and demystifying the Serbian project in relation to Bosnia and Hercegovina that the region can achieve stability and peace.”
“Serbia has to come to terms with this part of its past and finally close this chapter,” agreed Mirsad Tokaca, whose Sarajevo-based Research and Documentation Centre is drawing up a tally of those killed during the Bosnian war. “We can build our future only when this issue is settled.”
“Nothing would improve good neighbourly relations between our two states better than establishing the fact that Milosevic's regime was responsible for the genocide in Bosnia, not Serbia's citizens,” Tokaca added.
Others hope that a ruling in Bosnia’s favour could even have welcome, concrete consequences for the wider world for a long time to come.
“Once the court says the genocide did take place in Bosnia, we will have some guarantee that it won’t happen again,” Softic told IWPR. “At least, the chances for history to repeat itself will be much smaller.”
This report was compiled by Janet Anderson, IWPR’s International Justice Programme Director; Mike Farquhar, a London-based contributor to IWPR’s tribunal output; and Helen Warrell, an IWPR reporter in The Hague. Lisa Clifford, a journalist based in London, and Merdijana Sadovic, a regular contributor to IWPR’s tribunal project, also provided material for this report.
Also in this Issue
Thursday, February 23, 2006
A milestone on Kosovo's road to independence -The Economist
Talks on the future of Kosovo began on Monday February 20th in Vienna. They are almost certain to lead to its independence. If that happens, Serbia may declare its former province "occupied territory"—a move that would probably end its bids to join NATO and the European Union
Get article background
FOR months, diplomats who deal with the issue of Kosovo have been suggesting, first in a circumspect way, recently more openly, that the talks beginning on Monday February 20th on the future of the province will lead to its independence. Their thinking was that with a little gentle persuasion, Serbia's leaders could begin to prepare their public of the final loss of their southern slab of land, which has been under the jurisdiction of the United Nations since NATO forces drove out Serbian ones in 1999. Finally, says a source close to the talks process, “the message is sinking in.”
However, things are not quite that straightforward. While Kosovo-watchers had hoped that Serbia's leaders would blame the loss of Kosovo on the policies of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic—who was tossed from power in 2000—and extreme nationalist parties such as the Serbian Radical Party, this is not happening. Indeed, the Radicals now seem to be setting the agenda for debate in Serbia.
More than 90% of Kosovo's 2m people are ethnic Albanians who have long demanded independence. In the wake of the Kosovo war, tens of thousands of Serbs and Roma fled Kosovo, which remains technically a part of Serbia. The 100,000 or so Serbs who remain live either in the north, in an area adjacent to Serbia proper, or in enclaves scattered across the province. It is they, above all, who fear for their future.
In November the UN appointed Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, to preside over talks on Kosovo’s future. Meeting in London at the end of January, the Contact Group, which represents the major powers that deal with the former Yugoslavia, issued a statement which, reading between the lines, made clear they had decided Kosovo would be independent but that strong safeguards needed to be put in place to protect its Serbs. Emissaries were then sent to the region to explain this.
Serbia's leaders responded angrily. The leader of the Radical Party said that he and Serbia's premier, Vojislav Kostunica, had decided that if Kosovo became independent against Serbia's wishes it should be declared “occupied territory”.
Under the terms of any settlement, NATO troops would remain in Kosovo. The European Union is also planning to play a big role. Thus, if Kosovo is “occupied territory”, they would presumably count as occupying powers, and it would thus no longer be realistic for Serbia to continue talks on joining both organisations. This would mean that Serbia, which has slowly been clawing its way back after years in isolation, would once more become the embittered pariah of Europe.
Only a few political heavyweights in Serbia, such as former foreign minister Goran Svilanovic, have dared to say that Kosovo will become independent at the end of the process that is beginning this week. For that he has been vilified as a traitor in parts of the press. More common have been reactions such as that of Aleksandar Simic, an adviser to the Serbian premier: “The Kosovo Albanians have to be aware that they will not receive independence from Serbia and that Serbia will retain the right to take back everything which it lost in an illegal manner.”
Such talk has been greeted with dismay by many in Serbia who think its leadership has not presented Serbs with all the options. Daniel Sunter, head of the Euro-Atlantic Initiative, a Belgrade think-tank, says there has been no serious debate in Serbia about what its people could expect if Kosovo was not given independence. Quite apart from the demographic issues that come with trying to live in peace with a young, growing and hostile Albanian population, Mr Sunter suggests that “it would take 500,000 [Serbian] soldiers to keep [Kosovo] under control.” Kosovo Albanians have consistently said that any renewal of the link to Belgrade would lead to a new war.
In the past, diplomats have predicted that Kosovo would gain some sort of “conditional independence”. In fact it is likely to have more freedom than this, and now the diplomats talk of “sovereignty with limitations” or “monitored independence”. NATO troops will remain behind, Kosovo may have a “gendarmerie” rather than an army (for the moment), and it may not get a seat at the UN immediately.
With independence in sight, Kosovo Albanian leaders are beginning to think of the future. The province is small and crowded, its resources are limited, unemployment is high and it suffers from a chronic energy shortage. The World Bank says that Kosovo needs some $1.2 billion of investment—substantially more than its entire annual budget—in a new power plant and coal mine alone. For Kosovo, a huge amount of work is needed, and many will see this week as the point at which it begins in earnest.
Get article background
FOR months, diplomats who deal with the issue of Kosovo have been suggesting, first in a circumspect way, recently more openly, that the talks beginning on Monday February 20th on the future of the province will lead to its independence. Their thinking was that with a little gentle persuasion, Serbia's leaders could begin to prepare their public of the final loss of their southern slab of land, which has been under the jurisdiction of the United Nations since NATO forces drove out Serbian ones in 1999. Finally, says a source close to the talks process, “the message is sinking in.”
However, things are not quite that straightforward. While Kosovo-watchers had hoped that Serbia's leaders would blame the loss of Kosovo on the policies of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic—who was tossed from power in 2000—and extreme nationalist parties such as the Serbian Radical Party, this is not happening. Indeed, the Radicals now seem to be setting the agenda for debate in Serbia.
More than 90% of Kosovo's 2m people are ethnic Albanians who have long demanded independence. In the wake of the Kosovo war, tens of thousands of Serbs and Roma fled Kosovo, which remains technically a part of Serbia. The 100,000 or so Serbs who remain live either in the north, in an area adjacent to Serbia proper, or in enclaves scattered across the province. It is they, above all, who fear for their future.
In November the UN appointed Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, to preside over talks on Kosovo’s future. Meeting in London at the end of January, the Contact Group, which represents the major powers that deal with the former Yugoslavia, issued a statement which, reading between the lines, made clear they had decided Kosovo would be independent but that strong safeguards needed to be put in place to protect its Serbs. Emissaries were then sent to the region to explain this.
Serbia's leaders responded angrily. The leader of the Radical Party said that he and Serbia's premier, Vojislav Kostunica, had decided that if Kosovo became independent against Serbia's wishes it should be declared “occupied territory”.
Under the terms of any settlement, NATO troops would remain in Kosovo. The European Union is also planning to play a big role. Thus, if Kosovo is “occupied territory”, they would presumably count as occupying powers, and it would thus no longer be realistic for Serbia to continue talks on joining both organisations. This would mean that Serbia, which has slowly been clawing its way back after years in isolation, would once more become the embittered pariah of Europe.
Only a few political heavyweights in Serbia, such as former foreign minister Goran Svilanovic, have dared to say that Kosovo will become independent at the end of the process that is beginning this week. For that he has been vilified as a traitor in parts of the press. More common have been reactions such as that of Aleksandar Simic, an adviser to the Serbian premier: “The Kosovo Albanians have to be aware that they will not receive independence from Serbia and that Serbia will retain the right to take back everything which it lost in an illegal manner.”
Such talk has been greeted with dismay by many in Serbia who think its leadership has not presented Serbs with all the options. Daniel Sunter, head of the Euro-Atlantic Initiative, a Belgrade think-tank, says there has been no serious debate in Serbia about what its people could expect if Kosovo was not given independence. Quite apart from the demographic issues that come with trying to live in peace with a young, growing and hostile Albanian population, Mr Sunter suggests that “it would take 500,000 [Serbian] soldiers to keep [Kosovo] under control.” Kosovo Albanians have consistently said that any renewal of the link to Belgrade would lead to a new war.
In the past, diplomats have predicted that Kosovo would gain some sort of “conditional independence”. In fact it is likely to have more freedom than this, and now the diplomats talk of “sovereignty with limitations” or “monitored independence”. NATO troops will remain behind, Kosovo may have a “gendarmerie” rather than an army (for the moment), and it may not get a seat at the UN immediately.
With independence in sight, Kosovo Albanian leaders are beginning to think of the future. The province is small and crowded, its resources are limited, unemployment is high and it suffers from a chronic energy shortage. The World Bank says that Kosovo needs some $1.2 billion of investment—substantially more than its entire annual budget—in a new power plant and coal mine alone. For Kosovo, a huge amount of work is needed, and many will see this week as the point at which it begins in earnest.
Kosovo Parties Report Positive Results from First Round of Talks
ext talks scheduled for March 17; State's DiCarlo discusses restructured KFOR
By Vince Crawley
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Delegations from Serbia and from Kosovo’s Albanian majority reported generally positive results from their first round of direct negotiations February 21-22 in Vienna, Austria, to settle the future status of the internationally administered province.
U.S. diplomat Rosemary DiCarlo said February 22 in Washington that the United States does not have a formal position on whether Kosovo should be granted independence or retain its current status as an autonomous province of Serbia. “We feel, though, that we must resolve Kosovo’s status in a way that solidifies democratic development in Serbia and Montenegro,” she said.
In Vienna, Kosovo’s former warring parties found “common ground” in discussing how basic services would be administered at the local level to reflect the ethnic makeup of local populations, U.N. officials said.
“The kind of matters we discussed are not earth-shattering matters in the political sense, but they are extremely important for the people concerned,” said Albert Rohan, chairman of the talks and deputy special envoy of the U.N. secretary-general.
Delegates exchanged views on municipal concerns such as health care, education, culture, social welfare and police and justice -- issues that will have to be addressed in any resolution on Kosovo’s future status, said Rohan in a press release from the U.N. news service.
Both parties have agreed to meet again on March 17 to discuss local finance, cooperation between municipalities within Kosovo and between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia.
“FUTURE-STATUS TALKS”
The difficult negotiations originally were known as “final-status talks,” but diplomats recently have begun calling them “future-status talks.” (See related article.)
The U.N.-sponsored talks are aimed at deciding whether Kosovo will become independent or retain its recent status as an autonomous province of Serbia. Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since 1999, when U.S. and NATO-led military forces fought and expelled Yugoslav Serb troops and police following widespread human-right abuses. At the time, about 90 percent of Kosovo’s 2 million residents were ethnic Albanians. Following the 1999 war, as many as half the province’s ethnic Serbs fled in the wake of violent reprisals by ethnic Albanians. Today, NATO forces protect minority-Serb communities and religious sites.
U.S. and international diplomats want 2006 to be a key year for Kosovo and the greater southeastern Europe region. “We think it’s a year of decision and change, and it’s an opportunity to finish the job that we began in the ‘90s,” said DiCarlo, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Speaking at a discussion hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, she said Kosovo’s uncertain international status no longer is promoting regional stability.
“We do not think that time is a friend to us in this process,” she said. Members of the informal Contact Group – the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Russia – have “determined that the status quo really satisfies no one,” DiCarlo said. “It only leaves open the possibility for increased violence.”
Kosovo’s unclear international status also has thwarted economic development for the entire region, U.S. officials say.
Serbia seeks a solution that protects the rights of those Serbs still in Kosovo, said Ivan Vujacic, Serbian ambassador to the United States, who also spoke at the Wilson Center conference. He said a key Contact Group goal – multiethnicity within Kosovo – no longer exists because most Kosovar Serbs have fled urban areas and have settled in ethnically isolated rural enclaves.
“We are grateful for the International community being there,” Vujacic said. “If it wasn’t for the international community, no Serbs would be there.” About 150 Serb churches and monasteries are under the protection of international troops, he said.
DiCarlo said Kosovo’s status is “the most difficult remaining issue” in the region of the former Yugoslavia, which violently broke apart in the 1990s. However, she added, “we cannot resolve Kosovo’s status without devoting increased attention to other countries in the region.”
The Contact Group, which was established in 1994 to coordinate international policy on Kosovo, strongly encourages the parties to reach a negotiated solution, rather than having a solution imposed by the international community, DiCarlo said.
“Our priority is in a negotiated solution,” she said.
TROOP REDUCTIONS?
Responding to a question from the audience, DiCarlo also discussed the potential Kosovo troop reductions alluded to by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a February 3 interview with the Financial Times. Rumsfeld said the U.S. military remains strongly committed to Kosovo but that he is “personally hoping” for an eventual reduction in U.S. troop levels.
DiCarlo told the February 22 briefing that the international Kosovo Force (KFOR) of 16,000 troops – including about 1,700 U.S. troops -- is being restructured.
“The restructuring will allow for a task-force structure, which means that troops are going to be very movable,” she said.
In the past, KFOR troops were organized to patrol specific sectors. However, KFOR came under close scrutiny when troops were in many cases slow to respond to ethnic riots in March 2004. U.S. General James Jones, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, since has restructured KFOR to include new rules of engagement that allow forces to be redeployed quickly within Kosovo without first seeking approval from their home countries.
The new task-force structure “will make the force actually much more effective,” DiCarlo said. “While there may be some reductions in KFOR over the coming years, the kinds of people who are going to be reduced are not the combat-capable forces, but those who run the commissaries, the PXs, etcetera,” she said.
For more on U.S. policy in the region, see Balkans.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
By Vince Crawley
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Delegations from Serbia and from Kosovo’s Albanian majority reported generally positive results from their first round of direct negotiations February 21-22 in Vienna, Austria, to settle the future status of the internationally administered province.
U.S. diplomat Rosemary DiCarlo said February 22 in Washington that the United States does not have a formal position on whether Kosovo should be granted independence or retain its current status as an autonomous province of Serbia. “We feel, though, that we must resolve Kosovo’s status in a way that solidifies democratic development in Serbia and Montenegro,” she said.
In Vienna, Kosovo’s former warring parties found “common ground” in discussing how basic services would be administered at the local level to reflect the ethnic makeup of local populations, U.N. officials said.
“The kind of matters we discussed are not earth-shattering matters in the political sense, but they are extremely important for the people concerned,” said Albert Rohan, chairman of the talks and deputy special envoy of the U.N. secretary-general.
Delegates exchanged views on municipal concerns such as health care, education, culture, social welfare and police and justice -- issues that will have to be addressed in any resolution on Kosovo’s future status, said Rohan in a press release from the U.N. news service.
Both parties have agreed to meet again on March 17 to discuss local finance, cooperation between municipalities within Kosovo and between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia.
“FUTURE-STATUS TALKS”
The difficult negotiations originally were known as “final-status talks,” but diplomats recently have begun calling them “future-status talks.” (See related article.)
The U.N.-sponsored talks are aimed at deciding whether Kosovo will become independent or retain its recent status as an autonomous province of Serbia. Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since 1999, when U.S. and NATO-led military forces fought and expelled Yugoslav Serb troops and police following widespread human-right abuses. At the time, about 90 percent of Kosovo’s 2 million residents were ethnic Albanians. Following the 1999 war, as many as half the province’s ethnic Serbs fled in the wake of violent reprisals by ethnic Albanians. Today, NATO forces protect minority-Serb communities and religious sites.
U.S. and international diplomats want 2006 to be a key year for Kosovo and the greater southeastern Europe region. “We think it’s a year of decision and change, and it’s an opportunity to finish the job that we began in the ‘90s,” said DiCarlo, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Speaking at a discussion hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, she said Kosovo’s uncertain international status no longer is promoting regional stability.
“We do not think that time is a friend to us in this process,” she said. Members of the informal Contact Group – the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Russia – have “determined that the status quo really satisfies no one,” DiCarlo said. “It only leaves open the possibility for increased violence.”
Kosovo’s unclear international status also has thwarted economic development for the entire region, U.S. officials say.
Serbia seeks a solution that protects the rights of those Serbs still in Kosovo, said Ivan Vujacic, Serbian ambassador to the United States, who also spoke at the Wilson Center conference. He said a key Contact Group goal – multiethnicity within Kosovo – no longer exists because most Kosovar Serbs have fled urban areas and have settled in ethnically isolated rural enclaves.
“We are grateful for the International community being there,” Vujacic said. “If it wasn’t for the international community, no Serbs would be there.” About 150 Serb churches and monasteries are under the protection of international troops, he said.
DiCarlo said Kosovo’s status is “the most difficult remaining issue” in the region of the former Yugoslavia, which violently broke apart in the 1990s. However, she added, “we cannot resolve Kosovo’s status without devoting increased attention to other countries in the region.”
The Contact Group, which was established in 1994 to coordinate international policy on Kosovo, strongly encourages the parties to reach a negotiated solution, rather than having a solution imposed by the international community, DiCarlo said.
“Our priority is in a negotiated solution,” she said.
TROOP REDUCTIONS?
Responding to a question from the audience, DiCarlo also discussed the potential Kosovo troop reductions alluded to by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a February 3 interview with the Financial Times. Rumsfeld said the U.S. military remains strongly committed to Kosovo but that he is “personally hoping” for an eventual reduction in U.S. troop levels.
DiCarlo told the February 22 briefing that the international Kosovo Force (KFOR) of 16,000 troops – including about 1,700 U.S. troops -- is being restructured.
“The restructuring will allow for a task-force structure, which means that troops are going to be very movable,” she said.
In the past, KFOR troops were organized to patrol specific sectors. However, KFOR came under close scrutiny when troops were in many cases slow to respond to ethnic riots in March 2004. U.S. General James Jones, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, since has restructured KFOR to include new rules of engagement that allow forces to be redeployed quickly within Kosovo without first seeking approval from their home countries.
The new task-force structure “will make the force actually much more effective,” DiCarlo said. “While there may be some reductions in KFOR over the coming years, the kinds of people who are going to be reduced are not the combat-capable forces, but those who run the commissaries, the PXs, etcetera,” she said.
For more on U.S. policy in the region, see Balkans.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Kosovo to become independent this year (UN deputy envoy)
(Prishtina, DTT-NET.COM)- A US diplomat from the UN mission (UNMIK) believes that Kosovo will most probably become independent by the end of the year and urged local leadership to prepare for hard work for better economic development.
“I think 2006 is going to be a year in which in likelyhood Kosovo is going to become independent, "Lawrence Rossin the deputy head of the UNMIK said on Wednesday, in a press conference prior to his departure from Kosovo.
But he urged Kosovo leadership to prepare for difficult challenges following the status resolution especially in economic front.
However he said that current deep economic problems are possible to overcome as once the status is resolved Kosovo will have access to funds of international financial institutions such is World Bank.
Rossin, a former adviser on South-East Europe at Bill Clinton’s administration has been working as deputy-chief of UNMIK since 2004. After the war ended in 1999 Rosin was the Head of the US Liaison Office in Kosovo.
Rosin is to leave his Kosovo job and will continue to work for UN mission in Haiti.
“I think 2006 is going to be a year in which in likelyhood Kosovo is going to become independent, "Lawrence Rossin the deputy head of the UNMIK said on Wednesday, in a press conference prior to his departure from Kosovo.
But he urged Kosovo leadership to prepare for difficult challenges following the status resolution especially in economic front.
However he said that current deep economic problems are possible to overcome as once the status is resolved Kosovo will have access to funds of international financial institutions such is World Bank.
Rossin, a former adviser on South-East Europe at Bill Clinton’s administration has been working as deputy-chief of UNMIK since 2004. After the war ended in 1999 Rosin was the Head of the US Liaison Office in Kosovo.
Rosin is to leave his Kosovo job and will continue to work for UN mission in Haiti.
Finally, final status Kosovo must soon secure conditional independence.
The international community is finally summoning up the courage to try to settle the Kosovo question - the last big unsolved issue left by the violent collapse of Yugoslavia.
Not before time. While there are risks in pressing for a settlement, it is more dangerous for Kosovo to remain as it is - a United Nations protectorate with its future blighted by uncertainty, unemployment and rampant crime.
The Kosovo Contact Group, consisting of the US, European Union states and Russia, was right after the 1999 war to freeze talk of Kosovo's final status, given the danger of provoking renewed fighting between the ethnic Albanian majority, which wants independence, and the Serb minority which claims Kosovo remains part of Serbia.
But now conditions in the former Yugoslavia are improving. Slovenia has joined the EU, Croatia has started entry talks, Macedonia is a recognised accession candidate, and Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro have started association agreement talks. Meanwhile Slobodan Milosevic, ex-Yugoslav president, and other alleged war criminals are in custody, although Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are still free. And the economy is recovering from the wars of the 1990s.
With unemployment, crime and corruption rife, the environment is not perfect. Serbia is in a particularly hard position: as well as the prospect of losing Kosovo, it faces a likely complete break with Montenegro, the last ex-Yugoslav republic linked to Belgrade.
But there may never be a better time to act on Kosovo. And, with the US and its allies embroiled in the Middle East, western diplomats badly need a settlement in the Balkans to show intervention can end in success.
The plan is for ethnic Albanians and Serbs to negotiate a settlement. But these talks will very likely break down as Belgrade refuses to accept independence and ethnic Albanians, who compose over 90 per cent of the population, want nothing less.
The Contact Group must then be ready to impose conditional independence as anything less would perpetuate instability and risk an ethnic Albanian backlash. In return, the ethnic Albanians must be pressed to grant the local Serbs constitutional safeguards.
A settlement can be imposed only if Russia co-operates. Moscow has voiced concern about the precedent independence might set for troubled zones of the former Soviet Union. But Russia must be persuaded that UN-sanctioned conditional independence would be a less frightening precedent than an ethnic Albanian uprising.
Whatever the final deal, international troops and administrators must remain in Kosovo for years to come. The EU must continue to support the region with aid and stick by promises of future EU membership. Nothing will help the region to break with the past and focus on the future more than the prospect of EU integration.
The international community is finally summoning up the courage to try to settle the Kosovo question - the last big unsolved issue left by the violent collapse of Yugoslavia.
Not before time. While there are risks in pressing for a settlement, it is more dangerous for Kosovo to remain as it is - a United Nations protectorate with its future blighted by uncertainty, unemployment and rampant crime.
The Kosovo Contact Group, consisting of the US, European Union states and Russia, was right after the 1999 war to freeze talk of Kosovo's final status, given the danger of provoking renewed fighting between the ethnic Albanian majority, which wants independence, and the Serb minority which claims Kosovo remains part of Serbia.
But now conditions in the former Yugoslavia are improving. Slovenia has joined the EU, Croatia has started entry talks, Macedonia is a recognised accession candidate, and Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro have started association agreement talks. Meanwhile, ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and other alleged war criminals are in custody, although Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are still free. And the economy is recovering from the wars of the 1990s.
With unemployment, crime and corruption rife, the enviroment is not perfect. Serbia is in a particularly hard position: as well as the prospect of losing Kosovo, it faces a likely complete break with Montenegro, the last ex-Yugoslav republic linked to Belgrade.
But there may never be a better time to act on Kosovo. And, with the US and its allies embroiled in the Middle East, western diplomats badly need a settlement in the Balkans to show intervention can end in success.
The plan is for ethnic Albanians and Serbs to negotiate a settlement. But, these talks will very likely break down as Belgrade refuses to accept independence and ethnic Albanians, who compose over 90 per cent of the population, want nothing less.
The Contact Group must then be ready to impose conditional independence as anything less would perpetuate instability and risk an ethnic Albanian backlash. In return, the ethnic Albanians must be pressed to grant the local Serbs constitutional safeguards.
A settlement can be imposed only if Russia cooperates. Moscow has voiced concern about the precedent independence might set for troubled zones of the former Soviet Union. But Russia must be persuaded that UN-sanctioned conditional independence would be a less frightening precedent than an ethnic Albanian uprising.
Whatever the final deal, international troops and administrators must remain in Kosovo for years to come. The EU must continue to support the region with aid and stick by promises of future EU membership. Nothing will help the region to break with the past and focus on the future more than the prospect of EU integration.
Not before time. While there are risks in pressing for a settlement, it is more dangerous for Kosovo to remain as it is - a United Nations protectorate with its future blighted by uncertainty, unemployment and rampant crime.
The Kosovo Contact Group, consisting of the US, European Union states and Russia, was right after the 1999 war to freeze talk of Kosovo's final status, given the danger of provoking renewed fighting between the ethnic Albanian majority, which wants independence, and the Serb minority which claims Kosovo remains part of Serbia.
But now conditions in the former Yugoslavia are improving. Slovenia has joined the EU, Croatia has started entry talks, Macedonia is a recognised accession candidate, and Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro have started association agreement talks. Meanwhile Slobodan Milosevic, ex-Yugoslav president, and other alleged war criminals are in custody, although Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are still free. And the economy is recovering from the wars of the 1990s.
With unemployment, crime and corruption rife, the environment is not perfect. Serbia is in a particularly hard position: as well as the prospect of losing Kosovo, it faces a likely complete break with Montenegro, the last ex-Yugoslav republic linked to Belgrade.
But there may never be a better time to act on Kosovo. And, with the US and its allies embroiled in the Middle East, western diplomats badly need a settlement in the Balkans to show intervention can end in success.
The plan is for ethnic Albanians and Serbs to negotiate a settlement. But these talks will very likely break down as Belgrade refuses to accept independence and ethnic Albanians, who compose over 90 per cent of the population, want nothing less.
The Contact Group must then be ready to impose conditional independence as anything less would perpetuate instability and risk an ethnic Albanian backlash. In return, the ethnic Albanians must be pressed to grant the local Serbs constitutional safeguards.
A settlement can be imposed only if Russia co-operates. Moscow has voiced concern about the precedent independence might set for troubled zones of the former Soviet Union. But Russia must be persuaded that UN-sanctioned conditional independence would be a less frightening precedent than an ethnic Albanian uprising.
Whatever the final deal, international troops and administrators must remain in Kosovo for years to come. The EU must continue to support the region with aid and stick by promises of future EU membership. Nothing will help the region to break with the past and focus on the future more than the prospect of EU integration.
The international community is finally summoning up the courage to try to settle the Kosovo question - the last big unsolved issue left by the violent collapse of Yugoslavia.
Not before time. While there are risks in pressing for a settlement, it is more dangerous for Kosovo to remain as it is - a United Nations protectorate with its future blighted by uncertainty, unemployment and rampant crime.
The Kosovo Contact Group, consisting of the US, European Union states and Russia, was right after the 1999 war to freeze talk of Kosovo's final status, given the danger of provoking renewed fighting between the ethnic Albanian majority, which wants independence, and the Serb minority which claims Kosovo remains part of Serbia.
But now conditions in the former Yugoslavia are improving. Slovenia has joined the EU, Croatia has started entry talks, Macedonia is a recognised accession candidate, and Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro have started association agreement talks. Meanwhile, ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and other alleged war criminals are in custody, although Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are still free. And the economy is recovering from the wars of the 1990s.
With unemployment, crime and corruption rife, the enviroment is not perfect. Serbia is in a particularly hard position: as well as the prospect of losing Kosovo, it faces a likely complete break with Montenegro, the last ex-Yugoslav republic linked to Belgrade.
But there may never be a better time to act on Kosovo. And, with the US and its allies embroiled in the Middle East, western diplomats badly need a settlement in the Balkans to show intervention can end in success.
The plan is for ethnic Albanians and Serbs to negotiate a settlement. But, these talks will very likely break down as Belgrade refuses to accept independence and ethnic Albanians, who compose over 90 per cent of the population, want nothing less.
The Contact Group must then be ready to impose conditional independence as anything less would perpetuate instability and risk an ethnic Albanian backlash. In return, the ethnic Albanians must be pressed to grant the local Serbs constitutional safeguards.
A settlement can be imposed only if Russia cooperates. Moscow has voiced concern about the precedent independence might set for troubled zones of the former Soviet Union. But Russia must be persuaded that UN-sanctioned conditional independence would be a less frightening precedent than an ethnic Albanian uprising.
Whatever the final deal, international troops and administrators must remain in Kosovo for years to come. The EU must continue to support the region with aid and stick by promises of future EU membership. Nothing will help the region to break with the past and focus on the future more than the prospect of EU integration.
Belgrade must be ready for possible Kosovo independence - Serbian paper
Text of unattributed commentary entitled: "Shadow of Rambouillet", published by the Serbian newspaper Danas on 21 February
When a country is in a situation where it has to discuss the status of part of its territory, that in itself constitutes a kind of defeat - the defeat of a policy that over a protracted period of time was unable to deal with internal problems in a rational way and ensure the functioning of the community. This is what has happened to Serbia in the case of Kosovo.
Not so long ago, Belgrade held all instruments of power in this province, but it did not know how to curb a swelling interethnic conflict and provide peace and security. When this territory became engulfed in total chaos, the international community stepped in and practically removed Kosovo from Serbia's rule.
What comes now is the definition of a new status of Kosovo. In the meantime, a major political turnabout has occurred in Belgrade. The regime that was mostly to blame for the exacerbation of the Kosovo problem has been overthrown, but unfortunately, this has not obliterated in the eyes of international arbiters a negative role played by Belgrade in the creation of the Kosovo crisis.
Last weekend, Serbia sent to Vienna a team of a completely different political mentality than the one that had travelled to the Rambouillet conference, but it is little likely, despite its democratic and pro-European endorsement, that it will manage to convince Europe and the world that Kosovo will be comfortable in a Serbia without Milosevic. The dark shadow of Rambouillet as the symbol of an arrogant, uncooperative and defiant policy of Belgrade that cared nothing for the consequences of its intransigence will inevitably loom over the present negotiating team. The difficulty of their negotiating position is evident from the statement of the chief international mediator, Martti Ahtisaari, made on the day the Belgrade team left for Vienna. Not for the first time, a representative of the international community made it known with frankness unusual in diplomatic communication that independence is the most likely option for the future status of Kosovo.
This forecast is not pleasant for anybody in Serbia to hear, but a serious, rational policy absolutely must take it into account. If by some miracle more is achieved, that will, naturally, be easy to accept and explain to the domestic public. Belgrade must have a rational attitude and a policy ready for the painful eventuality - an independent Kosovo.
Source: Danas, Belgrade, in Serbian 21 Feb 06
When a country is in a situation where it has to discuss the status of part of its territory, that in itself constitutes a kind of defeat - the defeat of a policy that over a protracted period of time was unable to deal with internal problems in a rational way and ensure the functioning of the community. This is what has happened to Serbia in the case of Kosovo.
Not so long ago, Belgrade held all instruments of power in this province, but it did not know how to curb a swelling interethnic conflict and provide peace and security. When this territory became engulfed in total chaos, the international community stepped in and practically removed Kosovo from Serbia's rule.
What comes now is the definition of a new status of Kosovo. In the meantime, a major political turnabout has occurred in Belgrade. The regime that was mostly to blame for the exacerbation of the Kosovo problem has been overthrown, but unfortunately, this has not obliterated in the eyes of international arbiters a negative role played by Belgrade in the creation of the Kosovo crisis.
Last weekend, Serbia sent to Vienna a team of a completely different political mentality than the one that had travelled to the Rambouillet conference, but it is little likely, despite its democratic and pro-European endorsement, that it will manage to convince Europe and the world that Kosovo will be comfortable in a Serbia without Milosevic. The dark shadow of Rambouillet as the symbol of an arrogant, uncooperative and defiant policy of Belgrade that cared nothing for the consequences of its intransigence will inevitably loom over the present negotiating team. The difficulty of their negotiating position is evident from the statement of the chief international mediator, Martti Ahtisaari, made on the day the Belgrade team left for Vienna. Not for the first time, a representative of the international community made it known with frankness unusual in diplomatic communication that independence is the most likely option for the future status of Kosovo.
This forecast is not pleasant for anybody in Serbia to hear, but a serious, rational policy absolutely must take it into account. If by some miracle more is achieved, that will, naturally, be easy to accept and explain to the domestic public. Belgrade must have a rational attitude and a policy ready for the painful eventuality - an independent Kosovo.
Source: Danas, Belgrade, in Serbian 21 Feb 06
Kosovo Protection Corps to become Kosovo army, says president
PRISTINA, Feb 22 (Hina) - Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu said on Wednesday the Kosovo Protection Corps would soon be transformed into the Kosovo army, which he discussed today with the Corps commander, General Agim Qeku.
Sejdiu and Qeku said they expected Kosovo to be independent soon and in this context considered the possibility of transforming the Protection Corps into the army of independent Kosovo, a press release said.
Sejdiu and Qeku said they expected Kosovo to be independent soon and in this context considered the possibility of transforming the Protection Corps into the army of independent Kosovo, a press release said.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
FIFA receives Kosovo football delegation
On Tuesday, 21 February 2006, a FIFA delegation, headed by FIFA Executive Committee member and UEFA first vice-president Senes Erzik, met with representatives of the Football Federation of Kosovo, Fadil Vokrri (coordinator) and Fazil Berisha (spokesman), at FIFA House in Zurich. The specific purpose of the visit was to discuss football-related issues in Kosovo.
During the meeting, Mr Erzik explained that, according to Article 10 of the FIFA Statutes, any Association which is responsible for organising and supervising football in its country can apply for membership, pointing out that the expression ”country” refers to an independent state recognised by the international community. In this context, FIFA indicated that it would follow the discussions opened by the United Nations in Vienna on 20 February 2006 regarding the “final status” of Kosovo.
The delegation from the Kosovo football community understood and accepted this explanation, and stated that they only wished to discuss football-related matters and problems faced by Kosovo players.
The main point brought up by the delegation from Kosovo related to the difficulty faced by their clubs and players when trying to transfer local players to clubs outside of Kosovo. FIFA asked for all pertinent documentation from the Football Federation of Kosovo regarding this matter in order to look at possible solutions.
Both delegations considered the meeting as positive and fruitful and agreed to await the results of the discussions initiated by the international community regarding Kosovo.
During the meeting, Mr Erzik explained that, according to Article 10 of the FIFA Statutes, any Association which is responsible for organising and supervising football in its country can apply for membership, pointing out that the expression ”country” refers to an independent state recognised by the international community. In this context, FIFA indicated that it would follow the discussions opened by the United Nations in Vienna on 20 February 2006 regarding the “final status” of Kosovo.
The delegation from the Kosovo football community understood and accepted this explanation, and stated that they only wished to discuss football-related matters and problems faced by Kosovo players.
The main point brought up by the delegation from Kosovo related to the difficulty faced by their clubs and players when trying to transfer local players to clubs outside of Kosovo. FIFA asked for all pertinent documentation from the Football Federation of Kosovo regarding this matter in order to look at possible solutions.
Both delegations considered the meeting as positive and fruitful and agreed to await the results of the discussions initiated by the international community regarding Kosovo.
Reports that war crimes fugitive Mladic arrested
By Reuters Tuesday February 21 2006. 5.18pm
>>
Top Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive General Ratko Mladic has been arrested, the official Serbian news agency Tanjug on Tuesday quoted a local television station in Bosnia’s Serb Republic as saying.
It said TV BN reported that the wartime Bosnian Serb Army commander had been taken into custody in the Serbian capital Belgrade and was being transferred via the northeast Bosnia city of Tuzla to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
There was no official confirmation of the report.
An earlier report by Belgrade’s “Studio B” television said Mladic had been located “in the area of Tuzla”, which lies close to the mountainous border with Serbia.
Madic was indicted in 1995 for genocide for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo which claimed 12,000 lives and for orchestrating the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica, the worst atrocity in Europe since World War Two.
Serbian newspapers were full of speculation on Tuesday that Mladic could soon be on a plane to The Hague, in time to avert suspension of European Union association talks with Belgrade.
Reports spoke of intense efforts by Belgrade to deliver the 63-year-old general to the United Nations court before the end of February, either by arresting him or negotiating a surrender.
This is the deadline for a report by EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn to the 25 EU foreign ministers assessing whether Serbia is cooperating fully with the U.N. tribunal.
Vladeta Jankovic, adviser to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, said efforts to find Mladic were “in full swing”. He said he had no information Mladic had been found and denied the prime minister had promised a deadline for a handover.
“The government is aware of the consequences,” he told B92 radio. “It might be a decisive moment, not only for the survival of the government, but for the future prospects of the state.”
Mladic’s handover was “almost a condition of survival”.
Belgrade is desperate to avoid suspension of Stabilisation and Association pact talks begun last year. They are the first step to eventual EU membership -- Serbia’s top priority -- and Brussels has warned they will stop if Mladic is not arrested.
Reports predicting his imminent arrest or detailing official efforts to track him down intensify each time Serbia faces a Western deadline for action, although Serbia constantly protests that it has no evidence he is even in the country.
On Tuesday, the daily Blic quoted former state security chief Goran Petrovic as saying the state was giving former Bosnian Serb Army commander Mladic ten more days to surrender.
“Talks on Mladic’s surrender are in their final phase. About 10 days are left for his handover and they are now looking for an appropriate scenario for his surrender,” Petrovic said. He said the authorities were in constant contact with Mladic.
He lived openly in Belgrade until the fall of nationalist strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 undermined his support. Chief tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has repeatedly charged that he is still protected by hardline elements in the Army and security agencies of Serbia.
Serbian Human Rights Minister Rasim Ljajic said it would be a good time to extradite Mladic, who is still regarded as a hero-soldier by staunch nationalists opposed to his arrest.
“The latest polls show 57 percent of citizens are in favour of this option. This is the largest percentage so far, much higher than in 2005 let alone 2004, “ Ljajic said.
>>
Top Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive General Ratko Mladic has been arrested, the official Serbian news agency Tanjug on Tuesday quoted a local television station in Bosnia’s Serb Republic as saying.
It said TV BN reported that the wartime Bosnian Serb Army commander had been taken into custody in the Serbian capital Belgrade and was being transferred via the northeast Bosnia city of Tuzla to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
There was no official confirmation of the report.
An earlier report by Belgrade’s “Studio B” television said Mladic had been located “in the area of Tuzla”, which lies close to the mountainous border with Serbia.
Madic was indicted in 1995 for genocide for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo which claimed 12,000 lives and for orchestrating the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica, the worst atrocity in Europe since World War Two.
Serbian newspapers were full of speculation on Tuesday that Mladic could soon be on a plane to The Hague, in time to avert suspension of European Union association talks with Belgrade.
Reports spoke of intense efforts by Belgrade to deliver the 63-year-old general to the United Nations court before the end of February, either by arresting him or negotiating a surrender.
This is the deadline for a report by EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn to the 25 EU foreign ministers assessing whether Serbia is cooperating fully with the U.N. tribunal.
Vladeta Jankovic, adviser to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, said efforts to find Mladic were “in full swing”. He said he had no information Mladic had been found and denied the prime minister had promised a deadline for a handover.
“The government is aware of the consequences,” he told B92 radio. “It might be a decisive moment, not only for the survival of the government, but for the future prospects of the state.”
Mladic’s handover was “almost a condition of survival”.
Belgrade is desperate to avoid suspension of Stabilisation and Association pact talks begun last year. They are the first step to eventual EU membership -- Serbia’s top priority -- and Brussels has warned they will stop if Mladic is not arrested.
Reports predicting his imminent arrest or detailing official efforts to track him down intensify each time Serbia faces a Western deadline for action, although Serbia constantly protests that it has no evidence he is even in the country.
On Tuesday, the daily Blic quoted former state security chief Goran Petrovic as saying the state was giving former Bosnian Serb Army commander Mladic ten more days to surrender.
“Talks on Mladic’s surrender are in their final phase. About 10 days are left for his handover and they are now looking for an appropriate scenario for his surrender,” Petrovic said. He said the authorities were in constant contact with Mladic.
He lived openly in Belgrade until the fall of nationalist strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 undermined his support. Chief tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has repeatedly charged that he is still protected by hardline elements in the Army and security agencies of Serbia.
Serbian Human Rights Minister Rasim Ljajic said it would be a good time to extradite Mladic, who is still regarded as a hero-soldier by staunch nationalists opposed to his arrest.
“The latest polls show 57 percent of citizens are in favour of this option. This is the largest percentage so far, much higher than in 2005 let alone 2004, “ Ljajic said.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Talks finally begin on Kosovo's future
By Judy Dempsey International Herald Tribune
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2006
VIENNA Serbian and ethnic Albanian negotiators on Monday sat down together for the first time in an effort to resolve the status of Kosovo, one of the last but most difficult disputes left over from the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
The wrangling over the province, which is a part of Serbia and Montenegro and is under a UN protectorate, has prevented the region from moving toward long-term stability.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who make up about 90 percent of the province's two million people, expect they will be granted independence, while Serbian leaders say they are prepared to give the province a wide degree of autonomy but not independence.
The closed-door "final status talks," which opened in the Kinsky Palace in Vienna under the chairmanship of a United Nations' special envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, once a president of Finland, could last until the end of the year, diplomats said.
The discussions had been due to start in January but were postponed after the death of the Kosovo president, Ibrahim Rugova, a champion of independence.
Depending on how the talks go, they could bring this part of the western Balkans closer to Europe or leave it simmering in resentment that could feed another wave of radical nationalism.
Serbian politicians still regard Kosovo, a small southern province that shares a border with Albania, as the cradle of Serbian culture and history stretching back centuries.
The leader of the Serbian delegation, Slobodan Samardzic, "does not expect much" from the meeting in Vienna. The goal, he said, is "autonomy for Serbs in Kosovo."
In contrast, Lutfi Haziri, head of Kosovo's delegation, was upbeat on Monday. "We hope that the status talks will finish soon and we have come well prepared," he said on arrival. "Independence is coming."
The fate of Kosovo has hung in the balance since Yugoslavia collapsed into civil war in the early 1990s.
First Slovenia and Croatia fought their way to independence, followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Kosovo conflict erupted in 1999. Europe's worst conflagration since the end of World War II, these wars exposed the enormous challenges arising from the end of the Cold War in 1989, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall was broken down by peaceful demonstrators.
The Kosovo war ended with a NATO bombing campaign that forced Slobodan Milosevic, then the Yugoslav leader who is now on trial at The Hague for war crimes committed during the Bosnia conflict, to withdraw Serbian troops and turn the province over to the United Nations.
The 80,000 ethnic Serbs who remain in Kosovo live in isolated enclaves that are protected by NATO peacekeepers. UN officials have estimated that more than 200,000 people, mainly Serbs, have fled the region since they established the special administration in June 1999, largely for fear of reprisals by ethnic Albanian extremists.
Hua Jiang, Ahtisaari's spokeswoman, said any settlement was "about minority rights and safety." She said the entire process was "about setting up a multi- ethnic society in Kosovo."
But the previous attempt by the United Nations, the United States and the European Union to establish a multiethnic society, in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, has not been an inspiring example.
Despite international pressure, the three communities in Bosnia have been reluctant to cooperate on security, defense, judicial or interior affairs, said diplomats in the federation.
Jiang said the first, two-day round of talks over Kosovo would deal with government changes aimed at enhancing the rights of Serbs and other minorities, since "both sides have a willingness to tackle it."
Diplomats from the countries known as the Contact Group - the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia - have already set out guidelines for Kosovo's future.
Those rules say the province cannot return to its previous status under direct Serbian rule; it cannot be partitioned along ethnic lines or be joined to another country in the region, such as Albania; and any agreement should be acceptable to the province's ethnic Albanian majority.
Washington has been pressing for talks on the final status of Kosovo for the last year, while the Europe Union was reluctant to begin, saying the time was not ripe.
The United States would like to see the United Nations hand over responsibility for the former Yugoslavia to the European Union and phase out the costly protectorates in both Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nicholas Burns, deputy U.S. secretary of state of state for European affairs, has played a major role in pushing that agenda.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2006
VIENNA Serbian and ethnic Albanian negotiators on Monday sat down together for the first time in an effort to resolve the status of Kosovo, one of the last but most difficult disputes left over from the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
The wrangling over the province, which is a part of Serbia and Montenegro and is under a UN protectorate, has prevented the region from moving toward long-term stability.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who make up about 90 percent of the province's two million people, expect they will be granted independence, while Serbian leaders say they are prepared to give the province a wide degree of autonomy but not independence.
The closed-door "final status talks," which opened in the Kinsky Palace in Vienna under the chairmanship of a United Nations' special envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, once a president of Finland, could last until the end of the year, diplomats said.
The discussions had been due to start in January but were postponed after the death of the Kosovo president, Ibrahim Rugova, a champion of independence.
Depending on how the talks go, they could bring this part of the western Balkans closer to Europe or leave it simmering in resentment that could feed another wave of radical nationalism.
Serbian politicians still regard Kosovo, a small southern province that shares a border with Albania, as the cradle of Serbian culture and history stretching back centuries.
The leader of the Serbian delegation, Slobodan Samardzic, "does not expect much" from the meeting in Vienna. The goal, he said, is "autonomy for Serbs in Kosovo."
In contrast, Lutfi Haziri, head of Kosovo's delegation, was upbeat on Monday. "We hope that the status talks will finish soon and we have come well prepared," he said on arrival. "Independence is coming."
The fate of Kosovo has hung in the balance since Yugoslavia collapsed into civil war in the early 1990s.
First Slovenia and Croatia fought their way to independence, followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Kosovo conflict erupted in 1999. Europe's worst conflagration since the end of World War II, these wars exposed the enormous challenges arising from the end of the Cold War in 1989, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall was broken down by peaceful demonstrators.
The Kosovo war ended with a NATO bombing campaign that forced Slobodan Milosevic, then the Yugoslav leader who is now on trial at The Hague for war crimes committed during the Bosnia conflict, to withdraw Serbian troops and turn the province over to the United Nations.
The 80,000 ethnic Serbs who remain in Kosovo live in isolated enclaves that are protected by NATO peacekeepers. UN officials have estimated that more than 200,000 people, mainly Serbs, have fled the region since they established the special administration in June 1999, largely for fear of reprisals by ethnic Albanian extremists.
Hua Jiang, Ahtisaari's spokeswoman, said any settlement was "about minority rights and safety." She said the entire process was "about setting up a multi- ethnic society in Kosovo."
But the previous attempt by the United Nations, the United States and the European Union to establish a multiethnic society, in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, has not been an inspiring example.
Despite international pressure, the three communities in Bosnia have been reluctant to cooperate on security, defense, judicial or interior affairs, said diplomats in the federation.
Jiang said the first, two-day round of talks over Kosovo would deal with government changes aimed at enhancing the rights of Serbs and other minorities, since "both sides have a willingness to tackle it."
Diplomats from the countries known as the Contact Group - the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia - have already set out guidelines for Kosovo's future.
Those rules say the province cannot return to its previous status under direct Serbian rule; it cannot be partitioned along ethnic lines or be joined to another country in the region, such as Albania; and any agreement should be acceptable to the province's ethnic Albanian majority.
Washington has been pressing for talks on the final status of Kosovo for the last year, while the Europe Union was reluctant to begin, saying the time was not ripe.
The United States would like to see the United Nations hand over responsibility for the former Yugoslavia to the European Union and phase out the costly protectorates in both Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nicholas Burns, deputy U.S. secretary of state of state for European affairs, has played a major role in pushing that agenda.
Serbs and Albanians ease into Kosovo talks
By Matthew Robinson
VIENNA (Reuters) - Serbs and ethnic Albanians eased their way into direct negotiations on Monday that ultimately will lead to a decision on whether Kosovo gets independence or remains part of Serbia.
"It went well," an official close to the United Nations-chaired meeting told Reuters as delegates left the Vienna venue. "There were disagreements, but they were to be expected. Everyone was very frank, but constructive."
All signs are that the major powers will steer the talks towards independence for the province which is legally part of Serbia, but has a 90-percent ethnic Albanian population.
The province of 2 million people has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombing drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against ethnic Albanian civilians in a 2-year war with separatist rebels.
Some 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed and up to 800,000 driven from their homes. The Albanians insist independence is non-negotiable, but Serbs regard Kosovo as sacred land.
"There's no blood on the floor and they're still in the room," the official said during an earlier break, reflecting the relief felt at finally getting the two sides at the same table. The talks are expected to last into late this year.
The first round, due to close on Tuesday, focuses on practical issues regarding Kosovo's remaining Serb minority of 100,000, ghettoised and targeted for revenge since the war. Thousands of their kin fled a wave of revenge attacks that followed NATO's deployment in 1999. Few have returned.
The two 8-member teams of mid-level politicians and advisers sat at a horseshoe table, chaired by a deputy to U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari. Delegates posed stiffly for photographs. There were no handshakes.
"We want the status resolved as soon as possible," Kosovo Albanian delegation chief Lutfi Haziri said on arrival. "Independence is coming and we are playing a positive role."
"NOT A SINGLE SERB WILL REMAIN"
Western diplomats say independence hinges on the Albanians offering Kosovo's minorities a viable future.
"The majority population here in Kosovo has a right to expect that their aspirations will be met when status is decided," U.N. governor Soren Jessen-Petersen said on Sunday.
"But it is equally important that the majority is seen to be committed ... on minority issues."
Belgrade wants an autonomous Serb entity with strong ties to Serbia. Albanians say this means partition of Kosovo, a concept ruled out by the West. They offer more modest devolution.
Major powers want a deal on "final status" within the year.
Back in Kosovo, Albanian activists angry at having to negotiate with Serbia handed out "wanted posters" for the province's leaders, saying they were "trading with the lives of 2 million people without asking".
Rich in Orthodox religious heritage, Kosovo has been central to Serb history and identity for 1,000 years.
Kosovo Serbs rallied to urge their negotiating team in Vienna to "defend Serbia and protect its territory." Rally organiser Zivorad Tomic said: "If Kosovo gets independence, not a single Serb will remain on this land".
(Additional reporting by Shaban Buza in Pristina)
VIENNA (Reuters) - Serbs and ethnic Albanians eased their way into direct negotiations on Monday that ultimately will lead to a decision on whether Kosovo gets independence or remains part of Serbia.
"It went well," an official close to the United Nations-chaired meeting told Reuters as delegates left the Vienna venue. "There were disagreements, but they were to be expected. Everyone was very frank, but constructive."
All signs are that the major powers will steer the talks towards independence for the province which is legally part of Serbia, but has a 90-percent ethnic Albanian population.
The province of 2 million people has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombing drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against ethnic Albanian civilians in a 2-year war with separatist rebels.
Some 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed and up to 800,000 driven from their homes. The Albanians insist independence is non-negotiable, but Serbs regard Kosovo as sacred land.
"There's no blood on the floor and they're still in the room," the official said during an earlier break, reflecting the relief felt at finally getting the two sides at the same table. The talks are expected to last into late this year.
The first round, due to close on Tuesday, focuses on practical issues regarding Kosovo's remaining Serb minority of 100,000, ghettoised and targeted for revenge since the war. Thousands of their kin fled a wave of revenge attacks that followed NATO's deployment in 1999. Few have returned.
The two 8-member teams of mid-level politicians and advisers sat at a horseshoe table, chaired by a deputy to U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari. Delegates posed stiffly for photographs. There were no handshakes.
"We want the status resolved as soon as possible," Kosovo Albanian delegation chief Lutfi Haziri said on arrival. "Independence is coming and we are playing a positive role."
"NOT A SINGLE SERB WILL REMAIN"
Western diplomats say independence hinges on the Albanians offering Kosovo's minorities a viable future.
"The majority population here in Kosovo has a right to expect that their aspirations will be met when status is decided," U.N. governor Soren Jessen-Petersen said on Sunday.
"But it is equally important that the majority is seen to be committed ... on minority issues."
Belgrade wants an autonomous Serb entity with strong ties to Serbia. Albanians say this means partition of Kosovo, a concept ruled out by the West. They offer more modest devolution.
Major powers want a deal on "final status" within the year.
Back in Kosovo, Albanian activists angry at having to negotiate with Serbia handed out "wanted posters" for the province's leaders, saying they were "trading with the lives of 2 million people without asking".
Rich in Orthodox religious heritage, Kosovo has been central to Serb history and identity for 1,000 years.
Kosovo Serbs rallied to urge their negotiating team in Vienna to "defend Serbia and protect its territory." Rally organiser Zivorad Tomic said: "If Kosovo gets independence, not a single Serb will remain on this land".
(Additional reporting by Shaban Buza in Pristina)
Serbs, Albanians debate fate of Kosovo
By Matthew Robinson
VIENNA (Reuters) - Serbs and ethnic Albanians eased their way into a first round of talks on Monday that will lead ultimately to a decision on whether the disputed province of Kosovo gets independence or remains part of Serbia.
"It's going pretty well," an official close to the meeting told Reuters. "There's no blood on the floor and they're still in the room. Of course, there are a few disagreements, but we expected that."
Diplomats say independence for Kosovo, whose population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, is almost certain after seven years of U.N. stewardship.
Belgrade says independence is unthinkable. Rich in Orthodox religious heritage, Kosovo has been central to Serb identity for 1,000 years.
The Serbian province of 2 million people has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombing drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against ethnic Albanian civilians in a 2-year war with separatist rebels.
Around 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed in the war and up to 800,000 driven from their homes. Then, as Serb forces pulled out, thousands of Serbs followed, fleeing revenge attacks.
SERB MINORITY
The talks, due to carry on into Tuesday, focus initially on practical issues regarding Kosovo's Serb minority of 100,000 who have been ghettoized.
The two 8-member teams sat at a horseshoe table chaired by a deputy to U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari. Delegates posed stiffly for photographs. There were no handshakes.
"We want the status resolved as soon as possible. Independence is coming and we are playing a positive role," said Kosovo Albanian delegation chief Lutfi Haziri.
Western diplomats say independence hinges on the Albanians offering Kosovo's minorities a viable future.
"The majority population here in Kosovo has a right to expect that their aspirations will be met when status is decided," U.N. governor Soren Jessen-Petersen said on Sunday.
"But it is equally important that the majority is seen to be committed ... on minority issues."
Belgrade wants an autonomous Serb entity with strong ties to Serbia. Albanians say this means partition of Kosovo, a concept ruled out by the West. They offer more modest devolution.
Major powers want a deal on "final status" within the year.
Tapping into Kosovo Albanian anger at having to negotiate with Serbia, activists in Pristina handed out "wanted posters" for the province's leaders, saying they were "trading with the lives of 2 million people without asking".
Serbs also rallied to urge their negotiating team in Vienna to "defend Serbia and protect its territory." Rally organizer Zivorad Tomic told Beta news agency: "If Kosovo gets independence, not a single Serb will remain on this land".
The West has told Belgrade that any deal must be acceptable to the people of Kosovo. Diplomats say this means independence, conditional on major concessions to Serbs and guaranteed by European Union supervision and continued NATO presence.
The Serbian government called a session of parliament for Monday, February 27 to discuss its next step.
Analysts warn of a backlash in Serbia where nationalists say the government must "declare Kosovo occupied territory" if it secedes with Western backing.
(Additional reporting by Shaban Buza in Pristina)
VIENNA (Reuters) - Serbs and ethnic Albanians eased their way into a first round of talks on Monday that will lead ultimately to a decision on whether the disputed province of Kosovo gets independence or remains part of Serbia.
"It's going pretty well," an official close to the meeting told Reuters. "There's no blood on the floor and they're still in the room. Of course, there are a few disagreements, but we expected that."
Diplomats say independence for Kosovo, whose population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, is almost certain after seven years of U.N. stewardship.
Belgrade says independence is unthinkable. Rich in Orthodox religious heritage, Kosovo has been central to Serb identity for 1,000 years.
The Serbian province of 2 million people has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombing drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against ethnic Albanian civilians in a 2-year war with separatist rebels.
Around 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed in the war and up to 800,000 driven from their homes. Then, as Serb forces pulled out, thousands of Serbs followed, fleeing revenge attacks.
SERB MINORITY
The talks, due to carry on into Tuesday, focus initially on practical issues regarding Kosovo's Serb minority of 100,000 who have been ghettoized.
The two 8-member teams sat at a horseshoe table chaired by a deputy to U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari. Delegates posed stiffly for photographs. There were no handshakes.
"We want the status resolved as soon as possible. Independence is coming and we are playing a positive role," said Kosovo Albanian delegation chief Lutfi Haziri.
Western diplomats say independence hinges on the Albanians offering Kosovo's minorities a viable future.
"The majority population here in Kosovo has a right to expect that their aspirations will be met when status is decided," U.N. governor Soren Jessen-Petersen said on Sunday.
"But it is equally important that the majority is seen to be committed ... on minority issues."
Belgrade wants an autonomous Serb entity with strong ties to Serbia. Albanians say this means partition of Kosovo, a concept ruled out by the West. They offer more modest devolution.
Major powers want a deal on "final status" within the year.
Tapping into Kosovo Albanian anger at having to negotiate with Serbia, activists in Pristina handed out "wanted posters" for the province's leaders, saying they were "trading with the lives of 2 million people without asking".
Serbs also rallied to urge their negotiating team in Vienna to "defend Serbia and protect its territory." Rally organizer Zivorad Tomic told Beta news agency: "If Kosovo gets independence, not a single Serb will remain on this land".
The West has told Belgrade that any deal must be acceptable to the people of Kosovo. Diplomats say this means independence, conditional on major concessions to Serbs and guaranteed by European Union supervision and continued NATO presence.
The Serbian government called a session of parliament for Monday, February 27 to discuss its next step.
Analysts warn of a backlash in Serbia where nationalists say the government must "declare Kosovo occupied territory" if it secedes with Western backing.
(Additional reporting by Shaban Buza in Pristina)
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Serbs, Albanians open direct talks on Kosovo's fate
By Matthew Robinson
VIENNA (Reuters) - Serbs and Kosovo Albanians meet in Vienna on Monday for the first round of direct negotiations to decide the fate of Serbia's disputed southern province, with almost all signs pointing to independence.
Two eight-member delegations of mid-level politicians and advisers come together in the 18th century Palais Daun-Kinsky under the chairmanship of Austria's Albert Rohan, deputy to United Nations envoy Martti Ahtisaari.
The talks, delayed a month by the death of president Ibrahim Rugova, is the first since Ahtisaari was appointed in November to broker a deal on Kosovo, sacred land to Serbs but 90-percent populated by Albanians who demand independence.
Diplomats say independence is almost certain, despite Serbia's refusal to consider such an outcome. A deal would close a chapter in one of Europe's most pressing diplomatic conundrums.
The province of two million people has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombing drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against ethnic Albanian civilians in a two-year war with separatist rebels.
Neither side has given much ground since then.
Trying to break the ice, the meeting will skirt the hot issue of status and focus on how to devolve power to the 100,000 remaining Serbs, ghettoised and targeted for revenge. Western diplomats have stressed independence hinges on Albanians offering Kosovo's minorities a viable future.
"The majority population here in Kosovo has a right to expect that their aspirations will be met when status is decided," Kosovo's U.N. governor, Soren Jessen-Petersen, said on Sunday. "But it is equally important that the majority is seen to be committed ... on minority issues."
The Contact Group of major powers setting policy on Kosovo says it wants a deal on "final status" within the year.
Belgrade insists independence is unthinkable. Rich in Orthodox religious heritage, Kosovo holds almost mythic status for Serbs, central to their identity for 1,000 years.
But practically self-governing since 1999, Albanians say independence is non-negotiable after a decade of Serb repression in the 1990s.
The Contact Group has urged Belgrade "to bear in mind that the settlement needs to be acceptable to the people of Kosovo."
Western diplomats say this means independence, conditional on major concessions to Serbs and guaranteed by an EU-led supervisory body and extended NATO peacekeeping mandate.
(Additional reporting by Shaban Buza in Pristina)
VIENNA (Reuters) - Serbs and Kosovo Albanians meet in Vienna on Monday for the first round of direct negotiations to decide the fate of Serbia's disputed southern province, with almost all signs pointing to independence.
Two eight-member delegations of mid-level politicians and advisers come together in the 18th century Palais Daun-Kinsky under the chairmanship of Austria's Albert Rohan, deputy to United Nations envoy Martti Ahtisaari.
The talks, delayed a month by the death of president Ibrahim Rugova, is the first since Ahtisaari was appointed in November to broker a deal on Kosovo, sacred land to Serbs but 90-percent populated by Albanians who demand independence.
Diplomats say independence is almost certain, despite Serbia's refusal to consider such an outcome. A deal would close a chapter in one of Europe's most pressing diplomatic conundrums.
The province of two million people has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombing drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against ethnic Albanian civilians in a two-year war with separatist rebels.
Neither side has given much ground since then.
Trying to break the ice, the meeting will skirt the hot issue of status and focus on how to devolve power to the 100,000 remaining Serbs, ghettoised and targeted for revenge. Western diplomats have stressed independence hinges on Albanians offering Kosovo's minorities a viable future.
"The majority population here in Kosovo has a right to expect that their aspirations will be met when status is decided," Kosovo's U.N. governor, Soren Jessen-Petersen, said on Sunday. "But it is equally important that the majority is seen to be committed ... on minority issues."
The Contact Group of major powers setting policy on Kosovo says it wants a deal on "final status" within the year.
Belgrade insists independence is unthinkable. Rich in Orthodox religious heritage, Kosovo holds almost mythic status for Serbs, central to their identity for 1,000 years.
But practically self-governing since 1999, Albanians say independence is non-negotiable after a decade of Serb repression in the 1990s.
The Contact Group has urged Belgrade "to bear in mind that the settlement needs to be acceptable to the people of Kosovo."
Western diplomats say this means independence, conditional on major concessions to Serbs and guaranteed by an EU-led supervisory body and extended NATO peacekeeping mandate.
(Additional reporting by Shaban Buza in Pristina)
Serbia threatens to resist Kosovo independence plan
Ian Traynor Vienna
Monday February 20, 2006
The Guardian
Almost seven years after Nato bombers drove Serbian forces out of Kosovo, negotiations finally start today to determine what is to become of the Balkan province.
With the majority ethnic Albanian population clamouring for independence and Serbia threatening to declare Kosovo "occupied territory" should it lose the province, the talks are certain to be bitter and probably doomed to failure in getting a settlement that suits both sides.
Anticipating deadlock, a respected thinktank recommended that the international community "impose" independence on the UN-administered region.
In a detailed study issued on Friday, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group predicted that Serbia would refuse to yield Kosovo independence. "To create a stable Kosovo, the international community must dare to impose independence rather than attempting to finesse differences with an ambiguous and unstable settlement," the ICG report recommended.
Under the auspices of the UN envoy and former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, the negotiations are to open today in Vienna, concentrating initially on issues of "decentralisation", a codeword for securing the rights of the remaining Serbian minority in an Albanian-dominated Kosovo.
In the run-up to the negotiations, hectic diplomatic activity has been going on behind the scenes, all of it suggesting that the main international powers have already decided that Kosovo will be declared independent by the end of the year, albeit with conditions attached and with an international military presence.
A UN security council debate on Kosovo last week heard that the Kosovan Albanians were still not doing enough to meet the democratic and human rights standards demanded of them. Nonetheless, US, British and French officials all urged a quick settlement, with a British official declaring that independence was probably the only option for Kosovo.
John Sawers, the political director of the Foreign Office, triggered howls of outrage in Serbia earlier this month when he told Serbian leaders that they would lose Kosovo. The main US official dealing with Kosovo, Frank Wisner, sent the same message to the Serbs last week, telling Belgrade that losing Kosovo would strengthen Serbia in the long run.
The status quo is seen as untenable, simultaneously stoking Albanian frustration and Serbian nationalism and grievance - a recipe for future conflict.
The Serbian government in Belgrade is seeking to damage the prospects of independence by refusing to allow the Serbian minority in Kosovo to integrate and to take part in government. The Serbs are offering full autonomy for Kosovo, but insist it must remain part of Serbia.
President Boris Tadic of Serbia argued last week that the issue of Kosovo independence should be shelved for 20 years, a proposal that is unacceptable to the Albanians and the international powers.
The Serbian nationalist leader, Tomislav Nikolic, said he had reached a deal with prime minister Vojislav Kostunica to declare Kosovo "occupied territory" and to resist by "all possible means" any outside imposition of a separate and independent Kosovo.
European leaders hope that Serbian opposition can be bought off with promises of greater integration with - and eventual membership of - the EU for Serbia. But the dynamic could also go the other way, with a nationalist Serbian backlash returning the country to the international pariah status it suffered under the Milosevic regime in the 1990s.
Monday February 20, 2006
The Guardian
Almost seven years after Nato bombers drove Serbian forces out of Kosovo, negotiations finally start today to determine what is to become of the Balkan province.
With the majority ethnic Albanian population clamouring for independence and Serbia threatening to declare Kosovo "occupied territory" should it lose the province, the talks are certain to be bitter and probably doomed to failure in getting a settlement that suits both sides.
Anticipating deadlock, a respected thinktank recommended that the international community "impose" independence on the UN-administered region.
In a detailed study issued on Friday, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group predicted that Serbia would refuse to yield Kosovo independence. "To create a stable Kosovo, the international community must dare to impose independence rather than attempting to finesse differences with an ambiguous and unstable settlement," the ICG report recommended.
Under the auspices of the UN envoy and former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, the negotiations are to open today in Vienna, concentrating initially on issues of "decentralisation", a codeword for securing the rights of the remaining Serbian minority in an Albanian-dominated Kosovo.
In the run-up to the negotiations, hectic diplomatic activity has been going on behind the scenes, all of it suggesting that the main international powers have already decided that Kosovo will be declared independent by the end of the year, albeit with conditions attached and with an international military presence.
A UN security council debate on Kosovo last week heard that the Kosovan Albanians were still not doing enough to meet the democratic and human rights standards demanded of them. Nonetheless, US, British and French officials all urged a quick settlement, with a British official declaring that independence was probably the only option for Kosovo.
John Sawers, the political director of the Foreign Office, triggered howls of outrage in Serbia earlier this month when he told Serbian leaders that they would lose Kosovo. The main US official dealing with Kosovo, Frank Wisner, sent the same message to the Serbs last week, telling Belgrade that losing Kosovo would strengthen Serbia in the long run.
The status quo is seen as untenable, simultaneously stoking Albanian frustration and Serbian nationalism and grievance - a recipe for future conflict.
The Serbian government in Belgrade is seeking to damage the prospects of independence by refusing to allow the Serbian minority in Kosovo to integrate and to take part in government. The Serbs are offering full autonomy for Kosovo, but insist it must remain part of Serbia.
President Boris Tadic of Serbia argued last week that the issue of Kosovo independence should be shelved for 20 years, a proposal that is unacceptable to the Albanians and the international powers.
The Serbian nationalist leader, Tomislav Nikolic, said he had reached a deal with prime minister Vojislav Kostunica to declare Kosovo "occupied territory" and to resist by "all possible means" any outside imposition of a separate and independent Kosovo.
European leaders hope that Serbian opposition can be bought off with promises of greater integration with - and eventual membership of - the EU for Serbia. But the dynamic could also go the other way, with a nationalist Serbian backlash returning the country to the international pariah status it suffered under the Milosevic regime in the 1990s.
Chief UN envoy says Kosovo to become independent
Excerpt from report by Montenegrin radio on 19 February
[Announcer] Here is a report from BETA correspondent Snezana Bogavac from Vienna on the start of Kosovo talks:
[Reporter] One day before the start of Albanian-Serb talks on Kosovo in Vienna UN special envoy for Kosovo status talks Marti Ahtisaari said that Kosovo would become independent. In an interview to German Der Spiegel magazine Ahtisaari said that parameters were clear and that the international community decided that the current status could not be maintained. At a London meeting the Contact Group reached an agreement that the population of Kosovo should finally decide on what the future of Kosovo would be - 90 per cent of the population are Albanians - what do you think, what will their decision be, Ahtisaari said.
The UN envoy also said that Belgrade could not count on realizing its political, economic and national goals if it failed to cooperate in the appropriate way in the search for a solution on the status of Kosovo.
[Announcer] Here is a report from BETA correspondent Snezana Bogavac from Vienna on the start of Kosovo talks:
[Reporter] One day before the start of Albanian-Serb talks on Kosovo in Vienna UN special envoy for Kosovo status talks Marti Ahtisaari said that Kosovo would become independent. In an interview to German Der Spiegel magazine Ahtisaari said that parameters were clear and that the international community decided that the current status could not be maintained. At a London meeting the Contact Group reached an agreement that the population of Kosovo should finally decide on what the future of Kosovo would be - 90 per cent of the population are Albanians - what do you think, what will their decision be, Ahtisaari said.
The UN envoy also said that Belgrade could not count on realizing its political, economic and national goals if it failed to cooperate in the appropriate way in the search for a solution on the status of Kosovo.
Why Kosovo may hold the key to the Balkans’ future
By Stefan Wagstyl
>Published: February 19 2006 18:25 | Last updated: February 19 2006 18:25
>>
It is midnight on the road from the Serbian town of Bujanovac to Gjilan in Kosovo and Serbian police manning a checkpoint are examining passports by torchlight. A few hundred metres along the tarmac, Kosovo guards are doing the same, their fingers so frozen they struggle to turn the pages.
According to the United Nations this is a “boundary” between UN-administered Kosovo and the rest of Serbia. But it looks like an international border, it feels like an international border – and the signs are that it could soon become an international border.
The uncertainty that has hung over the troubled province of Kosovo since Nato troops drove out the forces of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic six years ago is lifting. While little can be taken for granted given the tortuous history of Balkan diplomacy, the international community is considering ending Kosovo’s UN administration and granting some form of conditional independence by the end of the year.
Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanians and the Serbian government in Belgrade are due to start final status talks today. Last month foreign ministers from the US, Russia, the UK, France, Germany and Italy – the Contact Group for Kosovo – called for “all possible efforts” to “achieve a negotiated settlement in the course of 2006”. The ministers did not declare their preferences for Kosovo’s future status. However there are indications the ethnic Albanians are edging closer to the independence they have long sought – to the fury of Belgrade, which insists Kosovo remains an integral part of Serbia.
Soren Jessen-Petersen, Kosovo’s UN administrator, says: “The direction is clear . . . Eventually you have to move forward in recognition of what the majority wants.” By acknowledging the strength of the ethnic Albanian claims, the international community is taking some risks. The advance towards independence could provoke violence in Kosovo and possibly elsewhere in the fractured states that have emerged from the former Yugoslavia.
But these concerns have been offset by a growing sense that the status quo in Kosovo is unsustainable. Frustration among the ethnic Albanians is undermining efforts to promote the economy, cut unemployment and fight organised crime, rife in the western Balkans.
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With the region’s political and economic outlook steadily improving, US and European diplomats have decided there may never be a better time to deal with Kosovo. The European Union late last year started accession talks with Croatia, recognised Macedonia as a membership candidate and opened negotiations on stabilisation and association agreements (entry-level co-operation pacts) with Bosnia and Serbia. Albania, once a byword for Balkan isolation, is due to complete its EU association agreement talks this spring. Meanwhile Romania and Bulgaria, well advanced on the road of EU integration, are due to join the union next year or in 2008 at the latest. The international community finally has something to show for the estimated $35bn that has been spent in the former Yugoslavia in the past 15 years.
It will not pull out. Most of the 23,000 peace-keeping troops still deployed in Kosovo and Bosnia will stay. Economic aid will continue to flow. But, with the US and the EU increasingly absorbed in the fight against terrorism, there is a new urgency about stabilising the Balkans.
Ursula Plassnik, the Austrian foreign minister, says: “For me, this is the European peace project of my generation . . . This is about stability and security in Europe.” It is all a far cry from 1999, when the UN took over a battle-scarred province. To avoid renewed violence, it postponed consideration of Kosovo’s status and urged ethnic Albanians to focus on building institutions, including effective relations with the remaining Serbs, who now make up less than 10 per cent of the population.
But in March 2004 ethnic Albanian frustrations erupted in riots. The UN condemned the violence but recognised time was running out and late last year opened the way for status talks.
Ethnic Albanians envisage only one outcome – independence. Bajram Kosumi, the prime minister, says: “A small country like Kosovo would feel insecure if it didn’t have a UN seat.” However, for Belgrade independence is anathema. The Serbs who are entering the talks with the slogan “more than autonomy, less than independence”, are ready to concede de facto self-government as long as they retain sovereignty de jure. Kosovo remains historic Serb territory which no politician can give away. Boris Tadic, the president says: “For Serbia it’s unacceptable to see Kosovo with a seat in the UN.”
The Contact Group has so far avoided taking sides. Last year it set out its principles – no partition of Kosovo, no union with a neighbouring state and no return to pre-1999 conditions. But the US and the UK are increasingly leaning towards independence for Kosovo. Nicholas Burns, the US undersecretary of state, spoke recently of the ethnic Albanians having to prove they were worthy of independence by protecting minority rights. British officials have talked of “some form of independence”.
Other EU states are more cautious, concerned that early discussion of independence could take the pressure off Pristina to negotiate. One EU diplomat says: “There is concern that if we talk about independence too early, the Serbs will just walk away.” There is much debate about what form independence might take. But the Contact Group agrees minority rights must be guaranteed, peace-keeping troops must stay and an international civilian mission – probably EU-run – put in place.
Russia, which has traditionally backed Belgrade, supports the search for a negotiated settlement. Moscow is worried about setting dangerous precedents for Chechens and other separatists in the former Soviet Union. But it may decide that conditional independence for Kosovo is better than provoking ethnic Albanians radicals.
If the Contact Group pushes for independence, it could face a Serb walk-out and will then have to decide whether to impose a settlement. Such a scenario might even suit Vojislav Kostunica, the Serb prime minister. He will be able to claim he fought as hard as he could then retreated without surrendering.
With the no-compromise Radical party riding high in polls, Mr Kostunica has little negotiating space. Braca Grubacic, a Belgrade commentator, says: “Kosovo is still a taboo subject.” Complicating the Kosovo question is Montenegro, the last remaining republic of the former Yugoslavia that is still linked to Serbia in the joint state of Serbia and Montenegro. However, under an EU-brokered agreement in 2003, Montenegro was promised an independence referendum after three years and the pro-independence Montenegrin government is now preparing for a plebiscite in April. Belgrade says reluctantly that it will abide by a fair result but wants a high threshold for a valid Yes vote. The EU, trying to calm tensions, last week proposed a 55 per cent minimum, which pro-independence Montenegrins say is too high.
The atmosphere in Montenegro is tense, but the issue does not generate the same passion as Kosovo because Serbs and Montenegrins share a Slav background and Orthodox faith. Serbs believe they would not be “losing” Montenegro in the sense that they face “losing” Kosovo to the Muslim ethnic Albanians.
The EU blocked Montenegro’s independence drive three years ago for fear it would set precedents for separatists elsewhere. Today officials are more concerned about the instability created by keeping Kosovo in limbo.
The dangers of fragmentation have not disappeared. In Bosnia, Lord Ashdown pushed the leaders of the two “entities” – Republika Srpska and the Muslim/Croat federation – to establish national institutions including joint military and police forces. The next stage is for the new high representative to give up his viceregal powers and return full sovereignty to the Bosnian government. But the country is still far from functioning as a unified state.
In Macedonia, tensions between the ethnic Albanian minority concentrated in the west of the country and the ethnic Macedonian majority have eased since the country came to the brink of civil war in 2001. The implementation of the power-sharing Ohrid agreement has gone some way to bringing the two communities together. But Macedonia remains vulnerable to instability emanating from neighbouring Kosovo.
Lurking under the surface is radical ethnic Albanian talk of “Greater Albania” – uniting Albania, Kosovo and the ethnic Albanian areas of Macedonia, southern Serbia and southern Montenegro. The discussion is generally limited to political extremists but has qualified support from Arben Xhaferi, a mainstream veteran leader in Macedonia.
Contributing to insecurity in the Balkans is the failure to capture alleged war criminals, particularly Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader, and Ratko Mladic, his military commander. Widespread unemployment also casts a long shadow. The transition from central planning to the market, long delayed by war, is gathering pace. But renewed investment is creating few jobs for the growing numbers of young people, especially among ethnic Albanians where birth rates are high.
The jobless are prey for the recruiting sergeants of organised crime. Balkan gangs have access to weapons and money generated from trafficking guns, drugs and women to western Europe.
For Balkan leaders, the only answer to these problems is what Mr Tadic, the Serbian president, calls “the debalkanisation of the Balkans” through integration with the EU. Balkan politicians worry about growing enlargement fatigue, especially in France where last year’s No in the EU constitutional treaty referendum was widely interpreted as a vote against further expansion. French doubts extend even to Croatia, the most advanced of the western Balkan states.
However, for now, the EU remains committed to integration. The union backs promises of eventual membership, with practical assistance ranging from opening markets to visa facilitation. It is by far the largest aid donor with €5.3bn pledged in the past six years. EU officials play vital roles in Bosnia, Macedonia and Kosovo. And drawing on its experience in former communist eastern Europe, the union is pushing economic reform.
As Ms Plassnik, the Austrian foreign minister, says: “The union has enormous transformational experience.” None of this guarantees success. Another round of inter-ethnic violence could undermine the progress of the last few years. That is why diplomats are keen to reach a final settlement for Kosovo. For without stability in Kosovo, there can be no real stability in the Balkans.
Hunt for justice reopens wounds
Just below the surface of bargaining over the future status of Kosovo lurks a legacy of bitterness. Its cause is events before and during the 1999 war sparked by ethnic-Albanian demands for independence from Serbia, writes Neil MacDonald.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the United Nations court dealing with war crimes, has indicted members of practically all major ethnic factions, whether in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo or those allegedly involved in the more limited conflict in Macedonia.
So far not one ethnic-Serb defendant has been cleared and released, compared with at least four Croats, one Bosnian Muslim and one Kosovo Albanian. More than three-quarters of guilty verdicts and almost two-thirds of indictments have been against Serbs – a fact that has not gone unnoticed in Serbia.
Some international lawyers have also criticised the tribunal for implicitly exempting US or Nato commanders from prosecution for the aerial bombardment that terminated Belgrade’s grip on Kosovo and brought down the then-Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, whose trial at the Hague has entered a fourth year. For now, international attention is focused on the hunt for the remaining fugitives from ICTY justice, all Serbs.
Ratko Mladic, former Bosnian Serb military commander, is suspected of organising the ugliest incident in the Yugoslav break-up: the execution of up to 8,000 men and boys in the Bosnian Muslim “safe haven” around Srebrenica in July, 1995. Serbian defence officials recently disclosed that 50 Yugoslav and Bosnian Serb officers have illegally hidden Gen Mladic over three-and-a-half years.
Tribunal prosecutors are also seeking Radovan Karadzic, former president of the breakaway Bosnian Serbs, for alleged crimes against Croats and Muslims.
But atrocities in the Yugoslav wars were far from one-sided. The arrest late last year of Ante Gotovina, ex-French Foreign Legion corporal and successful Croatian operational commander, cleared the way for his homeland to enter the EU soon, officials said. The indictment against Gen Gotovina also names Franjo Tudman, Croatia’s wartime president, so his death may have spared the ICTY a dicey political problem.
Yet Serbian sensitivities are highest over Kosovo. Of 12 current defendants in Kosovo-related cases, five are veterans of the ethnic-Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), including some who went on to serve in the UN-backed Kosovo Protection Corps. Sandra Raskovic-Ivic, Serbia’s chief co-ordinator for the UN-sponsored status negotiations, complains about “Hague indictees who were involved in killings . . . who have changed into suits and claim to be ‘democratic.’ ”
Ramush Haradinaj resigned last year as Kosovo’s prime minister and turned himself in to the tribunal to face charges of persecuting Serbs, Gypsies and suspected collaborators among the ethnic Albanians. Mr Haradinaj has been granted a provisional release, allowing him to conduct some public political activities until his trial.
Kosovo could prove the key to convicting Mr Milosevic, as “command responsibility” could be easier to pin on him there than in Bosnia. Up to June 1997, Mr Milosevic was president only of Serbia and not technically responsible for military and police units. By the time the Kosovo war broke out he led the Yugoslav federation and held de jure command.
But ethnic grudges run far deeper than command responsibility. Kosovan Serbs collaborated “quite a lot” with Milosevic’s regime, says Alex Anderson, Kosovo director for Brussels-based International Crisis Group. It is a role their Albanian neighbours refuse to forget.
>Published: February 19 2006 18:25 | Last updated: February 19 2006 18:25
>>
It is midnight on the road from the Serbian town of Bujanovac to Gjilan in Kosovo and Serbian police manning a checkpoint are examining passports by torchlight. A few hundred metres along the tarmac, Kosovo guards are doing the same, their fingers so frozen they struggle to turn the pages.
According to the United Nations this is a “boundary” between UN-administered Kosovo and the rest of Serbia. But it looks like an international border, it feels like an international border – and the signs are that it could soon become an international border.
The uncertainty that has hung over the troubled province of Kosovo since Nato troops drove out the forces of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic six years ago is lifting. While little can be taken for granted given the tortuous history of Balkan diplomacy, the international community is considering ending Kosovo’s UN administration and granting some form of conditional independence by the end of the year.
Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanians and the Serbian government in Belgrade are due to start final status talks today. Last month foreign ministers from the US, Russia, the UK, France, Germany and Italy – the Contact Group for Kosovo – called for “all possible efforts” to “achieve a negotiated settlement in the course of 2006”. The ministers did not declare their preferences for Kosovo’s future status. However there are indications the ethnic Albanians are edging closer to the independence they have long sought – to the fury of Belgrade, which insists Kosovo remains an integral part of Serbia.
Soren Jessen-Petersen, Kosovo’s UN administrator, says: “The direction is clear . . . Eventually you have to move forward in recognition of what the majority wants.” By acknowledging the strength of the ethnic Albanian claims, the international community is taking some risks. The advance towards independence could provoke violence in Kosovo and possibly elsewhere in the fractured states that have emerged from the former Yugoslavia.
But these concerns have been offset by a growing sense that the status quo in Kosovo is unsustainable. Frustration among the ethnic Albanians is undermining efforts to promote the economy, cut unemployment and fight organised crime, rife in the western Balkans.
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With the region’s political and economic outlook steadily improving, US and European diplomats have decided there may never be a better time to deal with Kosovo. The European Union late last year started accession talks with Croatia, recognised Macedonia as a membership candidate and opened negotiations on stabilisation and association agreements (entry-level co-operation pacts) with Bosnia and Serbia. Albania, once a byword for Balkan isolation, is due to complete its EU association agreement talks this spring. Meanwhile Romania and Bulgaria, well advanced on the road of EU integration, are due to join the union next year or in 2008 at the latest. The international community finally has something to show for the estimated $35bn that has been spent in the former Yugoslavia in the past 15 years.
It will not pull out. Most of the 23,000 peace-keeping troops still deployed in Kosovo and Bosnia will stay. Economic aid will continue to flow. But, with the US and the EU increasingly absorbed in the fight against terrorism, there is a new urgency about stabilising the Balkans.
Ursula Plassnik, the Austrian foreign minister, says: “For me, this is the European peace project of my generation . . . This is about stability and security in Europe.” It is all a far cry from 1999, when the UN took over a battle-scarred province. To avoid renewed violence, it postponed consideration of Kosovo’s status and urged ethnic Albanians to focus on building institutions, including effective relations with the remaining Serbs, who now make up less than 10 per cent of the population.
But in March 2004 ethnic Albanian frustrations erupted in riots. The UN condemned the violence but recognised time was running out and late last year opened the way for status talks.
Ethnic Albanians envisage only one outcome – independence. Bajram Kosumi, the prime minister, says: “A small country like Kosovo would feel insecure if it didn’t have a UN seat.” However, for Belgrade independence is anathema. The Serbs who are entering the talks with the slogan “more than autonomy, less than independence”, are ready to concede de facto self-government as long as they retain sovereignty de jure. Kosovo remains historic Serb territory which no politician can give away. Boris Tadic, the president says: “For Serbia it’s unacceptable to see Kosovo with a seat in the UN.”
The Contact Group has so far avoided taking sides. Last year it set out its principles – no partition of Kosovo, no union with a neighbouring state and no return to pre-1999 conditions. But the US and the UK are increasingly leaning towards independence for Kosovo. Nicholas Burns, the US undersecretary of state, spoke recently of the ethnic Albanians having to prove they were worthy of independence by protecting minority rights. British officials have talked of “some form of independence”.
Other EU states are more cautious, concerned that early discussion of independence could take the pressure off Pristina to negotiate. One EU diplomat says: “There is concern that if we talk about independence too early, the Serbs will just walk away.” There is much debate about what form independence might take. But the Contact Group agrees minority rights must be guaranteed, peace-keeping troops must stay and an international civilian mission – probably EU-run – put in place.
Russia, which has traditionally backed Belgrade, supports the search for a negotiated settlement. Moscow is worried about setting dangerous precedents for Chechens and other separatists in the former Soviet Union. But it may decide that conditional independence for Kosovo is better than provoking ethnic Albanians radicals.
If the Contact Group pushes for independence, it could face a Serb walk-out and will then have to decide whether to impose a settlement. Such a scenario might even suit Vojislav Kostunica, the Serb prime minister. He will be able to claim he fought as hard as he could then retreated without surrendering.
With the no-compromise Radical party riding high in polls, Mr Kostunica has little negotiating space. Braca Grubacic, a Belgrade commentator, says: “Kosovo is still a taboo subject.” Complicating the Kosovo question is Montenegro, the last remaining republic of the former Yugoslavia that is still linked to Serbia in the joint state of Serbia and Montenegro. However, under an EU-brokered agreement in 2003, Montenegro was promised an independence referendum after three years and the pro-independence Montenegrin government is now preparing for a plebiscite in April. Belgrade says reluctantly that it will abide by a fair result but wants a high threshold for a valid Yes vote. The EU, trying to calm tensions, last week proposed a 55 per cent minimum, which pro-independence Montenegrins say is too high.
The atmosphere in Montenegro is tense, but the issue does not generate the same passion as Kosovo because Serbs and Montenegrins share a Slav background and Orthodox faith. Serbs believe they would not be “losing” Montenegro in the sense that they face “losing” Kosovo to the Muslim ethnic Albanians.
The EU blocked Montenegro’s independence drive three years ago for fear it would set precedents for separatists elsewhere. Today officials are more concerned about the instability created by keeping Kosovo in limbo.
The dangers of fragmentation have not disappeared. In Bosnia, Lord Ashdown pushed the leaders of the two “entities” – Republika Srpska and the Muslim/Croat federation – to establish national institutions including joint military and police forces. The next stage is for the new high representative to give up his viceregal powers and return full sovereignty to the Bosnian government. But the country is still far from functioning as a unified state.
In Macedonia, tensions between the ethnic Albanian minority concentrated in the west of the country and the ethnic Macedonian majority have eased since the country came to the brink of civil war in 2001. The implementation of the power-sharing Ohrid agreement has gone some way to bringing the two communities together. But Macedonia remains vulnerable to instability emanating from neighbouring Kosovo.
Lurking under the surface is radical ethnic Albanian talk of “Greater Albania” – uniting Albania, Kosovo and the ethnic Albanian areas of Macedonia, southern Serbia and southern Montenegro. The discussion is generally limited to political extremists but has qualified support from Arben Xhaferi, a mainstream veteran leader in Macedonia.
Contributing to insecurity in the Balkans is the failure to capture alleged war criminals, particularly Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader, and Ratko Mladic, his military commander. Widespread unemployment also casts a long shadow. The transition from central planning to the market, long delayed by war, is gathering pace. But renewed investment is creating few jobs for the growing numbers of young people, especially among ethnic Albanians where birth rates are high.
The jobless are prey for the recruiting sergeants of organised crime. Balkan gangs have access to weapons and money generated from trafficking guns, drugs and women to western Europe.
For Balkan leaders, the only answer to these problems is what Mr Tadic, the Serbian president, calls “the debalkanisation of the Balkans” through integration with the EU. Balkan politicians worry about growing enlargement fatigue, especially in France where last year’s No in the EU constitutional treaty referendum was widely interpreted as a vote against further expansion. French doubts extend even to Croatia, the most advanced of the western Balkan states.
However, for now, the EU remains committed to integration. The union backs promises of eventual membership, with practical assistance ranging from opening markets to visa facilitation. It is by far the largest aid donor with €5.3bn pledged in the past six years. EU officials play vital roles in Bosnia, Macedonia and Kosovo. And drawing on its experience in former communist eastern Europe, the union is pushing economic reform.
As Ms Plassnik, the Austrian foreign minister, says: “The union has enormous transformational experience.” None of this guarantees success. Another round of inter-ethnic violence could undermine the progress of the last few years. That is why diplomats are keen to reach a final settlement for Kosovo. For without stability in Kosovo, there can be no real stability in the Balkans.
Hunt for justice reopens wounds
Just below the surface of bargaining over the future status of Kosovo lurks a legacy of bitterness. Its cause is events before and during the 1999 war sparked by ethnic-Albanian demands for independence from Serbia, writes Neil MacDonald.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the United Nations court dealing with war crimes, has indicted members of practically all major ethnic factions, whether in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo or those allegedly involved in the more limited conflict in Macedonia.
So far not one ethnic-Serb defendant has been cleared and released, compared with at least four Croats, one Bosnian Muslim and one Kosovo Albanian. More than three-quarters of guilty verdicts and almost two-thirds of indictments have been against Serbs – a fact that has not gone unnoticed in Serbia.
Some international lawyers have also criticised the tribunal for implicitly exempting US or Nato commanders from prosecution for the aerial bombardment that terminated Belgrade’s grip on Kosovo and brought down the then-Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, whose trial at the Hague has entered a fourth year. For now, international attention is focused on the hunt for the remaining fugitives from ICTY justice, all Serbs.
Ratko Mladic, former Bosnian Serb military commander, is suspected of organising the ugliest incident in the Yugoslav break-up: the execution of up to 8,000 men and boys in the Bosnian Muslim “safe haven” around Srebrenica in July, 1995. Serbian defence officials recently disclosed that 50 Yugoslav and Bosnian Serb officers have illegally hidden Gen Mladic over three-and-a-half years.
Tribunal prosecutors are also seeking Radovan Karadzic, former president of the breakaway Bosnian Serbs, for alleged crimes against Croats and Muslims.
But atrocities in the Yugoslav wars were far from one-sided. The arrest late last year of Ante Gotovina, ex-French Foreign Legion corporal and successful Croatian operational commander, cleared the way for his homeland to enter the EU soon, officials said. The indictment against Gen Gotovina also names Franjo Tudman, Croatia’s wartime president, so his death may have spared the ICTY a dicey political problem.
Yet Serbian sensitivities are highest over Kosovo. Of 12 current defendants in Kosovo-related cases, five are veterans of the ethnic-Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), including some who went on to serve in the UN-backed Kosovo Protection Corps. Sandra Raskovic-Ivic, Serbia’s chief co-ordinator for the UN-sponsored status negotiations, complains about “Hague indictees who were involved in killings . . . who have changed into suits and claim to be ‘democratic.’ ”
Ramush Haradinaj resigned last year as Kosovo’s prime minister and turned himself in to the tribunal to face charges of persecuting Serbs, Gypsies and suspected collaborators among the ethnic Albanians. Mr Haradinaj has been granted a provisional release, allowing him to conduct some public political activities until his trial.
Kosovo could prove the key to convicting Mr Milosevic, as “command responsibility” could be easier to pin on him there than in Bosnia. Up to June 1997, Mr Milosevic was president only of Serbia and not technically responsible for military and police units. By the time the Kosovo war broke out he led the Yugoslav federation and held de jure command.
But ethnic grudges run far deeper than command responsibility. Kosovan Serbs collaborated “quite a lot” with Milosevic’s regime, says Alex Anderson, Kosovo director for Brussels-based International Crisis Group. It is a role their Albanian neighbours refuse to forget.
EU envoy incorrectly reporting Contact Group's decisions - Serbian government
Excerpt from report by Serbian independent news agency FoNet
Belgrade, 19 February: Only the [UN] Security Council has a mandate to solve the Kosovo-Metohija issue, the head of the Serbian government press service, Srdjan Djuric, said today, adding that the special envoy to the UN secretary general, Martti Ahtisaari, has no mandate to determine the province's final status, [and to do so] even before the talks have started.
Reacting to Ahtisaari's latest statement [that Kosovo will eventually become independent], Djuric said that "this is not the first time that the decisions reached by the the Contact Group at its session on 31 January are being wrongly and incorrectly reported".
"Our public and the international public is familiar with the integral statement issued after the meeting and, quite simply, by reading these decisions, one can see that Ahtisaari is actually wrongly and incorrectly adding things to the Contact Group's statement," Djuric said. [Passage omitted]
Source: FoNet news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1557 gmt 19 Feb 06
Belgrade, 19 February: Only the [UN] Security Council has a mandate to solve the Kosovo-Metohija issue, the head of the Serbian government press service, Srdjan Djuric, said today, adding that the special envoy to the UN secretary general, Martti Ahtisaari, has no mandate to determine the province's final status, [and to do so] even before the talks have started.
Reacting to Ahtisaari's latest statement [that Kosovo will eventually become independent], Djuric said that "this is not the first time that the decisions reached by the the Contact Group at its session on 31 January are being wrongly and incorrectly reported".
"Our public and the international public is familiar with the integral statement issued after the meeting and, quite simply, by reading these decisions, one can see that Ahtisaari is actually wrongly and incorrectly adding things to the Contact Group's statement," Djuric said. [Passage omitted]
Source: FoNet news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1557 gmt 19 Feb 06
Kosovo revolutionary seeks action, not words
By Matthew Robinson
PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Albin Kurti is an unlikely threat to national security. The boyish face, black-rimmed glasses and knee-length overcoat ring more of a mature Harry Potter than the terrorist Serbia labeled him in the late 1990s.
In the past eight years, the now 30-year old Kosovo Albanian has evolved from student activist to rebel to relentless gadfly for the U.N. mission running Kosovo since 1999.
As the disputed province opens direct negotiations with Serbia on Monday to seal its fate, Kurti is not afraid to again swim against the tide.
"There's many things we should talk about with Belgrade, but only when Belgrade quits with its aspirations to regain Kosovo," he said this week in the chaotic Pristina office of "Self Determination" -- his latest vehicle of political subversion.
Like a hippie commune, scruffy co-conspirators lounge on chairs, hanging on his every fluent English word.
"When Belgrade accepts the will of the people, then we can negotiate. But under the present situation, when there's no regret for the past and no justice for the victims ... there can be no negotiations and no compromise."
Such sentiments are common among the 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority, for whom Serbia remains the enemy banished by homegrown guerrillas and NATO bombs in 1999.
By tapping into this widespread sense of mistrust, Kurti and his 7,000-strong political movement want to torpedo the talks and pursue the right to a referendum on independence.
"We want to ready ourselves for big demonstrations. The people taking part should be able to protest long term. Days, weeks, months. Not 50,000 people for two hours who then go home and watch themselves on TV," Kurti said."
Negotiations, so his argument goes, can only lead to compromise, which means Kosovo settling for less than the independence it demands.
KURTI FACTOR
Kurti's influence is limited, but growing.
U.N. officials and foreign diplomats watch the so-called "Kurti Factor" closely. They fear the protests he promises could trigger another bout of violence and scupper the U.N.-led process of mediation, launched late last year.
Kurti's youthful appearance belies his experience.
As leader of the politically vocal student union, he was behind several mass protests against Serb rule in the late 1990s. In 1998 he became right-hand-man to Adem Demaci, the political representative of the Kosovo Liberation Army that was waging a guerrilla war against Serb forces.
Then in 1999, as NATO bombs drove out Serb forces accused of killing and expelling ethnic Albanians, he was arrested on terrorism charges and spent almost three years in Serbian jails.
Since his release in 2001, Kurti has been railing against U.N. "colonialists" who put the people's future on ice while preaching tolerance to the jobless and disaffected.
Town hall meetings and satirical stunts have brought him into living rooms across Kosovo. Flyers and graffiti -- "No negotiations, self-determination" -- litter the province.
The evening news often carries shots of Kurti and his cohorts being bundled into police vans after letting down U.N. car tyres or hurling eggs at visiting Serb officials.
The message: The compromise demanded by the international community means Albanians acquiescing in the division of Kosovo into ethnic areas, as happened in Bosnia after the 1992-95 war.
With Belgrade and Pristina so far apart, talks can only fail, he says. "And when there's no agreement there will be war. That's why we want to stop negotiations as soon as possible."
Kurti graduated in computer sciences, but his real education is in political theory and civil disobedience.
"Like Gandhi said: first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. They're still not fighting us."
PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Albin Kurti is an unlikely threat to national security. The boyish face, black-rimmed glasses and knee-length overcoat ring more of a mature Harry Potter than the terrorist Serbia labeled him in the late 1990s.
In the past eight years, the now 30-year old Kosovo Albanian has evolved from student activist to rebel to relentless gadfly for the U.N. mission running Kosovo since 1999.
As the disputed province opens direct negotiations with Serbia on Monday to seal its fate, Kurti is not afraid to again swim against the tide.
"There's many things we should talk about with Belgrade, but only when Belgrade quits with its aspirations to regain Kosovo," he said this week in the chaotic Pristina office of "Self Determination" -- his latest vehicle of political subversion.
Like a hippie commune, scruffy co-conspirators lounge on chairs, hanging on his every fluent English word.
"When Belgrade accepts the will of the people, then we can negotiate. But under the present situation, when there's no regret for the past and no justice for the victims ... there can be no negotiations and no compromise."
Such sentiments are common among the 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority, for whom Serbia remains the enemy banished by homegrown guerrillas and NATO bombs in 1999.
By tapping into this widespread sense of mistrust, Kurti and his 7,000-strong political movement want to torpedo the talks and pursue the right to a referendum on independence.
"We want to ready ourselves for big demonstrations. The people taking part should be able to protest long term. Days, weeks, months. Not 50,000 people for two hours who then go home and watch themselves on TV," Kurti said."
Negotiations, so his argument goes, can only lead to compromise, which means Kosovo settling for less than the independence it demands.
KURTI FACTOR
Kurti's influence is limited, but growing.
U.N. officials and foreign diplomats watch the so-called "Kurti Factor" closely. They fear the protests he promises could trigger another bout of violence and scupper the U.N.-led process of mediation, launched late last year.
Kurti's youthful appearance belies his experience.
As leader of the politically vocal student union, he was behind several mass protests against Serb rule in the late 1990s. In 1998 he became right-hand-man to Adem Demaci, the political representative of the Kosovo Liberation Army that was waging a guerrilla war against Serb forces.
Then in 1999, as NATO bombs drove out Serb forces accused of killing and expelling ethnic Albanians, he was arrested on terrorism charges and spent almost three years in Serbian jails.
Since his release in 2001, Kurti has been railing against U.N. "colonialists" who put the people's future on ice while preaching tolerance to the jobless and disaffected.
Town hall meetings and satirical stunts have brought him into living rooms across Kosovo. Flyers and graffiti -- "No negotiations, self-determination" -- litter the province.
The evening news often carries shots of Kurti and his cohorts being bundled into police vans after letting down U.N. car tyres or hurling eggs at visiting Serb officials.
The message: The compromise demanded by the international community means Albanians acquiescing in the division of Kosovo into ethnic areas, as happened in Bosnia after the 1992-95 war.
With Belgrade and Pristina so far apart, talks can only fail, he says. "And when there's no agreement there will be war. That's why we want to stop negotiations as soon as possible."
Kurti graduated in computer sciences, but his real education is in political theory and civil disobedience.
"Like Gandhi said: first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. They're still not fighting us."
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Kosovo talks must tackle practical issues-Ahtisaari
HELSINKI, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Talks on the future of Kosovo need to address practical questions quickly, Martti Ahtisaari, the U.N. special envoy to the disputed Serb province, was quoted as saying on Saturday.
The first round of face-to-face negotiations between Serbian and Kosovo Albanian officials are due to take place in Vienna on Monday after being delayed by the death of Kosovo president Ibrahim Rugova on Jan. 21.
"We have to come to practical questions quickly, not only (discuss) which norms will be enforced but also how the purely concrete issues will be resolved," Ahtisaari told Finnish daily Hufvudstadbladet in an interview.
Kosovo is legally part of Serbia, and the province became a U.N. protectorate in 1999 when NATO bombings drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in a two-year war with separatist guerrillas.
Serbia officially opposes Kosovo's independence, but 90 percent of the population are ethnic Albanians who demand nothing less than their own state after years of discrimination and violent repression.
Ahtisaari, who is a former Finnish president, said that decentralisation of Kosovo was the first item of discussion, adding it was no suprise for there to be a difference of opinion on the independence of Kosovo at the beginning of the talks.
"(But) it's not only a question of what Belgrade and Pristina want. We have to remember that Kosovo's future is in the hands of the Security Council," Ahtisaari said.
"It is of utmost importance to create conditions in which all minorities can feel safe and can stay in the area if they want to," he said, adding that the focus would be on changing laws and on other concrete measures.
He also said that for Serbia there was more at stake than a solution on Kosovo, and if Belgrade proved unable to cooperate, it could impact the country's integration into Europe and make membership in the EU or NATO difficult.
The U.N. Security Council appointed Ahtisaari at the end of last year to head a mediation process to decide on Kosovo's "final status".
Earlier this year the Contact Group of major powers -- the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia -- said a deal should be on the table within a year.
When asked about the timetable for talks, Ahtisaari said his mandate lasted until Nov. 9.
The first round of face-to-face negotiations between Serbian and Kosovo Albanian officials are due to take place in Vienna on Monday after being delayed by the death of Kosovo president Ibrahim Rugova on Jan. 21.
"We have to come to practical questions quickly, not only (discuss) which norms will be enforced but also how the purely concrete issues will be resolved," Ahtisaari told Finnish daily Hufvudstadbladet in an interview.
Kosovo is legally part of Serbia, and the province became a U.N. protectorate in 1999 when NATO bombings drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in a two-year war with separatist guerrillas.
Serbia officially opposes Kosovo's independence, but 90 percent of the population are ethnic Albanians who demand nothing less than their own state after years of discrimination and violent repression.
Ahtisaari, who is a former Finnish president, said that decentralisation of Kosovo was the first item of discussion, adding it was no suprise for there to be a difference of opinion on the independence of Kosovo at the beginning of the talks.
"(But) it's not only a question of what Belgrade and Pristina want. We have to remember that Kosovo's future is in the hands of the Security Council," Ahtisaari said.
"It is of utmost importance to create conditions in which all minorities can feel safe and can stay in the area if they want to," he said, adding that the focus would be on changing laws and on other concrete measures.
He also said that for Serbia there was more at stake than a solution on Kosovo, and if Belgrade proved unable to cooperate, it could impact the country's integration into Europe and make membership in the EU or NATO difficult.
The U.N. Security Council appointed Ahtisaari at the end of last year to head a mediation process to decide on Kosovo's "final status".
Earlier this year the Contact Group of major powers -- the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia -- said a deal should be on the table within a year.
When asked about the timetable for talks, Ahtisaari said his mandate lasted until Nov. 9.
Serbia declined US envoy's "deal" over Kosovo independence - PM's adviser
Text of report by Belgrade-based private BKTV on 18 February
[Presenter Gordana Juzbasic] An adviser to the prime minister of Serbia [Vojislav Kostunica], Vladeta Jankovic, has claimed that US special envoy for Kosovo [status talks] Frank Wisner during a recent session of the [UN] Security Council noted in an informal discussion that Kosovo independence was a good option for Serbia. Wisner constantly reiterated that Serbia only had problems coming from Kosovo, adding that we were not capable of exercising our authority there and there was a serious danger of an Albanian revolt if they do not get independence. In other words, Jankovic said, Wisner was offering some sort of a deal and tradeoff, but we declined this.
[Presenter Gordana Juzbasic] An adviser to the prime minister of Serbia [Vojislav Kostunica], Vladeta Jankovic, has claimed that US special envoy for Kosovo [status talks] Frank Wisner during a recent session of the [UN] Security Council noted in an informal discussion that Kosovo independence was a good option for Serbia. Wisner constantly reiterated that Serbia only had problems coming from Kosovo, adding that we were not capable of exercising our authority there and there was a serious danger of an Albanian revolt if they do not get independence. In other words, Jankovic said, Wisner was offering some sort of a deal and tradeoff, but we declined this.
EU, Albania sign stabilization pact
After three years of association talks, the European Union and the Albanian government on Saturday signed the Stabilization and Association Agreement, bringing Albania closer to the club of EU.
EU Commissioner on Enlargement Olli Rehn and Albanian Foreign Minister Besnik Mustafaj inked the agreement on behalf of the EU and the Albanian government, respectively.
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha and the head of European Commission Manuel Barroso attended the ceremony.
In his address after the ceremony, Berisha said the agreement is a roadmap leading Albania to Europe.
"We regard this moment as an obligation as well as an opportunity. We are committed to implementing the agreement to make it a real the nation's dream of integrating into EU, "said Berisha.
In his speech after the ceremony, Barroso congratulated Albania on the success they achieved.
"This is indeed an historical moment on the road of Albania's integration into EU," said Barroso.
Barroso urged the Albanian side to work hard for the implementation of the agreement.
"Another important step, after the signing (of the agreement) in the spring, is the implementation of the agreement," said Barroso.
The EU decided to introduce a Stability Pact, a plan to stabilize the region, for the five Balkan countries, namely Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Bosnia- Montenegro.
Macedonia was the first country to conclude the Stabilization and Association Agreement on April 9, 2001, and it was granted candidate status last December.
Croatia was the second to sign the agreement on Oct. 29, 2001.
Talks on the agreement between Albania and the EU started in January 2003. Final approval of the agreement is to follow at EU summit in Vienna before the end of June.
EU Commissioner on Enlargement Olli Rehn and Albanian Foreign Minister Besnik Mustafaj inked the agreement on behalf of the EU and the Albanian government, respectively.
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha and the head of European Commission Manuel Barroso attended the ceremony.
In his address after the ceremony, Berisha said the agreement is a roadmap leading Albania to Europe.
"We regard this moment as an obligation as well as an opportunity. We are committed to implementing the agreement to make it a real the nation's dream of integrating into EU, "said Berisha.
In his speech after the ceremony, Barroso congratulated Albania on the success they achieved.
"This is indeed an historical moment on the road of Albania's integration into EU," said Barroso.
Barroso urged the Albanian side to work hard for the implementation of the agreement.
"Another important step, after the signing (of the agreement) in the spring, is the implementation of the agreement," said Barroso.
The EU decided to introduce a Stability Pact, a plan to stabilize the region, for the five Balkan countries, namely Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Bosnia- Montenegro.
Macedonia was the first country to conclude the Stabilization and Association Agreement on April 9, 2001, and it was granted candidate status last December.
Croatia was the second to sign the agreement on Oct. 29, 2001.
Talks on the agreement between Albania and the EU started in January 2003. Final approval of the agreement is to follow at EU summit in Vienna before the end of June.
Hopeful Words on European Union Expansion in the Balkans
By NICHOLAS WOOD
LJUBLJANA, Slovenia, Feb. 17 — During his tour of the Balkans, the first by a president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso on Friday affirmed the European Union's commitment to expanding to include the entire region.
In a visit that began Wednesday in Croatia and continued to Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia, Mr. Barroso, a former Portuguese prime minister, repeatedly outlined a future in which every Balkan country could be granted membership. Albania and Bosnia were also on the itinerary.
"You are a European country, and you should have a European future," Mr. Barroso said at a news conference in Belgrade, Serbia, on Thursday.
His comments were a change of tone for a region where visiting politicians focus more on the hurdles preventing the various nations from gaining European Union membership — most notably the lingering nationalism left from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia and the failure of states to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
"I did not come to Belgrade to talk about the Hague tribunal alone," Mr. Barroso said at the Belgrade news conference. "The future of Serbia, whose perspective is within Europe, is much more important, and if there are obstacles to this they should be removed."
He later traveled to the capital of Macedonia, Skopje, before going to Albania and Bosnia, accompanied by the European Union enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn. They made the trip nearly a year after the European constitution was voted down in referendums in France and the Netherlands.
The western Balkans lag far behind their former Communist neighbors on the road to European Union membership. If Romania and Bulgaria join the union in 2007 as expected, the western Balkans will be surrounded by European member states, including Greece, Hungary and Slovenia.
But just two Balkan countries, Croatia and Macedonia, are officially recognized as candidates and none of the five states (Kosovo is technically still a province of Serbia) have a clear timetable for possible membership.
Officials said the visit by Mr. Barroso was meant to help prepare the ground for a conference in Salzburg, Austria, on March 10 to discuss a regional free-trade zone and a better visa system for students.
In Serbia, delegations over the past two weeks have criticized the government for failing to find the war crimes suspects Radovan Karadzic, the wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs, and his military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic. They have also warned that Serbia faces the permanent loss of Kosovo, which is now administered by the United Nations. Talks on the future of the province are to start Monday in Vienna.
"The sense of this whole visit is more of a carrot than the stick we have seen in the last two weeks," Bratislav Grubacic, editor of the VIP agency, a center for political analysis in Belgrade, said in a telephone interview.
European Union officials said Serbian officials, who have started negotiations on a Stabilization and Association Agreement, a contractual arrangement that offers incentives and sets political and economic conditions for entry into the union, could see those talks suspended this month unless cooperation with the war crimes tribunal improved.
Mr. Grubacic said Mr. Barroso appeared to be trying to shift public opinion in the region in favor of European membership at a time when the potential for increased nationalism was high, because of the talks over Kosovo.
Mr. Barroso's tour was welcomed by the European Stability Initiative, a political research group that monitors the bloc's policy toward the region. Its director, Gerald Knaus, described Mr. Barroso's statements as encouraging for those who see European Union membership as a key to political and economic stability.
But he said the commission's message was not being matched by member states, many of which remain ambivalent about having countries in the region join the union. Russia, Mr. Knaus said, will soon have a better visa system with the European Union than the western Balkans, and North African countries have better access to European textile markets.
"In substantive terms, and not rhetoric, it is not encouraging," Mr. Knaus said in a telephone interview from Istanbul.
LJUBLJANA, Slovenia, Feb. 17 — During his tour of the Balkans, the first by a president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso on Friday affirmed the European Union's commitment to expanding to include the entire region.
In a visit that began Wednesday in Croatia and continued to Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia, Mr. Barroso, a former Portuguese prime minister, repeatedly outlined a future in which every Balkan country could be granted membership. Albania and Bosnia were also on the itinerary.
"You are a European country, and you should have a European future," Mr. Barroso said at a news conference in Belgrade, Serbia, on Thursday.
His comments were a change of tone for a region where visiting politicians focus more on the hurdles preventing the various nations from gaining European Union membership — most notably the lingering nationalism left from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia and the failure of states to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
"I did not come to Belgrade to talk about the Hague tribunal alone," Mr. Barroso said at the Belgrade news conference. "The future of Serbia, whose perspective is within Europe, is much more important, and if there are obstacles to this they should be removed."
He later traveled to the capital of Macedonia, Skopje, before going to Albania and Bosnia, accompanied by the European Union enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn. They made the trip nearly a year after the European constitution was voted down in referendums in France and the Netherlands.
The western Balkans lag far behind their former Communist neighbors on the road to European Union membership. If Romania and Bulgaria join the union in 2007 as expected, the western Balkans will be surrounded by European member states, including Greece, Hungary and Slovenia.
But just two Balkan countries, Croatia and Macedonia, are officially recognized as candidates and none of the five states (Kosovo is technically still a province of Serbia) have a clear timetable for possible membership.
Officials said the visit by Mr. Barroso was meant to help prepare the ground for a conference in Salzburg, Austria, on March 10 to discuss a regional free-trade zone and a better visa system for students.
In Serbia, delegations over the past two weeks have criticized the government for failing to find the war crimes suspects Radovan Karadzic, the wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs, and his military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic. They have also warned that Serbia faces the permanent loss of Kosovo, which is now administered by the United Nations. Talks on the future of the province are to start Monday in Vienna.
"The sense of this whole visit is more of a carrot than the stick we have seen in the last two weeks," Bratislav Grubacic, editor of the VIP agency, a center for political analysis in Belgrade, said in a telephone interview.
European Union officials said Serbian officials, who have started negotiations on a Stabilization and Association Agreement, a contractual arrangement that offers incentives and sets political and economic conditions for entry into the union, could see those talks suspended this month unless cooperation with the war crimes tribunal improved.
Mr. Grubacic said Mr. Barroso appeared to be trying to shift public opinion in the region in favor of European membership at a time when the potential for increased nationalism was high, because of the talks over Kosovo.
Mr. Barroso's tour was welcomed by the European Stability Initiative, a political research group that monitors the bloc's policy toward the region. Its director, Gerald Knaus, described Mr. Barroso's statements as encouraging for those who see European Union membership as a key to political and economic stability.
But he said the commission's message was not being matched by member states, many of which remain ambivalent about having countries in the region join the union. Russia, Mr. Knaus said, will soon have a better visa system with the European Union than the western Balkans, and North African countries have better access to European textile markets.
"In substantive terms, and not rhetoric, it is not encouraging," Mr. Knaus said in a telephone interview from Istanbul.
Bosnian rape drama 'Grbavica' wins Berlin's Golden Bear top prize
Bosnian rape drama 'Grbavica' wins Berlin's Golden Bear top prize
Feb 18 4:31 PM US/Eastern
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Bosnian drama "Grbavica," about the plight of the thousands of women raped during the Balkan wars, won the Golden Bear prize for best picture at the 56th Berlin Film Festival.
British actress Charlotte Rampling, the president of the festival's jury, presented the award to director Jasmila Zbanic at a gala ceremony in the German capital after a competition dominated by politically charged themes.
"I just want to use this opportunity to remind us all that the war in Bosnia was over some 13 years ago and the war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic still live in Europe freely," said Zbanic, 31, referring to the former Bosnian Serb leader and his army chief.
"They (have not) been captured for organizing the rape of 20,000 women in Bosnia, killing 100,000 people and expelling from their houses one million. Nobody is interested to capture them."
"Grbavica," which Zbanic described as a "small film from a small country with a small budget," tells the story of the fraught relationship between an assaulted woman and the rebellious daughter she raises alone in Sarajevo without knowing which of her rapists was the father.
The picture, named after a Sarajevo suburb, was Zbanic's first feature after several documentaries.
The festival's Silver Bear for directing went to British filmmakers Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross for "The Road to Guantanamo," which tells the true story of three British Muslims who were held at the US prison camp in Cuba for more than two years before being released without charge.
"There's really only three people that should get any prize because of this film and that's the three people whose story it was," Winterbottom said, before calling Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Ruhel Ahmed to the stage for a lengthy round of applause.
The Jury Grand Prix award, a runner-up prize, went to the Danish film "A Soap" about the love affair between a woman and a transsexual, and the Iranian soccer comedy "Offside."
Pernille Fischer Christensen, the director of "A Soap," also accepted a new prize for best feature film debut.
"It has taken me a very long time to come to produce my first feature," she said. "Thank you very much everybody for embracing me with your love for cinema."
Two German stars picked up the Silver Bears for acting, in a strong year for homegrown film at the international festival.
Sandra Hueller won the best actress nod for her harrowing portrayal in the true story of a epileptic girl who died in 1970s Germany after an exorcism.
"What you see in the film looks awful but I can say the process of filming the movie was a pleasure," Hueller said.
Moritz Bleibtreu, star of the film "The Elementary Particles," won the best actor prize for his performance as a sex-addict teacher in the German adaptation of the international bestseller by French literary bad boy Michel Houellebecq.
"I'd like to thank Oskar Roehler for making such a courageous film," said Bleibtreu, best known internationally for his appearance in "Run Lola Run," of the racy feature.
The Berlinale also presented two honorary Golden Bear awards during its 11-day run, to British actor Ian McKellen (the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy) and Polish director Andrzej Wayda ("Ashes and Diamonds"), for their life's work.
The festival, which ranks with Cannes and Venice among the top European film festivals, featured a total of 360 pictures from 56 countries and hosted some 18,000 guests.
It will wrap up Sunday with screenings of a restored copy of Sam Peckinpah's 1972 Western "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" and popular films from the competition.
Feb 18 4:31 PM US/Eastern
Email this story
Bosnian drama "Grbavica," about the plight of the thousands of women raped during the Balkan wars, won the Golden Bear prize for best picture at the 56th Berlin Film Festival.
British actress Charlotte Rampling, the president of the festival's jury, presented the award to director Jasmila Zbanic at a gala ceremony in the German capital after a competition dominated by politically charged themes.
"I just want to use this opportunity to remind us all that the war in Bosnia was over some 13 years ago and the war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic still live in Europe freely," said Zbanic, 31, referring to the former Bosnian Serb leader and his army chief.
"They (have not) been captured for organizing the rape of 20,000 women in Bosnia, killing 100,000 people and expelling from their houses one million. Nobody is interested to capture them."
"Grbavica," which Zbanic described as a "small film from a small country with a small budget," tells the story of the fraught relationship between an assaulted woman and the rebellious daughter she raises alone in Sarajevo without knowing which of her rapists was the father.
The picture, named after a Sarajevo suburb, was Zbanic's first feature after several documentaries.
The festival's Silver Bear for directing went to British filmmakers Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross for "The Road to Guantanamo," which tells the true story of three British Muslims who were held at the US prison camp in Cuba for more than two years before being released without charge.
"There's really only three people that should get any prize because of this film and that's the three people whose story it was," Winterbottom said, before calling Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Ruhel Ahmed to the stage for a lengthy round of applause.
The Jury Grand Prix award, a runner-up prize, went to the Danish film "A Soap" about the love affair between a woman and a transsexual, and the Iranian soccer comedy "Offside."
Pernille Fischer Christensen, the director of "A Soap," also accepted a new prize for best feature film debut.
"It has taken me a very long time to come to produce my first feature," she said. "Thank you very much everybody for embracing me with your love for cinema."
Two German stars picked up the Silver Bears for acting, in a strong year for homegrown film at the international festival.
Sandra Hueller won the best actress nod for her harrowing portrayal in the true story of a epileptic girl who died in 1970s Germany after an exorcism.
"What you see in the film looks awful but I can say the process of filming the movie was a pleasure," Hueller said.
Moritz Bleibtreu, star of the film "The Elementary Particles," won the best actor prize for his performance as a sex-addict teacher in the German adaptation of the international bestseller by French literary bad boy Michel Houellebecq.
"I'd like to thank Oskar Roehler for making such a courageous film," said Bleibtreu, best known internationally for his appearance in "Run Lola Run," of the racy feature.
The Berlinale also presented two honorary Golden Bear awards during its 11-day run, to British actor Ian McKellen (the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy) and Polish director Andrzej Wayda ("Ashes and Diamonds"), for their life's work.
The festival, which ranks with Cannes and Venice among the top European film festivals, featured a total of 360 pictures from 56 countries and hosted some 18,000 guests.
It will wrap up Sunday with screenings of a restored copy of Sam Peckinpah's 1972 Western "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" and popular films from the competition.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Picture of the Day: Serbia Welcomes EU Representatives
Ultra nationalist legislators stand in protest wearing white T-shirts with the photo of their party leader imprisoned at the U.N. war crimes tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands, on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2006 in Belgrade, while European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso speaks to lawmakers in the Serbia-Montenegro assembly. Barroso, who urged authorities to cooperate with The Hague court, ignored the lawmakers from Vojislav Seselj's Radical Party who carried a banner against cooperation with the U.N. court.
Anti-Semitic slogans scrawled at WWII death camp in Serbia - The Jerusalem Post
Several anti-Semitic graffiti, including one saying "Holocaust is a Jewish Lie," appeared Thursday on the walls of a World War II Nazi death camp in central Serbia.
Jasna Ciric, the head of the Jewish community in Nis, said the graffiti was apparently timed to coincide with the 64th anniversary of the massacre of some 1,100 Jews, Serbs and Gypsies in the camp.
"It's unbelievable that such messages are still alive in the 21st century," Ciric said, adding that about 12,000 people were killed by Nazis in the Bubanj concentration camp during World War II.
The other paint-written graffiti included: "Serbia for Serbs" and the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" (work liberates) slogan of the notorious Auschwitz death camp.
Serbia has seen a surge of anti-Semitism in recent years, fueled by nationalists who claim that all the republic's problems stem from the powerful Jews who allegedly support anti-Serb policies in the United States and elsewhere in the world.
Jasna Ciric, the head of the Jewish community in Nis, said the graffiti was apparently timed to coincide with the 64th anniversary of the massacre of some 1,100 Jews, Serbs and Gypsies in the camp.
"It's unbelievable that such messages are still alive in the 21st century," Ciric said, adding that about 12,000 people were killed by Nazis in the Bubanj concentration camp during World War II.
The other paint-written graffiti included: "Serbia for Serbs" and the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" (work liberates) slogan of the notorious Auschwitz death camp.
Serbia has seen a surge of anti-Semitism in recent years, fueled by nationalists who claim that all the republic's problems stem from the powerful Jews who allegedly support anti-Serb policies in the United States and elsewhere in the world.
KOSOVO: COUNTDOWN TO INDEPENDENCE?
Notwithstanding the views of local Serbs, the signs are that talks on the future of Kosovo due to begin on Monday will almost certainly lead to some form of independence.
By Tim Judah in Gracanica and Pristina
Drive ten minutes from Kosovo's capital of Pristina and it feels like you are in a different world, or at least a different country. Suddenly, one language, one culture and even one religion have vanished. The music, car number plates, documents and money are all different. Welcome to Gracanica.
Ever since the end of the Kosovo conflict in 1999, Serbs have retreated into small enclaves across the province and an area in the north which abuts Serbia.
Most Serbs do not speak Albanian and they remain fiercely loyal to Serbia. They continue to use Serbian Dinars - the rest of Kosovo uses the euro - and they carry Serbian documents, while Kosovo's 1.8 million or so ethnic Albanians carry ones issued by the United Nations.
Gracanica, little more than a village, is centred around a magnificent medieval Orthodox church. Most Kosovo Albanians are Muslims. Symbolically, however, the gap between these two people is represented by their mobile phone networks.
Serbs talk to each other on a Serbian network. Because Kosovo is not (yet) an independent country, the Kosovo Albanian equivalent borrows the international prefix of Monaco. So, to talk to one another, a Serb and Kosovo Albanian must make an international call, even if they are close enough to see one another.
Over the last few weeks the opportunities to do even that have been diminishing. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian-run government has declared that the Serbian network is illegal and its transmitters are being turned off. This has come as a shock to the 100,000 or so Serbs that remain in Kosovo, but less of a shock than the message that was delivered recently by John Sawers, the political director of the British foreign office.
Meeting Kosovo Serb leaders on February 6 he told them, in unusually undiplomatic language, that the Contact Group, the main foreign powers that deal with the region, including Britain, France, the United States and Russia, had decided that Kosovo would soon be independent.
At the talks on Kosovo's future which begin on Monday in Vienna under the supervision of former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, he said, they and Serbia would have to fight hard for a good deal on autonomy and minority rights.
Such news should not have come as a surprise. After all, the messages had been clear for months. The Contact Group had already said that the solution for Kosovo had to satisfy the will of its people - and well over 90 per cent are ethnic Albanians who want nothing less than independence.
But, ever since 1999, Serbs in Gracanica and elsewhere appear to have lived in a dreamland, fed by stories from Belgrade, in which they expected that one day the Serbian flag would once more fly over Kosovo.
Vojislav Vitkovic is a teacher in Gracanica. "It was an extreme shock," he says, adding that discrimination against Serbs in Kosovo is such that, to his mind, the province "is a hypocrisy and not a democracy".
Asked if he will leave, if and when Kosovo becomes independent, he says that like his friends he has adopted a "wait and see" policy. He added that 70 per cent of Kosovo Serbs still do not believe that independence will happen.
Rada Trajkovic, a local Serb leader who was at the meeting with Sawers, says that it was a stormy event, but that it was not the first time a foreign emissary had told them that independence was coming. Why then had she not told her people this? "Because I am not a servant of the Serbian government."
"If the status of Kosovo has already been decided," she says, "what are we supposed to negotiate? Are we supposed to go, just to see how beautiful Ahtisaari is? "
The mood here is best summed up by Zivojin Rakocevic, the editor of the local radio station, who declares that everyone is "fatally depressed".
But they are clearly not giving up yet. In the restaurant where we meet we overhear a man who has come from Serbia lecturing local Serbian journalists. He is discussing bringing in broadcast transmission equipment to install here to create or bolster networks for Serbian radio or television to cover all the areas where Serbs live.
Down in Pristina the mood, unsurprisingly, is upbeat. Kosovo's president, Ibrahim Rugova died last month and coach loads of mourners are still coming to have their photo taken behind his tomb. But, contrary to expectations, the presidential succession was smooth.
Now says Ylber Hysa, an opposition deputy who is a member of the political group of the status talks team, minds are turning to the post-independence period. He says that local institutions need to be solidified because until now the province has been run on the basis of "permanent crisis management" and, as the UN mission leaves Kosovo, that needs to change.
Kosovo has huge economic problems, a chronic power shortage, high unemployment and weak rule of law. But all surveys have shown that Kosovo's young population is one of the most optimistic in Europe. And, with independence in sight, young people are even more hopeful. What is important now, says one student who asked to remain anonymous is just knowing, "that Serbia is off our backs for good."
But is it? In the wake of Sawers's declarations, Tomislav Nikolic, the leader of Serbia's nationalist Radical Party, has declared that he and Serbia's premier Vojislav Kostunica, have agreed that if Kosovo gets independence then it should be declared "occupied territory".
If that happens, then Serbia will, in effect, rip up its application forms for NATO and the European Union and return to being an embittered pariah of Europe. In any settlement, NATO troops will stay in Kosovo and the EU will take a role in helping to run it. Under those circumstances, with Serbia publicly committed to reconquering Kosovo, in which NATO and the EU would be part of the occupation forces, it would hardly be realistic to expect to continue the process of joining those organisations at the same time.
Such a policy might however be popular in Serbia and might even lead to the election of the Radicals as the next government. But the attitude of western diplomats is far from sympathetic. What if independence led to a Radical government in Serbia? "So what?" answers a diplomat close to the talks process in Vienna.
Tim Judah is a leading Balkan commentator and the author of "The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia" and "Kosovo: War and Revenge", both published by Yale University Press. Balkan Insight is BIRN's internet publication.
By Tim Judah in Gracanica and Pristina
Drive ten minutes from Kosovo's capital of Pristina and it feels like you are in a different world, or at least a different country. Suddenly, one language, one culture and even one religion have vanished. The music, car number plates, documents and money are all different. Welcome to Gracanica.
Ever since the end of the Kosovo conflict in 1999, Serbs have retreated into small enclaves across the province and an area in the north which abuts Serbia.
Most Serbs do not speak Albanian and they remain fiercely loyal to Serbia. They continue to use Serbian Dinars - the rest of Kosovo uses the euro - and they carry Serbian documents, while Kosovo's 1.8 million or so ethnic Albanians carry ones issued by the United Nations.
Gracanica, little more than a village, is centred around a magnificent medieval Orthodox church. Most Kosovo Albanians are Muslims. Symbolically, however, the gap between these two people is represented by their mobile phone networks.
Serbs talk to each other on a Serbian network. Because Kosovo is not (yet) an independent country, the Kosovo Albanian equivalent borrows the international prefix of Monaco. So, to talk to one another, a Serb and Kosovo Albanian must make an international call, even if they are close enough to see one another.
Over the last few weeks the opportunities to do even that have been diminishing. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian-run government has declared that the Serbian network is illegal and its transmitters are being turned off. This has come as a shock to the 100,000 or so Serbs that remain in Kosovo, but less of a shock than the message that was delivered recently by John Sawers, the political director of the British foreign office.
Meeting Kosovo Serb leaders on February 6 he told them, in unusually undiplomatic language, that the Contact Group, the main foreign powers that deal with the region, including Britain, France, the United States and Russia, had decided that Kosovo would soon be independent.
At the talks on Kosovo's future which begin on Monday in Vienna under the supervision of former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, he said, they and Serbia would have to fight hard for a good deal on autonomy and minority rights.
Such news should not have come as a surprise. After all, the messages had been clear for months. The Contact Group had already said that the solution for Kosovo had to satisfy the will of its people - and well over 90 per cent are ethnic Albanians who want nothing less than independence.
But, ever since 1999, Serbs in Gracanica and elsewhere appear to have lived in a dreamland, fed by stories from Belgrade, in which they expected that one day the Serbian flag would once more fly over Kosovo.
Vojislav Vitkovic is a teacher in Gracanica. "It was an extreme shock," he says, adding that discrimination against Serbs in Kosovo is such that, to his mind, the province "is a hypocrisy and not a democracy".
Asked if he will leave, if and when Kosovo becomes independent, he says that like his friends he has adopted a "wait and see" policy. He added that 70 per cent of Kosovo Serbs still do not believe that independence will happen.
Rada Trajkovic, a local Serb leader who was at the meeting with Sawers, says that it was a stormy event, but that it was not the first time a foreign emissary had told them that independence was coming. Why then had she not told her people this? "Because I am not a servant of the Serbian government."
"If the status of Kosovo has already been decided," she says, "what are we supposed to negotiate? Are we supposed to go, just to see how beautiful Ahtisaari is? "
The mood here is best summed up by Zivojin Rakocevic, the editor of the local radio station, who declares that everyone is "fatally depressed".
But they are clearly not giving up yet. In the restaurant where we meet we overhear a man who has come from Serbia lecturing local Serbian journalists. He is discussing bringing in broadcast transmission equipment to install here to create or bolster networks for Serbian radio or television to cover all the areas where Serbs live.
Down in Pristina the mood, unsurprisingly, is upbeat. Kosovo's president, Ibrahim Rugova died last month and coach loads of mourners are still coming to have their photo taken behind his tomb. But, contrary to expectations, the presidential succession was smooth.
Now says Ylber Hysa, an opposition deputy who is a member of the political group of the status talks team, minds are turning to the post-independence period. He says that local institutions need to be solidified because until now the province has been run on the basis of "permanent crisis management" and, as the UN mission leaves Kosovo, that needs to change.
Kosovo has huge economic problems, a chronic power shortage, high unemployment and weak rule of law. But all surveys have shown that Kosovo's young population is one of the most optimistic in Europe. And, with independence in sight, young people are even more hopeful. What is important now, says one student who asked to remain anonymous is just knowing, "that Serbia is off our backs for good."
But is it? In the wake of Sawers's declarations, Tomislav Nikolic, the leader of Serbia's nationalist Radical Party, has declared that he and Serbia's premier Vojislav Kostunica, have agreed that if Kosovo gets independence then it should be declared "occupied territory".
If that happens, then Serbia will, in effect, rip up its application forms for NATO and the European Union and return to being an embittered pariah of Europe. In any settlement, NATO troops will stay in Kosovo and the EU will take a role in helping to run it. Under those circumstances, with Serbia publicly committed to reconquering Kosovo, in which NATO and the EU would be part of the occupation forces, it would hardly be realistic to expect to continue the process of joining those organisations at the same time.
Such a policy might however be popular in Serbia and might even lead to the election of the Radicals as the next government. But the attitude of western diplomats is far from sympathetic. What if independence led to a Radical government in Serbia? "So what?" answers a diplomat close to the talks process in Vienna.
Tim Judah is a leading Balkan commentator and the author of "The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia" and "Kosovo: War and Revenge", both published by Yale University Press. Balkan Insight is BIRN's internet publication.
When hard truths shock - The Economist
Kosovo Serbs hardly believe their fate
AP
An enclave of fear in Gracanica
EVER since last autumn, the outside world has been sending two separate messages about the negotiations on the future of Kosovo which are due to start on February 20th. One is that, formally, the talks are taking place without prejudice; the other message, delivered more privately but with growing firmness, is that Kosovo will become independent; so Serbia must help the province's 100,000-plus ethnic Serbs to cut the sweetest deal they can if they want to stay there.
This month, the message has been delivered in a more open way, and Serbs are in deep shock. The mood in Gracanica, a Serb enclave in Kosovo built around one of the Balkans' finest medieval churches, is “fatally depressed”, according to Zivojin Rakocevic, head of the local radio station. Rada Trajkovic, a Kosovo Serb leader, spoke for many when she said: “I cannot admit to myself that it's reality.” She sees a “catastrophe” in prospect. Ms Trajkovic insists that Albanians hate Serbs so much that all her people, except the old and poor, will flee. So far, people are watching sullenly, to see if they are now doomed to be the Balkans' latest wave of refugees.
Whence the sudden shock over a piece of news that many view as an open secret? John Sawers, the political director of the British Foreign Office, caused big ructions on February 6th when he told a group of Kosovo Serbs, including Mrs Trajkovic, of the latest thinking from the contact group, a group of five western countries, plus Russia, which has been deliberating Kosovo's fate. He said the group had decided firmly that Kosovo should have independence, and Serbs must make the best of it.
Ms Trajkovic admits that Mr Sawers was not the first bigwig to say such a thing; but his bluntness caused a jolt. Meanwhile, at the office in Vienna where Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, is preparing to host the talks on Kosovo's status, there was quiet satisfaction over the diplomat's clear message: he was telling a hard truth that needed telling.
Among Kosovo's Albanian majority, making up over 90% of the province's 2m people, there was rejoicing over the diplomat's frankness, and a generally upbeat mood. Quicker than expected, Kosovo's parliament has chosen a president—Fatmir Sejdiu, a lawyer—to succeed the late Ibrahim Rugova. Veton Surroi, an opposition leader, says the change of guard gives a chance to ease out corrupt old-timers and promote people who know economics.
In Belgrade, reaction to Mr Sawers's words verged on hysteria. Tomislav Nikolic, head of the ultra-nationalist Radical Party, claimed that he and Vojislav Kostunica, the Serbian prime minister, had agreed to declare Kosovo “occupied territory” if it secedes. Serbia's moderate president, Boris Tadic, rather quixotically suggested that Kosovo's status be deferred for 20 years. But in Vienna, diplomats gave warning that the Serbs would—not for the first time—be doing themselves a grave disservice if they were now to fall in behind hotheads such as Mr Nikolic.
AP
An enclave of fear in Gracanica
EVER since last autumn, the outside world has been sending two separate messages about the negotiations on the future of Kosovo which are due to start on February 20th. One is that, formally, the talks are taking place without prejudice; the other message, delivered more privately but with growing firmness, is that Kosovo will become independent; so Serbia must help the province's 100,000-plus ethnic Serbs to cut the sweetest deal they can if they want to stay there.
This month, the message has been delivered in a more open way, and Serbs are in deep shock. The mood in Gracanica, a Serb enclave in Kosovo built around one of the Balkans' finest medieval churches, is “fatally depressed”, according to Zivojin Rakocevic, head of the local radio station. Rada Trajkovic, a Kosovo Serb leader, spoke for many when she said: “I cannot admit to myself that it's reality.” She sees a “catastrophe” in prospect. Ms Trajkovic insists that Albanians hate Serbs so much that all her people, except the old and poor, will flee. So far, people are watching sullenly, to see if they are now doomed to be the Balkans' latest wave of refugees.
Whence the sudden shock over a piece of news that many view as an open secret? John Sawers, the political director of the British Foreign Office, caused big ructions on February 6th when he told a group of Kosovo Serbs, including Mrs Trajkovic, of the latest thinking from the contact group, a group of five western countries, plus Russia, which has been deliberating Kosovo's fate. He said the group had decided firmly that Kosovo should have independence, and Serbs must make the best of it.
Ms Trajkovic admits that Mr Sawers was not the first bigwig to say such a thing; but his bluntness caused a jolt. Meanwhile, at the office in Vienna where Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, is preparing to host the talks on Kosovo's status, there was quiet satisfaction over the diplomat's clear message: he was telling a hard truth that needed telling.
Among Kosovo's Albanian majority, making up over 90% of the province's 2m people, there was rejoicing over the diplomat's frankness, and a generally upbeat mood. Quicker than expected, Kosovo's parliament has chosen a president—Fatmir Sejdiu, a lawyer—to succeed the late Ibrahim Rugova. Veton Surroi, an opposition leader, says the change of guard gives a chance to ease out corrupt old-timers and promote people who know economics.
In Belgrade, reaction to Mr Sawers's words verged on hysteria. Tomislav Nikolic, head of the ultra-nationalist Radical Party, claimed that he and Vojislav Kostunica, the Serbian prime minister, had agreed to declare Kosovo “occupied territory” if it secedes. Serbia's moderate president, Boris Tadic, rather quixotically suggested that Kosovo's status be deferred for 20 years. But in Vienna, diplomats gave warning that the Serbs would—not for the first time—be doing themselves a grave disservice if they were now to fall in behind hotheads such as Mr Nikolic.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Kosovo Opposition Leader: Talks Must Lead To Independence
SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP)--A senior Kosovo opposition leader and former head of the ethnic Albanian rebel force said Wednesday that forthcoming talks on the future status of the U.N.-run province should lead to full independence.
"I believe in an independent Kosovo," said Democratic Party leader Hashim Thaci, the former head of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army.
U.N.-mediated talks on the future of Kosovo are due to open in Vienna on Feb. 20.
Speaking after talks in Skopje with Macedonian Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski, Thaci also voiced backing for Macedonia's bid for European Union membership.
Although officially still a province of Serbia, Kosovo has been run by the U.N. since 1999, when North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing forced Serb troops to halt a crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists there.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority has rejected offers of broad autonomy, demanding full independence. The province's Serb minority insists Kosovo should remain part of Serbia.
"I believe in an independent Kosovo," said Democratic Party leader Hashim Thaci, the former head of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army.
U.N.-mediated talks on the future of Kosovo are due to open in Vienna on Feb. 20.
Speaking after talks in Skopje with Macedonian Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski, Thaci also voiced backing for Macedonia's bid for European Union membership.
Although officially still a province of Serbia, Kosovo has been run by the U.N. since 1999, when North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing forced Serb troops to halt a crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists there.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority has rejected offers of broad autonomy, demanding full independence. The province's Serb minority insists Kosovo should remain part of Serbia.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Picture of the Day: Kosovo at the U.N.
Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi of Kosovo, right, talks to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the United Nations, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2006.
France Ambassador Jean-Marc De La Sabliere: " the final status would have to be acceptable to the population of Kosovo"
JEAN-MARC DE LA SABLIERE ( France) said that, although the authorities in Kosovo were now better prepared to participate in negotiations, thanks to progress achieved over the last months, not enough had been done in the genuine implementation of standards. He expected concrete actions and improvements in the field. Whatever the status of Kosovo would be, it would have to be multi-ethnic. He called upon the Prime Minister and the Provisional Institutions to take the necessary measures to accelerate implementation of priority standards. The capacity of Kosovo authorities in providing solutions would serve as defining criteria for determining the status.
He said that, since the last meeting of the Council, the Secretary-General had appointed Martti Ahtisaari as his representative to lead talks on the status of Kosovo. During this sensitive period, it was essential that the international community and the Council supported his mission unfailingly. Although the approach he had chosen, namely to tackle concrete questions first, was relevant, negotiations should be concluded in 2006. He called upon Belgrade and Pristina to resolutely engage in a constructive dialogue. The upcoming meeting in Vienna would be essential for the dialogue to start on a positive note.
He said the final status would have to be acceptable to the population of Kosovo. Leaders on both sides would have to demonstrate courage and determination. The result of the talks, whatever it would be, would be rooted in Europe. He hoped the parties would make the best use of the coming months.
He said that, since the last meeting of the Council, the Secretary-General had appointed Martti Ahtisaari as his representative to lead talks on the status of Kosovo. During this sensitive period, it was essential that the international community and the Council supported his mission unfailingly. Although the approach he had chosen, namely to tackle concrete questions first, was relevant, negotiations should be concluded in 2006. He called upon Belgrade and Pristina to resolutely engage in a constructive dialogue. The upcoming meeting in Vienna would be essential for the dialogue to start on a positive note.
He said the final status would have to be acceptable to the population of Kosovo. Leaders on both sides would have to demonstrate courage and determination. The result of the talks, whatever it would be, would be rooted in Europe. He hoped the parties would make the best use of the coming months.
UK Ambassador Alan Thomson: "Independence - Some Would Say The Only Option"
ALAN THOMSON ( United Kingdom) said his delegation shared the concern that progress in the standards process had slowed, and he called on the Provisional Institutions, as well as Pristina, to step up the process, particularly in the areas of returns and improving the situation of minorities, among others. The United Kingdom joined the World Health Organization (WHO) and others in the international community urging those Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian refugees to leave lead-poisoned camps. He also urged Kosovo leaders and Pristina to work together on matters related to missing persons, which was a priority humanitarian issue.
He went on to say that Kosovo Serbs must be actively encouraged to rightfully take their place in Kosovo institutions, which was the only way for them to take part in political life. Every post-conflict situation was different, and to try to squeeze all situations into a single mold was to risk achieving the Council’s overall objectives of ensuring sustainable peace and security in a particular region. Any settlement resulting from the current future status process should conclude during 2006 and could not disregard the aspirations of 90 per cent of Kosovo’s population.
He stressed that independence was an option – indeed, some would say it was the only option -- to bring peace and security to the region. But the Kosovo Government must demonstrate to the international community and the Security Council that it was genuinely interested in a multi-ethnic Kosovo. Kosovo’s status, whatever it was to be, must be fair to all the interests there, and must promote multi-ethnicity. Now was the time for leaders in Serbia and Kosovo to show the political courage and vision for the futures of both Kosovo and Serbia. The United Kingdom would continue to work to build a sustainable and peaceful future for Kosovo and the region as a whole.
He went on to say that Kosovo Serbs must be actively encouraged to rightfully take their place in Kosovo institutions, which was the only way for them to take part in political life. Every post-conflict situation was different, and to try to squeeze all situations into a single mold was to risk achieving the Council’s overall objectives of ensuring sustainable peace and security in a particular region. Any settlement resulting from the current future status process should conclude during 2006 and could not disregard the aspirations of 90 per cent of Kosovo’s population.
He stressed that independence was an option – indeed, some would say it was the only option -- to bring peace and security to the region. But the Kosovo Government must demonstrate to the international community and the Security Council that it was genuinely interested in a multi-ethnic Kosovo. Kosovo’s status, whatever it was to be, must be fair to all the interests there, and must promote multi-ethnicity. Now was the time for leaders in Serbia and Kosovo to show the political courage and vision for the futures of both Kosovo and Serbia. The United Kingdom would continue to work to build a sustainable and peaceful future for Kosovo and the region as a whole.
US Ambassador John Bolton: Kosovo "a very special case"
By NICK WADHAMS
The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 14, 2006; 6:49 PM
UNITED NATIONS -- Serbia's president on Tuesday suggested imposing a 20-year grace period before determining Kosovo's final status, an idea that was swiftly rejected by the tiny province's prime minister.
The leaders' disagreement as they gathered for a U.N. Security Council discussion of Kosovo underscored how far apart the two sides remain ahead of talks set to begin Monday on the future status of the province.
Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since NATO's 1999 air war against Yugoslavia, which forced former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end a crackdown on rebel ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and relinquish control over the region.
Speaking before the council, Serbian President Boris Tadic reiterated his government's opposition to independence for Kosovo and again offered the province wide autonomy instead. Kosovo's status could be renegotiated "after an agreed period of time, say 20 years," he said.
He also added a wrinkle: If Kosovo is to gain autonomy from Serbia, then the Serbian minority there should gain autonomy from the Kosovo government.
Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi told reporters afterward that Tadic's ideas were not acceptable.
"I believe that this is the appropriate moment where we have to end and close the Kosovo question," Kosumi said.
The dispute exposed the problem that each side and their U.N.-appointed mediators know well, with the talks just days away. Kosovo wants total independence from Serbia, while Serbia refuses to countenance that possibility.
Tadic acknowledged the difficulty, telling the council that Kosovo and the Serbs favor "two seemingly irreconcilable options."
Tadic warned that independence for Kosovo could spur other territories to break away. But several council members stressed that the key was making sure Kosovo's people _ who are 90 percent ethnic Albanian _ approve of the final decision.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton tacitly rejected Tadic's warning, saying that Kosovo was "a very special case" because of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, ethnic cleansing, and the fact that it had been under U.N. administration for so long.
"We must be realistic about possible outcomes," Bolton said. "Independence is a possible outcome. Any status outcome must be acceptable to the people of Kosovo."
As well as hearing Tadic's views, council members discussed a report from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, released two weeks ago, that said Kosovo had made little progress in efforts to create a multiethnic and democratic society in the province, which slightly smaller than Connecticut.
Council members were blunt about their dissatisfaction with Kosovo's development, and spread blame between both sides.
"Understandably, the overall impression one comes away with is disappointment," Greece's U.N. Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis said.
The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 14, 2006; 6:49 PM
UNITED NATIONS -- Serbia's president on Tuesday suggested imposing a 20-year grace period before determining Kosovo's final status, an idea that was swiftly rejected by the tiny province's prime minister.
The leaders' disagreement as they gathered for a U.N. Security Council discussion of Kosovo underscored how far apart the two sides remain ahead of talks set to begin Monday on the future status of the province.
Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since NATO's 1999 air war against Yugoslavia, which forced former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end a crackdown on rebel ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and relinquish control over the region.
Speaking before the council, Serbian President Boris Tadic reiterated his government's opposition to independence for Kosovo and again offered the province wide autonomy instead. Kosovo's status could be renegotiated "after an agreed period of time, say 20 years," he said.
He also added a wrinkle: If Kosovo is to gain autonomy from Serbia, then the Serbian minority there should gain autonomy from the Kosovo government.
Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi told reporters afterward that Tadic's ideas were not acceptable.
"I believe that this is the appropriate moment where we have to end and close the Kosovo question," Kosumi said.
The dispute exposed the problem that each side and their U.N.-appointed mediators know well, with the talks just days away. Kosovo wants total independence from Serbia, while Serbia refuses to countenance that possibility.
Tadic acknowledged the difficulty, telling the council that Kosovo and the Serbs favor "two seemingly irreconcilable options."
Tadic warned that independence for Kosovo could spur other territories to break away. But several council members stressed that the key was making sure Kosovo's people _ who are 90 percent ethnic Albanian _ approve of the final decision.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton tacitly rejected Tadic's warning, saying that Kosovo was "a very special case" because of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, ethnic cleansing, and the fact that it had been under U.N. administration for so long.
"We must be realistic about possible outcomes," Bolton said. "Independence is a possible outcome. Any status outcome must be acceptable to the people of Kosovo."
As well as hearing Tadic's views, council members discussed a report from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, released two weeks ago, that said Kosovo had made little progress in efforts to create a multiethnic and democratic society in the province, which slightly smaller than Connecticut.
Council members were blunt about their dissatisfaction with Kosovo's development, and spread blame between both sides.
"Understandably, the overall impression one comes away with is disappointment," Greece's U.N. Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis said.
Kosovo PM Rejects Idea Of 20-Year Wait On Status
(Adds comments form U.S. ambassador, more comments from Serbian president.)
UNITED NATIONS (AP)--Serbia's president on Tuesday suggested imposing a 20- year grace period before determining Kosovo's final status, an idea that was swiftly rejected by the tiny province's prime minister.
The leaders' disagreement, expressed as they gathered for a U.N. Security Council discussion of Kosovo, underscored just how far apart the two sides remain ahead of U.N.-backed talks set to begin Feb. 20 on the province's future status.
Speaking before the council, Serbian President Boris Tadic reiterated his government's opposition to Kosovo independence and again offered the province wide autonomy instead. Kosovo's status could be re-negotiated "after an agreed period of time, say 20 years," he said.
He also added a wrinkle: If Kosovo is to gain autonomy from Serbia, then the Serbian minority there should gain autonomy from the Kosovo government.
Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi, the first Kosovo leader to ever appear in the council, told reporters afterward that Tadic's ideas were unacceptable.
"I believe that this is the appropriate moment where we have to end and close the Kosovo question," Kosumi said. "I do not think that we should leave room for other periods to deal with the Kosovo question."
The council debate and the two leaders' remarks exposed the problem that each side and their U.N.-appointed mediators know well, with the talks just days away. Kosovo wants total independence from Serbia, while Serbia refuses to countenance that possibility.
Tadic himself acknowledged the difficulty when he told the council that Kosovo and the Serbs favor "two seemingly irreconcilable options."
The U.N. has administered Kosovo since NATO's 1999 air war against Yugoslavia. The NATO bombardment forced former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end a crackdown on rebel ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and relinquish control over the region.
Tadic warned that independence for Kosovo could have disastrous results because it might spur other territories to break away. But several council members stressed that the key was making sure Kosovo's people - who are 90% ethnic Albanian - approve of the final decision.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton tacitly rejected Tadic's warning, saying that Kosovo was "a very special case" because of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, ethnic cleansing, and the fact that it had been under U.N. administration for so long.
"We must be realistic about possible outcomes," Bolton said. "Independence is a possible outcome. Any status outcome must be acceptable to the people of Kosovo."
As well as hearing Tadic's views, council members discussed a report from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, released two weeks ago, that said Kosovo had made little progress in efforts to create a multiethnic and democratic society.
When it took over control of Kosovo, the U.N. set eight benchmarks it had to reach for final status talks to begin. They include establishing democratic institutions, protecting minorities, promoting economic development and ensuring the rule of law, freedom of movement and property rights.
Even though many of those benchmarks haven't been met, the Security Council agreed last year to allow the talks, which begin in Vienna next week. They said the region simply couldn't remain under U.N. authority forever.
Council members were blunt about their dissatisfaction with Kosovo's development, and spread blame between both sides.
"Understandably, the overall impression one comes away with is disappointment, " Greece's U.N. Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis said.
The top U.N. official in Kosovo, Soren Jessen-Petersen, said that even though the talks were going ahead, it was still essential for Kosovo to reach the benchmarks set out by the council.
"The message is clear: The sooner and the faster that we institute in Kosovo implemented standards, the sooner we will have a decision on the status in Kosovo," Petersen told reporters.
UNITED NATIONS (AP)--Serbia's president on Tuesday suggested imposing a 20- year grace period before determining Kosovo's final status, an idea that was swiftly rejected by the tiny province's prime minister.
The leaders' disagreement, expressed as they gathered for a U.N. Security Council discussion of Kosovo, underscored just how far apart the two sides remain ahead of U.N.-backed talks set to begin Feb. 20 on the province's future status.
Speaking before the council, Serbian President Boris Tadic reiterated his government's opposition to Kosovo independence and again offered the province wide autonomy instead. Kosovo's status could be re-negotiated "after an agreed period of time, say 20 years," he said.
He also added a wrinkle: If Kosovo is to gain autonomy from Serbia, then the Serbian minority there should gain autonomy from the Kosovo government.
Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi, the first Kosovo leader to ever appear in the council, told reporters afterward that Tadic's ideas were unacceptable.
"I believe that this is the appropriate moment where we have to end and close the Kosovo question," Kosumi said. "I do not think that we should leave room for other periods to deal with the Kosovo question."
The council debate and the two leaders' remarks exposed the problem that each side and their U.N.-appointed mediators know well, with the talks just days away. Kosovo wants total independence from Serbia, while Serbia refuses to countenance that possibility.
Tadic himself acknowledged the difficulty when he told the council that Kosovo and the Serbs favor "two seemingly irreconcilable options."
The U.N. has administered Kosovo since NATO's 1999 air war against Yugoslavia. The NATO bombardment forced former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end a crackdown on rebel ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and relinquish control over the region.
Tadic warned that independence for Kosovo could have disastrous results because it might spur other territories to break away. But several council members stressed that the key was making sure Kosovo's people - who are 90% ethnic Albanian - approve of the final decision.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton tacitly rejected Tadic's warning, saying that Kosovo was "a very special case" because of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, ethnic cleansing, and the fact that it had been under U.N. administration for so long.
"We must be realistic about possible outcomes," Bolton said. "Independence is a possible outcome. Any status outcome must be acceptable to the people of Kosovo."
As well as hearing Tadic's views, council members discussed a report from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, released two weeks ago, that said Kosovo had made little progress in efforts to create a multiethnic and democratic society.
When it took over control of Kosovo, the U.N. set eight benchmarks it had to reach for final status talks to begin. They include establishing democratic institutions, protecting minorities, promoting economic development and ensuring the rule of law, freedom of movement and property rights.
Even though many of those benchmarks haven't been met, the Security Council agreed last year to allow the talks, which begin in Vienna next week. They said the region simply couldn't remain under U.N. authority forever.
Council members were blunt about their dissatisfaction with Kosovo's development, and spread blame between both sides.
"Understandably, the overall impression one comes away with is disappointment, " Greece's U.N. Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis said.
The top U.N. official in Kosovo, Soren Jessen-Petersen, said that even though the talks were going ahead, it was still essential for Kosovo to reach the benchmarks set out by the council.
"The message is clear: The sooner and the faster that we institute in Kosovo implemented standards, the sooner we will have a decision on the status in Kosovo," Petersen told reporters.
Kosovo names delegation for U.N.-mediated talks with Serbia
PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Kosovo leaders named a team Tuesday that will participate in the U.N.-mediated talks with Serbia's officials next week in what is billed a symbolic start of talks to determine the future of the disputed province.
The seven-member team will be lead by Lutfi Haziri, the minister of local government administration, and by Jakup Krasniqi, of the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo, according to Muhamet Hamiti, an adviser of Kosovo's president.
The first round of talks -- on Feb. 20-21 in Vienna, Austria -- will deal with the local government reform aimed at giving Kosovo's Serbs and other minorities more say in areas where they live.
The two sides have disagreed over how much power should be held locally, with minority Serbs insisting they be allowed to run affairs in their communities and have special links to Belgrade. Ethnic Albanians have rejected the idea, saying such decentralization would lead to the province's ethnic division.
Kosovo, a province of 2 million, has been run by the United Nations since a 1999 NATO bombing campaign ended a Serb crackdown on independence-minded ethnic Albanian rebels.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, which comprise about 90 percent of the population, have demanded outright independence, while Serbia insists it retains some control over the region it consider an integral part of their nation.
Western diplomats recently indicated that Kosovo's quest for independence was conditional on it becoming a democracy that respected minority rights, with local government reform a key to that goal.
The seven-member team will be lead by Lutfi Haziri, the minister of local government administration, and by Jakup Krasniqi, of the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo, according to Muhamet Hamiti, an adviser of Kosovo's president.
The first round of talks -- on Feb. 20-21 in Vienna, Austria -- will deal with the local government reform aimed at giving Kosovo's Serbs and other minorities more say in areas where they live.
The two sides have disagreed over how much power should be held locally, with minority Serbs insisting they be allowed to run affairs in their communities and have special links to Belgrade. Ethnic Albanians have rejected the idea, saying such decentralization would lead to the province's ethnic division.
Kosovo, a province of 2 million, has been run by the United Nations since a 1999 NATO bombing campaign ended a Serb crackdown on independence-minded ethnic Albanian rebels.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, which comprise about 90 percent of the population, have demanded outright independence, while Serbia insists it retains some control over the region it consider an integral part of their nation.
Western diplomats recently indicated that Kosovo's quest for independence was conditional on it becoming a democracy that respected minority rights, with local government reform a key to that goal.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Albanian Parties in Macedonia Do Not Support Protests Against Mohammad Cartoons
Skopje/Tetovo. The Democratis Union of Integration /DSI/ rejected claims for being involved in protests in Skopje and Tetovo, held against the publications of cartoons of the prophet Mohammad, the Macedonian TV channel Sitel reported, citing the leader of DSI Ali Ahmeti.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Kosovo's New President: Independence Non-negotiable
PRISTINA (AP)--Kosovo's newly elected president said Friday that the ethnic Albanian demand for independence from Serbia remains non-negotiable.
Fatmir Sejdiu was elected by Parliament to fill the post left by the death of pro-independence leader Ibrahim Rugova last month and paves the way for the start of U.N.-mediated talks on Kosovo's future status.
Sejdiu, 54, said assuming the post at this delicate time is a "heavy burden and responsibility," as Kosovo leaders prepare to negotiate with Serbia's officials over the future of the disputed region later this month.
Sejdiu, the province's second president since the 1999 war, holds positions on Kosovo's status that are nearly identical with those of his predecessor, who dominated the province's politics for 16 years and epitomized ethnic Albanians' quest for Kosovo's independence from Serbia. Rugova died of lung cancer on Jan. 21.
Kosovo has been run by the U.N. since NATO launched a bombing campaign to end a Serb crackdown on independence-minded ethnic Albanian rebels in 1999.
The presidential post is largely ceremonial, but it has gained importance because the president heads the team that will negotiate in U.N.-mediated talks with Serb officials.
Fatmir Sejdiu was elected by Parliament to fill the post left by the death of pro-independence leader Ibrahim Rugova last month and paves the way for the start of U.N.-mediated talks on Kosovo's future status.
Sejdiu, 54, said assuming the post at this delicate time is a "heavy burden and responsibility," as Kosovo leaders prepare to negotiate with Serbia's officials over the future of the disputed region later this month.
Sejdiu, the province's second president since the 1999 war, holds positions on Kosovo's status that are nearly identical with those of his predecessor, who dominated the province's politics for 16 years and epitomized ethnic Albanians' quest for Kosovo's independence from Serbia. Rugova died of lung cancer on Jan. 21.
Kosovo has been run by the U.N. since NATO launched a bombing campaign to end a Serb crackdown on independence-minded ethnic Albanian rebels in 1999.
The presidential post is largely ceremonial, but it has gained importance because the president heads the team that will negotiate in U.N.-mediated talks with Serb officials.
New Kosovo President,Negotiators Prepare For Talks With Serbia
PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP)--Kosovo's newly elected president will meet with the ethnic Albanian negotiating team Saturday in preparation for U.N.- mediated talks on the province's future status.
Fatmir Sejdiu, elected Friday by Kosovo's lawmakers, moved quickly to gather the ethnic Albanian leaders who will negotiate with Serb officials to determine whether the province becomes independent or remains linked to Serbia.
They meet for the first time under Sejdiu's chairmanship and since the death of President Ibrahim Rugova, who dominated the province's politics for 16 years and became a symbol of its quest for independence from Serbia.
The team - led by the president and comprised of Kosovo's prime minister, two opposition leaders and the head of the assembly - is expected to discuss position papers for the upcoming start of talks between Kosovo and Serbia.
The negotiations are expected to take place around Feb. 20 in Vienna, Austria after suffering several delays, most recently with Rugova's death last month. The first round of talks will deal with the reform of local government, aimed at giving Serbs and other minorities greater say in areas where they live.
Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since NATO launched a bombing campaign to end a Serb crackdown on independence-minded ethnic Albanian rebels in 1999.
Western diplomats have recently indicated that Kosovo's quest for independence from Serbia was conditional on it becoming a democracy that respects minority rights with reform of local government being a key to that goal.
Fatmir Sejdiu, elected Friday by Kosovo's lawmakers, moved quickly to gather the ethnic Albanian leaders who will negotiate with Serb officials to determine whether the province becomes independent or remains linked to Serbia.
They meet for the first time under Sejdiu's chairmanship and since the death of President Ibrahim Rugova, who dominated the province's politics for 16 years and became a symbol of its quest for independence from Serbia.
The team - led by the president and comprised of Kosovo's prime minister, two opposition leaders and the head of the assembly - is expected to discuss position papers for the upcoming start of talks between Kosovo and Serbia.
The negotiations are expected to take place around Feb. 20 in Vienna, Austria after suffering several delays, most recently with Rugova's death last month. The first round of talks will deal with the reform of local government, aimed at giving Serbs and other minorities greater say in areas where they live.
Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since NATO launched a bombing campaign to end a Serb crackdown on independence-minded ethnic Albanian rebels in 1999.
Western diplomats have recently indicated that Kosovo's quest for independence from Serbia was conditional on it becoming a democracy that respects minority rights with reform of local government being a key to that goal.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Kosovo elects moderate president
Feb. 10 - Kosovo elected political moderate Sejdiu as its new president, in time for face-to-face talks between ethnic Albanians and Serbia on the future of the disputed province.
The 54-year-old,Fatmir Sejdiu, replaces Albanian independence icon Ibrahim Rugova, who died of lung cancer on January 21.
The 120-seat parliament voted 80 to 12 to elect Sejdiu, a longtime Rugova ally and senior member of his Democratic League of Kosovo.
The vote clears the way for direct Serb-Albanian talks on the fate of the Serbian province, which has been run by the United Nations since NATO bombs drove out Serb forces in 1999.
Postponed following the death of Rugova, the meeting is due to be held in Vienna on February 20.
Sejdiu, a mild-mannered law professor, received a standing ovation as the vote passed.
He promised the assembly he would lead the negotioan "as president Rugova created it", and hoped to finidh the process within 2006.
But many on the streets of Belgrade said they didn't even know who the new elected president of Kosovo is, though they assumed he would play a prominent role in upcoming talks.
"I can't tell you (what I think) since I don't even know who has been elected, but it will surely have influence on the talks," said local resident Milan Knezevic.
Legally part of Serbia, the province of 2 million people has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when 78 days of NATO bombing drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in a two-year war with separatist guerrillas.
Ninety percent of the population of Kosovo are ethnic Albanians pushing for independence, something Serbia says is unthinkable.
The two sides are due to come together this month for the first time since the United Nations launched a process late last year to end almost seven years of economic and political limbo.
Western diplomats were keen for Kosovo's Albanian leaders to quickly fill the vacuum left by Rugova, who championed the drive for independence for 16 years.
They feared a messy power-struggle could disrupt the negotiations, seen almost certainly heading for a form of independence for Kosovo under continued international supervision.
Analysts say Sejdiu's quiet, reserved manner won over his peers in government, as well as opposition.
The 54-year-old,Fatmir Sejdiu, replaces Albanian independence icon Ibrahim Rugova, who died of lung cancer on January 21.
The 120-seat parliament voted 80 to 12 to elect Sejdiu, a longtime Rugova ally and senior member of his Democratic League of Kosovo.
The vote clears the way for direct Serb-Albanian talks on the fate of the Serbian province, which has been run by the United Nations since NATO bombs drove out Serb forces in 1999.
Postponed following the death of Rugova, the meeting is due to be held in Vienna on February 20.
Sejdiu, a mild-mannered law professor, received a standing ovation as the vote passed.
He promised the assembly he would lead the negotioan "as president Rugova created it", and hoped to finidh the process within 2006.
But many on the streets of Belgrade said they didn't even know who the new elected president of Kosovo is, though they assumed he would play a prominent role in upcoming talks.
"I can't tell you (what I think) since I don't even know who has been elected, but it will surely have influence on the talks," said local resident Milan Knezevic.
Legally part of Serbia, the province of 2 million people has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when 78 days of NATO bombing drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in a two-year war with separatist guerrillas.
Ninety percent of the population of Kosovo are ethnic Albanians pushing for independence, something Serbia says is unthinkable.
The two sides are due to come together this month for the first time since the United Nations launched a process late last year to end almost seven years of economic and political limbo.
Western diplomats were keen for Kosovo's Albanian leaders to quickly fill the vacuum left by Rugova, who championed the drive for independence for 16 years.
They feared a messy power-struggle could disrupt the negotiations, seen almost certainly heading for a form of independence for Kosovo under continued international supervision.
Analysts say Sejdiu's quiet, reserved manner won over his peers in government, as well as opposition.
Statement by the Secretary General on the ELECTION OF THE NEW PRESIDENT OF KOSOVO
On behalf of NATO, I welcome the appointment of Mr. Fatmir Sejdiu as the new president of Kosovo.He brings with him a reputation for moderation and willingness to seek compromise. These qualities will be important as he leads Kosovo through these important months during the status talks and beyond.
SRSG statement on the election of the President of Kosovo
PRISTINA – SRSG Søren Jessen-Petersen today issued the following statement on the election by the Assembly of Kosovo of Dr. Fatmir Sejdiu as President of Kosovo:
“I congratulate Dr. Fatmir Sejdiu on his election as President of Kosovo and on the very strong support he received from the Assembly today. I also congratulate the Assembly for moving quickly, after the tragic loss of President Ibrahim Rugova, to take the political processes in Kosovo forward.
President Sejdiu takes Office at a decisive time for Kosovo, when it is crucial to maintain unity and stability in order to advance the process that will determine Kosovo’s status.
I am confident that President Sejdiu will provide leadership and continue the work to help the aspirations of the people of Kosovo to a peaceful, multi-ethnic, democratic and prosperous Kosovo.
President Sejdiu can count on my full support and that of all of UNMIK. I look forward to working closely with him.”
“I congratulate Dr. Fatmir Sejdiu on his election as President of Kosovo and on the very strong support he received from the Assembly today. I also congratulate the Assembly for moving quickly, after the tragic loss of President Ibrahim Rugova, to take the political processes in Kosovo forward.
President Sejdiu takes Office at a decisive time for Kosovo, when it is crucial to maintain unity and stability in order to advance the process that will determine Kosovo’s status.
I am confident that President Sejdiu will provide leadership and continue the work to help the aspirations of the people of Kosovo to a peaceful, multi-ethnic, democratic and prosperous Kosovo.
President Sejdiu can count on my full support and that of all of UNMIK. I look forward to working closely with him.”
Kosovo President Interview
PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Kosovo's newly elected president said Friday that the ethnic Albanian demand for independence from Serbia remains non-negotiable.
Fatmir Sejdiu was elected by Parliament to fill the post left by the death of pro-independence leader Ibrahim Rugova last month and paves the way for the start of U.N.-mediated talks on Kosovo's future status.
Sejdiu, 54, said that assuming the post at this delicate time is a "heavy burden and responsibility," as Kosovo leaders prepare to negotiate with Serbia's officials over the future of the disputed region later this month.
Sejdiu, the province's second president since the 1999 war, holds positions on Kosovo's status that are nearly identical with those of his predecessor, who dominated the province's politics for 16 years and epitomized ethnic Albanians' quest for Kosovo's independence from Serbia. Rugova died of lung cancer on Jan. 21.
Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since NATO launched a bombing campaign to end a Serb crackdown on independence-minded ethnic Albanian rebels in 1999.
The presidential post is largely ceremonial, but it has gained importance because the president heads the team that will negotiate in U.N.-mediated talks with Serb officials.
"Kosovo's independence is non-negotiable," a soft-spoken Sejdiu said during an interview with the Associated Press at his modest house in Pristina. "For us it is very important that this road to independence is a quick one," he said.
Talks between Kosovo and Serbia on the province's future are expected to start around Feb. 20 in Vienna, the Austrian capital. The first round will deal with the reform of local government, aimed at giving Serbs and other minorities greater say in areas where they live.
Western diplomats recently indicated that Kosovo's quest for independence from Serbia was conditional on it becoming a democracy that respects minority rights with reform of local government being a key to that goal.
"We consider the reform of local government necessary for all of Kosovo's citizens," Sejdiu said. This reform, according to him, should not allow the ethnic Albanian majority to behave in a dominating way and should not allow creation of enclaves where Serbs live separate lives.
Sejdiu, is considered a moderate in the province's largest party, the Democratic League of Kosovo, which he served as secretary-general. He was one of the founders of the party in the early 1990s, and has served as a member of Kosovo's parliament since 2001. He holds a law doctorate and is a professor at Pristina University. He is married and has three sons.
Fatmir Sejdiu was elected by Parliament to fill the post left by the death of pro-independence leader Ibrahim Rugova last month and paves the way for the start of U.N.-mediated talks on Kosovo's future status.
Sejdiu, 54, said that assuming the post at this delicate time is a "heavy burden and responsibility," as Kosovo leaders prepare to negotiate with Serbia's officials over the future of the disputed region later this month.
Sejdiu, the province's second president since the 1999 war, holds positions on Kosovo's status that are nearly identical with those of his predecessor, who dominated the province's politics for 16 years and epitomized ethnic Albanians' quest for Kosovo's independence from Serbia. Rugova died of lung cancer on Jan. 21.
Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since NATO launched a bombing campaign to end a Serb crackdown on independence-minded ethnic Albanian rebels in 1999.
The presidential post is largely ceremonial, but it has gained importance because the president heads the team that will negotiate in U.N.-mediated talks with Serb officials.
"Kosovo's independence is non-negotiable," a soft-spoken Sejdiu said during an interview with the Associated Press at his modest house in Pristina. "For us it is very important that this road to independence is a quick one," he said.
Talks between Kosovo and Serbia on the province's future are expected to start around Feb. 20 in Vienna, the Austrian capital. The first round will deal with the reform of local government, aimed at giving Serbs and other minorities greater say in areas where they live.
Western diplomats recently indicated that Kosovo's quest for independence from Serbia was conditional on it becoming a democracy that respects minority rights with reform of local government being a key to that goal.
"We consider the reform of local government necessary for all of Kosovo's citizens," Sejdiu said. This reform, according to him, should not allow the ethnic Albanian majority to behave in a dominating way and should not allow creation of enclaves where Serbs live separate lives.
Sejdiu, is considered a moderate in the province's largest party, the Democratic League of Kosovo, which he served as secretary-general. He was one of the founders of the party in the early 1990s, and has served as a member of Kosovo's parliament since 2001. He holds a law doctorate and is a professor at Pristina University. He is married and has three sons.
Kosovo gets new president for independence talks
PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Kosovo on Friday elected moderate Fatmir Sejdiu as its new president, clearing the way for face-to-face talks between ethnic Albanians and Serbia on the future of the disputed province.
The 54-year-old replaces Albanian independence icon Ibrahim Rugova, who died of lung cancer on Jan 21. The 120-seat parliament voted 80 to 12 to elect Sejdiu, a longtime Rugova ally and senior member of his Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK).
Sejdiu is Kosovo's second president since the United Nations took control of the province in 1999, when NATO bombed for 78 days to drive out Serb forces accused of ethnic cleansing.
Direct Serb-Albanian talks on Kosovo's fate, postponed following the death of Rugova, are now set for Vienna on Feb. 20 -- the first such meeting in a process diplomats say could end in independence from Serbia within the year.
Sejdiu, a mild-mannered law professor, received a standing ovation as the vote passed. He promised to obtain the independence that Rugova championed for 16 years.
"I assure you I will lead the negotiating team as president Rugova created it, to finish this process as soon as possible within 2006," Sejdiu told the assembly.
He called on the province's Serbs -- a ghettoised minority that wants to remain part of Serbia -- to join them in creating a multi-ethnic, tolerant Kosovo.
TOLERANCE AND UNDERSTANDING
Kosovo's U.N. governor said it was a "good day" for the province. Sejdiu "will maintain unity and stability, and make sure we can move toward a decision on status," said Soren Jessen-Petersen.
The architect of a decade of passive resistance to Serb rule, Rugova died leaving a leadership vacuum at a critical juncture. Fearing a messy power-struggle, diplomats in Pristina lobbied hard for the LDK to fill the post so talks could begin.
Analysts say Sejdiu's quiet, reserved manner won over the LDK's various factions. "He is a man of tolerance, cooperation and understanding," LDK member Kole Berisha told parliament.
Almost seven years have passed since NATO launched its first "humanitarian" war to wrest control of Kosovo from Belgrade, whose forces were accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in a war with separatist guerrillas.
Ninety percent of its 2 million people are ethnic Albanians impatient for independence, something Serbia says is impossible. Frustration with the status quo has fueled sporadic, sometimes explosive violence against Serbs and the U.N.
Fearful of fresh violence, the U.N. launched a process of mediation late last year led by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. Diplomats say Kosovo will almost certainly win independence, conditional on concessions to Serbs and acceptance of an EU-led supervisory mission for years to come.
The 54-year-old replaces Albanian independence icon Ibrahim Rugova, who died of lung cancer on Jan 21. The 120-seat parliament voted 80 to 12 to elect Sejdiu, a longtime Rugova ally and senior member of his Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK).
Sejdiu is Kosovo's second president since the United Nations took control of the province in 1999, when NATO bombed for 78 days to drive out Serb forces accused of ethnic cleansing.
Direct Serb-Albanian talks on Kosovo's fate, postponed following the death of Rugova, are now set for Vienna on Feb. 20 -- the first such meeting in a process diplomats say could end in independence from Serbia within the year.
Sejdiu, a mild-mannered law professor, received a standing ovation as the vote passed. He promised to obtain the independence that Rugova championed for 16 years.
"I assure you I will lead the negotiating team as president Rugova created it, to finish this process as soon as possible within 2006," Sejdiu told the assembly.
He called on the province's Serbs -- a ghettoised minority that wants to remain part of Serbia -- to join them in creating a multi-ethnic, tolerant Kosovo.
TOLERANCE AND UNDERSTANDING
Kosovo's U.N. governor said it was a "good day" for the province. Sejdiu "will maintain unity and stability, and make sure we can move toward a decision on status," said Soren Jessen-Petersen.
The architect of a decade of passive resistance to Serb rule, Rugova died leaving a leadership vacuum at a critical juncture. Fearing a messy power-struggle, diplomats in Pristina lobbied hard for the LDK to fill the post so talks could begin.
Analysts say Sejdiu's quiet, reserved manner won over the LDK's various factions. "He is a man of tolerance, cooperation and understanding," LDK member Kole Berisha told parliament.
Almost seven years have passed since NATO launched its first "humanitarian" war to wrest control of Kosovo from Belgrade, whose forces were accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in a war with separatist guerrillas.
Ninety percent of its 2 million people are ethnic Albanians impatient for independence, something Serbia says is impossible. Frustration with the status quo has fueled sporadic, sometimes explosive violence against Serbs and the U.N.
Fearful of fresh violence, the U.N. launched a process of mediation late last year led by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. Diplomats say Kosovo will almost certainly win independence, conditional on concessions to Serbs and acceptance of an EU-led supervisory mission for years to come.
New president elected in Kosovo
The Kosovo parliament has elected a 54-year-old law professor, Fatmir Sejdiu, as the province's new president ahead of key UN-sponsored talks.
Mr Sejdiu replaces the late Ibrahim Rugova, the iconic figure who led the non-violent campaign by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority to end Serbian rule.
Mr Rugova died of lung cancer last month. Mr Sejdiu has vowed to continue his push for independence.
Mr Sejdiu was the sole candidate in the parliamentary vote on Friday.
He has been on the presidency of Kosovo's biggest party, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), since it was formed in 1991.
Kosovo remains a Serbian province administered by the UN.
Talks on the future status of Kosovo are scheduled to take place later this month. They were delayed by Mr Rugova's funeral.
Ethnic Albanians, who make up 90% of the population of Kosovo, hope the talks will lead to full independence from Serbia - an outcome opposed by Belgrade.
Kosovo has been a United Nations protectorate since an armed uprising by ethnic Albanians and a Nato bombing campaign forced Serb forces to pull out of the province in 1999.
Nato intervened to halt a crackdown by Serb security forces on ethnic Albanian civilians, thousands of whom were driven from their homes.
Mr Sejdiu replaces the late Ibrahim Rugova, the iconic figure who led the non-violent campaign by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority to end Serbian rule.
Mr Rugova died of lung cancer last month. Mr Sejdiu has vowed to continue his push for independence.
Mr Sejdiu was the sole candidate in the parliamentary vote on Friday.
He has been on the presidency of Kosovo's biggest party, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), since it was formed in 1991.
Kosovo remains a Serbian province administered by the UN.
Talks on the future status of Kosovo are scheduled to take place later this month. They were delayed by Mr Rugova's funeral.
Ethnic Albanians, who make up 90% of the population of Kosovo, hope the talks will lead to full independence from Serbia - an outcome opposed by Belgrade.
Kosovo has been a United Nations protectorate since an armed uprising by ethnic Albanians and a Nato bombing campaign forced Serb forces to pull out of the province in 1999.
Nato intervened to halt a crackdown by Serb security forces on ethnic Albanian civilians, thousands of whom were driven from their homes.
Kosovo's New President: Province's Independence Non-negotiable
PRISTINA (AP)--Kosovo's newly elected president said Friday that the ethnic Albanian demand for independence from Serbia remains non-negotiable.
Fatmir Sejdiu was elected by Parliament to fill the post left by the death of pro-independence leader Ibrahim Rugova last month and paves the way for the start of U.N.-mediated talks on Kosovo's future status.
Sejdiu, 54, said assuming the post at this delicate time is a "heavy burden and responsibility," as Kosovo leaders prepare to negotiate with Serbia's officials over the future of the disputed region later this month.
Sejdiu, the province's second president since the 1999 war, holds positions on Kosovo's status that are nearly identical with those of his predecessor, who dominated the province's politics for 16 years and epitomized ethnic Albanians' quest for Kosovo's independence from Serbia. Rugova died of lung cancer on Jan. 21.
Kosovo has been run by the U.N. since NATO launched a bombing campaign to end a Serb crackdown on independence-minded ethnic Albanian rebels in 1999.
The presidential post is largely ceremonial, but it has gained importance because the president heads the team that will negotiate in U.N.-mediated talks with Serb officials.
Fatmir Sejdiu was elected by Parliament to fill the post left by the death of pro-independence leader Ibrahim Rugova last month and paves the way for the start of U.N.-mediated talks on Kosovo's future status.
Sejdiu, 54, said assuming the post at this delicate time is a "heavy burden and responsibility," as Kosovo leaders prepare to negotiate with Serbia's officials over the future of the disputed region later this month.
Sejdiu, the province's second president since the 1999 war, holds positions on Kosovo's status that are nearly identical with those of his predecessor, who dominated the province's politics for 16 years and epitomized ethnic Albanians' quest for Kosovo's independence from Serbia. Rugova died of lung cancer on Jan. 21.
Kosovo has been run by the U.N. since NATO launched a bombing campaign to end a Serb crackdown on independence-minded ethnic Albanian rebels in 1999.
The presidential post is largely ceremonial, but it has gained importance because the president heads the team that will negotiate in U.N.-mediated talks with Serb officials.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Kosovo set to elect moderate as new president
PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro, Feb 9, 2006 (AFP)
Kosovo is set to elect a moderate on Friday to succeed the late president Ibrahim Rugova and lead the province's ethnic Albanian majority in their push for independence from Serbia.
Fatmir Sejdiu, 54, is the only candidate that has been named for the position, three weeks after the death of Rugova, whom most Kosovo Albanians saw as the "Father of the Nation".
Kosovo's parliamentary speaker Nexhat Daci on Thursday announced the decision that the formal vote would be held in the province's 120-seat assembly after a meeting of the chamber's Albanian leaders.
"The election of the president will take place on Friday at 11:00 am (1000 GMT)," Daci told local media following the session.
The date for the election was pushed forward to Friday from next Monday following a request from Soren Jessen-Petersen, the head of the United Nations mission (UNMIK) that has run Kosovo since its 1998-1999 conflict.
Rugova's death from lung cancer at the age of 61 on January 21 left a political void in the province ahead of crucial face-to-face talks between the Albanian leaders and Serbia on Kosovo's future status.
Sejdiu, chosen as the candidate of Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) party last week, looks set to be elected to fill the position unopposed after winning approval from the United Nations and Western powers.
The main opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo (DPK) headed by former separatist Albanian guerrilla leader Hashim Thaci has not presented its own candidate for the position, appearing to have accepted the nomination of Sejdiu.
The post of president is largely ceremonial in Kosovo, but the position holds much symbolism for the province's ethnic Albanians who are seeking to break away from Serbia in UN-backed talks with Belgrade.
Sejdiu has served as the secretary-general of the LDK since it was established in 1989 and heads the party's parliamentary delegation.
"I will continue the vision of Rugova for the independence of Kosovo," Sejdiu said following his nomination.
Sejdiu, who is married and has three sons, originates from a village near the northern Kosovo town of Podujevo.
He has a doctorate in law, in which he lectured at the University of Pristina, the main town in the province, and speaks English and French, according to his official profile on the Kosovo parliament's website.
Sejdiu said in Pristina on Thursay that he wants Kosovo's independence to be internationally recognised, according to a statement from his office.
"Institutions and citizens of Kosovo are determined and engaged to build up a democratic society and create an independent state," Sejdiu was quoted as saying in the statement.
Legally still a province of Serbia, Kosovo has been run by the United Nations and NATO since the alliance's air war in 1999 drove out forces loyal to former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic over a crackdown against separatist Albanian rebels.
Kosovo's future status talks began tentatively in November last year, with the ethnic Albanian majority in the province seeking independence from Serbia, a demand strongly opposed by Belgrade and Serbs.
It is not yet clear if Sejdiu will also head the ethnic Albanian negotiating team for the talks, as Rugova was scheduled to do before his death forced the postponement of the talks.
© AFP Agence France-Presse
Kosovo is set to elect a moderate on Friday to succeed the late president Ibrahim Rugova and lead the province's ethnic Albanian majority in their push for independence from Serbia.
Fatmir Sejdiu, 54, is the only candidate that has been named for the position, three weeks after the death of Rugova, whom most Kosovo Albanians saw as the "Father of the Nation".
Kosovo's parliamentary speaker Nexhat Daci on Thursday announced the decision that the formal vote would be held in the province's 120-seat assembly after a meeting of the chamber's Albanian leaders.
"The election of the president will take place on Friday at 11:00 am (1000 GMT)," Daci told local media following the session.
The date for the election was pushed forward to Friday from next Monday following a request from Soren Jessen-Petersen, the head of the United Nations mission (UNMIK) that has run Kosovo since its 1998-1999 conflict.
Rugova's death from lung cancer at the age of 61 on January 21 left a political void in the province ahead of crucial face-to-face talks between the Albanian leaders and Serbia on Kosovo's future status.
Sejdiu, chosen as the candidate of Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) party last week, looks set to be elected to fill the position unopposed after winning approval from the United Nations and Western powers.
The main opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo (DPK) headed by former separatist Albanian guerrilla leader Hashim Thaci has not presented its own candidate for the position, appearing to have accepted the nomination of Sejdiu.
The post of president is largely ceremonial in Kosovo, but the position holds much symbolism for the province's ethnic Albanians who are seeking to break away from Serbia in UN-backed talks with Belgrade.
Sejdiu has served as the secretary-general of the LDK since it was established in 1989 and heads the party's parliamentary delegation.
"I will continue the vision of Rugova for the independence of Kosovo," Sejdiu said following his nomination.
Sejdiu, who is married and has three sons, originates from a village near the northern Kosovo town of Podujevo.
He has a doctorate in law, in which he lectured at the University of Pristina, the main town in the province, and speaks English and French, according to his official profile on the Kosovo parliament's website.
Sejdiu said in Pristina on Thursay that he wants Kosovo's independence to be internationally recognised, according to a statement from his office.
"Institutions and citizens of Kosovo are determined and engaged to build up a democratic society and create an independent state," Sejdiu was quoted as saying in the statement.
Legally still a province of Serbia, Kosovo has been run by the United Nations and NATO since the alliance's air war in 1999 drove out forces loyal to former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic over a crackdown against separatist Albanian rebels.
Kosovo's future status talks began tentatively in November last year, with the ethnic Albanian majority in the province seeking independence from Serbia, a demand strongly opposed by Belgrade and Serbs.
It is not yet clear if Sejdiu will also head the ethnic Albanian negotiating team for the talks, as Rugova was scheduled to do before his death forced the postponement of the talks.
© AFP Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
British Foreign Office pressuring Serbia to give up Kosovo - commentary
A Belgrade newspaper says there was a "stormy response" to Foreign Office political director John Sawers when he conveyed to Serbian politicians that the Contact Group has agreed Kosovo should be given independence. It adds that Foreign Office representatives have reportedly claimed "for weeks" in meetings in Belgrade that Serbia has lost sovereignty over Kosovo and that the pressure on Serbia is not letting up. Washington and London would like Belgrade to agree to Kosovo independence of its own volition rather than force an imposed solution which would be vetoed by Russia in the Contact Group and by China in the UNSC, it says. The following is the text of the report by Dragana Matovic and Vladimir Radomirovic entitled "Pressure on Serbia to give up Kosovo: London undermining talks" published by the Serbian newspaper Politika on 8 February:
Even though he was about to get up from the table on Monday [6 February], when [British Foreign Office political director] John Sawers was "delivering" to Serb representatives in Pristina the Contact Group's supposed decision that Kosovo be granted independence, Goran Bogdanovic, a member of Serbia's negotiating team, yesterday said with a cool head that it would be fatal to discontinue the talks on Kosovo's status.
"It is all a trial balloon, an attempt to provoke us to make an injudicious decision in that direction and then to blame us for contributing to Kosovo's independence," said Bogdanovic.
He said Sawer's statement met with a stormy response, that the meeting passed in a tense atmosphere and that the Serb representatives had told the political director of Britain's Foreign Office that "Serbs do not want to live in an independent Kosovo".
Ever since the message reached the public, speculation has been rife on whether Sawers' supposed message had been properly conveyed, because he never said publicly that the "Contact Group has decided that Kosovo should be granted independence".
The British diplomat, who is in charge of reporting on the Balkans and regular contacts with the five other members of the Contact Group (United States, Germany, France, Italy and Russia), merely told the press on Monday: "The more the Kosovo leaders offer the other communities and prove that democracy is mature in Kosovo, the greater independence will be."
After meeting the Albanian negotiating team, Sawers said in an obvious message to both sides in Kosovo that the solution should be found by the end of the year, and that the pace would depend largely on the leaders of all ethnic communities in the province and their readiness to understand the needs of the other communities.
However, Sawers spoke differently behind closed doors, Kosovo Serb politicians claim. This is not the first time that British diplomats have conveyed such radical messages to the Serb side "face-to-face".
Politika has learned from diplomatic sources that representatives of the Foreign Office had for weeks maintained, in meetings with domestic officials, that Serbia has lost sovereignty over Kosovo.
Thus British Ambassador in Belgrade David Gowan "explained" to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica that the Contact Group stance that there would be no return to the status prior to 1999 meant that the province would never again be under Serbia's jurisdiction.
Kostunica asked that the Contact Group explain this "explanation", saying that if it were true, it would considerably alter Belgrade's stance in the talks, in which case he would have to consult the assembly, which had given him the mandate for the talks. Kostunica asked the Contact Group urgently to issue a statement on Sawer's stance.
The meeting was held, but the British ambassador did not show up, but sent his deputy instead. US Ambassador Michael Polt did the same. At the meeting of the four ambassadors and two deputies, France and Russia supported Serbia's stand, Politika has learned, and Belgrade was told that there was no change in the Contact Group's position.
Pressure on Serbia, however, has not ceased, because the West (chiefly Washington and London) would prefer at this moment if Belgrade agreed to Kosovo's independence on its own. If the province were to obtain independence through a solution imposed on Serbia, it would mean that NATO did not wage the war in 1999 to "prevent a humanitarian catastrophe" but to break away Kosovo. And if independence were imposed, it would be a basis for Belgrade possibly to sue the nations that took part in seizing part of the state's territory.
But the United States and Britain want to avoid imposed solutions, as Russia would not agree to it in the Contact Group, nor would China in the Security Council, both countries looking after their own interests.
"I said this would happen back in April, when everyone attacked me over the proposal that Kosovo will get independence the day we enter the European Union," said Goran Svilanovic, member of the International Balkans Commission. He said that Belgrade should certainly not consider walking out of the talks because "there is much to negotiate".
Source: Politika, Belgrade, in Serbian 8 Feb 06 pp 1, 7
Even though he was about to get up from the table on Monday [6 February], when [British Foreign Office political director] John Sawers was "delivering" to Serb representatives in Pristina the Contact Group's supposed decision that Kosovo be granted independence, Goran Bogdanovic, a member of Serbia's negotiating team, yesterday said with a cool head that it would be fatal to discontinue the talks on Kosovo's status.
"It is all a trial balloon, an attempt to provoke us to make an injudicious decision in that direction and then to blame us for contributing to Kosovo's independence," said Bogdanovic.
He said Sawer's statement met with a stormy response, that the meeting passed in a tense atmosphere and that the Serb representatives had told the political director of Britain's Foreign Office that "Serbs do not want to live in an independent Kosovo".
Ever since the message reached the public, speculation has been rife on whether Sawers' supposed message had been properly conveyed, because he never said publicly that the "Contact Group has decided that Kosovo should be granted independence".
The British diplomat, who is in charge of reporting on the Balkans and regular contacts with the five other members of the Contact Group (United States, Germany, France, Italy and Russia), merely told the press on Monday: "The more the Kosovo leaders offer the other communities and prove that democracy is mature in Kosovo, the greater independence will be."
After meeting the Albanian negotiating team, Sawers said in an obvious message to both sides in Kosovo that the solution should be found by the end of the year, and that the pace would depend largely on the leaders of all ethnic communities in the province and their readiness to understand the needs of the other communities.
However, Sawers spoke differently behind closed doors, Kosovo Serb politicians claim. This is not the first time that British diplomats have conveyed such radical messages to the Serb side "face-to-face".
Politika has learned from diplomatic sources that representatives of the Foreign Office had for weeks maintained, in meetings with domestic officials, that Serbia has lost sovereignty over Kosovo.
Thus British Ambassador in Belgrade David Gowan "explained" to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica that the Contact Group stance that there would be no return to the status prior to 1999 meant that the province would never again be under Serbia's jurisdiction.
Kostunica asked that the Contact Group explain this "explanation", saying that if it were true, it would considerably alter Belgrade's stance in the talks, in which case he would have to consult the assembly, which had given him the mandate for the talks. Kostunica asked the Contact Group urgently to issue a statement on Sawer's stance.
The meeting was held, but the British ambassador did not show up, but sent his deputy instead. US Ambassador Michael Polt did the same. At the meeting of the four ambassadors and two deputies, France and Russia supported Serbia's stand, Politika has learned, and Belgrade was told that there was no change in the Contact Group's position.
Pressure on Serbia, however, has not ceased, because the West (chiefly Washington and London) would prefer at this moment if Belgrade agreed to Kosovo's independence on its own. If the province were to obtain independence through a solution imposed on Serbia, it would mean that NATO did not wage the war in 1999 to "prevent a humanitarian catastrophe" but to break away Kosovo. And if independence were imposed, it would be a basis for Belgrade possibly to sue the nations that took part in seizing part of the state's territory.
But the United States and Britain want to avoid imposed solutions, as Russia would not agree to it in the Contact Group, nor would China in the Security Council, both countries looking after their own interests.
"I said this would happen back in April, when everyone attacked me over the proposal that Kosovo will get independence the day we enter the European Union," said Goran Svilanovic, member of the International Balkans Commission. He said that Belgrade should certainly not consider walking out of the talks because "there is much to negotiate".
Source: Politika, Belgrade, in Serbian 8 Feb 06 pp 1, 7
Serbia hopes UN Security Council will reject Kosovo’s independence
(Belgrade, DTT-NET.COM)-Serbia’s authorities are furious with latest support shown by UK government to Kosovo’s independence and said that whatever the position of London is, it’s up to the UN highest body to decide on the future status of UN administrated province.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has told UK’s political director of foreign ministry John Sawers that the final word belongs to the UN Security Council, which he believes will respect current official borders of Serbia and Montenegro state union and prevent Kosovo to become independent state.
Kostunica said that “ Serbia has full confidence that the Security Council will abide by the principles of international law in the process of finding a solution to the Kosovo-Metohija issue, above all respecting the principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity of an internationally recognised state,” the government wrote at its website, following a meeting of Serbian PM with UK official who has sparked furious reactions to Kosovo Serbs and Serbia’s authorities, when he said in Prishtina that Kosovo’s independence depends on the respect of rights of Serbian minority.
According to Kosovo Serbs representatives, Sawers has also told them that major international powers from the Group (CG), (US, Russia, Germany, France, Italy and UK) have already made up their mind to accept the province become independent state, which Sawers denied yesterday during his visit in Belgrade.
Serbia’s government officials have threatened to quit UN intermediated talks with Ethnic Albanians, following UK top official statements.
Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, the head of Serbia’s coordinating team for Kosovo, told local media that Serbian government should reconsider its participation at the future talks on Kosovo status rescheduled for the end 20 February.
Sawers visit to the region comes a week after major international powers of the CG for Kosovo called on Belgrade “to bear in mind that the settlement needs, inter-alia, to be acceptable to the people of Kosovo. “
The sentence is understood in Kosovo and also by western observers as support by all CG member nations to the political will of Ethnic Albanians (who represent the majority of Kosovo population) for independence.
Kosovo is officially part of Serbia-Montenegro and is being ruled by UNMIK since mid-June 1999, when NATO drove out Serbian military and police forces, marking the end of the crackdown on ethnic Albanians by Serbian regime then led by Slobodan Milosevic.
Direct talks between Kosovo and Serbia authorities intermediated by UN envoy Martti Ahtissari, are expected to be difficult and long, as both sides have extremely opposed demands on the future of the Kosovo.
Ethnic Albanians insist on independence and final split form Serbia and Montenegro, while Serbia's representatives oppose it.
Serbia hopes that Russia (a traditional ally) and China which are permanent members of the UNSC will opposite Kosovo’s independence.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has told UK’s political director of foreign ministry John Sawers that the final word belongs to the UN Security Council, which he believes will respect current official borders of Serbia and Montenegro state union and prevent Kosovo to become independent state.
Kostunica said that “ Serbia has full confidence that the Security Council will abide by the principles of international law in the process of finding a solution to the Kosovo-Metohija issue, above all respecting the principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity of an internationally recognised state,” the government wrote at its website, following a meeting of Serbian PM with UK official who has sparked furious reactions to Kosovo Serbs and Serbia’s authorities, when he said in Prishtina that Kosovo’s independence depends on the respect of rights of Serbian minority.
According to Kosovo Serbs representatives, Sawers has also told them that major international powers from the Group (CG), (US, Russia, Germany, France, Italy and UK) have already made up their mind to accept the province become independent state, which Sawers denied yesterday during his visit in Belgrade.
Serbia’s government officials have threatened to quit UN intermediated talks with Ethnic Albanians, following UK top official statements.
Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, the head of Serbia’s coordinating team for Kosovo, told local media that Serbian government should reconsider its participation at the future talks on Kosovo status rescheduled for the end 20 February.
Sawers visit to the region comes a week after major international powers of the CG for Kosovo called on Belgrade “to bear in mind that the settlement needs, inter-alia, to be acceptable to the people of Kosovo. “
The sentence is understood in Kosovo and also by western observers as support by all CG member nations to the political will of Ethnic Albanians (who represent the majority of Kosovo population) for independence.
Kosovo is officially part of Serbia-Montenegro and is being ruled by UNMIK since mid-June 1999, when NATO drove out Serbian military and police forces, marking the end of the crackdown on ethnic Albanians by Serbian regime then led by Slobodan Milosevic.
Direct talks between Kosovo and Serbia authorities intermediated by UN envoy Martti Ahtissari, are expected to be difficult and long, as both sides have extremely opposed demands on the future of the Kosovo.
Ethnic Albanians insist on independence and final split form Serbia and Montenegro, while Serbia's representatives oppose it.
Serbia hopes that Russia (a traditional ally) and China which are permanent members of the UNSC will opposite Kosovo’s independence.
Judah: Guaranteeing independence makes Kosovars more generous (Koha)
Koha Ditore quotes British analyst on the Balkans, Tim Judah, as saying that Great Britain’s decision to publicly announce the unanimous position of the Contact Group that conditional independence should be the final status of Kosovo was done with the purpose of encouraging Kosovo Albanian leaders to be more generous in relation to Kosovo Serbs.
According to Judah, France insisted that the final result of negotiations should not be told to the negotiating parties because of the risk that the Serbs could withdraw from the process.
In Judah’s opinion, “the most important thing is that negotiations are for the status of Serbs that live in Kosovo.”
According to Judah, France insisted that the final result of negotiations should not be told to the negotiating parties because of the risk that the Serbs could withdraw from the process.
In Judah’s opinion, “the most important thing is that negotiations are for the status of Serbs that live in Kosovo.”
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Serbs told Kosovo will be independent - negotiators
PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro, Feb 7 (Reuters) - A senior British diplomat has told Serbs that independence is the best solution for the disputed Serbian province of Kosovo in talks due within days, Serb negotiators said on Tuesday.
"[John] Sawers told us the Contact Group had decided Kosovo should be independent. He said Kosovo would be multi-ethnic, but in the end independent," Goran Bogdanovic, a Kosovo Serb, told Belgrade radio B92, after meeting the political director of the British Foreign Office late on Monday.
A second Serb negotiator in Belgrade, who attended a meeting between Sawers and the Serbian prime minister on Tuesday, said the diplomat saw independence as "practically the only solution to the Kosovo problem".
The Contact Group of major powers has set international policy on Kosovo since 1999, when NATO bombs drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against the ethnic Albanian majority in a 2-year war with separatist guerrillas.
Serbian and Kosovo Albanian officials are due to meet in Vienna on Feb. 20 for the first round of direct negotiations since the United Nations began a process last year to decide Kosovo's final status.
A British diplomat based in Kosovo said Sawers had delivered the "painful" message that Serbs, outnumbered roughly 20-1 by pro-independence Albanians, should be realistic.
Speaking to Reuters in Belgrade, Sawers said Kosovo's future should reflect the wishes of the majority of the population, echoing a statement issued by the Contact Group last week.
"It's no secret that the aspirations of the great majority of Kosovars are for independence," he said. "Some of these messages are unwelcome".
"UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE"
The comments stirred tempers in Serbia, which says the amputation of 13 percent of its territory is unthinkable. Rich in Orthodox religious heritage, Kosovo was the site of the Serbs' epic 1389 defeat to the Ottoman Turks and has been key to Serb identity and history for the past 1,000 years.
"It is utterly unacceptable to present one-sided and selective approaches to solving the issue of Kosovo before the talks have even begun," Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said in a statement issued after meeting Sawers.
The ultra-nationalist Radical Party, the country's strongest, said the government should resign and call elections rather than go into talks with the outcome already decided.
Legally part of Serbia, Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since 1999. Ninety percent of its 2 million people are ethnic Albanians who want independence.
Serbia says that is impossible, despite increasingly explicit hints from Western powers that Kosovo cannot return under any form of control from Belgrade.
Sawers told reporters on Monday independence could be "delivered" in 2006 if Albanians showed enough democratic maturity. Western diplomats say this means making concessions to the Serb minority and accepting further international supervision.
(Additional reporting by Beti Bilandzic in Belgrade)
"[John] Sawers told us the Contact Group had decided Kosovo should be independent. He said Kosovo would be multi-ethnic, but in the end independent," Goran Bogdanovic, a Kosovo Serb, told Belgrade radio B92, after meeting the political director of the British Foreign Office late on Monday.
A second Serb negotiator in Belgrade, who attended a meeting between Sawers and the Serbian prime minister on Tuesday, said the diplomat saw independence as "practically the only solution to the Kosovo problem".
The Contact Group of major powers has set international policy on Kosovo since 1999, when NATO bombs drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against the ethnic Albanian majority in a 2-year war with separatist guerrillas.
Serbian and Kosovo Albanian officials are due to meet in Vienna on Feb. 20 for the first round of direct negotiations since the United Nations began a process last year to decide Kosovo's final status.
A British diplomat based in Kosovo said Sawers had delivered the "painful" message that Serbs, outnumbered roughly 20-1 by pro-independence Albanians, should be realistic.
Speaking to Reuters in Belgrade, Sawers said Kosovo's future should reflect the wishes of the majority of the population, echoing a statement issued by the Contact Group last week.
"It's no secret that the aspirations of the great majority of Kosovars are for independence," he said. "Some of these messages are unwelcome".
"UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE"
The comments stirred tempers in Serbia, which says the amputation of 13 percent of its territory is unthinkable. Rich in Orthodox religious heritage, Kosovo was the site of the Serbs' epic 1389 defeat to the Ottoman Turks and has been key to Serb identity and history for the past 1,000 years.
"It is utterly unacceptable to present one-sided and selective approaches to solving the issue of Kosovo before the talks have even begun," Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said in a statement issued after meeting Sawers.
The ultra-nationalist Radical Party, the country's strongest, said the government should resign and call elections rather than go into talks with the outcome already decided.
Legally part of Serbia, Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since 1999. Ninety percent of its 2 million people are ethnic Albanians who want independence.
Serbia says that is impossible, despite increasingly explicit hints from Western powers that Kosovo cannot return under any form of control from Belgrade.
Sawers told reporters on Monday independence could be "delivered" in 2006 if Albanians showed enough democratic maturity. Western diplomats say this means making concessions to the Serb minority and accepting further international supervision.
(Additional reporting by Beti Bilandzic in Belgrade)
British Diplomat Tells Kosovo Serbs They Must Accept an Independent Kosovo
The British Foreign Office Political Director John Sawyers, who arrived in Pristina yesterday, told Kosovo Serb political representatives that the Contact Group had decided to grant independence to Kosovo and that the Serb community should look for its position within such status solution. Earlier in the day the British diplomat had conveyed to the Pristina team for the status talks that Kosovo’s independence would depend on whether the province will be democratic and respect the minority rights, explaining that the degree in which the Kosovo Albanians will fulfill their obligations towards the other ethnic communities and demonstrate that Kosovo has become a mature democratic society could also determine the “degree of independence” the province will receive. Sawyers further indicated that the Contact Group had "established parameters for the resolution of the status, which are a multi-ethnic Kosovo, where European standards will be respected, and a Kosovo that will comply with the will of the majority people in Kosovo," all Belgrade electronic media reported.
Talking to Beta news agency upon the meeting held between John Sawyers and Kosovo Serb political representatives, Goran Bogdanovic, a member of the Belgrade negotiating team for the Kosovo status talks, said that the very tense one-hour meeting took place in an “unpleasant” atmosphere and that, while the Serb representatives fiercely dismissed the idea of an independent Kosovo, Sawyers “was persuading us, in a way, that we should accept such a solution, because it would be better for the Kosovo Serbs too.” Bogdanovic insisted that, "for us, an independent Kosovo and Metohija is absolutely inadmissible, because we have felt persecution and torture in our own skin in the province over the past seven years, under the jurisdiction of the international community. We can only imagine what will happen to us if the ethnic Albanians take over complete control when they acquire independence."
Elaborating that, after such a stand, Belgrade should think well as to whether there is any point in taking part in the Kosovo status talks, he warned that this could also be "a provocation or trap" by the international community, aimed at excluding the Serbs from the talks, even before they are launched, so that it can impose a unilateral solution for Kosovo.
Speaking to Tanjug news agency, Bogdanovic said he was “surprised with this stand, because the Contact Group members, whose members are also John Sawyers and US representatives, had earlier announced that all options are in the game in view of the Kosovo status,” adding that, “if now the Contact Group’s stand is for Kosovo to be independent, then what is the purpose of the negotiations scheduled in Vienna?”
Randjel Nojkic, another member of Belgrade’s negotiating team, commented that all the Kosovo Serb participants to the meeting were “shocked by Sawyers’ frankness,” adding that “beside such a statement of a high diplomat, we have not gained any guarantees for the status of the Kosovo Serbs. On the contrary, all of our arguments and reasons for fear were refuted, because Sawyers thinks these are not grounded.”
As for the vice-President of the Serbs National Council (SNV) of central Kosovo Rada Trajkovic, she said: “We have conveyed to Sawyers that the Serbs will not live in an independent Kosovo, while the representatives of the Belgrade negotiating team threatened they will leave the team if the solution for Kosovo is already final, because in that case the meetings have no sense anymore,” RTV Serbia reported.
In Belgrade, where Sawyers is expected today, the Serbian Premier’s political advisor and member of Belgrade’s negotiating team for Kosovo’s future status Slobodan Samardzic stated to Beta: "I cannot believe that the Contact Group has made such a decision. I cannot comment on information second-hand. If it is true, it deserves a fierce comment. There are nuances in the words and I have no intention of commenting on this."
Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, who heads the Coordination Center for Kosovo (CCK), considers that, "if it is really Great Britain's stand in the Contact Group, I wonder why Sawyers does not offer a similar solution for Northern Ireland or Wales. If it is the stand of the entire Contact Group, then Belgrade should reconsider its participation in the Kosovo status talks." She added that Sawer's reactions "indicate nervousness of certain Contact Group members" after Russian President Vladimir Putin's clear stand that "Kosovo and Metohija is a principal tightly linked with international law," Beta reported.
Talking to Beta news agency upon the meeting held between John Sawyers and Kosovo Serb political representatives, Goran Bogdanovic, a member of the Belgrade negotiating team for the Kosovo status talks, said that the very tense one-hour meeting took place in an “unpleasant” atmosphere and that, while the Serb representatives fiercely dismissed the idea of an independent Kosovo, Sawyers “was persuading us, in a way, that we should accept such a solution, because it would be better for the Kosovo Serbs too.” Bogdanovic insisted that, "for us, an independent Kosovo and Metohija is absolutely inadmissible, because we have felt persecution and torture in our own skin in the province over the past seven years, under the jurisdiction of the international community. We can only imagine what will happen to us if the ethnic Albanians take over complete control when they acquire independence."
Elaborating that, after such a stand, Belgrade should think well as to whether there is any point in taking part in the Kosovo status talks, he warned that this could also be "a provocation or trap" by the international community, aimed at excluding the Serbs from the talks, even before they are launched, so that it can impose a unilateral solution for Kosovo.
Speaking to Tanjug news agency, Bogdanovic said he was “surprised with this stand, because the Contact Group members, whose members are also John Sawyers and US representatives, had earlier announced that all options are in the game in view of the Kosovo status,” adding that, “if now the Contact Group’s stand is for Kosovo to be independent, then what is the purpose of the negotiations scheduled in Vienna?”
Randjel Nojkic, another member of Belgrade’s negotiating team, commented that all the Kosovo Serb participants to the meeting were “shocked by Sawyers’ frankness,” adding that “beside such a statement of a high diplomat, we have not gained any guarantees for the status of the Kosovo Serbs. On the contrary, all of our arguments and reasons for fear were refuted, because Sawyers thinks these are not grounded.”
As for the vice-President of the Serbs National Council (SNV) of central Kosovo Rada Trajkovic, she said: “We have conveyed to Sawyers that the Serbs will not live in an independent Kosovo, while the representatives of the Belgrade negotiating team threatened they will leave the team if the solution for Kosovo is already final, because in that case the meetings have no sense anymore,” RTV Serbia reported.
In Belgrade, where Sawyers is expected today, the Serbian Premier’s political advisor and member of Belgrade’s negotiating team for Kosovo’s future status Slobodan Samardzic stated to Beta: "I cannot believe that the Contact Group has made such a decision. I cannot comment on information second-hand. If it is true, it deserves a fierce comment. There are nuances in the words and I have no intention of commenting on this."
Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, who heads the Coordination Center for Kosovo (CCK), considers that, "if it is really Great Britain's stand in the Contact Group, I wonder why Sawyers does not offer a similar solution for Northern Ireland or Wales. If it is the stand of the entire Contact Group, then Belgrade should reconsider its participation in the Kosovo status talks." She added that Sawer's reactions "indicate nervousness of certain Contact Group members" after Russian President Vladimir Putin's clear stand that "Kosovo and Metohija is a principal tightly linked with international law," Beta reported.
Serbs told Kosovo will be independent - negotiator
PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - A senior British diplomat has told Serbs in Kosovo they should accept independence for the disputed Serbian province, Serb negotiator Goran Bogdanovic said on Tuesday.
"(John) Sawers told us the Contact Group had decided Kosovo should be independent. He said Kosovo would be multiethnic, but in the end independent," Bogdanovic told Belgrade radio B92, after meeting the political director of the Foreign Office late on Monday.
A British diplomat based in Kosovo said Sawers had delivered the "painful" message that Serbs, outnumbered roughly 20-1 by pro-independence Albanians, should be realistic.
The Contact Group of major powers has set international policy on Kosovo since 1999, when NATO bombs drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against the ethnic Albanian majority in a 2-year war with separatist guerrillas.
Sawers was due to meet Serbian leaders in Belgrade on Tuesday ahead of direct Serb-Albanian negotiations later this month -- the first under a U.N.-led drive launched last year to decide Kosovo's final status.
His reported comments stirred tempers in Serbia, which regards Kosovo as the cradle of the nation.
Rich in Orthodox religious heritage, Kosovo was the site of the Serbs' epic 1389 defeat to the Ottoman Turks and has been key to Serb identity and history for the past 1,000 years.
"If that's the opinion of the entire Contact Group, then Belgrade should reconsider its participation in negotiations," said Serbia's Kosovo policy chief, Sanda Raskovic-Ivic.
The ultra-nationalist Radical Party, the country's strongest, said the government should resign rather than go into talks with the outcome already decided.
"I think we should dissolve parliament ... and see what the citizens of Serbia think about all of this," said Radical leader Tomislav Nikolic.
The British diplomat based in Kosovo said Sawers would also take his message to Belgrade.
"They (Serbs) have to look at what the Contact Group says, what the people of Kosovo want and what history will allow," he told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Legally part of Serbia, Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since 1999. Ninety percent of its 2 million people are ethnic Albanians who want independence.
Serbia says that is impossible, despite increasingly obvious hints from the international community to the contrary.
Sawers told reporters on Monday independence could be "delivered" if Albanians showed enough democratic maturity. Western diplomats say this means making concessions to the Serb minority and accepting continued international supervision.
The Contact Group last week told Serbia to "bear in mind the settlement needs to be acceptable to the people of Kosovo."
"(John) Sawers told us the Contact Group had decided Kosovo should be independent. He said Kosovo would be multiethnic, but in the end independent," Bogdanovic told Belgrade radio B92, after meeting the political director of the Foreign Office late on Monday.
A British diplomat based in Kosovo said Sawers had delivered the "painful" message that Serbs, outnumbered roughly 20-1 by pro-independence Albanians, should be realistic.
The Contact Group of major powers has set international policy on Kosovo since 1999, when NATO bombs drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against the ethnic Albanian majority in a 2-year war with separatist guerrillas.
Sawers was due to meet Serbian leaders in Belgrade on Tuesday ahead of direct Serb-Albanian negotiations later this month -- the first under a U.N.-led drive launched last year to decide Kosovo's final status.
His reported comments stirred tempers in Serbia, which regards Kosovo as the cradle of the nation.
Rich in Orthodox religious heritage, Kosovo was the site of the Serbs' epic 1389 defeat to the Ottoman Turks and has been key to Serb identity and history for the past 1,000 years.
"If that's the opinion of the entire Contact Group, then Belgrade should reconsider its participation in negotiations," said Serbia's Kosovo policy chief, Sanda Raskovic-Ivic.
The ultra-nationalist Radical Party, the country's strongest, said the government should resign rather than go into talks with the outcome already decided.
"I think we should dissolve parliament ... and see what the citizens of Serbia think about all of this," said Radical leader Tomislav Nikolic.
The British diplomat based in Kosovo said Sawers would also take his message to Belgrade.
"They (Serbs) have to look at what the Contact Group says, what the people of Kosovo want and what history will allow," he told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Legally part of Serbia, Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since 1999. Ninety percent of its 2 million people are ethnic Albanians who want independence.
Serbia says that is impossible, despite increasingly obvious hints from the international community to the contrary.
Sawers told reporters on Monday independence could be "delivered" if Albanians showed enough democratic maturity. Western diplomats say this means making concessions to the Serb minority and accepting continued international supervision.
The Contact Group last week told Serbia to "bear in mind the settlement needs to be acceptable to the people of Kosovo."
Monday, February 06, 2006
Kosovo can win independence, says British diplomat
PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro, Feb 6 (Reuters) - The United Nations-run province of Kosovo can win independence from Serbia in negotiations this year if it shows enough democratic maturity, a senior British diplomat said on Monday.
"The more the leaders of Kosovo can reach out to the other communities and show that Kosovo is a mature democracy, the more fully an independence can be delivered," John Sawers, the political director of Britain's foreign office, told reporters after meeting Kosovo Albanian leaders in the capital, Pristina.
The comments are in line with what diplomats have been saying in private for months -- that a form of conditional independence for Serbia's southern province is almost certain, provided the Albanian majority makes concessions to minority Serbs and accepts some continued international supervision.
The first round of face-to-face negotiations between Serbian and Kosovo Albanian officials is due to take place in Vienna later this month, having been delayed for several weeks by the death of Kosovo president Ibrahim Rugova on Jan. 21.
Legally part of Serbia, the province of 2 million people became a U.N. protectorate in 1999, when NATO bombing drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in a two-year war with separatist guerrillas.
Serbia officially opposes independence but 90 percent of the population are ethnic Albanians, who demand nothing less than their own state after years of discrimination and violent repression.
Fearful of fresh ethnic violence, the U.N. Security Council last November launched a mediation process led by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari to decide Kosovo's "final status."
The Contact Group of major powers -- the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia -- issued a statement in London last week saying a deal should be on the table within the year.
The statement urged Serbia to "bear in mind that the settlement needs ... to be acceptable to the people of Kosovo."
Sawers said it was up to Kosovo's leaders to secure their goal. "The more Kosovo's leaders can work together, the more they can understand each others issues, each others concerns, the more fully the goal of the people of Kosovo can be achieved and the quicker it will be achieved," he said.
The comments were unlikely to go down well in Belgrade, where Sawers is due to meet Serbian leaders on Tuesday.
"The more the leaders of Kosovo can reach out to the other communities and show that Kosovo is a mature democracy, the more fully an independence can be delivered," John Sawers, the political director of Britain's foreign office, told reporters after meeting Kosovo Albanian leaders in the capital, Pristina.
The comments are in line with what diplomats have been saying in private for months -- that a form of conditional independence for Serbia's southern province is almost certain, provided the Albanian majority makes concessions to minority Serbs and accepts some continued international supervision.
The first round of face-to-face negotiations between Serbian and Kosovo Albanian officials is due to take place in Vienna later this month, having been delayed for several weeks by the death of Kosovo president Ibrahim Rugova on Jan. 21.
Legally part of Serbia, the province of 2 million people became a U.N. protectorate in 1999, when NATO bombing drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in a two-year war with separatist guerrillas.
Serbia officially opposes independence but 90 percent of the population are ethnic Albanians, who demand nothing less than their own state after years of discrimination and violent repression.
Fearful of fresh ethnic violence, the U.N. Security Council last November launched a mediation process led by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari to decide Kosovo's "final status."
The Contact Group of major powers -- the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia -- issued a statement in London last week saying a deal should be on the table within the year.
The statement urged Serbia to "bear in mind that the settlement needs ... to be acceptable to the people of Kosovo."
Sawers said it was up to Kosovo's leaders to secure their goal. "The more Kosovo's leaders can work together, the more they can understand each others issues, each others concerns, the more fully the goal of the people of Kosovo can be achieved and the quicker it will be achieved," he said.
The comments were unlikely to go down well in Belgrade, where Sawers is due to meet Serbian leaders on Tuesday.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Draskovic: ICTY fugitives weaken Serbia's negotiating position
BELGRADE/WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2006 (BETA) - On Feb. 2 in Washington Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic spoke with U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, who conveyed to him that Serbia's position in the Kosovo status talks would grow weaker the longer the ICTY indictees are not brought to justice.
"The messages were rather harsh, but not unexpected. There is no Partnership for Peace and NATO, Serbia's progress toward the EU is in danger and Serbia's negotiating position on Kosovo itself will weaken dramatically until the ICTY indictees are in The Hague," Draskovic said in a telephone statement to BETA.
According to Draskovic, Burns also said that unrealistic political demands regarding Kosovo -- all those ignoring the leading principles of the Contact Group, including the principle that there can be no return to the pre-1999 situation -- harm Serbia's negotiating position.
The Serbia-Montenegro foreign minister stressed that during the conversation he had "insisted sharply and firmly" that the territorial integrity of Serbia cannot be brought into question, as even NATO did not bring it into question after its victory over former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.
"The messages were rather harsh, but not unexpected. There is no Partnership for Peace and NATO, Serbia's progress toward the EU is in danger and Serbia's negotiating position on Kosovo itself will weaken dramatically until the ICTY indictees are in The Hague," Draskovic said in a telephone statement to BETA.
According to Draskovic, Burns also said that unrealistic political demands regarding Kosovo -- all those ignoring the leading principles of the Contact Group, including the principle that there can be no return to the pre-1999 situation -- harm Serbia's negotiating position.
The Serbia-Montenegro foreign minister stressed that during the conversation he had "insisted sharply and firmly" that the territorial integrity of Serbia cannot be brought into question, as even NATO did not bring it into question after its victory over former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.
Displaced Gypsies at Risk From Lead in Kosovo Camps
By NICHOLAS WOOD
MITROVICA, Kosovo, Jan. 31 — Nikolina Mehmeti looks like any healthy 3-year-old girl. She has big eyes, a coy smile and babbles to anyone ready to listen. But a year and a half ago her parents were worried for her life.
After catching a high fever in the refugee camp where her family lived, Nikolina started to have a seizure, her mother said.
"Her limbs turned blue, and she was shaking," said Nikolina's mother, Zalibena Mehmeti, one of this city's Roma, often known as Gypsies.
Minutes later, the girl slipped into unconsciousness. "You couldn't tell if she was dead or alive," her mother said. Nikolina's parents were all the more anxious because her sister Jenita died after exhibiting similar symptoms three months earlier.
It was a half year before Nikolina was treated for lead poisoning and firmly regained consciousness.
Roma rights groups say that up to 31 Roma have been killed by diseases brought on by lead poisoning, a problem that grew acute for them six and half years ago. That was when the United Nations mission that controls this province set up three refugee camps in the north part of the city for Roma who were displaced when ethnic Albanians took their homes across town at the end of the Kosovo war in 1999.
The death toll is especially large for a local Roma community of just 570 people, and no one disputes the main source of pollution. All three refugee camps lie within 200 yards of three huge mounds of industrial waste, the byproduct of a lead smelting factory that operated from the 1920's until 2000.
Health specialists say children are particularly vulnerable to this kind of pollution. Soon after the Roma moved in, the United Nations realized that they were living on contaminated land. Several reports by the United Nations mission and the World Health Organization dating to 2000 recommended their immediate removal.
But the Roma remained in their wooden huts, built by aid agencies, and in a hodgepodge of metal and particle board shacks that they had put up themselves.
Now the mission is planning to move families from all three camps to refurbished army barracks, where it says they will be safe.
"The W.H.O. considers this the worst environmental disaster for children in the whole of Europe," said Gerry McWeeney, an environmental epidemiologist for the World Health Organization in Mitrovica and the author of a 2004 report on the effects of the poisoning. "There are around 100,000 to 130,000 people affected by this," she said.
It is hard to miss the two vast hills of reddish gray debris from which toxic dust blows across the north part of the city. Each holds tons of industrial waste. They are about 90 feet high and 500 yards long, and stretch out of the city through a valley. Water runs off the hills and streams into the River Ibar, where in summer children play and bathe. The third dump lies outside town.
Medical specialists say overall health conditions in the refugee camps make them even more vulnerable to contamination.
Camp residents do not have running water in their homes, so they have fewer opportunities to wash their hands and food, thereby increasing the risk of contamination.
"Their skin goes yellow," said Flanza Jahirovic, a 31-year-old mother who lives in one of the camps, said of the children. "They are often feeble and dizzy, and they just want to sleep."
Tests conducted last October by Klaus Dietrich-Runow, a German medical doctor and environmental specialist, showed that all the children tested had high lead levels, most dangerously so, and had high levels of antimony, arsenic, cadmium and manganese. "The levels of toxic metals like lead, arsenic, antimony and cadmium are the highest levels that have ever have been measured in human hair samples," Dr. Dietrich-Runow wrote via e-mail. His claim could not be independently verified.
Lead poisoning can stunt growth and cause irreversible brain and nerve damage, suppression of the immune system, anemia and renal failure. It can also cause speech, language and behavioral problems.
United Nations officials say the effects of lead poisoning among the Roma may have been compounded by an illegal lead trade in the camps, which involved melting down car batteries, a practice they say has been stopped.
In 2000, when the United Nations had been in Kosovo for a year, international officials seemed acutely aware of the dangers posed by lead poisoning.
The leader of the United Nations mission, Bernard Kouchner of France, a doctor and politician, ordered a military operation to close the smelter.
But since then, parts of the United Nations mission appear to have lost sight of the hazards.
Within the last three years, local authorities built a running track between refugee camps and the toxic mounds. A United Nations sign written in English, Serbian and Albanian at one end of the course, which joggers still use, says "Alley of Health."
Last August, international officials began a campaign to alert the Roma to the risks of lead poisoning, and in November work began on the former army barracks, though it is adjacent to two of the refugee camps and close to the toxic hills.
Asked why the mission could not have acted earlier, Remi Dourlot, a spokesman, said it had "other priorities," like establishing security in the region, and that unstable conditions might have made relocation impractical.
Officials working on the $1.6 million refurbishing of the barracks said the site would be washed down once a week with a fire truck to prevent lead dust from contaminating it.
The United Nations has also begun work on a $9.7 million project to rebuild the Roma community's original homes in southern Mitrovica.
Some health specialist and members of industry in the region say the barracks is an improvement, but that the underlying safety of the city is no better.
"The whole region is polluted," said Charles Carron-Brown, the manager of the Trepca Mines complex that runs the lead smelting factory, which continues some operations. "You won't find anywhere that isn't polluted." He said the United Nations planned to cover all three toxic mounds, but until funds were found, most of the city would remain polluted.
The Roma are not convinced that their health will be better in the barracks.
"They're telling us there will be less lead there, but I can't see the difference," said Latif Musurica, who noted that the new camp was just 164 feet from his current home.
MITROVICA, Kosovo, Jan. 31 — Nikolina Mehmeti looks like any healthy 3-year-old girl. She has big eyes, a coy smile and babbles to anyone ready to listen. But a year and a half ago her parents were worried for her life.
After catching a high fever in the refugee camp where her family lived, Nikolina started to have a seizure, her mother said.
"Her limbs turned blue, and she was shaking," said Nikolina's mother, Zalibena Mehmeti, one of this city's Roma, often known as Gypsies.
Minutes later, the girl slipped into unconsciousness. "You couldn't tell if she was dead or alive," her mother said. Nikolina's parents were all the more anxious because her sister Jenita died after exhibiting similar symptoms three months earlier.
It was a half year before Nikolina was treated for lead poisoning and firmly regained consciousness.
Roma rights groups say that up to 31 Roma have been killed by diseases brought on by lead poisoning, a problem that grew acute for them six and half years ago. That was when the United Nations mission that controls this province set up three refugee camps in the north part of the city for Roma who were displaced when ethnic Albanians took their homes across town at the end of the Kosovo war in 1999.
The death toll is especially large for a local Roma community of just 570 people, and no one disputes the main source of pollution. All three refugee camps lie within 200 yards of three huge mounds of industrial waste, the byproduct of a lead smelting factory that operated from the 1920's until 2000.
Health specialists say children are particularly vulnerable to this kind of pollution. Soon after the Roma moved in, the United Nations realized that they were living on contaminated land. Several reports by the United Nations mission and the World Health Organization dating to 2000 recommended their immediate removal.
But the Roma remained in their wooden huts, built by aid agencies, and in a hodgepodge of metal and particle board shacks that they had put up themselves.
Now the mission is planning to move families from all three camps to refurbished army barracks, where it says they will be safe.
"The W.H.O. considers this the worst environmental disaster for children in the whole of Europe," said Gerry McWeeney, an environmental epidemiologist for the World Health Organization in Mitrovica and the author of a 2004 report on the effects of the poisoning. "There are around 100,000 to 130,000 people affected by this," she said.
It is hard to miss the two vast hills of reddish gray debris from which toxic dust blows across the north part of the city. Each holds tons of industrial waste. They are about 90 feet high and 500 yards long, and stretch out of the city through a valley. Water runs off the hills and streams into the River Ibar, where in summer children play and bathe. The third dump lies outside town.
Medical specialists say overall health conditions in the refugee camps make them even more vulnerable to contamination.
Camp residents do not have running water in their homes, so they have fewer opportunities to wash their hands and food, thereby increasing the risk of contamination.
"Their skin goes yellow," said Flanza Jahirovic, a 31-year-old mother who lives in one of the camps, said of the children. "They are often feeble and dizzy, and they just want to sleep."
Tests conducted last October by Klaus Dietrich-Runow, a German medical doctor and environmental specialist, showed that all the children tested had high lead levels, most dangerously so, and had high levels of antimony, arsenic, cadmium and manganese. "The levels of toxic metals like lead, arsenic, antimony and cadmium are the highest levels that have ever have been measured in human hair samples," Dr. Dietrich-Runow wrote via e-mail. His claim could not be independently verified.
Lead poisoning can stunt growth and cause irreversible brain and nerve damage, suppression of the immune system, anemia and renal failure. It can also cause speech, language and behavioral problems.
United Nations officials say the effects of lead poisoning among the Roma may have been compounded by an illegal lead trade in the camps, which involved melting down car batteries, a practice they say has been stopped.
In 2000, when the United Nations had been in Kosovo for a year, international officials seemed acutely aware of the dangers posed by lead poisoning.
The leader of the United Nations mission, Bernard Kouchner of France, a doctor and politician, ordered a military operation to close the smelter.
But since then, parts of the United Nations mission appear to have lost sight of the hazards.
Within the last three years, local authorities built a running track between refugee camps and the toxic mounds. A United Nations sign written in English, Serbian and Albanian at one end of the course, which joggers still use, says "Alley of Health."
Last August, international officials began a campaign to alert the Roma to the risks of lead poisoning, and in November work began on the former army barracks, though it is adjacent to two of the refugee camps and close to the toxic hills.
Asked why the mission could not have acted earlier, Remi Dourlot, a spokesman, said it had "other priorities," like establishing security in the region, and that unstable conditions might have made relocation impractical.
Officials working on the $1.6 million refurbishing of the barracks said the site would be washed down once a week with a fire truck to prevent lead dust from contaminating it.
The United Nations has also begun work on a $9.7 million project to rebuild the Roma community's original homes in southern Mitrovica.
Some health specialist and members of industry in the region say the barracks is an improvement, but that the underlying safety of the city is no better.
"The whole region is polluted," said Charles Carron-Brown, the manager of the Trepca Mines complex that runs the lead smelting factory, which continues some operations. "You won't find anywhere that isn't polluted." He said the United Nations planned to cover all three toxic mounds, but until funds were found, most of the city would remain polluted.
The Roma are not convinced that their health will be better in the barracks.
"They're telling us there will be less lead there, but I can't see the difference," said Latif Musurica, who noted that the new camp was just 164 feet from his current home.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Parallels with Kosovo "irrelevant" says Georgian official
Text of report by Russian news agency RIA Novosti
Istanbul, 4 February: Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Valeri Chechelashvili sees no direct link between the recent gas crisis in his country and a possible radical decision of the Georgian parliament on the [Russian] peacekeeping mission in South Ossetia.
"I would not look for a direct link between the recent gas crisis in Georgia and a possible radical decision of the Georgian parliament on the peacekeeping mission in South Ossetia," Chechelashvili said in an interview to RIA Novosti. According to him, "it is the quality of Russian-Georgian cooperation in settling the South Ossetia and Abkhazia conflicts that can affect the Georgian parliament's decision".
Chechelashvili noted that on 7 February several Georgian ministers would submit their reports on the efficiency of the peacekeeping mission in South Ossetia to a joint meeting of the Georgian parliament's Foreign Relations Committee and Defence and Security Committee. The meeting will be attended by the minister [of state] for the settlement of conflicts and the ministers of defence, internal affairs and foreign affairs. "The meeting will be closed. Therefore, it would be incorrect to make premature comments on the final outcome of the parliamentary debate," Chechelashvili said.
Answering a question about some analysts' opinions that Georgia could try to resolve the conflicts by force, Chechelashvili said: "We have done so much work to convince the international community, including Russia, to support Georgia's peace plan that none of our partners, except Russia, has any doubts that our government is fully committed to a peaceful resolution of the conflict".
Commenting on the prospects for the continued presence of the Russian peacekeepers in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone, Chechelashvili noted: "There are no Russian peacekeepers in Nagornyy Karabakh, but the situation there is more stable".
Answering the agency's question on whether or not a possible settlement in Kosovo could serve as a model for the Abkhazia conflict, Chechelashvili said: "These are two completely different things". "The question of Kosovo's status cannot be used as a model for the settlement of other conflicts. In particular, we consider parallels to Georgia's conflicts as completely irrelevant, if only because in Kosovo there was an ethnic cleansing of the Albanians while in Abkhazia there was an ethnic cleansing of the Georgians. This is confirmed by OSCE documents as well," he said.
Commenting on the recent resolution of the UN Security Council on the extension of the mandate of UN monitors in Abkhazia for two months [instead of the usual six months], Chechelashvili said that "it was a forced decision because the UN Security Council could not agree on the text of the resolution 'On Abkhazia (Georgia)'". According to Chechelashvili, the disagreement was caused by a radical change in the position of Russia, which refused to support the resolution's paragraph that "the status of Abkhazia should be defined within a united Georgian state".
Source: RIA Novosti, Moscow, in Russian 1359 gmt 4 Feb 06
Istanbul, 4 February: Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Valeri Chechelashvili sees no direct link between the recent gas crisis in his country and a possible radical decision of the Georgian parliament on the [Russian] peacekeeping mission in South Ossetia.
"I would not look for a direct link between the recent gas crisis in Georgia and a possible radical decision of the Georgian parliament on the peacekeeping mission in South Ossetia," Chechelashvili said in an interview to RIA Novosti. According to him, "it is the quality of Russian-Georgian cooperation in settling the South Ossetia and Abkhazia conflicts that can affect the Georgian parliament's decision".
Chechelashvili noted that on 7 February several Georgian ministers would submit their reports on the efficiency of the peacekeeping mission in South Ossetia to a joint meeting of the Georgian parliament's Foreign Relations Committee and Defence and Security Committee. The meeting will be attended by the minister [of state] for the settlement of conflicts and the ministers of defence, internal affairs and foreign affairs. "The meeting will be closed. Therefore, it would be incorrect to make premature comments on the final outcome of the parliamentary debate," Chechelashvili said.
Answering a question about some analysts' opinions that Georgia could try to resolve the conflicts by force, Chechelashvili said: "We have done so much work to convince the international community, including Russia, to support Georgia's peace plan that none of our partners, except Russia, has any doubts that our government is fully committed to a peaceful resolution of the conflict".
Commenting on the prospects for the continued presence of the Russian peacekeepers in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone, Chechelashvili noted: "There are no Russian peacekeepers in Nagornyy Karabakh, but the situation there is more stable".
Answering the agency's question on whether or not a possible settlement in Kosovo could serve as a model for the Abkhazia conflict, Chechelashvili said: "These are two completely different things". "The question of Kosovo's status cannot be used as a model for the settlement of other conflicts. In particular, we consider parallels to Georgia's conflicts as completely irrelevant, if only because in Kosovo there was an ethnic cleansing of the Albanians while in Abkhazia there was an ethnic cleansing of the Georgians. This is confirmed by OSCE documents as well," he said.
Commenting on the recent resolution of the UN Security Council on the extension of the mandate of UN monitors in Abkhazia for two months [instead of the usual six months], Chechelashvili said that "it was a forced decision because the UN Security Council could not agree on the text of the resolution 'On Abkhazia (Georgia)'". According to Chechelashvili, the disagreement was caused by a radical change in the position of Russia, which refused to support the resolution's paragraph that "the status of Abkhazia should be defined within a united Georgian state".
Source: RIA Novosti, Moscow, in Russian 1359 gmt 4 Feb 06
Kosovo's inclusion in Stability Pact extremely important - Swedish diplomat
Text of report in English by independent internet news agency KosovaLive
Prishtina [Pristina], 3 February: Jan Henrik Amberg, an official of the Swedish Foreign Ministry, said today in Prishtina that it is extremely important to have Kosova [Kosovo] involved in the process of the Stability Pact.
Amberg made those comments following a meeting with the government coordinator to the Stability Pact, Gazmend Qorraj, in Prishtina today.
Amberg was accompanied by the head of Swedish Liaison Office in Kosova, Ann Sofie Nilsson.
The officials discussed issue concerning the Stability Pact and all the initiatives, which have been initiated within the Stability Pact.
Amberg said that they considered the importance of Kosova in the regional aspect, "which is of course the priority of the Stability Pact and the idea is to create a framework for cooperation within the region."
"And we hope that all the priorities formulated here in Kosova will be taken into account by the participants and there are forty countries participating in the Stability Pact," Amberg said.
On the other hand, the Kosovar coordinator in the Office of Stability Pact in Kosova, Gazmend Qorraj, said that the Swedish government, through the SIDA Agency, is helping for preparing a national development plan.
Launched in 1999, the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe is the first comprehensive conflict-prevention strategy of the international community, aimed at strengthening the efforts of the countries of South East Europe in fostering peace, democracy, respect for human rights, and economic prosperity.
The Stability Pact provides a framework to stimulate regional cooperation and expedite integration into European and transatlantic structures. The pact's secretariat, located in Brussels, is organized into three units - Working Table I deals with issues of democratization and human rights, Working Table II with economic reconstruction, cooperation, and development matters, and Working Table III with security issues.
Source: KosovaLive website, Pristina, in English 3 Feb 06
Prishtina [Pristina], 3 February: Jan Henrik Amberg, an official of the Swedish Foreign Ministry, said today in Prishtina that it is extremely important to have Kosova [Kosovo] involved in the process of the Stability Pact.
Amberg made those comments following a meeting with the government coordinator to the Stability Pact, Gazmend Qorraj, in Prishtina today.
Amberg was accompanied by the head of Swedish Liaison Office in Kosova, Ann Sofie Nilsson.
The officials discussed issue concerning the Stability Pact and all the initiatives, which have been initiated within the Stability Pact.
Amberg said that they considered the importance of Kosova in the regional aspect, "which is of course the priority of the Stability Pact and the idea is to create a framework for cooperation within the region."
"And we hope that all the priorities formulated here in Kosova will be taken into account by the participants and there are forty countries participating in the Stability Pact," Amberg said.
On the other hand, the Kosovar coordinator in the Office of Stability Pact in Kosova, Gazmend Qorraj, said that the Swedish government, through the SIDA Agency, is helping for preparing a national development plan.
Launched in 1999, the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe is the first comprehensive conflict-prevention strategy of the international community, aimed at strengthening the efforts of the countries of South East Europe in fostering peace, democracy, respect for human rights, and economic prosperity.
The Stability Pact provides a framework to stimulate regional cooperation and expedite integration into European and transatlantic structures. The pact's secretariat, located in Brussels, is organized into three units - Working Table I deals with issues of democratization and human rights, Working Table II with economic reconstruction, cooperation, and development matters, and Working Table III with security issues.
Source: KosovaLive website, Pristina, in English 3 Feb 06
Kosovo premier calls on NATO, US not to reduce peacekeeping forces
Text of report in English by independent internet news agency KosovaLive
Prishtina [Pristina], 3 February: Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi called today on NATO and in particular on the US not to reduce their troops in Kosova [Kosovo] during this decisive time of settling the status.
"The American contingent has done a great job and it is one of the most effective parts of Kfor [Kosovo Force]. It also is the most respected force by the citizens here. Therefore, now when Kosova is entering a decisive period of settling the status, it would not be good if number of Kfor troops, especially the number of American troops, is reduced," the prime minister said.
This reaction came after the remarks of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who during an interview with the Financial Times announced that US plans reducing the number of its troops in Kosova.
While, Jessen-Petersen said that during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General he was told that Kfor will continue to be committed in Kosova.
"In London's meeting I had the opportunity to talk with the NATO secretary-general who told me privately, and the Contact Group, that NATO is fully committed to maintain the current size of force in Kosova. There may be restructuring, but they are committed to keep their presence here," Jessen-Petersen said.
NATO numbers some 17,500 soldiers in Kosova.
Source: KosovaLive website, Pristina, in English 3 Feb 06
Prishtina [Pristina], 3 February: Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi called today on NATO and in particular on the US not to reduce their troops in Kosova [Kosovo] during this decisive time of settling the status.
"The American contingent has done a great job and it is one of the most effective parts of Kfor [Kosovo Force]. It also is the most respected force by the citizens here. Therefore, now when Kosova is entering a decisive period of settling the status, it would not be good if number of Kfor troops, especially the number of American troops, is reduced," the prime minister said.
This reaction came after the remarks of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who during an interview with the Financial Times announced that US plans reducing the number of its troops in Kosova.
While, Jessen-Petersen said that during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General he was told that Kfor will continue to be committed in Kosova.
"In London's meeting I had the opportunity to talk with the NATO secretary-general who told me privately, and the Contact Group, that NATO is fully committed to maintain the current size of force in Kosova. There may be restructuring, but they are committed to keep their presence here," Jessen-Petersen said.
NATO numbers some 17,500 soldiers in Kosova.
Source: KosovaLive website, Pristina, in English 3 Feb 06
UNMIK chief optimistic new Kosovo president to be elected by next week
Text of report in English by independent internet news agency KosovaLive
Prishtina [Pristina], 3 February: The head of UNMIK [UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo] Soren Jessen-Petersen voiced optimistic during a meeting with Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi that the president will be elected next week.
He also said that next week he will stay in Kosova [Kosovo] all the time, because he believes that during this time the successor of President Rugova will be elected. "And I will be able to report to the UNSC member states that even after the death of President Rugova, the democratic institutions of Kosova have worked very well and elected the new president in a short time. This would be a very good news, which I would like to convey to the UNSC," said Jessen-Petersen.
Jessen-Petersen and Prime Minister Kosumi have evaluated once again positively the statement of the Contact Group, which came out following the meeting on London on 31 January.
The head of UNMIK mentioned some of the stances of the Contact Group, including the stance that the status of Kosova must be settled during this year. According to Jessen-Petersen, it is also important that the Contact Group has conveyed a message to Belgrade that the will of the people of Kosova will be taken into account during settling of status.
Jessen-Petersen and Kosumi have discussed on some other important issues as well, such as the issue of electricity, the establishment of the working groups for technical dialogue with Belgrade, and the issue of Prishtina-Skopje road, which still remains closed.
"We agreed with the prime minister that the landslide in Kacanik is very serious and IPVQ [Provisional Institutions of Self-government], Kfor [Kosovo Force] and UNMIK are working together to overcome it," said Jessen-Petersen.
On the other hand, Prime Minister Kosumi emphasized the establishment of the working groups, which will discuss with Belgrade authorities on technical issues.
There are four working groups created till now and four more are to be established.
"We all know that these working group did not produce any good results in the past. However it is good that they exist," said Kosumi, adding that it will be good to establish other groups as well, so we could initiate as many technical issues with Belgrade as possible, because there are issues that need to be solved before the status.
Source: KosovaLive website, Pristina, in English 3 Feb 06
Prishtina [Pristina], 3 February: The head of UNMIK [UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo] Soren Jessen-Petersen voiced optimistic during a meeting with Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi that the president will be elected next week.
He also said that next week he will stay in Kosova [Kosovo] all the time, because he believes that during this time the successor of President Rugova will be elected. "And I will be able to report to the UNSC member states that even after the death of President Rugova, the democratic institutions of Kosova have worked very well and elected the new president in a short time. This would be a very good news, which I would like to convey to the UNSC," said Jessen-Petersen.
Jessen-Petersen and Prime Minister Kosumi have evaluated once again positively the statement of the Contact Group, which came out following the meeting on London on 31 January.
The head of UNMIK mentioned some of the stances of the Contact Group, including the stance that the status of Kosova must be settled during this year. According to Jessen-Petersen, it is also important that the Contact Group has conveyed a message to Belgrade that the will of the people of Kosova will be taken into account during settling of status.
Jessen-Petersen and Kosumi have discussed on some other important issues as well, such as the issue of electricity, the establishment of the working groups for technical dialogue with Belgrade, and the issue of Prishtina-Skopje road, which still remains closed.
"We agreed with the prime minister that the landslide in Kacanik is very serious and IPVQ [Provisional Institutions of Self-government], Kfor [Kosovo Force] and UNMIK are working together to overcome it," said Jessen-Petersen.
On the other hand, Prime Minister Kosumi emphasized the establishment of the working groups, which will discuss with Belgrade authorities on technical issues.
There are four working groups created till now and four more are to be established.
"We all know that these working group did not produce any good results in the past. However it is good that they exist," said Kosumi, adding that it will be good to establish other groups as well, so we could initiate as many technical issues with Belgrade as possible, because there are issues that need to be solved before the status.
Source: KosovaLive website, Pristina, in English 3 Feb 06
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Rumsfeld wants to cut US presence in Kosovo
Rumsfeld wants to cut US presence in Kosovo
>By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Daniel Dombey in Vienna
>Published: February 3 2006 00:25 | Last updated: February 3 2006 00:25
>>
Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, wants to reduce the number of American troops in Kosovo, signalling that the Pentagon would like Nato allies to assume more responsibility for the mission in the breakaway Serbian province.
“We are all working together in Kosovo and the Balkans. Of course, we all went in together, and we have said we will come out together,” Mr Rumsfeld said in an interview with the Financial Times. “I am personally hoping that we can continue to reduce some of our forces there.”
A defence official said that with US forces heavily deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon wanted Nato to agree to the US withdrawing some troops. He said this would require other Nato countries picking up some slack but the freeing-up of US troops would reduce pressure on other countries to deploy, or maintain deployments, with US forces in Iraq.
>
Rumsfeld signals wish to see allies take reins in Kosovo
>Click here
>
The US has about 1,700 troops attached to a 16,000-strong Nato mission, but talk of withdrawal raises concerns in Europe. A Nato official said: “Considering the sensitive political process in Kosovo that has just begun, now is not the time to talk about reducing Kfor [the Nato Kosovo Force] or the US presence.”
Mr Rumsfeld’s comments come as the US, Russia and major European countries step up efforts to find a political solution for the province, which has been run by the United Nations since Nato-led forces ousted the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in 1999. The ethnic Albanian majority wants independence while ethnic Serbs are adamant Kosovo should remain part of Serbia. The presence of US troops is symbolic because of the importance the Albanians attach to them.
>By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Daniel Dombey in Vienna
>Published: February 3 2006 00:25 | Last updated: February 3 2006 00:25
>>
Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, wants to reduce the number of American troops in Kosovo, signalling that the Pentagon would like Nato allies to assume more responsibility for the mission in the breakaway Serbian province.
“We are all working together in Kosovo and the Balkans. Of course, we all went in together, and we have said we will come out together,” Mr Rumsfeld said in an interview with the Financial Times. “I am personally hoping that we can continue to reduce some of our forces there.”
A defence official said that with US forces heavily deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon wanted Nato to agree to the US withdrawing some troops. He said this would require other Nato countries picking up some slack but the freeing-up of US troops would reduce pressure on other countries to deploy, or maintain deployments, with US forces in Iraq.
>
Rumsfeld signals wish to see allies take reins in Kosovo
>Click here
>
The US has about 1,700 troops attached to a 16,000-strong Nato mission, but talk of withdrawal raises concerns in Europe. A Nato official said: “Considering the sensitive political process in Kosovo that has just begun, now is not the time to talk about reducing Kfor [the Nato Kosovo Force] or the US presence.”
Mr Rumsfeld’s comments come as the US, Russia and major European countries step up efforts to find a political solution for the province, which has been run by the United Nations since Nato-led forces ousted the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in 1999. The ethnic Albanian majority wants independence while ethnic Serbs are adamant Kosovo should remain part of Serbia. The presence of US troops is symbolic because of the importance the Albanians attach to them.
Agron Bajrami: Light at the end of the tunnel (Koha Ditore)
The paper carries an op-ed by Editor-in-chief of Koha Ditore saying that the only element that was missing in the statement of decision-making powers was mentioning ‘conditional independence’.
According to Bajrami, the statement issued by the Contact group, besides enshrining the previous principles of status solution, has made clear to Belgrade that “the solution, among others, must be acceptable to Kosovo people”, and clear to Pristina that the “multi-ethnic solution is the only workable option”.
Bajrami further says that the prevailing situation implies the understanding of reality, and that demagogic statement that discard acceptance of an “independence with suffixes” damages the process.
What can be easily inferred, according to Bajrami, is that the international community’s stance is that Kosovans do not need to bring arguments in favour of independence, but should rather demonstrates their own capacities. The setbacks and slowness of standards implementations, a lagging process of formation of two newly formed ministries, as well as a malfunction of the Negotiations Team are some of these negative indications.
Conditioning the independence is a result of a bad work of Kosovans since the end of the war, says Bajrami. He elaborates that political elites, instead of nurturing their own divergences, should accelerate the preparations of appropriate negotiations strategies.
According to Bajrami, the statement issued by the Contact group, besides enshrining the previous principles of status solution, has made clear to Belgrade that “the solution, among others, must be acceptable to Kosovo people”, and clear to Pristina that the “multi-ethnic solution is the only workable option”.
Bajrami further says that the prevailing situation implies the understanding of reality, and that demagogic statement that discard acceptance of an “independence with suffixes” damages the process.
What can be easily inferred, according to Bajrami, is that the international community’s stance is that Kosovans do not need to bring arguments in favour of independence, but should rather demonstrates their own capacities. The setbacks and slowness of standards implementations, a lagging process of formation of two newly formed ministries, as well as a malfunction of the Negotiations Team are some of these negative indications.
Conditioning the independence is a result of a bad work of Kosovans since the end of the war, says Bajrami. He elaborates that political elites, instead of nurturing their own divergences, should accelerate the preparations of appropriate negotiations strategies.
Kosovo talks team's Thaci, Surroi tell US envoy sovereignty is nonnegotiable
Prishtina [Pristina], 2 February: All the issues related to internal functioning of Kosova [Kosovo] will be discussed during the negotiations for the future status, but not Kosova's sovereignty.
PDK [Democratic Party of Kosovo] chairman Hashim Thaci and Hour chairman Veton Surroi made those comments following their meetings with the United States special envoy for Kosova's status, Frank Wisner.
Surroi said that the message that Ambassador Wisner brought in Prishtina is encouraging because it reflects the debate of the Contact Group in London which, according to him, is an evidence of international community's commitment for moving the status process forward.
Surroi evaluated positively the statement of the Contact Group, which he said that favours the Kosovar side. Now Kosovar side, according to him, needs only be more engaged for achieving of results and acceleration of the process.
Although, according to leader of the Hour, negotiation process has two tracks. "The track of mediation and the track of functionality of the state," Surroi said.
According to him, in terms of functionality of the state, Kosovar party has significant stagnation. "Unfortunately, we have stagnation here even though we are at a critical moment, but this society, I believe, has capacities and maturity to address these issues of internal functioning, too," he said.
While, Hashim Thaci said that he reconfirmed to Ambassador Wisner that Kosovar party is ready to debate all the issues related to the functionality of Kosova's state, but not its sovereignty.
"We will discuss and implement all the necessary democratic priorities like guarantees and respecting of minorities' rights, reformation of local power, and cooperation with all the neighbouring countries, but above everything else, we cannot negotiate Kosova's sovereignty," Thaci said.
With the work and commitment of Kosovar party, Thaci added, the US and the European Union will be convinced that "two million citizens of Kosova deserve to have their independent and sovereign state". Thaci guaranteed that Kosova's friends, Americans and Europeans, will not be disappointed for that.
Leader of the PDK expressed the optimism that year 2006 will be the decisive year for independent Kosova.
"On the other hand, I agree completely with Ambassador Wisner, who said something that we have emphasized, too, and that is that a country is either independent or it is not independent. There will be no midway solution; rather, there will be a solution with full independence," Thaci said.
According to him, Ambassador Wisner introduced the stances of the US Government "for considering the will of Kosovar citizens".
Asked whether the issue of the leader of Negotiations Team is solved, Thaci said that firstly, the morning days should pass, and then the issue will be solved.
"The consensus in Kosova is reached through compromise, and compromise implies unification of the ruling parties and the opposition, and I believe that this will happen in a near future, but everyone should understand that Kosova is still in mourn," Thaci said.
Source: KosovaLive website, Pristina, in English 2 Feb 06
PDK [Democratic Party of Kosovo] chairman Hashim Thaci and Hour chairman Veton Surroi made those comments following their meetings with the United States special envoy for Kosova's status, Frank Wisner.
Surroi said that the message that Ambassador Wisner brought in Prishtina is encouraging because it reflects the debate of the Contact Group in London which, according to him, is an evidence of international community's commitment for moving the status process forward.
Surroi evaluated positively the statement of the Contact Group, which he said that favours the Kosovar side. Now Kosovar side, according to him, needs only be more engaged for achieving of results and acceleration of the process.
Although, according to leader of the Hour, negotiation process has two tracks. "The track of mediation and the track of functionality of the state," Surroi said.
According to him, in terms of functionality of the state, Kosovar party has significant stagnation. "Unfortunately, we have stagnation here even though we are at a critical moment, but this society, I believe, has capacities and maturity to address these issues of internal functioning, too," he said.
While, Hashim Thaci said that he reconfirmed to Ambassador Wisner that Kosovar party is ready to debate all the issues related to the functionality of Kosova's state, but not its sovereignty.
"We will discuss and implement all the necessary democratic priorities like guarantees and respecting of minorities' rights, reformation of local power, and cooperation with all the neighbouring countries, but above everything else, we cannot negotiate Kosova's sovereignty," Thaci said.
With the work and commitment of Kosovar party, Thaci added, the US and the European Union will be convinced that "two million citizens of Kosova deserve to have their independent and sovereign state". Thaci guaranteed that Kosova's friends, Americans and Europeans, will not be disappointed for that.
Leader of the PDK expressed the optimism that year 2006 will be the decisive year for independent Kosova.
"On the other hand, I agree completely with Ambassador Wisner, who said something that we have emphasized, too, and that is that a country is either independent or it is not independent. There will be no midway solution; rather, there will be a solution with full independence," Thaci said.
According to him, Ambassador Wisner introduced the stances of the US Government "for considering the will of Kosovar citizens".
Asked whether the issue of the leader of Negotiations Team is solved, Thaci said that firstly, the morning days should pass, and then the issue will be solved.
"The consensus in Kosova is reached through compromise, and compromise implies unification of the ruling parties and the opposition, and I believe that this will happen in a near future, but everyone should understand that Kosova is still in mourn," Thaci said.
Source: KosovaLive website, Pristina, in English 2 Feb 06
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
US envoy says wants Kosovo status resolved in 2006
PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - United States envoy for Kosovo said Wednesday his country wants talks on the future status of the disputed province to be closed this year.
Frank Wisner, who represents the U.S. in the team mediating the negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo on the future of the province, said he brought "the full support" of his country to "make certain that the negotiation that is underway is completed, and completed during the course of this year 2006."
He arrived in Kosovo a day after diplomats from the so-called Contact Group -- United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia -- urged for a resolution to the problem to be reached before the end of the year.
The diplomats also said they hoped Belgrade would "bear in mind that the settlement needs ... to be acceptable to the people of Kosovo" and that Pristina would recognize the importance of a multiethnic solution.
The Contact Group had already agreed on a set of guiding principles on the future of Kosovo, which set out that the province cannot return to its pre-1999 status, when it was under direct Serb rule, or be partitioned along Albanian and Serbian ethnic lines. It also ruled out any new union between Kosovo and other countries in the region, such as Albania.
A statement issued by the government after the meeting with Wisner, said the talks could be held around Feb. 20, in Vienna, the Austrian capital.
The negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo had originally been scheduled to start last Wednesday. But they were postponed until February following the death of Kosovo's President Ibrahim Rugova from lung cancer on Jan. 21.
Frank Wisner, who represents the U.S. in the team mediating the negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo on the future of the province, said he brought "the full support" of his country to "make certain that the negotiation that is underway is completed, and completed during the course of this year 2006."
He arrived in Kosovo a day after diplomats from the so-called Contact Group -- United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia -- urged for a resolution to the problem to be reached before the end of the year.
The diplomats also said they hoped Belgrade would "bear in mind that the settlement needs ... to be acceptable to the people of Kosovo" and that Pristina would recognize the importance of a multiethnic solution.
The Contact Group had already agreed on a set of guiding principles on the future of Kosovo, which set out that the province cannot return to its pre-1999 status, when it was under direct Serb rule, or be partitioned along Albanian and Serbian ethnic lines. It also ruled out any new union between Kosovo and other countries in the region, such as Albania.
A statement issued by the government after the meeting with Wisner, said the talks could be held around Feb. 20, in Vienna, the Austrian capital.
The negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo had originally been scheduled to start last Wednesday. But they were postponed until February following the death of Kosovo's President Ibrahim Rugova from lung cancer on Jan. 21.
Albanian opposition leader says only independence for Kosovo acceptable
Text of report by Albanian TV on 31 January
Only independence for Kosova [Kosovo]: this was the view expressed by PS [Socialist Party] Chairman Edi Rama at a meeting with Serbian President Boris Tadic in Athens on Monday evening [30 January]. The PS sees no alternative for the solution of this issue apart from independence, which is also the wish of the Kosova people, Rama told Serbian President Tadic. The Socialist leader said that an independent Kosova was a condition for a stable and integrated Balkans, in which the ghosts of the past would no longer create problems. He described this as a very important moment for the whole Balkan region. Rama and Tadic also discussed relations between Tirana and Belgrade. Nevertheless, the conversation focused on the issue of Kosova's status.
Serbian President Boris Tadic also had a meeting with PDK [Democratic Party of Kosovo] Chairman Hashim Thaci. The meeting took place with the mediation of Jorgos Papandreou, PASOK [Panhellenic Socialist Movement] chairman and current Socialist International leader. Tadic said that he was in favour of a compromise solution for Kosova, which would not separate it from Serbia. For his part, Thaci stressed that full, unconditional independence was the only solution for the future of Kosova and the region.
Only independence for Kosova [Kosovo]: this was the view expressed by PS [Socialist Party] Chairman Edi Rama at a meeting with Serbian President Boris Tadic in Athens on Monday evening [30 January]. The PS sees no alternative for the solution of this issue apart from independence, which is also the wish of the Kosova people, Rama told Serbian President Tadic. The Socialist leader said that an independent Kosova was a condition for a stable and integrated Balkans, in which the ghosts of the past would no longer create problems. He described this as a very important moment for the whole Balkan region. Rama and Tadic also discussed relations between Tirana and Belgrade. Nevertheless, the conversation focused on the issue of Kosova's status.
Serbian President Boris Tadic also had a meeting with PDK [Democratic Party of Kosovo] Chairman Hashim Thaci. The meeting took place with the mediation of Jorgos Papandreou, PASOK [Panhellenic Socialist Movement] chairman and current Socialist International leader. Tadic said that he was in favour of a compromise solution for Kosova, which would not separate it from Serbia. For his part, Thaci stressed that full, unconditional independence was the only solution for the future of Kosova and the region.
US delegation meets Kosovo negotiating team in Pristina
Text of report by Kosovo Albanian television KohaVision TV on 1 February
[Announcer] The Kosova [Kosovo] negotiating team is currently in a meeting with the United States negotiator for Kosova status talks, ambassador Frank Wisner, Assistant Deputy of the [US] Secretary of State Rosemary Di Carlo, and the US chief of Mission in Pristina Philip Goldberg, the US Office in Prishtina [Pristina] reports.
Although no information about the talks agenda was provided, the meeting comes a day after the meeting of the foreign ministers of the Contact Group member countries in London, as well as after the announcement that the Vienna meeting between Pristina and Belgrade is expected to take place on 20 February.
Source: KohaVision TV, Pristina, in Albanian 1800 gmt 1 Feb 06
[Announcer] The Kosova [Kosovo] negotiating team is currently in a meeting with the United States negotiator for Kosova status talks, ambassador Frank Wisner, Assistant Deputy of the [US] Secretary of State Rosemary Di Carlo, and the US chief of Mission in Pristina Philip Goldberg, the US Office in Prishtina [Pristina] reports.
Although no information about the talks agenda was provided, the meeting comes a day after the meeting of the foreign ministers of the Contact Group member countries in London, as well as after the announcement that the Vienna meeting between Pristina and Belgrade is expected to take place on 20 February.
Source: KohaVision TV, Pristina, in Albanian 1800 gmt 1 Feb 06
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