PRISTINA (Serbia and Montenegro), March 30 (SeeNews) - The World Bank said on Friday it would grant $19.0 million (15.8 million euro) through June 2007 to back the economic growth of the U.N.-administered Serbian province of Kosovo.
"The World Bank is working in Kosovo to help build the economy, improve the investment climate, promote good governance, and protect the environment," World Bank Director for South East Europe, Orsalia Kalantzopoulos, said in a statement.
The grants are included in a new interim World Bank strategy for the province. The main aims of the strategy are the generation of new sources of economic growth, ensuring associated environmental improvements and the creation of macroeconomic stability through sound fiscal policy and public financial management, the global lender said.
Under the strategy the World Bank plans to spend $8.5 million in Kosovo's mining sector, considered the key to the province's future economic growth and the main attraction for foreign investors.
A further $5.5 million will be spent for environment protection projects, mainly for cleaning up the land in the abundant lignite mine areas. The World Bank will also support Kosovo's fiscal policy by $5.0 million and will help the province improve its public expenditure management, the statement said.
Kosovo remains part of the loose union of Serbia and Montenegro that succeeded rump Yugoslavia in 2003. The province was put under U.N. administration in 1999 following the NATO bombings on Serbia that expelled Serb forces to end what Western powers said was repression of civilians in fighting the ethnic Albanian rebel insurgency.
Since the end of the conflict the World Bank has approved 22 grants totaling $95 million to support Kosovo's energy, mining, education sectors, community development and business environment.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Opinion poll indicates 53 per cent in Serbia oppose extraditions to Hague
Text of report in English by Serbian news agency Beta website
Belgrade, 29 March: According to a poll conducted by Marten Board International agency, 53 per cent of respondents categorically oppose extradition to the Hague tribunal.
The same poll showed that 13.3 per cent of those questioned were in favour of extradition, 10.5 per cent expressed their general support, 6.3 per cent said they were indifferent, while 10 per cent of the respondents mainly opposed extradition.
According to the agency's analysts, the large number of those who strongly opposed extradition to the tribunal was due to the deaths of Milan Babic and Slobodan Milosevic, allowing the political engagement of Ramush Haradinaj, and the influence of the anti-tribunal lobby in the country and the lack of an adequate counter-campaign.
Based on the poll, the most important issues for more than half of the respondents were social problems - the living standard was cited by 38 per cent and unemployment by 26.3 of those questioned. Only 7.4 per cent of the polled were concerned about Kosovo, 2.3 per cent about cooperation with the tribunal, while relations between Serbia and Montenegro were cited by only 1.2 per cent of the respondents.
An overwhelming 74.1 per cent of those questioned were for joining the EU and 67.1 per cent the Partnership for Peace Programme, while membership in NATO was backed by 26 per cent and opposed by 45.4 per cent of those surveyed.
The opinion poll was conducted on a sample of 1,185 adults in Serbia, without Kosovo, from 20 to 27 March.
Source: Beta news agency website, Belgrade, in English 29 Mar 06
Belgrade, 29 March: According to a poll conducted by Marten Board International agency, 53 per cent of respondents categorically oppose extradition to the Hague tribunal.
The same poll showed that 13.3 per cent of those questioned were in favour of extradition, 10.5 per cent expressed their general support, 6.3 per cent said they were indifferent, while 10 per cent of the respondents mainly opposed extradition.
According to the agency's analysts, the large number of those who strongly opposed extradition to the tribunal was due to the deaths of Milan Babic and Slobodan Milosevic, allowing the political engagement of Ramush Haradinaj, and the influence of the anti-tribunal lobby in the country and the lack of an adequate counter-campaign.
Based on the poll, the most important issues for more than half of the respondents were social problems - the living standard was cited by 38 per cent and unemployment by 26.3 of those questioned. Only 7.4 per cent of the polled were concerned about Kosovo, 2.3 per cent about cooperation with the tribunal, while relations between Serbia and Montenegro were cited by only 1.2 per cent of the respondents.
An overwhelming 74.1 per cent of those questioned were for joining the EU and 67.1 per cent the Partnership for Peace Programme, while membership in NATO was backed by 26 per cent and opposed by 45.4 per cent of those surveyed.
The opinion poll was conducted on a sample of 1,185 adults in Serbia, without Kosovo, from 20 to 27 March.
Source: Beta news agency website, Belgrade, in English 29 Mar 06
Serbian "drug barons" said to have strong ties with Colombian cocaine traders
Text of report by "E.B." entitled "Serbian drug barons are big players in Europe" published by Serbian newspaper Blic on 27 March
Belgrade: Serbian drug barons, who maintain strong ties with cocaine traders in Colombia, the world's biggest producer of this narcotic, have strong business contacts also with the Albanian mafia, police information indicates.
These good contacts on both sides of the Atlantic and highly functional trafficking routes, whereby tons of cocaine are smuggled from South America to Europe, have enabled them to take a place among the most powerful drugs traffickers in Europe.
People have only recently become aware of the existence of one of them, Dragan Ilic from Nis, who was arrested in Argentina for the smuggling of 171 kg of cocaine in 0.7 litre bottles designated for Spain; two others are still out of reach of the police. Ilic would have remained out of the public eye if he had not drawn attention to himself with his spectacular wedding to Miss Venezuela, at which stars of our entertainment industry firmament performed, led by Ceca Raznatovic.
One of those not available to the police was born in Kosovo and is associated with a shipment of 200 kg of cocaine in earthenware jars, while the other is associated with the smuggling of 164 kg of the drug from Panama to Bosnia-Hercegovina. A shipment of nearly 100 kg of cocaine, seized by the Greek police in Athens, is also attributed to him.
"Ilic was introduced into the business by Sreten Jocic, better known as Joca Amsterdam, while the other two made use of the old contacts that existed between the Serbian mafia and the Colombians, with the Medellin Cartel. These contacts have been operational for two decades and the original founders on both sides are long dead," our source in the police says.
The Serbs have founded their empires, however, on this old friendship. Using well-oiled smuggling channels across the Atlantic, they smuggle cocaine from South America to the drugs markets in the EU countries. The US Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA) is keeping a watchful eye on the Serbian drugs barons, so that the job is done by their underlings. They themselves have never been caught with so much as a gram of cocaine in their possession, so that they are clean as far as the law is concerned.
"Cocaine is smuggled by ship from South American ports - Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Panama and Mexico - to the most far-flung point of Europe, the Spanish Canary Islands. From there it goes to other ports, such as Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Hamburg in Germany, Marseille on the Cote d'Azur, and Piraeus, as well as Scandinavian, Italian and Belgian ports," our source explains.
Apart from the main smuggling route through the Canary Islands, there is also a direct line between South America and Europe, where the Serbian troika has a significant share of the market. Their strong positions are due in a large measure to good cooperation with the Albanian mafia, both in smuggling cocaine from South America and in using the Albanian connection inside Europe.
"Part of the cocaine ends up on our market as well, coming in mostly by way of the port of Bar, but these are small quantities," our source in the police says.
Source: Blic, Belgrade, in Serbian 27 Mar 06 p 16
Belgrade: Serbian drug barons, who maintain strong ties with cocaine traders in Colombia, the world's biggest producer of this narcotic, have strong business contacts also with the Albanian mafia, police information indicates.
These good contacts on both sides of the Atlantic and highly functional trafficking routes, whereby tons of cocaine are smuggled from South America to Europe, have enabled them to take a place among the most powerful drugs traffickers in Europe.
People have only recently become aware of the existence of one of them, Dragan Ilic from Nis, who was arrested in Argentina for the smuggling of 171 kg of cocaine in 0.7 litre bottles designated for Spain; two others are still out of reach of the police. Ilic would have remained out of the public eye if he had not drawn attention to himself with his spectacular wedding to Miss Venezuela, at which stars of our entertainment industry firmament performed, led by Ceca Raznatovic.
One of those not available to the police was born in Kosovo and is associated with a shipment of 200 kg of cocaine in earthenware jars, while the other is associated with the smuggling of 164 kg of the drug from Panama to Bosnia-Hercegovina. A shipment of nearly 100 kg of cocaine, seized by the Greek police in Athens, is also attributed to him.
"Ilic was introduced into the business by Sreten Jocic, better known as Joca Amsterdam, while the other two made use of the old contacts that existed between the Serbian mafia and the Colombians, with the Medellin Cartel. These contacts have been operational for two decades and the original founders on both sides are long dead," our source in the police says.
The Serbs have founded their empires, however, on this old friendship. Using well-oiled smuggling channels across the Atlantic, they smuggle cocaine from South America to the drugs markets in the EU countries. The US Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA) is keeping a watchful eye on the Serbian drugs barons, so that the job is done by their underlings. They themselves have never been caught with so much as a gram of cocaine in their possession, so that they are clean as far as the law is concerned.
"Cocaine is smuggled by ship from South American ports - Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Panama and Mexico - to the most far-flung point of Europe, the Spanish Canary Islands. From there it goes to other ports, such as Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Hamburg in Germany, Marseille on the Cote d'Azur, and Piraeus, as well as Scandinavian, Italian and Belgian ports," our source explains.
Apart from the main smuggling route through the Canary Islands, there is also a direct line between South America and Europe, where the Serbian troika has a significant share of the market. Their strong positions are due in a large measure to good cooperation with the Albanian mafia, both in smuggling cocaine from South America and in using the Albanian connection inside Europe.
"Part of the cocaine ends up on our market as well, coming in mostly by way of the port of Bar, but these are small quantities," our source in the police says.
Source: Blic, Belgrade, in Serbian 27 Mar 06 p 16
Commentary sees growing pressure on Serbia ahead of new round of Kosovo talks
Text of commentary by Aleksandar Mitic entitled "Strange coincidences" published by the Serbian newspaper Politika on 30 March; ellipses as published
The start of the negotiating process on the future status of Kosovo-Metohija has been characterized by strong pressure on Belgrade and on the Serbian negotiating team. There is no doubt that one part of the international community is giving off signals that are going in the direction of some kind of independence of Kosmet [Kosovo-Metohija]. True, there had never been any talk of "full independence" but a distinction is being made between "Kosovo's independence" and "Kosovo's independence from Serbia". The first option is very uncertain and in reality very difficult to achieve, but the second option is a subject of widespread speculation, even in official international circles. Burying the policy of "Standards before status" (which today even European diplomatic sources admit was a bluff), the relatively biased principles of the Contact Group (there can be no return to the situation before 1999, there can be no division...), a selective approach to the element of "history" in determining status (as if nothing had existed before and after 1999), insisting on the will of the majority (the majority on the level of Kosovo, not Serbia), an attempt to create a "Kosovo exception" in the system of international law, an attempt to trade "Standards for status" - all of these signals point to the creation of an atmosphere in the negotiations in which the formal links between Kosmet and Serbia would be severed.
Signals in the direction of "independence" are being given to Belgrade in the form of 10 Kosovo "carrots on sticks".
1. The timing of the "package of pressure" on Serbia. Montenegro has been demanding independence for more than five years, but they will hold the independence referendum to coincide with the Kosovo status talks. Bosnia filed a lawsuit against Belgrade with the International Court of Justice [ICJ] in 1993, but the decision will be made at the time of the Kosovo status talks. The Dayton Agreement on Bosnia has been in force since 1995, but the main pressure on the [Bosnian] Serb Republic to accept constitutional changes is expected during the Kosovo status talks. Former Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko Mladic was accused of war crimes in 1995, but Belgrade has been given a deadline to capture him or face problems with negotiations during the Kosovo status talks. Is this a coincidence?
2. Weakening Serbia's negotiating position. The demands made by Belgrade and Pristina are not treated equally. Even though decentralization is the key to the survival of the Kosovo Serbs, Belgrade's proposal on decentralization was evaluates as "untenable" in the internal EU documents. On the other hand, there is tolerance for the mobilization of Albanians in the region of Presevo [southern Serbia], who are demanding "independence" and asking for the same "concessions" as the Kosovo Serbs - even though the situations between these two communities cannot be compared.
3. Tolerating threats of violence. Regardless of the fact that an atmosphere of threats of violence on Kosovo is being maintained, with sporadic low-intensity violence against Serbs (beating, throwing stones), and threats of violence against international representatives by "frustrated" Albanians (such as the movement of Albin Kurti or the Albanian National Army [ANA - AKSH in Albanian]), the international community has still not raised its voice. What is more, the threats are used as an argument for stepping up the process in the direction demanded by those who are making those threats, and the international community is simply following them.
4. Informal "carrots". In order to persuade Belgrade to accept the loss of Kosovo, informal offers are being made, such as: "you will lose Kosovo anyway, so it is better for you to make a good agreement, get Euro-Atlantic integration, investments, and reduction of debts."
5. Insisting on participation of Serbs in Kosovo institutions. The Kosmet Serbs have rejected participation in Kosovo institutions as a sign of protest against permanent discrimination and attempts to be exploited as "multiethnic decoration". It seems very unlikely that they would do that now, only so they could "fulfil the Standards of multiethnic institutions". The Kosovo Serbs do not see their place in a Kosovo Assembly that passes a resolution in which "independence is the only option" and which elects Agim Ceku, a general accused of war crimes, as prime minister. However, international pressure for the Serbs to enter the Kosovo institutions has not stopped.
6. "Undemocratic" Serbia versus "democratic" Albanians. An impression is being created about how Serbia is fighting for a medieval past while the Albanians are struggling for a European future. According to this impression, Serbia will have a successful future only if it lets Kosmet go, and the Kosovo Albanians will achieve their full democratic potential only if Kosovo becomes independent. The Kosovo Albanians are being praised for their "political maturity" at a time when all reports indicate that the Standards are far from being fulfilled. At the same time, [former Kosovo President] Ibrahim Rugova has been called the "Balkan Gandhi" even though he never once condemned the anti-Serb violence. Rugova's "pacifist" policy has been praised as a model for Kosovo, but one month later a man suspected of having committed war crimes was elected prime minister.
7. Hypocrisy regarding war crimes. Even though Serbia has extradited to the Hague Tribunal [International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia - ICTY] all its persons indicted for committing war crimes in Kosovo, Albanians keep getting preferential treatment: Fatmir Limaj has been cleared of all charges, Ramush Haradinaj has been released pending the start of his trial and has been allowed to take active part in political life, while Agim Ceku, whom Serbia has accused of mass crimes against humanity in Croatia and in Kosovo, has been elected prime minister of Kosovo with the full support of the international community.
8. Spreading defeatism in Serbia. Statements in which Serbs are urged to accept "reality" and the "independence" of Kosovo are being made on all sides and their aim is to confuse Serbia's public opinion, to mentally disarm the people and make them indifferent to the fate of Kosovo.
9. Media pressure. There is an ongoing wide, synchronized international campaign launched by the pro-Albanian lobby, with the aim of "following" a certain media agenda, a context of negotiations and interpretations, which are used to suggest that Albanian independence is inevitable.
10. Pressure on neighbouring countries. Even though some of the countries in the region are concerned about the possibility of changes of borders (such as Macedonia, Romania and Bosnia-Hercegovina), their views are not being fully acknowledged and they are expected to relativize their positions. At the same time, Tirana is openly lobbying without any limitations or warnings in favour of an independent Kosovo and is providing logistical support to the Kosovo Albanians in international circles.
In view of Belgrade's rejection of Kosovo's independence and the impossibility of finding an acceptable "carrot", there is no doubt that the pressure on Serbia will strengthen. The united resistance of Belgrade and the Kosovo Serbs will be crucial, but without a strong diplomatic, media and lobbying campaign, mainly directed towards the European Union, it is not very likely that this will be enough.
Source: Politika, Belgrade, in Serbian 30 Mar 06
The start of the negotiating process on the future status of Kosovo-Metohija has been characterized by strong pressure on Belgrade and on the Serbian negotiating team. There is no doubt that one part of the international community is giving off signals that are going in the direction of some kind of independence of Kosmet [Kosovo-Metohija]. True, there had never been any talk of "full independence" but a distinction is being made between "Kosovo's independence" and "Kosovo's independence from Serbia". The first option is very uncertain and in reality very difficult to achieve, but the second option is a subject of widespread speculation, even in official international circles. Burying the policy of "Standards before status" (which today even European diplomatic sources admit was a bluff), the relatively biased principles of the Contact Group (there can be no return to the situation before 1999, there can be no division...), a selective approach to the element of "history" in determining status (as if nothing had existed before and after 1999), insisting on the will of the majority (the majority on the level of Kosovo, not Serbia), an attempt to create a "Kosovo exception" in the system of international law, an attempt to trade "Standards for status" - all of these signals point to the creation of an atmosphere in the negotiations in which the formal links between Kosmet and Serbia would be severed.
Signals in the direction of "independence" are being given to Belgrade in the form of 10 Kosovo "carrots on sticks".
1. The timing of the "package of pressure" on Serbia. Montenegro has been demanding independence for more than five years, but they will hold the independence referendum to coincide with the Kosovo status talks. Bosnia filed a lawsuit against Belgrade with the International Court of Justice [ICJ] in 1993, but the decision will be made at the time of the Kosovo status talks. The Dayton Agreement on Bosnia has been in force since 1995, but the main pressure on the [Bosnian] Serb Republic to accept constitutional changes is expected during the Kosovo status talks. Former Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko Mladic was accused of war crimes in 1995, but Belgrade has been given a deadline to capture him or face problems with negotiations during the Kosovo status talks. Is this a coincidence?
2. Weakening Serbia's negotiating position. The demands made by Belgrade and Pristina are not treated equally. Even though decentralization is the key to the survival of the Kosovo Serbs, Belgrade's proposal on decentralization was evaluates as "untenable" in the internal EU documents. On the other hand, there is tolerance for the mobilization of Albanians in the region of Presevo [southern Serbia], who are demanding "independence" and asking for the same "concessions" as the Kosovo Serbs - even though the situations between these two communities cannot be compared.
3. Tolerating threats of violence. Regardless of the fact that an atmosphere of threats of violence on Kosovo is being maintained, with sporadic low-intensity violence against Serbs (beating, throwing stones), and threats of violence against international representatives by "frustrated" Albanians (such as the movement of Albin Kurti or the Albanian National Army [ANA - AKSH in Albanian]), the international community has still not raised its voice. What is more, the threats are used as an argument for stepping up the process in the direction demanded by those who are making those threats, and the international community is simply following them.
4. Informal "carrots". In order to persuade Belgrade to accept the loss of Kosovo, informal offers are being made, such as: "you will lose Kosovo anyway, so it is better for you to make a good agreement, get Euro-Atlantic integration, investments, and reduction of debts."
5. Insisting on participation of Serbs in Kosovo institutions. The Kosmet Serbs have rejected participation in Kosovo institutions as a sign of protest against permanent discrimination and attempts to be exploited as "multiethnic decoration". It seems very unlikely that they would do that now, only so they could "fulfil the Standards of multiethnic institutions". The Kosovo Serbs do not see their place in a Kosovo Assembly that passes a resolution in which "independence is the only option" and which elects Agim Ceku, a general accused of war crimes, as prime minister. However, international pressure for the Serbs to enter the Kosovo institutions has not stopped.
6. "Undemocratic" Serbia versus "democratic" Albanians. An impression is being created about how Serbia is fighting for a medieval past while the Albanians are struggling for a European future. According to this impression, Serbia will have a successful future only if it lets Kosmet go, and the Kosovo Albanians will achieve their full democratic potential only if Kosovo becomes independent. The Kosovo Albanians are being praised for their "political maturity" at a time when all reports indicate that the Standards are far from being fulfilled. At the same time, [former Kosovo President] Ibrahim Rugova has been called the "Balkan Gandhi" even though he never once condemned the anti-Serb violence. Rugova's "pacifist" policy has been praised as a model for Kosovo, but one month later a man suspected of having committed war crimes was elected prime minister.
7. Hypocrisy regarding war crimes. Even though Serbia has extradited to the Hague Tribunal [International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia - ICTY] all its persons indicted for committing war crimes in Kosovo, Albanians keep getting preferential treatment: Fatmir Limaj has been cleared of all charges, Ramush Haradinaj has been released pending the start of his trial and has been allowed to take active part in political life, while Agim Ceku, whom Serbia has accused of mass crimes against humanity in Croatia and in Kosovo, has been elected prime minister of Kosovo with the full support of the international community.
8. Spreading defeatism in Serbia. Statements in which Serbs are urged to accept "reality" and the "independence" of Kosovo are being made on all sides and their aim is to confuse Serbia's public opinion, to mentally disarm the people and make them indifferent to the fate of Kosovo.
9. Media pressure. There is an ongoing wide, synchronized international campaign launched by the pro-Albanian lobby, with the aim of "following" a certain media agenda, a context of negotiations and interpretations, which are used to suggest that Albanian independence is inevitable.
10. Pressure on neighbouring countries. Even though some of the countries in the region are concerned about the possibility of changes of borders (such as Macedonia, Romania and Bosnia-Hercegovina), their views are not being fully acknowledged and they are expected to relativize their positions. At the same time, Tirana is openly lobbying without any limitations or warnings in favour of an independent Kosovo and is providing logistical support to the Kosovo Albanians in international circles.
In view of Belgrade's rejection of Kosovo's independence and the impossibility of finding an acceptable "carrot", there is no doubt that the pressure on Serbia will strengthen. The united resistance of Belgrade and the Kosovo Serbs will be crucial, but without a strong diplomatic, media and lobbying campaign, mainly directed towards the European Union, it is not very likely that this will be enough.
Source: Politika, Belgrade, in Serbian 30 Mar 06
Serbia returns remains of 52 ethnic Albanians to Kosovo
MERDARE, Serbia-Montenegro, March 31, 2006 (AFP) -
Serbia on Friday returned the remains of 52 ethnic Albanians killed during the 1998-1999 Kosovo war after their exhumation from a mass grave near Belgrade.
More than 200 members of victims' families were at the handover of the remains in Merdare, a village on the administrative border between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia.
They put flowers around forensic plastic sacks containing the remains, temporarily laid out in an improvised tent on the Kosovo side, while Serbian authorities and the province's UN representatives finalised the transfer.
Hafize Alia, a 47-year-old housewife from Mitrovica, said she has been attending every transfer from Serbia in the hope of finding out the fate of her brother who went missing seven years ago.
"It is not the first time I have not got any information on my brother. It is not fair to play on our nerves and feelings for so long. We have no words to explain our emotions," she said.
After the handover, the remains were transported to a UN-run morgue in the southern town of Orahovac for forensic analysis, DNA identification and eventual return to their families.
About 800 ethnic Albanian civilians killed in Kosovo during the war were secretly transferred and buried in Serbia by the regime of late Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic.
Following Milosevic's ouster by a popular uprising in October 2000, Belgrade authorities uncovered four mass graves in Serbia that have since been exhumed.
The remains delivered to Kosovo on Friday were mostly of people originally from southwestern Kosovo. They were the last to be exhumed from a mass grave at Batajnica, near Belgrade.
The remains of over 700 victims have been returned to Kosovo in 18 transfers between Serbia and the UN mission that has run Kosovo since the war.
"The remains of some 90 unidentified victims that have been exhumed are still in Serbia. The Serbian side promised to return them by June," said Arsim Gerxhalliu, Kosovo forensic expert.
The Red Cross says some 2,398 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, are still listed as missing from the war.
Serbia on Friday returned the remains of 52 ethnic Albanians killed during the 1998-1999 Kosovo war after their exhumation from a mass grave near Belgrade.
More than 200 members of victims' families were at the handover of the remains in Merdare, a village on the administrative border between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia.
They put flowers around forensic plastic sacks containing the remains, temporarily laid out in an improvised tent on the Kosovo side, while Serbian authorities and the province's UN representatives finalised the transfer.
Hafize Alia, a 47-year-old housewife from Mitrovica, said she has been attending every transfer from Serbia in the hope of finding out the fate of her brother who went missing seven years ago.
"It is not the first time I have not got any information on my brother. It is not fair to play on our nerves and feelings for so long. We have no words to explain our emotions," she said.
After the handover, the remains were transported to a UN-run morgue in the southern town of Orahovac for forensic analysis, DNA identification and eventual return to their families.
About 800 ethnic Albanian civilians killed in Kosovo during the war were secretly transferred and buried in Serbia by the regime of late Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic.
Following Milosevic's ouster by a popular uprising in October 2000, Belgrade authorities uncovered four mass graves in Serbia that have since been exhumed.
The remains delivered to Kosovo on Friday were mostly of people originally from southwestern Kosovo. They were the last to be exhumed from a mass grave at Batajnica, near Belgrade.
The remains of over 700 victims have been returned to Kosovo in 18 transfers between Serbia and the UN mission that has run Kosovo since the war.
"The remains of some 90 unidentified victims that have been exhumed are still in Serbia. The Serbian side promised to return them by June," said Arsim Gerxhalliu, Kosovo forensic expert.
The Red Cross says some 2,398 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, are still listed as missing from the war.
Kosovo government expects positive evaluation of Standards by UNSC in June
Text of report by Sami Kastrati entitled "Government expects positive evaluation by UNSC of Standards' fulfilment in June" published by the Kosovo Albanian newspaper Koha Ditore on 31 March
Prishtina [Pristina], 30 March: During a meeting with all the ministers who are heads of the working groups, as well as with the coordinators and others involved in the process of implementation of the Standards [for Kosovo] at the central level, Prime Minister Agim Ceku expressed his hope that the technical evaluation of the Standards' implementation by the UN Security Council, due for June, will be positive. Officials in charge of Standards implementation have drawn similar conclusions, based on the activities carried out to date.
"We believe that with the implementation of the Standards, the respective ministries will assume more responsibilities in their respective areas, and it is realistic to expect that the next technical evaluation, due to be carried out at the UN Security Council in June, will be positive," said Avni Arifi, Standards coordinator in the Kosova [Kosovo] government.
He explained that there will not be a new prioritization of the Standards after the recent government reshuffle, but their implementation will continue according to the government's three-month action plan adopted on 28 February.
"The action plan that was approved at the 28 February session is in progress. We cannot add other points to the plan. It is important that there is speed and efficiency in the implementation. The priorities were set earlier, and now it is only a matter of coordination to implement them so that we can have the best possible results," Arifi said after the meeting.
Arifi announced a swapping of assignments among the various ministries. According to him, the rule-of-law Standard has been transferred from the Public Services Ministry to the newly established Ministry of Justice, while the democratic functioning of institutions Standard has been transferred to the Public Services Ministry.
"There cannot be democratic functioning of institutions if there is no rule of law, and there cannot be a genuine economy if there is no democratic functioning of institutions and rule of law," Arifi said.
The Kosova government officials declined to say in which of the Standards the greatest progress has been made. "It is important that there has been parallel and consistent progress in all Standards," they said.
It has been reported that during Prime Minister Ceku's meeting with the working groups and coordinators, stronger inter-ministerial cooperation was urged in the efforts for the Standards' implementation. From now on, meetings at this level will be held twice a week for each ministry to present its achievements in the implementation of Standards.
Source: Koha Ditore, Pristina, in Albanian 31 Mar 06
Prishtina [Pristina], 30 March: During a meeting with all the ministers who are heads of the working groups, as well as with the coordinators and others involved in the process of implementation of the Standards [for Kosovo] at the central level, Prime Minister Agim Ceku expressed his hope that the technical evaluation of the Standards' implementation by the UN Security Council, due for June, will be positive. Officials in charge of Standards implementation have drawn similar conclusions, based on the activities carried out to date.
"We believe that with the implementation of the Standards, the respective ministries will assume more responsibilities in their respective areas, and it is realistic to expect that the next technical evaluation, due to be carried out at the UN Security Council in June, will be positive," said Avni Arifi, Standards coordinator in the Kosova [Kosovo] government.
He explained that there will not be a new prioritization of the Standards after the recent government reshuffle, but their implementation will continue according to the government's three-month action plan adopted on 28 February.
"The action plan that was approved at the 28 February session is in progress. We cannot add other points to the plan. It is important that there is speed and efficiency in the implementation. The priorities were set earlier, and now it is only a matter of coordination to implement them so that we can have the best possible results," Arifi said after the meeting.
Arifi announced a swapping of assignments among the various ministries. According to him, the rule-of-law Standard has been transferred from the Public Services Ministry to the newly established Ministry of Justice, while the democratic functioning of institutions Standard has been transferred to the Public Services Ministry.
"There cannot be democratic functioning of institutions if there is no rule of law, and there cannot be a genuine economy if there is no democratic functioning of institutions and rule of law," Arifi said.
The Kosova government officials declined to say in which of the Standards the greatest progress has been made. "It is important that there has been parallel and consistent progress in all Standards," they said.
It has been reported that during Prime Minister Ceku's meeting with the working groups and coordinators, stronger inter-ministerial cooperation was urged in the efforts for the Standards' implementation. From now on, meetings at this level will be held twice a week for each ministry to present its achievements in the implementation of Standards.
Source: Koha Ditore, Pristina, in Albanian 31 Mar 06
Kosovo talks team accepts "in principle" UN mediators' decentralization proposal
Text of report in English by independent internet news agency KosovaLive
Prishtina [Pristina], 31 March: The Negotiating Team approved today in principle the document of the international mediators on decentralization and appointed Lutfi Haziri as chairman of the Kosovar delegation in the third meeting on decentralization scheduled for 3 April in Vienna.
The president's adviser, Skender Hyseni, said that the Negotiating Team has reviewed carefully the document brought by UN Deputy Mediator Albert Rohan.
"The Negotiating Team approved this draft document in principle with some remarks made by the Political Group," said Hyseni, without giving any details on these remarks.
"We have determined the red lines. Every reform of the local self-administration must secure the unitary character and the territorial integrity of Kosova [Kosovo]," said Hyseni.
He denied the statements that this document offers a solution, which Kosova has to pay for its independence. "We cannot qualify it as a price, because a certain period, as an independent state, Kosova would experience the need for the reform of the local self-administration," said Hyseni.
He also said that there are no disagreements among the Negotiating Team members.
The Negotiating Team has also decided on the composition of the Kosovar delegation that will attend the third meeting on decentralization. The delegation consists of Skender Hyseni, Ardian Gjini, Fehmi Mujota, Sadik Idriz, Enver Hoxhaj, Ylber Hysaj, and Blerim Shala, whereas Deputy Prime Minister Lutfi Haziri will chair it.
Source: KosovaLive website, Pristina, in English 31 Mar 06
Prishtina [Pristina], 31 March: The Negotiating Team approved today in principle the document of the international mediators on decentralization and appointed Lutfi Haziri as chairman of the Kosovar delegation in the third meeting on decentralization scheduled for 3 April in Vienna.
The president's adviser, Skender Hyseni, said that the Negotiating Team has reviewed carefully the document brought by UN Deputy Mediator Albert Rohan.
"The Negotiating Team approved this draft document in principle with some remarks made by the Political Group," said Hyseni, without giving any details on these remarks.
"We have determined the red lines. Every reform of the local self-administration must secure the unitary character and the territorial integrity of Kosova [Kosovo]," said Hyseni.
He denied the statements that this document offers a solution, which Kosova has to pay for its independence. "We cannot qualify it as a price, because a certain period, as an independent state, Kosova would experience the need for the reform of the local self-administration," said Hyseni.
He also said that there are no disagreements among the Negotiating Team members.
The Negotiating Team has also decided on the composition of the Kosovar delegation that will attend the third meeting on decentralization. The delegation consists of Skender Hyseni, Ardian Gjini, Fehmi Mujota, Sadik Idriz, Enver Hoxhaj, Ylber Hysaj, and Blerim Shala, whereas Deputy Prime Minister Lutfi Haziri will chair it.
Source: KosovaLive website, Pristina, in English 31 Mar 06
Thursday, March 30, 2006
UN Seeking To Create Conditions For Kosovo Serbs To Stay
PRISTINA (AP)--A U.N. mediator for Kosovo said Thursday his team was determined to create ways of ensuring the Serb minority remains in the province after a settlement on the province's future is reached.
Albert Rohan, the deputy U.N. envoy for the Kosovo talks, spoke at the conclusion of a three-day visit, during which he met with ethnic Albanian leaders who insist on full independence for the Serbian province, and Serb mayors who warned him of possible partition if it should gain independence.
He said his team was working to create conditions that would enable Kosovo's Serb minority to live there.
"We try to make arrangements so that people can stay," Rohan said.
"When the mayors told me that they couldn't live in independence if this were the outcome of the status process, I told them this is your decision," Rohan said.
"We cannot force you to stay, we cannot force anybody to return," he added. "What we can do is to provide conditions, where objectively we can expect the Serbs to stay here and to come back."
He said the international community rejected any partition of the province.
Rohan presented the leaders a plan on the reform of local government in Kosovo, meant to give the Serb minority a greater say in the areas where they form a majority.
The document - which contains points of agreement and compromise solutions from two rounds of talks held by the former foes - calls for maximum authority for municipalities and cooperation between them, but rejects the creation of a separate entity or an internal division of Kosovo, Rohan said.
He expressed hope that the sides would come closer to a deal on local government in April. Issues such as the status of the Serbian Orthodox churches, protection of minority rights, the division of assets and liabilities between Serbia and Kosovo and the post-status international presence will also be discussed.
Kosovo, formally still part of Serbia-Montenegro, has been under U.N. administrative control since mid-1999, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization halted Serb forces' crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.
Its status is now being negotiated through U.N.-sponsored talks, which are being mediated by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. He was appointed by the U.N. to steer the two sides toward agreement by year's end.
Rohan also expressed support for the creation of new municipalities for the ethnic minorities in the areas where they form a majority in Kosovo.
Only about 100,000 Serbs still live in Kosovo, mainly in NATO-protected enclaves. Tens of thousands of others have fled, fearing reprisal attacks, or have been forced out since the end of the war.
Western diplomats have said Kosovo's quest for independence is conditional on the province becoming a democracy that respects minority rights, with local government reform a key to that goal.
Albert Rohan, the deputy U.N. envoy for the Kosovo talks, spoke at the conclusion of a three-day visit, during which he met with ethnic Albanian leaders who insist on full independence for the Serbian province, and Serb mayors who warned him of possible partition if it should gain independence.
He said his team was working to create conditions that would enable Kosovo's Serb minority to live there.
"We try to make arrangements so that people can stay," Rohan said.
"When the mayors told me that they couldn't live in independence if this were the outcome of the status process, I told them this is your decision," Rohan said.
"We cannot force you to stay, we cannot force anybody to return," he added. "What we can do is to provide conditions, where objectively we can expect the Serbs to stay here and to come back."
He said the international community rejected any partition of the province.
Rohan presented the leaders a plan on the reform of local government in Kosovo, meant to give the Serb minority a greater say in the areas where they form a majority.
The document - which contains points of agreement and compromise solutions from two rounds of talks held by the former foes - calls for maximum authority for municipalities and cooperation between them, but rejects the creation of a separate entity or an internal division of Kosovo, Rohan said.
He expressed hope that the sides would come closer to a deal on local government in April. Issues such as the status of the Serbian Orthodox churches, protection of minority rights, the division of assets and liabilities between Serbia and Kosovo and the post-status international presence will also be discussed.
Kosovo, formally still part of Serbia-Montenegro, has been under U.N. administrative control since mid-1999, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization halted Serb forces' crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.
Its status is now being negotiated through U.N.-sponsored talks, which are being mediated by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. He was appointed by the U.N. to steer the two sides toward agreement by year's end.
Rohan also expressed support for the creation of new municipalities for the ethnic minorities in the areas where they form a majority in Kosovo.
Only about 100,000 Serbs still live in Kosovo, mainly in NATO-protected enclaves. Tens of thousands of others have fled, fearing reprisal attacks, or have been forced out since the end of the war.
Western diplomats have said Kosovo's quest for independence is conditional on the province becoming a democracy that respects minority rights, with local government reform a key to that goal.
Two ethnic Albanian suspects arrested for stabbing Serb in Kosovo
PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Police said Thursday they had arrested two ethnic Albanian youths for allegedly stabbing a Serb in an ethnically tense town in Kosovo.
The two suspects, both under 18, were in police custody. The U.N. police commissioner in Kosovo, Kai Vittrup, said they had confessed to the crime.
A 19-year-old Serb, who survived, was stabbed with a knife Tuesday in Kosovska Mitrovica, which is divided between an ethnic Albanian south and a Serb-dominated north. A few hundred Serbs took to the streets to protest the incident.
Vittrup said, however, that "there isn't any ethnic background for this attack." According to preliminary investigation, the stabbing occurred when the suspects and the victim began fighting after an argument, Kosovo police official Maj. Latif Merovci said.
Kosovo, formally still part of Serbia-Montenegro, has been under U.N. administrative control since mid-1999, when NATO halted Serb forces' crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.
The two suspects, both under 18, were in police custody. The U.N. police commissioner in Kosovo, Kai Vittrup, said they had confessed to the crime.
A 19-year-old Serb, who survived, was stabbed with a knife Tuesday in Kosovska Mitrovica, which is divided between an ethnic Albanian south and a Serb-dominated north. A few hundred Serbs took to the streets to protest the incident.
Vittrup said, however, that "there isn't any ethnic background for this attack." According to preliminary investigation, the stabbing occurred when the suspects and the victim began fighting after an argument, Kosovo police official Maj. Latif Merovci said.
Kosovo, formally still part of Serbia-Montenegro, has been under U.N. administrative control since mid-1999, when NATO halted Serb forces' crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.
Draskovic: Kosovo cannot be U.N. member
Serbia's foreign minister says the government should admit it does not govern Kosovo and let it join all bodies except the United Nations.
"Serbia should clearly state that it does not govern Kosovo, that it shall not govern Kosovo, and that it is up to the (ethnic) Albanian majority to govern Kosovo, with respect of the Serbian rights," Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic told state-controlled Radio-Television Serbia.
"Serbia should state that we absolutely support the independent and parallel path of Kosovo towards Europe and that we have nothing against representation of an independent Kosovo in all international organizations, except in the United Nations.," Draskovic said.
"There cannot be a seat (for Kosovo) in the United Nations and there is no change in the present borders with Albania and Macedonia," he said.
Draskovic called his proposal a compromise following Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku insistence on the province's independence.
In Vienna, Austria, Serbs and ethnic Albanians, with U.N. mediation, have been negotiating the future of Kosovo, whose 2 million population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian.
Formally, Kosovo is part of Serbia, but it has been under U.N. administration since 1999 when NATO air sttacks forced Serbian troops to withdraw.
"Serbia should clearly state that it does not govern Kosovo, that it shall not govern Kosovo, and that it is up to the (ethnic) Albanian majority to govern Kosovo, with respect of the Serbian rights," Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic told state-controlled Radio-Television Serbia.
"Serbia should state that we absolutely support the independent and parallel path of Kosovo towards Europe and that we have nothing against representation of an independent Kosovo in all international organizations, except in the United Nations.," Draskovic said.
"There cannot be a seat (for Kosovo) in the United Nations and there is no change in the present borders with Albania and Macedonia," he said.
Draskovic called his proposal a compromise following Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku insistence on the province's independence.
In Vienna, Austria, Serbs and ethnic Albanians, with U.N. mediation, have been negotiating the future of Kosovo, whose 2 million population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian.
Formally, Kosovo is part of Serbia, but it has been under U.N. administration since 1999 when NATO air sttacks forced Serbian troops to withdraw.
Serb hopes of own entity in Kosovo dashed
By Matthew Robinson
PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - The United Nations on Thursday dashed Serb hopes of their own "entity" in Kosovo and issued a stark response to those threatening to leave if the Albanian majority wins independence.
"When told me they couldn't live in an independent Kosovo, if this is the outcome of the status process, I told them: This is your decision, we cannot force you to stay," Albert Rohan, the deputy U.N. envoy in negotiations on Kosovo's fate, told reporters in the capital Pristina.
The Austrian diplomat, who on Wednesday visited Serbs in the north, outlined an initial proposal for Kosovo's future governing structure, the fruit of the first two rounds of Serb-Albanian talks in Vienna.
He ruled out any form of separate entity or autonomy for the 100,000 remaining Serbs, as demanded by Belgrade:
"We made it clear that this does not mean and cannot mean the creation of a separate entity," he said.
"We oppose any internal division of Kosovo and we oppose any third layer of government between the central authority and the municipalities."
Rohan is deputy to U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari, who is leading negotiations on the fate of the disputed Serbian province, run by the United Nations since the 1998-99 war.
Western powers have made increasingly clear they see independence as the only realistic outcome. Kosovo's two million Albanians, 90 percent of the population, have long demanded their own state and have run their affairs since 1999.
But the Serb-dominated north has resisted U.N. efforts to reintegrate it with the rest of Kosovo, threatening the province with de facto partition.
SPLIT IN TWO
Serbia lost control of Kosovo -- its "Jerusalem" -- when NATO bombs drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in a 2-year war with separatist guerrillas, the culmination of a decade of Serb repression.
Half the Serb population fled a wave of revenge attacks. Those who stayed eke out a grim existence on the margins of society, cocooned in a Belgrade-run world of "parallel structures" outside Kosovo's Albanian-dominated institutions.
The leaders of three mainly Serb municipalities in the north, which enjoy a natural land link to central Serbia, warned on Wednesday that Kosovo would be split in two if the U.N. Security Council grants independence later this year.
Many Serbs living in scattered enclaves across the rest of Kosovo say they will pack their bags and leave.
But partition, with implications of forced population movements, is a taboo concept in the West.
Rohan argued that the plan for decentralisation, the core of negotiations that began last month in Vienna, should provide the Serbs with enough local powers to convince them to stay.
The document allows for cooperation between Serb areas within Kosovo and financial donations from Belgrade.
"What we can do is to provide conditions where objectively we can expect the Serbs to stay and to come back," said Rohan, ahead of the next round of talks on April 3. "Whether they want to stay, to return, to leave, is their decision."
PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - The United Nations on Thursday dashed Serb hopes of their own "entity" in Kosovo and issued a stark response to those threatening to leave if the Albanian majority wins independence.
"When told me they couldn't live in an independent Kosovo, if this is the outcome of the status process, I told them: This is your decision, we cannot force you to stay," Albert Rohan, the deputy U.N. envoy in negotiations on Kosovo's fate, told reporters in the capital Pristina.
The Austrian diplomat, who on Wednesday visited Serbs in the north, outlined an initial proposal for Kosovo's future governing structure, the fruit of the first two rounds of Serb-Albanian talks in Vienna.
He ruled out any form of separate entity or autonomy for the 100,000 remaining Serbs, as demanded by Belgrade:
"We made it clear that this does not mean and cannot mean the creation of a separate entity," he said.
"We oppose any internal division of Kosovo and we oppose any third layer of government between the central authority and the municipalities."
Rohan is deputy to U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari, who is leading negotiations on the fate of the disputed Serbian province, run by the United Nations since the 1998-99 war.
Western powers have made increasingly clear they see independence as the only realistic outcome. Kosovo's two million Albanians, 90 percent of the population, have long demanded their own state and have run their affairs since 1999.
But the Serb-dominated north has resisted U.N. efforts to reintegrate it with the rest of Kosovo, threatening the province with de facto partition.
SPLIT IN TWO
Serbia lost control of Kosovo -- its "Jerusalem" -- when NATO bombs drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in a 2-year war with separatist guerrillas, the culmination of a decade of Serb repression.
Half the Serb population fled a wave of revenge attacks. Those who stayed eke out a grim existence on the margins of society, cocooned in a Belgrade-run world of "parallel structures" outside Kosovo's Albanian-dominated institutions.
The leaders of three mainly Serb municipalities in the north, which enjoy a natural land link to central Serbia, warned on Wednesday that Kosovo would be split in two if the U.N. Security Council grants independence later this year.
Many Serbs living in scattered enclaves across the rest of Kosovo say they will pack their bags and leave.
But partition, with implications of forced population movements, is a taboo concept in the West.
Rohan argued that the plan for decentralisation, the core of negotiations that began last month in Vienna, should provide the Serbs with enough local powers to convince them to stay.
The document allows for cooperation between Serb areas within Kosovo and financial donations from Belgrade.
"What we can do is to provide conditions where objectively we can expect the Serbs to stay and to come back," said Rohan, ahead of the next round of talks on April 3. "Whether they want to stay, to return, to leave, is their decision."
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Kosovo PM, UK army commander discuss security
Prishtina [Pristina], 27 March: Kosova [Kosovo] Prime Minister Agim Ceku said today sin Prishtina that it was a joint obligation of him as TMK [Kosovo Protection Corps] commander, and Michael Jackson as the chief of the Great Britain Army Headquarters to raise the TMK to the highest level as part of the political process and transform it into a defence force.
He made these comments today following a meeting with Gen Michael Jackson and Col Paul Miller.
"The history of Kosova is closely connected with the name of Gen Jackson, because he was the first Commander of the Kfor [Kosovo Force] peacekeeping troops in Kosova," said Prime Minister Ceku.
He said that together with Gen Jackson they have gone through difficult, important, and historical moments such as the agreement for demilitarization and transformation of the Kosova Liberation Army [UCK] and its transformation into the TMK.
Ceku said that today's meeting was focused on the current political situation in Kosova, possible developments, possible security architecture in the post status period, and on many other issues.
Gen Jackson congratulated Prime Minister Ceku on his new appointment. He said that this is a momentous year for Kosova as final status talks gather momentum. "There is much to be done in all aspects - politically, economically, and in security. And I wish the prime minister every good luck and all the Kosovars for their future," said British General Michael Jackson.
Source: KosovaLive website, Pristina, in English 27 Mar 06
He made these comments today following a meeting with Gen Michael Jackson and Col Paul Miller.
"The history of Kosova is closely connected with the name of Gen Jackson, because he was the first Commander of the Kfor [Kosovo Force] peacekeeping troops in Kosova," said Prime Minister Ceku.
He said that together with Gen Jackson they have gone through difficult, important, and historical moments such as the agreement for demilitarization and transformation of the Kosova Liberation Army [UCK] and its transformation into the TMK.
Ceku said that today's meeting was focused on the current political situation in Kosova, possible developments, possible security architecture in the post status period, and on many other issues.
Gen Jackson congratulated Prime Minister Ceku on his new appointment. He said that this is a momentous year for Kosova as final status talks gather momentum. "There is much to be done in all aspects - politically, economically, and in security. And I wish the prime minister every good luck and all the Kosovars for their future," said British General Michael Jackson.
Source: KosovaLive website, Pristina, in English 27 Mar 06
Serbia: Interpol Lifting Of Warrant Vs Kosovo PM Shameful
BELGRADE (AP)--Serbia protested Tuesday against Interpol's recent decision to remove Kosovo's former rebel leader and newly elected prime minister, Agim Ceku, from its list of wanted persons.
Serbia's Justice Minister denounced as "shameful" Interpol's recent acknowledgment Ceku is no longer on its list of internationally wanted persons because of his new status.
The arrest warrant had been initiated by Serbia, which accuses Ceku of atrocities and war crimes, including genocide, against Serbs and other non-Albanians during the 1998-1999 Kosovo war.
Kosovo has been a U.N.-run protectorate since 1999 when Serbia was forced by North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing to halt its crackdown against the ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo and hand over the province to the U.N. and the military alliance. A final status for the province is now being negotiated through U.N.-sponsored talks.
Formerly a top commander of the ethnic Albanian guerrillas, Ceku became Kosovo's prime minister earlier this month. The province's U.N. administrators then urged Interpol and a number of Western governments to ignore the arrest warrant for him, as well as for another former rebel leader, Hashim Thaci, citing the need for them to move freely.
Both were detained in the past when they traveled abroad, but were released after U.N. officials intervened. They are now part of the talks on Kosovo's future.
Serbian authorities claim Ceku is responsible for wartime killings of 669 Serbs and 18 other non-Albanians in Kosovo, for more than 500 abductions and about as many armed attacks.
Serbia's Justice Minister denounced as "shameful" Interpol's recent acknowledgment Ceku is no longer on its list of internationally wanted persons because of his new status.
The arrest warrant had been initiated by Serbia, which accuses Ceku of atrocities and war crimes, including genocide, against Serbs and other non-Albanians during the 1998-1999 Kosovo war.
Kosovo has been a U.N.-run protectorate since 1999 when Serbia was forced by North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing to halt its crackdown against the ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo and hand over the province to the U.N. and the military alliance. A final status for the province is now being negotiated through U.N.-sponsored talks.
Formerly a top commander of the ethnic Albanian guerrillas, Ceku became Kosovo's prime minister earlier this month. The province's U.N. administrators then urged Interpol and a number of Western governments to ignore the arrest warrant for him, as well as for another former rebel leader, Hashim Thaci, citing the need for them to move freely.
Both were detained in the past when they traveled abroad, but were released after U.N. officials intervened. They are now part of the talks on Kosovo's future.
Serbian authorities claim Ceku is responsible for wartime killings of 669 Serbs and 18 other non-Albanians in Kosovo, for more than 500 abductions and about as many armed attacks.
More "realism" in Kosovo talks, says chairman
Vienna - Chairman of the current direct Kosovo talks, Albert Rohan, called on Tuesday for more "realism" on both sides.
Quoted by the Austrian parliamentary press service, he said the intenational community had made it clear to the people of Kosovo that with the beginning of the direct Belgrade-Pristina talks, there would not automatically be independence.
It had also been made clear that Pristina must improve the treatment of the Kosovo-Serb minority, said Rohan, who is deputy to UN Kosovo envoy Martti Ahtisaari.
To the Serbs in Kosovo, it had been empasized that they must join in the work for Kosovo's future, and that any further boycott would be counterproductive. But he regretted that the Serbs were only in part cooperative.
His statement was on the sidelines of a current conference of foreign policy committee chairpersons of EU national parliaments.
Austrian ex-diplomat Rohan again pointed to the complexity of the problem. Everything except independence would be acceptable to Belgrade. For Pristina, nothing but independence was thinkable.
The situation was aggravated by the Kosovo-Serbs, on Belgrade's advice, still boycotting the institutions in Pristina in the belief that they could thereby delay or prevent independence.
Rohan said the present strategy of the international community was above all not to allow the direct talks in Vienna to concentrate on the central question of Kosovo's future status.
Concrete and practical issues were being dealt with first, such as decentralization, protection of holy sites, minority rights, economic questions, and the future of the international presence in the Serbian province.
Quoted by the Austrian parliamentary press service, he said the intenational community had made it clear to the people of Kosovo that with the beginning of the direct Belgrade-Pristina talks, there would not automatically be independence.
It had also been made clear that Pristina must improve the treatment of the Kosovo-Serb minority, said Rohan, who is deputy to UN Kosovo envoy Martti Ahtisaari.
To the Serbs in Kosovo, it had been empasized that they must join in the work for Kosovo's future, and that any further boycott would be counterproductive. But he regretted that the Serbs were only in part cooperative.
His statement was on the sidelines of a current conference of foreign policy committee chairpersons of EU national parliaments.
Austrian ex-diplomat Rohan again pointed to the complexity of the problem. Everything except independence would be acceptable to Belgrade. For Pristina, nothing but independence was thinkable.
The situation was aggravated by the Kosovo-Serbs, on Belgrade's advice, still boycotting the institutions in Pristina in the belief that they could thereby delay or prevent independence.
Rohan said the present strategy of the international community was above all not to allow the direct talks in Vienna to concentrate on the central question of Kosovo's future status.
Concrete and practical issues were being dealt with first, such as decentralization, protection of holy sites, minority rights, economic questions, and the future of the international presence in the Serbian province.
Serb youth stabbed in northern Kosovo, tensions soar
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Ethnic tensions soared in northern Kosovo on Tuesday after a Serb teenager was stabbed and seriously injured, allegedly by a group of ethnic Albanian youths, witnesses and officials said.
A few hundred Serbs took to the streets of the ethnically divided town after hearing that the 19-year-old, identified as Milosav Ilincic, was attacked in the mostly Serb-populated part of the town by a group of young men from the southern, ethnic Albanian part of Kosovska Mitrovica.
Kosovo's chief U.N. official Soren Jessen-Petersen condemned the stabbing and asked police to launch an investigation, a U.N. statement said.
"I deeply regret and am shocked to learn about this deplorable incident," he added, urging restraint.
Police spokesman Sami Mehmeti confirmed a teenager was stabbed, but did not provide the ethnicity of the victim or the circumstances of the attack. He said 200 demonstrators were protesting.
Kosovo Serb leader Milan Ivanovic said Ilincic was attacked while standing with his girlfriend near a bridge over the Ibar river that separates the mostly Serb northern part of town from the ethnic Albanian south.
Ilincic was rushed to a hospital where officials, who declined to be immediately identified, said he was admitted with three deep stab wounds and was undergoing surgery for a ruptured liver and two head injuries.
Kosovska Mitrovica, 45 kilometers (30 miles) north of the province's capital, Pristina, has been ethnically divided since the 1998-1999 Kosovo war. Kosovo is now a U.N. protectorate.
The critical bridge between the two communities in Kosovska Mitrovica had been guarded by NATO peacekeepers and members of the U.N. police until last summer, when it was reopened for traffic.
After the incident, however, the bridge was closed again to civilian use until further notice, Mehmeti said.
Ivanovic claimed that ethnic Albanian members of the Kosovo Police Service were near the scene of the incident when the alleged stabbing occurred, but failed to intervene and possibly even encouraged the attackers to run back to the ethnic Albanian part of town.
Also Tuesday, U.N. envoy Albert Rohan, mediating in ongoing talks on Kosovo's future, met with Kosovo's pro-independence ethnic Albanian leaders in Pristina. He is expected to visit the northern, mostly Serb-populated area on Wednesday.
A few hundred Serbs took to the streets of the ethnically divided town after hearing that the 19-year-old, identified as Milosav Ilincic, was attacked in the mostly Serb-populated part of the town by a group of young men from the southern, ethnic Albanian part of Kosovska Mitrovica.
Kosovo's chief U.N. official Soren Jessen-Petersen condemned the stabbing and asked police to launch an investigation, a U.N. statement said.
"I deeply regret and am shocked to learn about this deplorable incident," he added, urging restraint.
Police spokesman Sami Mehmeti confirmed a teenager was stabbed, but did not provide the ethnicity of the victim or the circumstances of the attack. He said 200 demonstrators were protesting.
Kosovo Serb leader Milan Ivanovic said Ilincic was attacked while standing with his girlfriend near a bridge over the Ibar river that separates the mostly Serb northern part of town from the ethnic Albanian south.
Ilincic was rushed to a hospital where officials, who declined to be immediately identified, said he was admitted with three deep stab wounds and was undergoing surgery for a ruptured liver and two head injuries.
Kosovska Mitrovica, 45 kilometers (30 miles) north of the province's capital, Pristina, has been ethnically divided since the 1998-1999 Kosovo war. Kosovo is now a U.N. protectorate.
The critical bridge between the two communities in Kosovska Mitrovica had been guarded by NATO peacekeepers and members of the U.N. police until last summer, when it was reopened for traffic.
After the incident, however, the bridge was closed again to civilian use until further notice, Mehmeti said.
Ivanovic claimed that ethnic Albanian members of the Kosovo Police Service were near the scene of the incident when the alleged stabbing occurred, but failed to intervene and possibly even encouraged the attackers to run back to the ethnic Albanian part of town.
Also Tuesday, U.N. envoy Albert Rohan, mediating in ongoing talks on Kosovo's future, met with Kosovo's pro-independence ethnic Albanian leaders in Pristina. He is expected to visit the northern, mostly Serb-populated area on Wednesday.
Monday, March 27, 2006
Serbia needs to be realistic about Kosovo, Serbia-Montenegro minister says
Text of report in English by Belgrade-based Radio B92 text website on 27 March
Belgrade/Pristina, 27 March: Serbia-Montenegro Human and Minority Rights Minister Rasim Ljajic has said that Serbia needs to use more arguments in the Kosovo status discussions, and arguments which are not based on myths.
Ljajic said that Serbia needed to show that it was ready to compromise and that it should be aware that the situation will not go back to the way it once was.
"It is doubtful that the Albanians will accept Belgrade having control and that is why an original solution must be found, like a solution was found in Bosnia that had never been heard of until then," Ljajic said.
Great Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a congratulatory letter to Kosovo's new Prime Minister Agim Ceku, stated that the implementation of human rights standards must be Kosovo's primary goal.
"This will help Kosovo reach European norms for creating democratic institutions, successfully administering and creating a legal state," Blair said.
Source: Radio B92 text website, Belgrade, in English 1350 gmt 27 Mar 06
Belgrade/Pristina, 27 March: Serbia-Montenegro Human and Minority Rights Minister Rasim Ljajic has said that Serbia needs to use more arguments in the Kosovo status discussions, and arguments which are not based on myths.
Ljajic said that Serbia needed to show that it was ready to compromise and that it should be aware that the situation will not go back to the way it once was.
"It is doubtful that the Albanians will accept Belgrade having control and that is why an original solution must be found, like a solution was found in Bosnia that had never been heard of until then," Ljajic said.
Great Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a congratulatory letter to Kosovo's new Prime Minister Agim Ceku, stated that the implementation of human rights standards must be Kosovo's primary goal.
"This will help Kosovo reach European norms for creating democratic institutions, successfully administering and creating a legal state," Blair said.
Source: Radio B92 text website, Belgrade, in English 1350 gmt 27 Mar 06
US To Close Kosovo Base, Relocate Troops - NATO Official
PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP)--The U.S. is planning to close one of its military bases in Kosovo and relocate its troops to its main base in the disputed province, a NATO official said Monday.
The plan, however, wouldn't affect overall U.S. troop numbers, the official said on condition of anonymity in exchange for discussing the issue.
The U.S. troops would be transferred from Camp Monteith to Camp Bondsteel, the main U.S. base in the province.
"That process may eventually bring a decision to close Camp Monteith later this year," the official said.
Camp Monteith is located in Gnjilane, 50 kilometers east of the capital, Pristina. Camp Bondsteel is some 45 kilometers southeast of Pristina.
A U.S. military spokesman in Kosovo, Maj. Paul Pecena, confirmed the relocation of the soldiers over the past two weeks, but declined to speculate on whether the base would be closed.
The NATO official said a small troop presence would be maintained at Camp Monteith until a final decision is made on closing it.
Some 1,700 U.S. peacekeepers are part of the 17,500-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force, down from a high of 5,000 U.S. soldiers deployed here after the war.
Kosovo has been run by the U.N. since mid-1999, when a NATO air war halted a Serb crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians fighting for independence, and forced Belgrade to relinquish control of the province. Kosovo officially remains a province of Serbia.
U.N.-sponsored talks in Vienna are attempting to resolve the province's future status. Ethnic Albanians, who comprise about 90% of the population of 2 million, insist on full independence. But Serbia, and Kosovo's Serb minority, say Belgrade must retain some control.
The plan, however, wouldn't affect overall U.S. troop numbers, the official said on condition of anonymity in exchange for discussing the issue.
The U.S. troops would be transferred from Camp Monteith to Camp Bondsteel, the main U.S. base in the province.
"That process may eventually bring a decision to close Camp Monteith later this year," the official said.
Camp Monteith is located in Gnjilane, 50 kilometers east of the capital, Pristina. Camp Bondsteel is some 45 kilometers southeast of Pristina.
A U.S. military spokesman in Kosovo, Maj. Paul Pecena, confirmed the relocation of the soldiers over the past two weeks, but declined to speculate on whether the base would be closed.
The NATO official said a small troop presence would be maintained at Camp Monteith until a final decision is made on closing it.
Some 1,700 U.S. peacekeepers are part of the 17,500-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force, down from a high of 5,000 U.S. soldiers deployed here after the war.
Kosovo has been run by the U.N. since mid-1999, when a NATO air war halted a Serb crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians fighting for independence, and forced Belgrade to relinquish control of the province. Kosovo officially remains a province of Serbia.
U.N.-sponsored talks in Vienna are attempting to resolve the province's future status. Ethnic Albanians, who comprise about 90% of the population of 2 million, insist on full independence. But Serbia, and Kosovo's Serb minority, say Belgrade must retain some control.
Kosovo Albanian, Serbian representatives discuss minority issues
Text of report in English by Albanian news agency ATA
Tirana, 27 March: The representatives of the communities in Kosova (Kosovo), Albanians and Serbs, commenced on Monday (27 March) in Durres a two-day meeting dealing with the issue of the national minorities in Kosova.
During the meeting being held in Belvedere Hotel, 9km from the city of Durres, the discussions with be focused on the support for representatives of communities, especially in the decision-making process.
The meeting is organized by the European Centre on Communitarian Issues. At the end of the meeting chaired by Veton Surroi, representative of Mark Weller Centre and member of Kosovar negotiation team, the participants are expected to approve a final document on the issues of the minorities.
Source: ATA news agency, Tirana, in English 1133 gmt 26 Mar 06
Tirana, 27 March: The representatives of the communities in Kosova (Kosovo), Albanians and Serbs, commenced on Monday (27 March) in Durres a two-day meeting dealing with the issue of the national minorities in Kosova.
During the meeting being held in Belvedere Hotel, 9km from the city of Durres, the discussions with be focused on the support for representatives of communities, especially in the decision-making process.
The meeting is organized by the European Centre on Communitarian Issues. At the end of the meeting chaired by Veton Surroi, representative of Mark Weller Centre and member of Kosovar negotiation team, the participants are expected to approve a final document on the issues of the minorities.
Source: ATA news agency, Tirana, in English 1133 gmt 26 Mar 06
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Experts See Independence for Kosovo as Inevitable
By Barry Wood
Washington
23 March 2006
With independence now seen among Western governments as the likely outcome of talks about the status of the Serbian province of Kosovo, the European Union Wednesday called on the Kosovo Albanians to take action to protect the province's Serbian minority. Minority rights is taking center stage in the status negotiations.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told Kosovo's prime minister, Agim Ceku, that he is insisting on full protection for the territory's 10 percent Serbian minority. The discussions in Brussels were the first between Solana and the recently installed Mr. Ceku. The EU official expressed their frustration with the Kosovo leader, saying there has been a lot of talk on protecting the Serbian minority, but very little action.
United Nations sponsored talks on Kosovo began last month and a third meeting between officials from Serbia and Kosovo is scheduled for April 3rd. The talks thus far have focused on local government but minority rights and cultural heritage will soon be discussed.
Independence is now almost certainly the intended outcome of the talks even though this is vigorously opposed by Serbia. Jack Straw, Britain's foreign secretary, recently became the highest-level western official to endorse independence, saying it was almost inevitable. Kosovo, whose population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, has been administered by the United Nations since 1999 after a 78 day NATO bombing campaign forced Serbian troops to withdraw. The status negotiations are guided by a contact group of six nations-the United States, Britain, Russia, France, Germany, and Italy.
At a forum Wednesday at Washington's Georgetown University, Balkans specialist and former U.S .ambassador to Turkey Mort Abramowitz said the status negotiations provide the opportunity to get Kosovo's Albanian majority to enact meaningful minority safeguards.
"And the best you can do right now is, I believe, pressure the Kosovars on how important this is, and to get them to carry out whatever activities and legislation they can do to improve the lot of the Serb and other minorities," he said.
Abramowitz said the ongoing Kosovo negotiations must determine whether the territory will have full independence and a seat in the United Nations. Similarly, he said the status of the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica in the north must be resolved.
Charles Kupchan, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown said it would be a mistake to eliminate any possibility of territorial adjustments. The Serbian populated land north of Mitrovica is adjacent to Serbia proper. "Unless the international community and Pristina is prepared to do what is necessary to reattach Mitrovica and northern Kosovo to a functioning state, I don't think they should make partition unacceptable. This is an area that is almost 100 percent Serb," he said.
The UN and the six-nation contact group have ruled out territorial adjustments as well as any future merger between an independent Kosovo and neighboring Albania.
The UN officials chairing the Kosovo talks hope to reach a settlement by the end of the year.
Washington
23 March 2006
With independence now seen among Western governments as the likely outcome of talks about the status of the Serbian province of Kosovo, the European Union Wednesday called on the Kosovo Albanians to take action to protect the province's Serbian minority. Minority rights is taking center stage in the status negotiations.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told Kosovo's prime minister, Agim Ceku, that he is insisting on full protection for the territory's 10 percent Serbian minority. The discussions in Brussels were the first between Solana and the recently installed Mr. Ceku. The EU official expressed their frustration with the Kosovo leader, saying there has been a lot of talk on protecting the Serbian minority, but very little action.
United Nations sponsored talks on Kosovo began last month and a third meeting between officials from Serbia and Kosovo is scheduled for April 3rd. The talks thus far have focused on local government but minority rights and cultural heritage will soon be discussed.
Independence is now almost certainly the intended outcome of the talks even though this is vigorously opposed by Serbia. Jack Straw, Britain's foreign secretary, recently became the highest-level western official to endorse independence, saying it was almost inevitable. Kosovo, whose population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, has been administered by the United Nations since 1999 after a 78 day NATO bombing campaign forced Serbian troops to withdraw. The status negotiations are guided by a contact group of six nations-the United States, Britain, Russia, France, Germany, and Italy.
At a forum Wednesday at Washington's Georgetown University, Balkans specialist and former U.S .ambassador to Turkey Mort Abramowitz said the status negotiations provide the opportunity to get Kosovo's Albanian majority to enact meaningful minority safeguards.
"And the best you can do right now is, I believe, pressure the Kosovars on how important this is, and to get them to carry out whatever activities and legislation they can do to improve the lot of the Serb and other minorities," he said.
Abramowitz said the ongoing Kosovo negotiations must determine whether the territory will have full independence and a seat in the United Nations. Similarly, he said the status of the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica in the north must be resolved.
Charles Kupchan, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown said it would be a mistake to eliminate any possibility of territorial adjustments. The Serbian populated land north of Mitrovica is adjacent to Serbia proper. "Unless the international community and Pristina is prepared to do what is necessary to reattach Mitrovica and northern Kosovo to a functioning state, I don't think they should make partition unacceptable. This is an area that is almost 100 percent Serb," he said.
The UN and the six-nation contact group have ruled out territorial adjustments as well as any future merger between an independent Kosovo and neighboring Albania.
The UN officials chairing the Kosovo talks hope to reach a settlement by the end of the year.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Kosovo must act now to protect Serb minority - EU
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Kosovo's ethnic Albanian government must take action now to protect its Serbian minority, the European Union's foreign policy chief told new Kosovan Prime Minister Agim Ceku on Wednesday.
"For a long time there has been a lot of talk but not much action. I think we have to reverse that now, to talk less and act more," Javier Solana said after talks with Ceku.
"I insist very much that ... this is fundamental."
Full protection of the 10 percent Serbian minority in Kosovo is essential for talks launched in February on the status of the Serbian province to move forward, an EU official said.
Still legally part of Serbia, the province of 2 million people has been run by the United Nations since 1999 when NATO drove out Yugoslav forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in two years of fighting with separatist guerrillas.
Ceku, a former guerrilla commander, pledged to work on the EU's demands to enhance Serbian minority rights and build trust.
"We would like to make gestures in the coming months to send signals that we are very clear on integrating minorities," he told reporters.
"We are very clear on wanting Serbs to stay in Kosovo, to be equal, to be free, to be secure, and to love Kosovo and make (it) home and to treat Kosovo as home as well," Ceku added.
A third round of talks between Kosovo Albanians and the Serbian government on the status of Kosovo, mediated by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, is set for April 3.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was the first senior minister to say this month that Kosovo's path to independence from Serbia was "almost inevitable".
Western powers want the Albanians to make concessions first to the Kosovo Serbs, isolated and targeted by sporadic violence since the end of the war, when half the Serb population fled.
After their second round of talks last week, Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians clashed over the extent to which Kosovo Serbs should run their own affairs and enjoy special ties to Belgrade.
Serbia has proposed creating a Serb entity within Kosovo. The Albanians say this means ethnic partition and are proposing a more modest decentralisation without links to Belgrade.
"The differences are enormous," said Albanian negotiator Blerim Shala.
Serbia has accused Ceku, 45, a former senior commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), of murder and terrorism. He was named prime minister by Kosovo's parliament on March 10.
"For a long time there has been a lot of talk but not much action. I think we have to reverse that now, to talk less and act more," Javier Solana said after talks with Ceku.
"I insist very much that ... this is fundamental."
Full protection of the 10 percent Serbian minority in Kosovo is essential for talks launched in February on the status of the Serbian province to move forward, an EU official said.
Still legally part of Serbia, the province of 2 million people has been run by the United Nations since 1999 when NATO drove out Yugoslav forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in two years of fighting with separatist guerrillas.
Ceku, a former guerrilla commander, pledged to work on the EU's demands to enhance Serbian minority rights and build trust.
"We would like to make gestures in the coming months to send signals that we are very clear on integrating minorities," he told reporters.
"We are very clear on wanting Serbs to stay in Kosovo, to be equal, to be free, to be secure, and to love Kosovo and make (it) home and to treat Kosovo as home as well," Ceku added.
A third round of talks between Kosovo Albanians and the Serbian government on the status of Kosovo, mediated by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, is set for April 3.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was the first senior minister to say this month that Kosovo's path to independence from Serbia was "almost inevitable".
Western powers want the Albanians to make concessions first to the Kosovo Serbs, isolated and targeted by sporadic violence since the end of the war, when half the Serb population fled.
After their second round of talks last week, Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians clashed over the extent to which Kosovo Serbs should run their own affairs and enjoy special ties to Belgrade.
Serbia has proposed creating a Serb entity within Kosovo. The Albanians say this means ethnic partition and are proposing a more modest decentralisation without links to Belgrade.
"The differences are enormous," said Albanian negotiator Blerim Shala.
Serbia has accused Ceku, 45, a former senior commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), of murder and terrorism. He was named prime minister by Kosovo's parliament on March 10.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
New Kosovo PM to visit NATO, EU
(Brussels, DTT-NET.COM)- New Kosovo Prime Minister is to make his first visit out of the UN administrated province since he took the post and visit top NATO and EU officials on Wednesday.
NATO officials told DTT-NET.COM that Agim Ceku is to meet with Secretary General of the alliance Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Wednesday. The same day Kosovo PM is to meet with EU chief of diplomacy Javier Solana, officials from his cabinet said.
The visit of Ceku at NATO and EU headquarters comes at the time when talks between Kosovo and Serbia leadership have entered an important phase on the rights for Serbian minority in the province.
The visit is considered to be an opportunity for NATO and EU to show support of Ceku’s cabinet and especially urge him to speed up implementation of UN set standards on minority rights.
On Friday major international powers, US, EU and Russia urged Ceku’s government to make concessions on the self rule rights for Serbs of Kosovo at municipal level.
The issue was negotiated for the second time between Prishtina and Belgrade in Vienna, Austria.
UN mediators said that the second round held yesterday at Austrian capital showed good signals that deal is possible, but further meetings are needed to achieve some concrete results on the powers of current and new municipalities to be created for Serbian minority.
NATO officials told DTT-NET.COM that Agim Ceku is to meet with Secretary General of the alliance Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Wednesday. The same day Kosovo PM is to meet with EU chief of diplomacy Javier Solana, officials from his cabinet said.
The visit of Ceku at NATO and EU headquarters comes at the time when talks between Kosovo and Serbia leadership have entered an important phase on the rights for Serbian minority in the province.
The visit is considered to be an opportunity for NATO and EU to show support of Ceku’s cabinet and especially urge him to speed up implementation of UN set standards on minority rights.
On Friday major international powers, US, EU and Russia urged Ceku’s government to make concessions on the self rule rights for Serbs of Kosovo at municipal level.
The issue was negotiated for the second time between Prishtina and Belgrade in Vienna, Austria.
UN mediators said that the second round held yesterday at Austrian capital showed good signals that deal is possible, but further meetings are needed to achieve some concrete results on the powers of current and new municipalities to be created for Serbian minority.
Death of a Dictator
Good riddance to Milosevic--and to Saddam, too.
by Stephen Schwartz and William Kristol
03/27/2006, Volume 011, Issue 26
ALBERT WOHLSTETTER, better than almost any other American strategic thinker, understood Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian dictator who died at The Hague where he was on trial for genocide. Writing in the Wall Street Journal in 1995, Wohlstetter drew a direct line between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the Balkan butcher: "The successful coalition in the Gulf War . . . left in place a Ba'ath dictatorship . . . .That told Slobodan Milosevic, who is not a slow learner, that the West would be even less likely . . . to stop his own overt use of the Yugoslav Federal Army to create a Greater Serbia purged of non-Serbs."
Wohlstetter was not the only person to recognize the evil of Milosevic. Margaret Thatcher was a prominent advocate of direct and firm action against Serbian aggression. She recalled indignantly in 1999, "The West could have stopped Milosevic in Slovenia or Croatia in 1991, or in Bosnia in 1992." In 1995, Milosevic was slowed, at least, by the Dayton Accord, which, however, left Bosnian Serbs with most of the country and treated Milosevic, who had incited them to mass murder, rape, and wholesale vandalism, as a more or less respectable figure. In 1999, four years after Dayton, 33 prominent foreign policy experts, including John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz, signed a statement calling on President Clinton to end the "pact with the devil" signed at Dayton and to intervene immediately in Kosovo, the last setting for Milosevic's theater of the macabre. So we did, and Milosevic was stopped.
He was deposed by his countrymen in 2000, deported to The Hague by the Yugoslav government, and put on trial before a special tribunal. At the trial he attempted to present himself as a prescient and courageous defender of the West against al Qaeda. According to him, the murder of elderly Muslim peasants in remote districts of Bosnia or Kosovo was a blow against Islamist terrorism. In 2002, he even tried to claim American government support for the allegation that "mujahedeen" had fought in Kosovo. In reality, while some 2,000-4,000 Saudi-backed "Arab Afghans" intruded into the Bosnian conflict, they failed to influence the course of the fighting, and their form of Islam repelled the European Bosnians.
And now the brute will be buried, leaving a legacy of some 250,000 dead (mostly Bosnian Muslims), thousands of victims of rape (also mostly Bosnian Muslims), and the economic and cultural wreckage of the former Yugoslavia. His vision of a Greater Serbia resulted in the reality of a Lesser Serbia, reduced to the country as it existed in 1911, plus war booty taken from the Hungarians after World War I (Vojvodina in the north) and two unhappily acquired possessions that may soon be gone, Montenegro and Kosovo. Montenegro, annexed in 1918, is preparing a referendum on secession from its current "federation" with Serbia for May of this year, and the "final status" of Kosovo, conquered by Serbia in 1912, is being negotiated by the international community.
Milosevic will be remembered as the man who, at the end of the 20th century, reintroduced mass atrocities into a Europe that had ostensibly banished them forever. Milosevic's retro political style included "ethnic cleansing" or mass expulsion; internment in concentration camps; grotesque torture and sexual terrorism; gratuitous slaughter of whole families, villages, and even the equivalent of a significant town--8,000 Muslim males at Srebrenica, and the systematic destruction of holy places and cultural landmarks. All was carried out by lawless gangs and "militias," in addition to the Yugoslav army.
Some Western "realists," looking for excuses not to act, could not help asserting the moral equivalence of Milosevic and his victims. But neither the Croats, nor the Bosnian Muslims, nor the Kosovar Albanians ever attacked Serbia or Montenegro. In an attempt at psychological distancing from the crimes of the Belgrade regime, some Westerners harped endlessly on Croatian and Bosnian Muslim collaboration with the Nazis in the Second World War, even though as many or more Croats were anti-fascist Partisans as helped the Nazis, and Bosnian Muslim clerics interceded on behalf of Jewish and Serb victims of the Germans.
Milosevic, the man pushed to the foreground by the crisis, was a mediocrity, like Saddam Hussein or, for that matter, his hero Stalin. Milosevic was a product of Communist rule in a remote provincial town, Pozarevac, in Serbia, and of a narrow, bureaucratic culture. There is no evidence that he cared about the Serb people or Serbian traditions; but he certainly loved authority over others. When he gained power, after working his way through the Tito party system, he used it to posture as a world-historical figure. But he was similar to Vladimir Putin in Russia: an empty vessel waiting to be filled by new ideologies or mafia business opportunities once communism ended.
It is appropriate that Milosevic was an ally of Saddam, who also killed quite a few Muslims--and an ally of other anti-Americans. Evil finds its compatriots. So Iraq supplied energy-poor Serbia with oil. Iraq contracted with Serbia for sophisticated weapons and their maintenance. Serbia had a WMD program, including a nuclear bomb effort dating from the Tito years, finally shut down only in 2002, when enough highly enriched uranium for at least two nuclear weapons was removed from an institute near Belgrade in a joint U.S.-Russian effort supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Milosevic was also, in his time, supported by the late, unlamented Yasser Arafat, who even invited him to Bethlehem, in the territory of the Palestinian Authority. (Israel blocked the trip by making it clear that, as a good member of the United Nations, it would arrest Milosevic and hand him over to The Hague.) What counted to people like Saddam and Arafat was, of course, Serbia's confrontation with America, not its attempted genocide of Bosnian Muslims. And when the U.S.-led coalition went into Iraq in 2003 to remove Saddam (who incidentally was a more direct threat to American interests in 2003 than Milosevic was in 1999), many of the same people opposed that intervention as well. Some acted out of decent motives and made respectable arguments--and some simply liked dictators and hated America. So Slobodan and Saddam ended up sharing the legal help of the disgraceful Ramsey Clark.
Yet the suffering of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Balkan war of 1992-95 produced important effects. The nightmare of Bosnia--all those people killed only for their names, the rapes, the mosques destroyed down to their foundations--affected Muslims throughout the world, as did the apparent indifference of much of "Christian Europe" to the horror. After all, British policy was shaped not by Lady Thatcher, but by the cruelly shortsighted team of Lord Carrington, Lord Douglas Hurd, and Lord David Owen. U.S. policy did not follow the path recommended by Ronald Reagan or John McCain. It was based first on the pseudo-"realism" of James Baker, then left at the mercy of the fecklessness of Warren Christopher.
So Muslims around the world have not forgotten Bosnia. While Westerners tend to dismiss the Balkans as a fringe area of the Islamic world, many Muslims view Bosnian Islam with respect. Precisely because it suffered, and defended itself, and survived as a community of Islamic believers in the heart of Europe, Bosnia has credibility and prestige among Muslims, from Saudi dissidents to Malayan Sufis.
Bosnian Islam, which showed its moderation during the recent war, therefore represents a real asset for a Europe coming to grips with the Islamic challenge. In the middle of the uproar and shouts--and some brutal slayings--accompanying the recent controversy over the Danish cartoons, the chief Muslim cleric of Bosnia, Mustafa Ceric, issued a Declaration to European Muslims. In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty accompanying the declaration, Ceric described the text as "a personal act . . . sending a message to the Western audience that we, Bosnian Muslims, did not agree with the terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001, on March 11, 2004, in Madrid, on July 7, 2005, in London."
In the declaration itself, Ceric writes sharply, "Muslims should not be afraid to think about their future in the same way as they should not be possessed by their past. . . . Not only have Muslims failed to produce a genuine idea of globalization, but they are, generally speaking, failing now at living in a global world." In an introduction to the declaration, Ceric argues, "Muslims must realize that the general feeling about their faith in Europe today is unfavorable. European Muslims must take the issue of violence in the name of Islam very seriously, not because some people hate Islam and Muslims, but because the act of violence, the act of terror, the act of hatred in the name of Islam is wrong. . . .European Muslims must develop a program for anti-violence." Ceric reproaches the ruling caste in Muslim countries that "claims to defend Islam, but, in fact . . . uses (or misuses) Islam to cover up its own shortcomings."
Bosnians like Ceric survived the time of Milosevic without sharing in the evil he represented. Such Bosnians can serve as intellectual and moral examples for moderate Muslims around the world. And Europeans can benefit from treating them as trustworthy partners. The death of Milosevic does not close the book on the disaster of the Yugoslav wars; major criminals remain at large. But the fact that Balkan Muslims remained stubbornly commited to civilized values is notable. It deserves to be remembered as people of good will contemplate the future of Islam in Europe and beyond.
--Stephen Schwartz and William Kristol
by Stephen Schwartz and William Kristol
03/27/2006, Volume 011, Issue 26
ALBERT WOHLSTETTER, better than almost any other American strategic thinker, understood Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian dictator who died at The Hague where he was on trial for genocide. Writing in the Wall Street Journal in 1995, Wohlstetter drew a direct line between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the Balkan butcher: "The successful coalition in the Gulf War . . . left in place a Ba'ath dictatorship . . . .That told Slobodan Milosevic, who is not a slow learner, that the West would be even less likely . . . to stop his own overt use of the Yugoslav Federal Army to create a Greater Serbia purged of non-Serbs."
Wohlstetter was not the only person to recognize the evil of Milosevic. Margaret Thatcher was a prominent advocate of direct and firm action against Serbian aggression. She recalled indignantly in 1999, "The West could have stopped Milosevic in Slovenia or Croatia in 1991, or in Bosnia in 1992." In 1995, Milosevic was slowed, at least, by the Dayton Accord, which, however, left Bosnian Serbs with most of the country and treated Milosevic, who had incited them to mass murder, rape, and wholesale vandalism, as a more or less respectable figure. In 1999, four years after Dayton, 33 prominent foreign policy experts, including John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz, signed a statement calling on President Clinton to end the "pact with the devil" signed at Dayton and to intervene immediately in Kosovo, the last setting for Milosevic's theater of the macabre. So we did, and Milosevic was stopped.
He was deposed by his countrymen in 2000, deported to The Hague by the Yugoslav government, and put on trial before a special tribunal. At the trial he attempted to present himself as a prescient and courageous defender of the West against al Qaeda. According to him, the murder of elderly Muslim peasants in remote districts of Bosnia or Kosovo was a blow against Islamist terrorism. In 2002, he even tried to claim American government support for the allegation that "mujahedeen" had fought in Kosovo. In reality, while some 2,000-4,000 Saudi-backed "Arab Afghans" intruded into the Bosnian conflict, they failed to influence the course of the fighting, and their form of Islam repelled the European Bosnians.
And now the brute will be buried, leaving a legacy of some 250,000 dead (mostly Bosnian Muslims), thousands of victims of rape (also mostly Bosnian Muslims), and the economic and cultural wreckage of the former Yugoslavia. His vision of a Greater Serbia resulted in the reality of a Lesser Serbia, reduced to the country as it existed in 1911, plus war booty taken from the Hungarians after World War I (Vojvodina in the north) and two unhappily acquired possessions that may soon be gone, Montenegro and Kosovo. Montenegro, annexed in 1918, is preparing a referendum on secession from its current "federation" with Serbia for May of this year, and the "final status" of Kosovo, conquered by Serbia in 1912, is being negotiated by the international community.
Milosevic will be remembered as the man who, at the end of the 20th century, reintroduced mass atrocities into a Europe that had ostensibly banished them forever. Milosevic's retro political style included "ethnic cleansing" or mass expulsion; internment in concentration camps; grotesque torture and sexual terrorism; gratuitous slaughter of whole families, villages, and even the equivalent of a significant town--8,000 Muslim males at Srebrenica, and the systematic destruction of holy places and cultural landmarks. All was carried out by lawless gangs and "militias," in addition to the Yugoslav army.
Some Western "realists," looking for excuses not to act, could not help asserting the moral equivalence of Milosevic and his victims. But neither the Croats, nor the Bosnian Muslims, nor the Kosovar Albanians ever attacked Serbia or Montenegro. In an attempt at psychological distancing from the crimes of the Belgrade regime, some Westerners harped endlessly on Croatian and Bosnian Muslim collaboration with the Nazis in the Second World War, even though as many or more Croats were anti-fascist Partisans as helped the Nazis, and Bosnian Muslim clerics interceded on behalf of Jewish and Serb victims of the Germans.
Milosevic, the man pushed to the foreground by the crisis, was a mediocrity, like Saddam Hussein or, for that matter, his hero Stalin. Milosevic was a product of Communist rule in a remote provincial town, Pozarevac, in Serbia, and of a narrow, bureaucratic culture. There is no evidence that he cared about the Serb people or Serbian traditions; but he certainly loved authority over others. When he gained power, after working his way through the Tito party system, he used it to posture as a world-historical figure. But he was similar to Vladimir Putin in Russia: an empty vessel waiting to be filled by new ideologies or mafia business opportunities once communism ended.
It is appropriate that Milosevic was an ally of Saddam, who also killed quite a few Muslims--and an ally of other anti-Americans. Evil finds its compatriots. So Iraq supplied energy-poor Serbia with oil. Iraq contracted with Serbia for sophisticated weapons and their maintenance. Serbia had a WMD program, including a nuclear bomb effort dating from the Tito years, finally shut down only in 2002, when enough highly enriched uranium for at least two nuclear weapons was removed from an institute near Belgrade in a joint U.S.-Russian effort supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Milosevic was also, in his time, supported by the late, unlamented Yasser Arafat, who even invited him to Bethlehem, in the territory of the Palestinian Authority. (Israel blocked the trip by making it clear that, as a good member of the United Nations, it would arrest Milosevic and hand him over to The Hague.) What counted to people like Saddam and Arafat was, of course, Serbia's confrontation with America, not its attempted genocide of Bosnian Muslims. And when the U.S.-led coalition went into Iraq in 2003 to remove Saddam (who incidentally was a more direct threat to American interests in 2003 than Milosevic was in 1999), many of the same people opposed that intervention as well. Some acted out of decent motives and made respectable arguments--and some simply liked dictators and hated America. So Slobodan and Saddam ended up sharing the legal help of the disgraceful Ramsey Clark.
Yet the suffering of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Balkan war of 1992-95 produced important effects. The nightmare of Bosnia--all those people killed only for their names, the rapes, the mosques destroyed down to their foundations--affected Muslims throughout the world, as did the apparent indifference of much of "Christian Europe" to the horror. After all, British policy was shaped not by Lady Thatcher, but by the cruelly shortsighted team of Lord Carrington, Lord Douglas Hurd, and Lord David Owen. U.S. policy did not follow the path recommended by Ronald Reagan or John McCain. It was based first on the pseudo-"realism" of James Baker, then left at the mercy of the fecklessness of Warren Christopher.
So Muslims around the world have not forgotten Bosnia. While Westerners tend to dismiss the Balkans as a fringe area of the Islamic world, many Muslims view Bosnian Islam with respect. Precisely because it suffered, and defended itself, and survived as a community of Islamic believers in the heart of Europe, Bosnia has credibility and prestige among Muslims, from Saudi dissidents to Malayan Sufis.
Bosnian Islam, which showed its moderation during the recent war, therefore represents a real asset for a Europe coming to grips with the Islamic challenge. In the middle of the uproar and shouts--and some brutal slayings--accompanying the recent controversy over the Danish cartoons, the chief Muslim cleric of Bosnia, Mustafa Ceric, issued a Declaration to European Muslims. In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty accompanying the declaration, Ceric described the text as "a personal act . . . sending a message to the Western audience that we, Bosnian Muslims, did not agree with the terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001, on March 11, 2004, in Madrid, on July 7, 2005, in London."
In the declaration itself, Ceric writes sharply, "Muslims should not be afraid to think about their future in the same way as they should not be possessed by their past. . . . Not only have Muslims failed to produce a genuine idea of globalization, but they are, generally speaking, failing now at living in a global world." In an introduction to the declaration, Ceric argues, "Muslims must realize that the general feeling about their faith in Europe today is unfavorable. European Muslims must take the issue of violence in the name of Islam very seriously, not because some people hate Islam and Muslims, but because the act of violence, the act of terror, the act of hatred in the name of Islam is wrong. . . .European Muslims must develop a program for anti-violence." Ceric reproaches the ruling caste in Muslim countries that "claims to defend Islam, but, in fact . . . uses (or misuses) Islam to cover up its own shortcomings."
Bosnians like Ceric survived the time of Milosevic without sharing in the evil he represented. Such Bosnians can serve as intellectual and moral examples for moderate Muslims around the world. And Europeans can benefit from treating them as trustworthy partners. The death of Milosevic does not close the book on the disaster of the Yugoslav wars; major criminals remain at large. But the fact that Balkan Muslims remained stubbornly commited to civilized values is notable. It deserves to be remembered as people of good will contemplate the future of Islam in Europe and beyond.
--Stephen Schwartz and William Kristol
Serbian nationalism stirs again
The Serbian government faces three crises that could inflame sentiments here following the death of Milosevic.
By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
BELGRADE, SERBIA - When Serbian state television cut into its usual programming to carry a live report on the arrival of Slobodan Milosevic's body in Belgrade last Wednesday, the station received hundreds of angry calls from viewers demanding that it stop giving such importance to the fate of the former Yugoslav president.
When the report ended, hundreds more furious calls came in, this time from Mr. Milosevic's supporters, demanding the channel carry 24-hour coverage of his funeral arrangements.
"Even after his death, Milosevic continues to divide Serbs into two enemy blocs," says Nenad Stefanovic, chief editor of state TV.
Despite the battlefield losses in the 1990s and the popular overthrow of Milosevic, Serb nationalism remains a potent force and the country is still torn between its past and future. Milosevic loyalists have seized on his death to galvanize voters and try to regain the power they lost five years ago. At stake is the blueprint for Serbia's European integration that reformers have drawn up as the keystone for stability in the Balkans.
A farewell rally for Milosevic in front of the parliament building here Saturday, attended by around 80,000 predominantly older people, put wind in the sails of the nationalists who already enjoy the support of almost half the electorate, according to recent polls.
Two hours later, pro-democracy forces could muster only a few hundred younger demonstrators at a nearby square to celebrate what they hoped was the end of an era, but feared might signal its rebirth.
Among them was Branka Prpa, widow of a journalist murdered by members of Milosevic's security forces in 1999, who was dismayed that the authorities had allowed the former president's supporters to gather on the steps of parliament. It was there, she recalled, that anti-Milosevic protesters had overthrown the government in 2001. The former president's supporters chose the same spot Saturday "to send a message to the citizens of Serbia that he has returned from the dead, that he will triumph over us," she said.
Adding to the woes of the government, led by reformist Boris Tadic, is the prospect of three crises in the coming months that could inflame Serb nationalist sentiment.
• Within the next two weeks the government must hand Gen. Ratko Mladic over to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, where he has been indicted for involvement in the Srebrenica massacre, or see the EU cancel negotiations on a closer partnership with Serbia.
• Next May, voters in Montenegro are expected to decide in a referendum to secede from Serbia and set up an independent state.
• Most painfully, UN-sponsored talks on the future of Kosovo are likely to end in independence for the territory that Serbs regard as the historical hearth of their homeland, although today they are vastly outnumbered there by an ethnic Albanian majority.
"We are entering a very gray zone," warns Zarko Korac, a former deputy prime minister.
If the government appears in no immediate danger of falling, despite depending on the parliamentary votes of Milosevic's Socialist Party, it is because "no-one else wants to be in power and have to deal with this triple whammy" says James Lyon, an analyst in Belgrade with the International Crisis Group.
But the ultranationalist Radical Party's plan to introduce a resolution in parliament condemning The Hague tribunal, which government deputies will find hard to vote against, "shows that the opposition is flexing its muscles and can force the government to do what it wants," Mr. Lyon adds.
The Hague war crimes tribunal, dealing with atrocities committed during the Balkan wars in the 1990s, is viewed even by moderate Serbs as focused unfairly on Serbian criminals while sparing Bosnian, Croatian, and ethnic Albanian perpetrators.
This fuels a widespread sense, voiced loudly in recent days, that Serbia continues to be victimized by the rest of the world. "Slobodan Milosevic did not attack anyone, he simply defended his people," said Mara Triveskovic, a pensioner, as she emerged from the museum where Milosevic's coffin had been on public display. "He was a true hero."
That such a view of recent Serb history - at odds with the one held everywhere else in the region and beyond - is so common in Serbia is largely the fault of the democratic governments in office since 2001, says one Western diplomat.
"They have shied away from the debate that the country has to have" about what exactly happened in the Balkans in the 1990s, the diplomat says. "You cannot set a new direction for Serbia without confronting those forces who glorify the past. The people are ready for this change, but it takes just a little bit of leadership."
In the absence of such leadership, the opposition is eager to exploit the authorities' difficulties, as Socialist leader Milorad Vucelic made clear Saturday. "Fight, Serbia, he [Milosevic] would say to us," Mr. Vucelic declared. "Fight for your freedom and don't give away Kosovo."
Kosovo appears bound for independence regardless of Belgrade's wishes. But the government does have more influence over the fate of General Mladic, who is believed to be hiding in Serbia. Milosevic's death, however, for which most Serbs blame the tribunal and a lack of proper medical care, makes it even less likely that the authorities will soon transfer him to The Hague, or persuade him to surrender.
That means the EU will not open negotiations on closer ties, due to begin April 5, and it will also entail another cut in US aid as punishment. With unemployment around 30 percent, inflation at 15 percent, and the average monthly salary only $250, any cuts in aid will only add to voter frustration.
Milosevic's death, laments the Western diplomat, "have caused people to get caught up again in conspiracy theories ... in what has happened in the past, not what should happen in the future."
• Beth Kampschror contributed to this article from Belgrade.
By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
BELGRADE, SERBIA - When Serbian state television cut into its usual programming to carry a live report on the arrival of Slobodan Milosevic's body in Belgrade last Wednesday, the station received hundreds of angry calls from viewers demanding that it stop giving such importance to the fate of the former Yugoslav president.
When the report ended, hundreds more furious calls came in, this time from Mr. Milosevic's supporters, demanding the channel carry 24-hour coverage of his funeral arrangements.
"Even after his death, Milosevic continues to divide Serbs into two enemy blocs," says Nenad Stefanovic, chief editor of state TV.
Despite the battlefield losses in the 1990s and the popular overthrow of Milosevic, Serb nationalism remains a potent force and the country is still torn between its past and future. Milosevic loyalists have seized on his death to galvanize voters and try to regain the power they lost five years ago. At stake is the blueprint for Serbia's European integration that reformers have drawn up as the keystone for stability in the Balkans.
A farewell rally for Milosevic in front of the parliament building here Saturday, attended by around 80,000 predominantly older people, put wind in the sails of the nationalists who already enjoy the support of almost half the electorate, according to recent polls.
Two hours later, pro-democracy forces could muster only a few hundred younger demonstrators at a nearby square to celebrate what they hoped was the end of an era, but feared might signal its rebirth.
Among them was Branka Prpa, widow of a journalist murdered by members of Milosevic's security forces in 1999, who was dismayed that the authorities had allowed the former president's supporters to gather on the steps of parliament. It was there, she recalled, that anti-Milosevic protesters had overthrown the government in 2001. The former president's supporters chose the same spot Saturday "to send a message to the citizens of Serbia that he has returned from the dead, that he will triumph over us," she said.
Adding to the woes of the government, led by reformist Boris Tadic, is the prospect of three crises in the coming months that could inflame Serb nationalist sentiment.
• Within the next two weeks the government must hand Gen. Ratko Mladic over to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, where he has been indicted for involvement in the Srebrenica massacre, or see the EU cancel negotiations on a closer partnership with Serbia.
• Next May, voters in Montenegro are expected to decide in a referendum to secede from Serbia and set up an independent state.
• Most painfully, UN-sponsored talks on the future of Kosovo are likely to end in independence for the territory that Serbs regard as the historical hearth of their homeland, although today they are vastly outnumbered there by an ethnic Albanian majority.
"We are entering a very gray zone," warns Zarko Korac, a former deputy prime minister.
If the government appears in no immediate danger of falling, despite depending on the parliamentary votes of Milosevic's Socialist Party, it is because "no-one else wants to be in power and have to deal with this triple whammy" says James Lyon, an analyst in Belgrade with the International Crisis Group.
But the ultranationalist Radical Party's plan to introduce a resolution in parliament condemning The Hague tribunal, which government deputies will find hard to vote against, "shows that the opposition is flexing its muscles and can force the government to do what it wants," Mr. Lyon adds.
The Hague war crimes tribunal, dealing with atrocities committed during the Balkan wars in the 1990s, is viewed even by moderate Serbs as focused unfairly on Serbian criminals while sparing Bosnian, Croatian, and ethnic Albanian perpetrators.
This fuels a widespread sense, voiced loudly in recent days, that Serbia continues to be victimized by the rest of the world. "Slobodan Milosevic did not attack anyone, he simply defended his people," said Mara Triveskovic, a pensioner, as she emerged from the museum where Milosevic's coffin had been on public display. "He was a true hero."
That such a view of recent Serb history - at odds with the one held everywhere else in the region and beyond - is so common in Serbia is largely the fault of the democratic governments in office since 2001, says one Western diplomat.
"They have shied away from the debate that the country has to have" about what exactly happened in the Balkans in the 1990s, the diplomat says. "You cannot set a new direction for Serbia without confronting those forces who glorify the past. The people are ready for this change, but it takes just a little bit of leadership."
In the absence of such leadership, the opposition is eager to exploit the authorities' difficulties, as Socialist leader Milorad Vucelic made clear Saturday. "Fight, Serbia, he [Milosevic] would say to us," Mr. Vucelic declared. "Fight for your freedom and don't give away Kosovo."
Kosovo appears bound for independence regardless of Belgrade's wishes. But the government does have more influence over the fate of General Mladic, who is believed to be hiding in Serbia. Milosevic's death, however, for which most Serbs blame the tribunal and a lack of proper medical care, makes it even less likely that the authorities will soon transfer him to The Hague, or persuade him to surrender.
That means the EU will not open negotiations on closer ties, due to begin April 5, and it will also entail another cut in US aid as punishment. With unemployment around 30 percent, inflation at 15 percent, and the average monthly salary only $250, any cuts in aid will only add to voter frustration.
Milosevic's death, laments the Western diplomat, "have caused people to get caught up again in conspiracy theories ... in what has happened in the past, not what should happen in the future."
• Beth Kampschror contributed to this article from Belgrade.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Serbs show divided feelings as Milosevic is buried
By Douglas Hamilton
POZAREVAC, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic was buried beside his provincial family home on Saturday after thousands of die-hard loyalists rallied to hail the man who presided over years of bloodshed and was ousted by his own people.
The pro-Western politicians who now run Serbia refused him a state funeral, but Socialists and ultranationalists did their utmost to show their hero could still draw big crowds.
Some 3,000 local mourners waving Serbian flags and holding red roses gathered to praise Milosevic, indicted by the U.N. over the Balkan wars of the 1990s, before his burial in the town of Pozarevac, 80 km (50 miles) east of the capital Belgrade.
He came home not in a cortege of black cars, but in a private hearse with advertising on the sides. Instead of a military honour guard, black-clad security men threw back the unwelcome, like bouncers at a night-club.
Only 100 invited guests saw his coffin lowered into a grave in the garden of the family home as darkness fell and a brass band played sombre music. Earlier, supporters read messages from his wife Mira and son Marko, both too frightened to return from self-imposed exile in Russia.
"He had the courage of a statesman at times of the greatest trouble for the people and he was never a coward," Milorad Vucelic, a senior Socialist Party official, declared to thousands of people in the town centre before the burial.
"He was a hero both in life and death, a great man."
A crowd estimated by police at around 80,000 massed in central Belgrade to begin the proceedings. The coffin was draped in the red, blue and white Serbian flag and flanked by former military officers in ceremonial uniforms.
Party organisers gave lapel buttons to the thousands of followers bussed in to the capital, and communists and ultranationalists made lengthy speeches.
Milosevic died of heart failure in his cell at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague last Saturday, only months before a verdict was expected in his marathon trial covering the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo which killed at least 150,000 people.
FEELINGS DIVIDED
Widely seen in neighbouring countries and the West as the leader most responsible for those wars, Milosevic faced charges including genocide and crimes against humanity.
But feelings in Serbia were more divided. He had dominated politics for more than a decade before a huge crowd of protesters chanting the slogan "He's finished!" at the federal parliament forced him from power in October 2000.
His supporters, mainly middle-aged and elderly, chose to gather at the same spot on Saturday before the coffin was taken on to Pozarevac.
The current government, a thin coalition of conservatives and liberals trying to set Serbia on the road to European Union membership, kept its head down during the Milosevic rites, determined not to endorse his legacy but wary of the ultras.
In the end, Milosevic got a big funeral for a small town. His Socialist Party had vowed to fill Pozarevac but only 1,500 queued to view the grave.
Biljana Krneta, a state airline employee, said she had come to the rally because Milosevic deserved respect. "He tried to do what he could and I don't blame him for anything," she said.
About 2,000 generally younger anti-Milosevic protesters waving colourful balloons and blowing whistles gathered nearby later in the day to denounce his rule.
A banner featuring a death notice with Milosevic's picture declared: "He's finished forever!"
Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic, target of failed assassination bids under Milosevic, had his own view of the former president.
"All the squares in the city would be too small to hold all the victims of Milosevic and his rule, those who were killed or handicapped, made homeless or refugees," he said in Belgrade.
Milosevic was laid to rest under an old lime tree where he is said to have first kissed Mira Markovic, the childhood sweetheart who became his wife and partner in power.
"We two, we have always been on the same side of the world," said Mira's letter, read out at side of the grave in which she also plans to be buried.
"I'll fight on for our ideals."
(Additional reporting by Ellie Tzortzi, Beti Bilandzic, Zoran Radosavljevic and Ljilja Cvekic)
POZAREVAC, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic was buried beside his provincial family home on Saturday after thousands of die-hard loyalists rallied to hail the man who presided over years of bloodshed and was ousted by his own people.
The pro-Western politicians who now run Serbia refused him a state funeral, but Socialists and ultranationalists did their utmost to show their hero could still draw big crowds.
Some 3,000 local mourners waving Serbian flags and holding red roses gathered to praise Milosevic, indicted by the U.N. over the Balkan wars of the 1990s, before his burial in the town of Pozarevac, 80 km (50 miles) east of the capital Belgrade.
He came home not in a cortege of black cars, but in a private hearse with advertising on the sides. Instead of a military honour guard, black-clad security men threw back the unwelcome, like bouncers at a night-club.
Only 100 invited guests saw his coffin lowered into a grave in the garden of the family home as darkness fell and a brass band played sombre music. Earlier, supporters read messages from his wife Mira and son Marko, both too frightened to return from self-imposed exile in Russia.
"He had the courage of a statesman at times of the greatest trouble for the people and he was never a coward," Milorad Vucelic, a senior Socialist Party official, declared to thousands of people in the town centre before the burial.
"He was a hero both in life and death, a great man."
A crowd estimated by police at around 80,000 massed in central Belgrade to begin the proceedings. The coffin was draped in the red, blue and white Serbian flag and flanked by former military officers in ceremonial uniforms.
Party organisers gave lapel buttons to the thousands of followers bussed in to the capital, and communists and ultranationalists made lengthy speeches.
Milosevic died of heart failure in his cell at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague last Saturday, only months before a verdict was expected in his marathon trial covering the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo which killed at least 150,000 people.
FEELINGS DIVIDED
Widely seen in neighbouring countries and the West as the leader most responsible for those wars, Milosevic faced charges including genocide and crimes against humanity.
But feelings in Serbia were more divided. He had dominated politics for more than a decade before a huge crowd of protesters chanting the slogan "He's finished!" at the federal parliament forced him from power in October 2000.
His supporters, mainly middle-aged and elderly, chose to gather at the same spot on Saturday before the coffin was taken on to Pozarevac.
The current government, a thin coalition of conservatives and liberals trying to set Serbia on the road to European Union membership, kept its head down during the Milosevic rites, determined not to endorse his legacy but wary of the ultras.
In the end, Milosevic got a big funeral for a small town. His Socialist Party had vowed to fill Pozarevac but only 1,500 queued to view the grave.
Biljana Krneta, a state airline employee, said she had come to the rally because Milosevic deserved respect. "He tried to do what he could and I don't blame him for anything," she said.
About 2,000 generally younger anti-Milosevic protesters waving colourful balloons and blowing whistles gathered nearby later in the day to denounce his rule.
A banner featuring a death notice with Milosevic's picture declared: "He's finished forever!"
Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic, target of failed assassination bids under Milosevic, had his own view of the former president.
"All the squares in the city would be too small to hold all the victims of Milosevic and his rule, those who were killed or handicapped, made homeless or refugees," he said in Belgrade.
Milosevic was laid to rest under an old lime tree where he is said to have first kissed Mira Markovic, the childhood sweetheart who became his wife and partner in power.
"We two, we have always been on the same side of the world," said Mira's letter, read out at side of the grave in which she also plans to be buried.
"I'll fight on for our ideals."
(Additional reporting by Ellie Tzortzi, Beti Bilandzic, Zoran Radosavljevic and Ljilja Cvekic)
'At first, we saw Milosevic as God'
By Colin Freeman in Belgrade
(Filed: 19/03/2006)
As a Serbian Army veteran, the funeral of Slobodan Milosevic filled Vladimir Miladinovic not with defiant pride, but dreadful memories of his time fighting in Kosovo.
There was his fearful comrade Nick the Houseburner, for example, notorious for setting light to Albanian homes and mutilating dead bodies. There was the indiscriminate bombardment of villages by units armed with tanks and grenades. And there was the awful, gradual realisation that the entire, horrific campaign was being waged for a leader he had long idolised.
Vladimir Miladinovic: No tears
"When Milosevic first came along I adored him, like everyone else," said Mr Miladonivic, who was an intelligence chief during the campaign in Kosovo in 1999. "But now we know that he wasn't a patriot, just an opportunist who exploited the nationalist cause for his own rise."
Mr Miladinovic, 33, is not unusual in harbouring regrets about the campaign that forced an estimated 800,000 Albanians from their homes and saw many hundreds killed and tortured. He is, however, one of the few ex-Serbian servicemen who have recanted publicly.
The reaction to his whistleblowing role in a recent television documentary, in which he detailed atrocities against Albanian civilians, showed the difficulty that many Serbs have in accepting any culpability for the bloodshed. When it was broadcast six months ago, the spectacle of being denounced by one of their own sparked a public outcry that forced him into hiding.
As a Serb, born and raised in Kosovo, he remembers how attractive Milosevic's nationalist rhetoric was. After decades in which feelings of ethnic identity had been suppressed by President Tito, Serbs had long felt marginalised by the Albanian majority until a visit from Milosevic in 1987 when he promised: "Nobody is allowed to beat you".
"From that moment, we saw him as God. He liberated us not just physically, but spiritually," Mr Miladinovic said.
His loyalty wavered only 12 years later, when he was posted to a Serbian Army garrison in his home town of Gnjilane. As a boy, he played with his Albanian neighbours. Now he saw fellow Serb soldiers use counter-insurgency operations against the guerrillas as the front for savage ethnic cleansing.
Once part of a machine that spilt endless blood in Milosevic's name, yesterday he found himself unable to shed a single tear. "I had no emotion when I heard of his death whatsoever. He had no sympathy for anyone who died, not even Serbs. I hope that after his death one very thick line is drawn under all this."
(Filed: 19/03/2006)
As a Serbian Army veteran, the funeral of Slobodan Milosevic filled Vladimir Miladinovic not with defiant pride, but dreadful memories of his time fighting in Kosovo.
There was his fearful comrade Nick the Houseburner, for example, notorious for setting light to Albanian homes and mutilating dead bodies. There was the indiscriminate bombardment of villages by units armed with tanks and grenades. And there was the awful, gradual realisation that the entire, horrific campaign was being waged for a leader he had long idolised.
Vladimir Miladinovic: No tears
"When Milosevic first came along I adored him, like everyone else," said Mr Miladonivic, who was an intelligence chief during the campaign in Kosovo in 1999. "But now we know that he wasn't a patriot, just an opportunist who exploited the nationalist cause for his own rise."
Mr Miladinovic, 33, is not unusual in harbouring regrets about the campaign that forced an estimated 800,000 Albanians from their homes and saw many hundreds killed and tortured. He is, however, one of the few ex-Serbian servicemen who have recanted publicly.
The reaction to his whistleblowing role in a recent television documentary, in which he detailed atrocities against Albanian civilians, showed the difficulty that many Serbs have in accepting any culpability for the bloodshed. When it was broadcast six months ago, the spectacle of being denounced by one of their own sparked a public outcry that forced him into hiding.
As a Serb, born and raised in Kosovo, he remembers how attractive Milosevic's nationalist rhetoric was. After decades in which feelings of ethnic identity had been suppressed by President Tito, Serbs had long felt marginalised by the Albanian majority until a visit from Milosevic in 1987 when he promised: "Nobody is allowed to beat you".
"From that moment, we saw him as God. He liberated us not just physically, but spiritually," Mr Miladinovic said.
His loyalty wavered only 12 years later, when he was posted to a Serbian Army garrison in his home town of Gnjilane. As a boy, he played with his Albanian neighbours. Now he saw fellow Serb soldiers use counter-insurgency operations against the guerrillas as the front for savage ethnic cleansing.
Once part of a machine that spilt endless blood in Milosevic's name, yesterday he found himself unable to shed a single tear. "I had no emotion when I heard of his death whatsoever. He had no sympathy for anyone who died, not even Serbs. I hope that after his death one very thick line is drawn under all this."
Kosovo, Serbia Talks End Without Deal; New Date Set
VIENNA (AP)--The U.N.-mediated talks between officials from Serbia and Kosovo ended without a clear deal Friday, but the two former foes pledged to meet again next month in their attempts to find a lasting solution for the province.
Ethnic Albanian and Serbian officials had "extremely constructive discussions" as the U.N.-mediators tried to find a common ground, said Albert Rohan, the U.N. mediator chairing the session.
Rohan, who is the deputy to the chief U.N. Kosovo talks mediator, acknowledged that there were profound differences between the two sides, but he characterized Friday's encounter as "issue-oriented and without polemics." The next round was set for April, 3, Rohan said.
The two delegations sat across from each other for the second round of talks in their attempts to find a lasting solution to one of the most intractable issues left since the disintegration of Yugoslavia - whether Kosovo becomes independent.
Ethnic Albanians, who comprise about 90% of the province's population of 2 million, insist on full independence. But Serbia, and Kosovo's Serb minority, insist Belgrade must retain some control over the province.
"There's not any formal agreement of any sort," Rohan said, but added that mediators "feel that there's common ground on some of the subjects" on the local government reform.
The talks have opened nearly seven years after the province became a U.N. protectorate when NATO halted the crackdown by forces of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on ethnic Albanian separatists.
The process is being mediated by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, appointed by the United Nations to steer the talks toward an agreement by the end of the year.
The one-day round of talks at Vienna's Auersperg Palace didn't deal directly with the question of the province's status.
Instead, the discussions focused on the details of local government reform to give Serbs more of a say in areas where they live, the financing of municipalities and the links between the beleaguered Serb minority and Belgrade.
"I would be probably naive to say that there was agreement on all these matters," Rohan said. "There are, of course, profound differences in the approach of the two sides."
However, Rohan noted some progress, with the sides agreeing to allowing some links between Belgrade and the municipalities where Serbs form a majority in Kosovo. The mechanisms for doing that remained contentious.
The opposing views were also made clear by both delegations.
Hashim Thaci, the leader of ethnic Albanian delegation at the talks, said, " Kosovo made one step forward to a free and democratic, independent and sovereign state."
His Serb counterpart, Leon Kojen, said the discussions were useful, but also difficult, because the two points of view on the future status of Kosovo are " very sharply opposed."
The start of talks was overshadowed by the Serbian delegation lodging a protest with U.N. mediators about Thaci, the former rebel leader whom Belgrade accuses of war crimes, heading the Kosovo team.
The letter said Thaci's active participation in the talks "will make it much harder to build mutual confidence and made genuine progress in the negotiations."
Thaci didn't comment on the Serb protest and instead insisted the province must gain independence, but also said his negotiating team will try to find common ground with the Serb delegation.
Thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands were displaced during the war, and the end of hostilities did not bring the two sides any closer to a resolution.
The two sides disagree over how much power should be held locally, with Serbian officials insisting the province's Serbs be allowed to run affairs in their communities, link up with other Serb areas and have special ties to Belgrade.
Ethnic Albanians have rejected ideas of Serb municipal clusters, which would provide direct control of the police forces and justice systems, saying that would lead to the ethnic partition of the province.
As talks developed, in Kosovo, thousands of Serbs protested at the anniversary of anti-Serb riots in 2004, when mobs of ethnic Albanians attacked them and their property in the worst outbreak of violence since the end of the province's war.
Ethnic Albanian and Serbian officials had "extremely constructive discussions" as the U.N.-mediators tried to find a common ground, said Albert Rohan, the U.N. mediator chairing the session.
Rohan, who is the deputy to the chief U.N. Kosovo talks mediator, acknowledged that there were profound differences between the two sides, but he characterized Friday's encounter as "issue-oriented and without polemics." The next round was set for April, 3, Rohan said.
The two delegations sat across from each other for the second round of talks in their attempts to find a lasting solution to one of the most intractable issues left since the disintegration of Yugoslavia - whether Kosovo becomes independent.
Ethnic Albanians, who comprise about 90% of the province's population of 2 million, insist on full independence. But Serbia, and Kosovo's Serb minority, insist Belgrade must retain some control over the province.
"There's not any formal agreement of any sort," Rohan said, but added that mediators "feel that there's common ground on some of the subjects" on the local government reform.
The talks have opened nearly seven years after the province became a U.N. protectorate when NATO halted the crackdown by forces of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on ethnic Albanian separatists.
The process is being mediated by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, appointed by the United Nations to steer the talks toward an agreement by the end of the year.
The one-day round of talks at Vienna's Auersperg Palace didn't deal directly with the question of the province's status.
Instead, the discussions focused on the details of local government reform to give Serbs more of a say in areas where they live, the financing of municipalities and the links between the beleaguered Serb minority and Belgrade.
"I would be probably naive to say that there was agreement on all these matters," Rohan said. "There are, of course, profound differences in the approach of the two sides."
However, Rohan noted some progress, with the sides agreeing to allowing some links between Belgrade and the municipalities where Serbs form a majority in Kosovo. The mechanisms for doing that remained contentious.
The opposing views were also made clear by both delegations.
Hashim Thaci, the leader of ethnic Albanian delegation at the talks, said, " Kosovo made one step forward to a free and democratic, independent and sovereign state."
His Serb counterpart, Leon Kojen, said the discussions were useful, but also difficult, because the two points of view on the future status of Kosovo are " very sharply opposed."
The start of talks was overshadowed by the Serbian delegation lodging a protest with U.N. mediators about Thaci, the former rebel leader whom Belgrade accuses of war crimes, heading the Kosovo team.
The letter said Thaci's active participation in the talks "will make it much harder to build mutual confidence and made genuine progress in the negotiations."
Thaci didn't comment on the Serb protest and instead insisted the province must gain independence, but also said his negotiating team will try to find common ground with the Serb delegation.
Thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands were displaced during the war, and the end of hostilities did not bring the two sides any closer to a resolution.
The two sides disagree over how much power should be held locally, with Serbian officials insisting the province's Serbs be allowed to run affairs in their communities, link up with other Serb areas and have special ties to Belgrade.
Ethnic Albanians have rejected ideas of Serb municipal clusters, which would provide direct control of the police forces and justice systems, saying that would lead to the ethnic partition of the province.
As talks developed, in Kosovo, thousands of Serbs protested at the anniversary of anti-Serb riots in 2004, when mobs of ethnic Albanians attacked them and their property in the worst outbreak of violence since the end of the province's war.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Serb objections mar second round of Kosovo talks
By Matthew Robinson
VIENNA (Reuters) - Serbs and ethnic Albanians met in Vienna on Friday for a second round of talks on the future of Kosovo, marred at the outset by Serb objections to the presence of a former guerrilla leader Belgrade accuses of terrorism.
The two sides opened direct talks last month, seven years since late Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic went to war with NATO and lost control of the southern Serbian province to the United Nations.
After a timid first round, the gloves came off on Friday as the Serbs submitted a formal protest to UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari over the Kosovo Albanian delegation's choice of former rebel commander Hashim Thaci as leader.
"This is a man convicted of terrorism in 1997 and is under investigation in Belgrade for war crimes," said Serb negotiator Aleksander Simic. "We told Mr Ahtisaari that this is not good for the future of the negotiations."
Thaci shrugged off the objections. "The dark past will be buried tomorrow with Milosevic in Serbia," he told reporters.
Milosevic died at the weekend four years into his war crimes trial and will be buried under a lime tree at his family home in central Serbia on Saturday.
Friday's meeting continues a discussion of how to devolve power to the Serb minority, part of a "bottom-up" approach adopted by Ahtisaari as he grapples with one of Europe's most intractable diplomatic conundrums.
"DESTRUCTIVE"
The province of 2 million people has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombed to drive out Milosevic's forces accused by the West of atrocities against Albanian civilians in a 2-year war with Thaci's Kosovo Liberation Army.
The 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority says Milosevic lost Kosovo in 1999 and will settle for nothing less than independence. Serbia argues this would mean amputating sacred land central to the Serb identity for 1,000 years.
Some form of independence appears almost certain. But Western powers want the Albanians to make concessions to the Kosovo Serbs, ghettoized and targeted by sporadic violence since the end of the war, when around half the Serb population fled.
Belgrade has proposed the creation of a Serb entity within Kosovo, with special links to the rest of Serbia. The Kosovo Albanians say this means ethnic partition. They are offering more modest decentralization, but no links to Belgrade.
"Belgrade's ideas are destructive," Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu said in an interview with Austrian newspaper Die Presse. "Serbia wants the division of Kosovo. Their rhetoric shows that for them the war over Kosovo continues."
The Kosovo delegation baulked at the agenda for Friday's meeting, which included "inter-municipal cooperation and cross-boundary cooperation" -- something the West says Albanians must accept if they are to offer the Serbs a future.
VIENNA (Reuters) - Serbs and ethnic Albanians met in Vienna on Friday for a second round of talks on the future of Kosovo, marred at the outset by Serb objections to the presence of a former guerrilla leader Belgrade accuses of terrorism.
The two sides opened direct talks last month, seven years since late Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic went to war with NATO and lost control of the southern Serbian province to the United Nations.
After a timid first round, the gloves came off on Friday as the Serbs submitted a formal protest to UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari over the Kosovo Albanian delegation's choice of former rebel commander Hashim Thaci as leader.
"This is a man convicted of terrorism in 1997 and is under investigation in Belgrade for war crimes," said Serb negotiator Aleksander Simic. "We told Mr Ahtisaari that this is not good for the future of the negotiations."
Thaci shrugged off the objections. "The dark past will be buried tomorrow with Milosevic in Serbia," he told reporters.
Milosevic died at the weekend four years into his war crimes trial and will be buried under a lime tree at his family home in central Serbia on Saturday.
Friday's meeting continues a discussion of how to devolve power to the Serb minority, part of a "bottom-up" approach adopted by Ahtisaari as he grapples with one of Europe's most intractable diplomatic conundrums.
"DESTRUCTIVE"
The province of 2 million people has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombed to drive out Milosevic's forces accused by the West of atrocities against Albanian civilians in a 2-year war with Thaci's Kosovo Liberation Army.
The 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority says Milosevic lost Kosovo in 1999 and will settle for nothing less than independence. Serbia argues this would mean amputating sacred land central to the Serb identity for 1,000 years.
Some form of independence appears almost certain. But Western powers want the Albanians to make concessions to the Kosovo Serbs, ghettoized and targeted by sporadic violence since the end of the war, when around half the Serb population fled.
Belgrade has proposed the creation of a Serb entity within Kosovo, with special links to the rest of Serbia. The Kosovo Albanians say this means ethnic partition. They are offering more modest decentralization, but no links to Belgrade.
"Belgrade's ideas are destructive," Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu said in an interview with Austrian newspaper Die Presse. "Serbia wants the division of Kosovo. Their rhetoric shows that for them the war over Kosovo continues."
The Kosovo delegation baulked at the agenda for Friday's meeting, which included "inter-municipal cooperation and cross-boundary cooperation" -- something the West says Albanians must accept if they are to offer the Serbs a future.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
BREAKING NEWS: Russia and China give assurance they will not stand in way of Kosovo independence
By Guy Dinmore in Washington and Daniel Dombey in London
>Published: March 14 2006 20:31 | Last updated: March 14 2006 20:31
>>
Russia and China have told the US that they will not block the independence of Kosovo, the breakaway Serbian province, according to western diplomats.
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, discussed the issue with Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, in Washington last week and was told Moscow would not stand in the way of independence, the officials said. Russia and China would probably abstain in a proposed UN resolution that would grant independence.
Kosovo, with its ethnic Albanian majority and Serb minority, has been a ward of the UN since Nato forces bombed Serbia to halt “ethnic cleansing” in 1999 and then took control of the province. But the debate has entered a new phase with the start of UN-brokered negotiations to decide Kosovo’s final status.
The issue is particularly sensitive since Serbia, which has offered Kosovo autonomy rather than independence, is also involved in a face-off with the international community over General Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb war crimes indictee, who is still at large. The death last week of Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia’s former president, has added to the heady brew.
The US and UK are pushing for Serbia to accept that Kosovo will become independent, while Russia, which had previously worried that the province would set a precedent for its own republic of Chechnya, has scaled down its objections.
The officials, who asked not to be named, said the Bush administration had persuaded Moscow and Beijing that independence for the Serbian province was “unique” and would not set a precedent for Chechnya or for the Chinese-claimed territories of Taiwan and Tibet.
However, analysts said some in Moscow wanted a better deal with Washington that might leave open the possibility of a Kosovo-type solution for other regions, including Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia, which is backed by Russia.
Last week Jack Straw, the UK foreign secretary, said Kosovo’s independence was “almost inevitable”. But Philippe Douste-Blazy, his French counterpart, stuck closer to the European Union’s official line by saying that negotiations should not be prejudged”.
The EU has also told Serbia it has until the end of this month to increase co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia over the detention and transfer of Gen Mladic.
>
>Published: March 14 2006 20:31 | Last updated: March 14 2006 20:31
>>
Russia and China have told the US that they will not block the independence of Kosovo, the breakaway Serbian province, according to western diplomats.
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, discussed the issue with Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, in Washington last week and was told Moscow would not stand in the way of independence, the officials said. Russia and China would probably abstain in a proposed UN resolution that would grant independence.
Kosovo, with its ethnic Albanian majority and Serb minority, has been a ward of the UN since Nato forces bombed Serbia to halt “ethnic cleansing” in 1999 and then took control of the province. But the debate has entered a new phase with the start of UN-brokered negotiations to decide Kosovo’s final status.
The issue is particularly sensitive since Serbia, which has offered Kosovo autonomy rather than independence, is also involved in a face-off with the international community over General Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb war crimes indictee, who is still at large. The death last week of Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia’s former president, has added to the heady brew.
The US and UK are pushing for Serbia to accept that Kosovo will become independent, while Russia, which had previously worried that the province would set a precedent for its own republic of Chechnya, has scaled down its objections.
The officials, who asked not to be named, said the Bush administration had persuaded Moscow and Beijing that independence for the Serbian province was “unique” and would not set a precedent for Chechnya or for the Chinese-claimed territories of Taiwan and Tibet.
However, analysts said some in Moscow wanted a better deal with Washington that might leave open the possibility of a Kosovo-type solution for other regions, including Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia, which is backed by Russia.
Last week Jack Straw, the UK foreign secretary, said Kosovo’s independence was “almost inevitable”. But Philippe Douste-Blazy, his French counterpart, stuck closer to the European Union’s official line by saying that negotiations should not be prejudged”.
The EU has also told Serbia it has until the end of this month to increase co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia over the detention and transfer of Gen Mladic.
>
Greek diplomats urge change in government policy on Kosovo
Text of report by Irini Karanasopoulou, entitled "Kosovo like... USA", published by Greek newspaper Ta Nea on 13 March; subheadings and ellipsis in newspaper headline as published
High-level diplomatic officials of the Foreign Ministry are suggesting a turn of the country's foreign policy on Kosovo so that there will be openings towards the Albanians and a "diplomatic reception" of the almost certain independence of the area in 2006.
Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyianni has not made any final decisions on the issue but, according to her associates, she seems to initially agree with the need of adjusting the foreign policy on Kosovo, also following her recent tour in the former Yugoslavia.
Independence is certain
In their suggestions, these officials note that Kosovo's independence - either through talks or in another way - must be considered certain, given that this is the choice of the Americans with the support of the British.
At the same time, the same diplomats are saying, the French are not interested, while the Germans are neutral since their interest in former Yugoslavia has in fact been exhausted in Slovenia and Croatia.
"The only thing we achieve by speaking continuously about the need not to have asphyxiating timetables, not to change the borders, not to have a solution if it is not agreed, is to be against both the Albanians and the international factor," the high-ranking diplomatic officials pointed out to the Foreign Ministry's new leadership, reminding that the diplomatic establishment has had this view since year 2000 but the governments had not accepted it. For this reason, they add, "it would be good if the 'green light' to a possible change of policy - provided this is decided by the government - is to be given at the highest possible level, by the Prime Minister himself.
In three countries
The diplomatic officials' suggestion points out that as soon as Kosovo becomes independent, the Albanian element will dominate in three countries - Albania, Kosovo and Skopje [Macedonia]. Consequently, good relationship with the Albanians will operate in a protective way for the existing Greek investments but also for future ones. They note that with Kosovo becoming independent, the money of exiled Kosovars will start flowing into the area since so far they were hesitating to send money to their fatherland which was under a disputed regime.
As a first opening towards the Albanians, the diplomats propose the establishment of a channel of communication with new Kosovo prime minister, general [Agim] Ceku, former UCK [Kosovo Liberation Army] member.
According to Washington, he constitutes to be the best choice because he is accepted as a hero in Kosovo and consequently he can make "offers" to the Serbs - which is also something that Athens wants.
Source: Ta Nea, Athens, in Greek 13 Mar 06
High-level diplomatic officials of the Foreign Ministry are suggesting a turn of the country's foreign policy on Kosovo so that there will be openings towards the Albanians and a "diplomatic reception" of the almost certain independence of the area in 2006.
Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyianni has not made any final decisions on the issue but, according to her associates, she seems to initially agree with the need of adjusting the foreign policy on Kosovo, also following her recent tour in the former Yugoslavia.
Independence is certain
In their suggestions, these officials note that Kosovo's independence - either through talks or in another way - must be considered certain, given that this is the choice of the Americans with the support of the British.
At the same time, the same diplomats are saying, the French are not interested, while the Germans are neutral since their interest in former Yugoslavia has in fact been exhausted in Slovenia and Croatia.
"The only thing we achieve by speaking continuously about the need not to have asphyxiating timetables, not to change the borders, not to have a solution if it is not agreed, is to be against both the Albanians and the international factor," the high-ranking diplomatic officials pointed out to the Foreign Ministry's new leadership, reminding that the diplomatic establishment has had this view since year 2000 but the governments had not accepted it. For this reason, they add, "it would be good if the 'green light' to a possible change of policy - provided this is decided by the government - is to be given at the highest possible level, by the Prime Minister himself.
In three countries
The diplomatic officials' suggestion points out that as soon as Kosovo becomes independent, the Albanian element will dominate in three countries - Albania, Kosovo and Skopje [Macedonia]. Consequently, good relationship with the Albanians will operate in a protective way for the existing Greek investments but also for future ones. They note that with Kosovo becoming independent, the money of exiled Kosovars will start flowing into the area since so far they were hesitating to send money to their fatherland which was under a disputed regime.
As a first opening towards the Albanians, the diplomats propose the establishment of a channel of communication with new Kosovo prime minister, general [Agim] Ceku, former UCK [Kosovo Liberation Army] member.
According to Washington, he constitutes to be the best choice because he is accepted as a hero in Kosovo and consequently he can make "offers" to the Serbs - which is also something that Athens wants.
Source: Ta Nea, Athens, in Greek 13 Mar 06
Monday, March 13, 2006
No Sympathy for Slobo
Let's not forget Milosevic's many crimes.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, March 13, 2006, at 11:44 AM ET
During the siege of Sarajevo or the mass deportations from Kosovo, the news of a sudden stoppage of the heart of Slobodan Milosevic would have occasioned a joyous holiday in many other hearts. And the idea that he might one day die in prison would have been excellent tidings for a future generation and was the intended effect of his long and convoluted trial. But the news that he has succumbed randomly is bad news, as was the illness that overtook one of his original judges and helped protract the process in the first place. One can see, forming in the swamps of nationalism and superstition, a myth of martyrdom dimly taking shape.
This would be the worst outcome, since Milosevic began and ended, as all such dictators do, by ruining his own people and degrading his own country. It was on April 24, 1987, that, as an ambitious Stalinoid bureaucrat, he journeyed to Kosovo and made a toxically demagogic appeal to the Serbian minority. It was on June 28, 1989—the 600th anniversary of the Serbian defeat in Kosovo by the Turks—that he returned to the territory and made a hysterical speech to a mass rally. During his ignoble presidency, Serbia became a banana republic, and his predecessor, Ivan Stambolic, was later "disappeared" and found in a shallow grave. Serbian death squads were used against fellow Serbs and also "deniably" deployed in Bosnia and elsewhere. By the end of it, the Serbian minorities in whose name he had launched a regional war had been ignominiously expelled from their ancient homes in the Krajina region and in Kosovo itself. Only a Serb can truly feel the depth of the cultural and political and economic damage that he did, and the brave crowds of students who demonstrated in Belgrade in March 1991 shouting "Slobo Saddam" had it exactly right.
Or almost exactly right. Milosevic did not have quite the psychopathic power of a Saddam Hussein or an Osama Bin Laden. He was that most dangerous of people: the mediocre and conformist official who bides his time and masks his grievances. He went from apparatchik to supreme power, and though he rode a tide of religious and xenophobic fervor, it is quite thinkable that he never really cared about the totems and symbols that he exploited. In office and in the dock, he embodied the banality of evil. In the excellent 1995 book The Death of Yugoslavia, written by Laura Silber and Allan Little, and in the fine BBC TV series that accompanied it, you can actually see the petty tactics and cynical opportunism that he employed like a sluggish maggot at the heart of the state that just keeps eating remorselessly away. He apparently had only one true friend, his adorable ideologue of a wife, Mirjana Markovic, who used to cheer him up about his big-eared and stone-faced appearance and about the suicide of both of his parents. Beware of those resentful nonentities who enter politics for therapeutic reasons.
The highlights of his more lurid criminal career ought to be briefly set down before anyone tries to airbrush them. He arranged for his own entourage to be pelted with stones in Kosovo in 1987 (this we have on film) so that the provocation could appear on Belgrade television and isolate the civilized elements in the ruling party. He made a secret agreement with his equally disgusting counterpart Franjo Tudjman of Croatia for a sort of Stalin-Hitler carve-up of Bosnia, and thus empowered the very Croatian extremists who later turned on Serb civilians. He entered into a collusion with fascist and irredentist groups, among them Bosnian Serbs and Belgrade Serbs, which deliberately threw Bosnia into civil war and gave us the modern (and euphemistic) term "ethnic cleansing." He hijacked the national army of a unitary state and used it to attack the autonomous republics within that state. He very nearly destroyed two of the urban cultural treasures of Europe: Dubrovnik and Sarajevo. He emptied the treasury of Serbia and reduced its citizens to poverty and paranoia. He and Saddam were the only two heads of government to welcome the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev. Eventually, he went even further and ordered the mass expulsion of the majority population of Kosovo, who were herded onto trains and forced onto the roads; an act that would, if successful, have lethally destabilized the two neighboring states of Albania and Macedonia. And at that very belated point, the Western powers decided they had had enough of him and brought about his removal from Kosovo and his removal from power.
It is worth remembering, however, how much the "realists" had relied upon him until then. Negotiators David Owen, representing the European Union, and former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance thought he was a necessary "partner for peace." Henry Kissinger and Lawrence Eagleburger pronounced him to be the man to do business with and steadily opposed any intervention. It took an act of ultimate irrationality on Milosevic's part before NATO decided to overrule Russian and Chinese and U.N. objections and put an end to fascism and racist murder in their own backyard. And, of course, by then most of the damage had been done, and it is now the anti-realists who inherit the ghastly, laborious job of cleaning up the mess, digging up the mass graves, restoring essential services, and pacifying inflamed tribal and confessional feelings.
Some friends and colleagues of mine have testified against Milosevic and his henchmen in The Hague and had the satisfaction of seeing the slaughterers and torturers confronted by their victims. An enormous archive of atrocity has been amassed and videotaped and cataloged, and one day history will be very grateful for it. No denial or revisionism will be possible in this case. It would be nice to think that it was this relentless accumulation of evidence that stopped Milosevic, who was often confronted by former colleagues in the witness box, from making the long and self-pitying speeches that have served Saddam Hussein as a model tactic. It would also be nice to think that it is what eventually killed him. But he probably suffered his last spasm feeling sorry only for himself, and now we will have the final sordid task of preventing others from feeling a misplaced sympathy for him also.
Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His most recent book is Thomas Jefferson: Author of America. His most recent collection of essays is titled Love, Poverty, and War.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, March 13, 2006, at 11:44 AM ET
During the siege of Sarajevo or the mass deportations from Kosovo, the news of a sudden stoppage of the heart of Slobodan Milosevic would have occasioned a joyous holiday in many other hearts. And the idea that he might one day die in prison would have been excellent tidings for a future generation and was the intended effect of his long and convoluted trial. But the news that he has succumbed randomly is bad news, as was the illness that overtook one of his original judges and helped protract the process in the first place. One can see, forming in the swamps of nationalism and superstition, a myth of martyrdom dimly taking shape.
This would be the worst outcome, since Milosevic began and ended, as all such dictators do, by ruining his own people and degrading his own country. It was on April 24, 1987, that, as an ambitious Stalinoid bureaucrat, he journeyed to Kosovo and made a toxically demagogic appeal to the Serbian minority. It was on June 28, 1989—the 600th anniversary of the Serbian defeat in Kosovo by the Turks—that he returned to the territory and made a hysterical speech to a mass rally. During his ignoble presidency, Serbia became a banana republic, and his predecessor, Ivan Stambolic, was later "disappeared" and found in a shallow grave. Serbian death squads were used against fellow Serbs and also "deniably" deployed in Bosnia and elsewhere. By the end of it, the Serbian minorities in whose name he had launched a regional war had been ignominiously expelled from their ancient homes in the Krajina region and in Kosovo itself. Only a Serb can truly feel the depth of the cultural and political and economic damage that he did, and the brave crowds of students who demonstrated in Belgrade in March 1991 shouting "Slobo Saddam" had it exactly right.
Or almost exactly right. Milosevic did not have quite the psychopathic power of a Saddam Hussein or an Osama Bin Laden. He was that most dangerous of people: the mediocre and conformist official who bides his time and masks his grievances. He went from apparatchik to supreme power, and though he rode a tide of religious and xenophobic fervor, it is quite thinkable that he never really cared about the totems and symbols that he exploited. In office and in the dock, he embodied the banality of evil. In the excellent 1995 book The Death of Yugoslavia, written by Laura Silber and Allan Little, and in the fine BBC TV series that accompanied it, you can actually see the petty tactics and cynical opportunism that he employed like a sluggish maggot at the heart of the state that just keeps eating remorselessly away. He apparently had only one true friend, his adorable ideologue of a wife, Mirjana Markovic, who used to cheer him up about his big-eared and stone-faced appearance and about the suicide of both of his parents. Beware of those resentful nonentities who enter politics for therapeutic reasons.
The highlights of his more lurid criminal career ought to be briefly set down before anyone tries to airbrush them. He arranged for his own entourage to be pelted with stones in Kosovo in 1987 (this we have on film) so that the provocation could appear on Belgrade television and isolate the civilized elements in the ruling party. He made a secret agreement with his equally disgusting counterpart Franjo Tudjman of Croatia for a sort of Stalin-Hitler carve-up of Bosnia, and thus empowered the very Croatian extremists who later turned on Serb civilians. He entered into a collusion with fascist and irredentist groups, among them Bosnian Serbs and Belgrade Serbs, which deliberately threw Bosnia into civil war and gave us the modern (and euphemistic) term "ethnic cleansing." He hijacked the national army of a unitary state and used it to attack the autonomous republics within that state. He very nearly destroyed two of the urban cultural treasures of Europe: Dubrovnik and Sarajevo. He emptied the treasury of Serbia and reduced its citizens to poverty and paranoia. He and Saddam were the only two heads of government to welcome the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev. Eventually, he went even further and ordered the mass expulsion of the majority population of Kosovo, who were herded onto trains and forced onto the roads; an act that would, if successful, have lethally destabilized the two neighboring states of Albania and Macedonia. And at that very belated point, the Western powers decided they had had enough of him and brought about his removal from Kosovo and his removal from power.
It is worth remembering, however, how much the "realists" had relied upon him until then. Negotiators David Owen, representing the European Union, and former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance thought he was a necessary "partner for peace." Henry Kissinger and Lawrence Eagleburger pronounced him to be the man to do business with and steadily opposed any intervention. It took an act of ultimate irrationality on Milosevic's part before NATO decided to overrule Russian and Chinese and U.N. objections and put an end to fascism and racist murder in their own backyard. And, of course, by then most of the damage had been done, and it is now the anti-realists who inherit the ghastly, laborious job of cleaning up the mess, digging up the mass graves, restoring essential services, and pacifying inflamed tribal and confessional feelings.
Some friends and colleagues of mine have testified against Milosevic and his henchmen in The Hague and had the satisfaction of seeing the slaughterers and torturers confronted by their victims. An enormous archive of atrocity has been amassed and videotaped and cataloged, and one day history will be very grateful for it. No denial or revisionism will be possible in this case. It would be nice to think that it was this relentless accumulation of evidence that stopped Milosevic, who was often confronted by former colleagues in the witness box, from making the long and self-pitying speeches that have served Saddam Hussein as a model tactic. It would also be nice to think that it is what eventually killed him. But he probably suffered his last spasm feeling sorry only for himself, and now we will have the final sordid task of preventing others from feeling a misplaced sympathy for him also.
Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His most recent book is Thomas Jefferson: Author of America. His most recent collection of essays is titled Love, Poverty, and War.
Moscow Rallies to Defend Milosevic
Moscow Rallies to Defend Milosevic
By Nabi Abdullaev
Staff Writer
Igor Tabakov / MT
Communists protesting outside the Dutch Embassy on Monday. The poster reads, "Milosevic's killers to court!"
In Moscow, where Slobodan Milosevic's family lives and he enjoys widespread sympathy due to his role in opposing NATO in the Balkans, officials and politicians on Monday angrily rejected the results of his autopsy and called for Russian doctors to be able to conduct their own probe into his death.
A Dutch toxicologist said Monday that the former Serbian president had taken the wrong drugs in an effort to be sent for treatment to Moscow.
Outside the U.S., Dutch and Serbian embassies in Moscow, hundreds of Communists protested against the UN tribunal that was trying Milosevic on war crimes charges.
About 300 people, led by the Communist Party's Moscow chief, Vladimir Ulass, joined the rallies, carrying red flags and signs reading "Milosevic is a Hero, Bush is a Fascist" and "The Hague is a Factory of Death."
"We reject the claim that Milosevic died of natural causes," Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov told reporters before the rallies, describing Milosevic's death as a "crime by imperialism."
"We believe that the international tribunal and the Americans who unleashed NATO aggression against Yugoslavia at the end of the last century are guilty in Milosevic's death," Zyuganov said.
Dutch toxicologist Donald Uges, who conducted blood tests on Milosevic two weeks ago as part of his treatment for a heart condition and high blood pressure, on Monday ruled out foul play or suicide in Milosevic's death. Uges said he thought Milosevic had taken a drug used to treat leprosy and tuberculosis in an effort to support his application to be treated in Moscow.
"I don't think he took his medicines for suicide -- only for his trip to Moscow ... that is where his friends and family are. I think that was his last possibility to escape The Hague," Uges said, Reuters reported. "I am so sure there is no murder."
Uges' comments came after Milosevic's lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic said that the former Serbian president had told him he had feared he was being poisoned, and had written a six-page letter to the Russian Embassy in the Netherlands dated Wednesday, three days before he died.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters Monday that, since the UN tribunal had rejected Milosevic's application to receive medical treatment in Moscow, Russia wanted to carry out its own probe into his death.
"In fact, Russia was not trusted. In a situation when we were not trusted, we also have a right not to trust," Lavrov said.
Lavrov confirmed he had received Milosevic's letter, in which he complained of being given strong medicines used to treat tuberculosis and leprosy.
"It says that, in his opinion, certain methods of treatment ... had had a negative impact on his health," Lavrov said, adding that Moscow had asked the tribunal to allow Russian doctors to study the results of the autopsy.
The Foreign Ministry issued a statement shortly after Milosevic's death was announced Saturday, saying that it regretted that the tribunal had two weeks earlier rejected his application to travel to Moscow. Russia had offered assurances that Milosevic would return to The Hague to complete his trial.
Yury Mashkov / Itar-Tass
Protesters near the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Monday. One poster reads, "Milosevic is a Hero! Bush is a Fascist!"
Alexei Mukhin, an analyst with the Center for Political Information, said top Russian officials "were insulted by having their guarantees rejected" by the Hague tribunal, and were now "gloating over the delicate situation the tribunal finds itself in."
In a State Duma session Monday, reaction to Milosevic's death ranged from distrust of the UN tribunal to expressions of respect for the Serbian authorities' wishes.
United Russia Duma Deputy Konstantin Zatulin called for a public inquiry in Russia into Milosevic's death.
"We cannot trust this mission to the tribunal itself, or to the Western leaders who turn an epitaph to Milosevic into an indictment," Zatulin said.
International Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachyov called on Russia to respect the position of the Serbian government over Milosevic's death. He also said the Duma would adopt a resolution Wednesday criticizing the Hague tribunal over what he said was its anti-Serbian stance and for not allowing Milosevic to travel to Moscow.
"Russian lawmakers will also insist on a full and unbiased international investigation of the reasons that led to Milosevic's death, in which Russian experts will participate," Kosachyov said, Interfax reported.
Memorial prayers for Milosevic were held in several Russian Orthodox churches on Sunday, Interfax reported, citing the Moscow Patriarchate.
Coverage of Milosevic's death on Russian state television was overwhelmingly sympathetic toward Milosevic, with several commentators defending him and blaming the Hague tribunal for his death.
National newspapers, however, were more evenhanded in their coverage, with some articles offering criticism of his role in the Balkans conflicts.
"He was a man who, I believe, dedicated his life to the good of his people, his country," former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov told Rossia television on Sunday.
Alexei Sazonov / AP
A man holding a portrait of Milosevic at the U.S. Embassy picket on Monday.
Primakov blamed Milosevic's death on the UN tribunal and the Serbian authorities who handed him over to The Hague in 2001.
Mikhail Margelov, head of the Federation Council's Foreign Affairs Committee, told the channel, "It is important that the court in The Hague has not ruled while Milosevic was alive whether he was guilty or was not."
Milosevic's elder brother, Borislav, a former Yugoslav ambassador to Russia, told Rossia that the tribunal had "discredited itself legally and morally."
Some newspapers on Monday were more balanced in their consideration of Milosevic and his legacy, giving space to criticism of him and offering a broader perspective of his role in the Balkans wars.
Kommersant wrote in a front-page article Monday that Milosevic had used Russia, Yugoslavia and the Serbs to serve his own quest for power, while Izvestia attempted to debunk views common in Russia that Milosevic was a great statesman and ally of Moscow.
Borislav Milosevic, who lives in Moscow, was himself hospitalized overnight Sunday. He was taken to Moscow's Bakulev heart surgery center, where his brother had asked to come for treatment. He denied speculation that he had suffered a heart attack.
Borislav Milosevic said Monday that he would travel to Belgrade to attend his brother's funeral.
The death of Milosevic, dubbed the "Butcher of the Balkans" in some Western media reports, could cause some diplomatic embarrassment for Russia, as it has quietly been sheltering his family, despite international warrants being issued for Milosevic's widow, Mira Markovic, and their son Marko Milosevic.
Since 2001, numerous unconfirmed reports in the Russian and international media have said Markovic and Marko Milosevic are living in Moscow.
On Monday, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said Marko Milosevic had applied for a visa at the Dutch Embassy in Moscow to travel to The Hague and take his father's remains to Belgrade for burial.
Marko Milosevic also surfaced Monday on Channel One television, saying that if Serbia did not offer him and his family safety guarantees, he would ask Russia for permission to bury his father in Moscow instead, Reuters reported.
"I just lost my father and do not want to risk my mother," he said, Reuters reported.
"I have already asked the Russian authorities, although for now unofficially, whether we could bury him in Moscow ... if we need to, until the conditions in Serbia are right to move his body there."
Natalya Krainova contributed to this report.
By Nabi Abdullaev
Staff Writer
Igor Tabakov / MT
Communists protesting outside the Dutch Embassy on Monday. The poster reads, "Milosevic's killers to court!"
In Moscow, where Slobodan Milosevic's family lives and he enjoys widespread sympathy due to his role in opposing NATO in the Balkans, officials and politicians on Monday angrily rejected the results of his autopsy and called for Russian doctors to be able to conduct their own probe into his death.
A Dutch toxicologist said Monday that the former Serbian president had taken the wrong drugs in an effort to be sent for treatment to Moscow.
Outside the U.S., Dutch and Serbian embassies in Moscow, hundreds of Communists protested against the UN tribunal that was trying Milosevic on war crimes charges.
About 300 people, led by the Communist Party's Moscow chief, Vladimir Ulass, joined the rallies, carrying red flags and signs reading "Milosevic is a Hero, Bush is a Fascist" and "The Hague is a Factory of Death."
"We reject the claim that Milosevic died of natural causes," Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov told reporters before the rallies, describing Milosevic's death as a "crime by imperialism."
"We believe that the international tribunal and the Americans who unleashed NATO aggression against Yugoslavia at the end of the last century are guilty in Milosevic's death," Zyuganov said.
Dutch toxicologist Donald Uges, who conducted blood tests on Milosevic two weeks ago as part of his treatment for a heart condition and high blood pressure, on Monday ruled out foul play or suicide in Milosevic's death. Uges said he thought Milosevic had taken a drug used to treat leprosy and tuberculosis in an effort to support his application to be treated in Moscow.
"I don't think he took his medicines for suicide -- only for his trip to Moscow ... that is where his friends and family are. I think that was his last possibility to escape The Hague," Uges said, Reuters reported. "I am so sure there is no murder."
Uges' comments came after Milosevic's lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic said that the former Serbian president had told him he had feared he was being poisoned, and had written a six-page letter to the Russian Embassy in the Netherlands dated Wednesday, three days before he died.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters Monday that, since the UN tribunal had rejected Milosevic's application to receive medical treatment in Moscow, Russia wanted to carry out its own probe into his death.
"In fact, Russia was not trusted. In a situation when we were not trusted, we also have a right not to trust," Lavrov said.
Lavrov confirmed he had received Milosevic's letter, in which he complained of being given strong medicines used to treat tuberculosis and leprosy.
"It says that, in his opinion, certain methods of treatment ... had had a negative impact on his health," Lavrov said, adding that Moscow had asked the tribunal to allow Russian doctors to study the results of the autopsy.
The Foreign Ministry issued a statement shortly after Milosevic's death was announced Saturday, saying that it regretted that the tribunal had two weeks earlier rejected his application to travel to Moscow. Russia had offered assurances that Milosevic would return to The Hague to complete his trial.
Yury Mashkov / Itar-Tass
Protesters near the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Monday. One poster reads, "Milosevic is a Hero! Bush is a Fascist!"
Alexei Mukhin, an analyst with the Center for Political Information, said top Russian officials "were insulted by having their guarantees rejected" by the Hague tribunal, and were now "gloating over the delicate situation the tribunal finds itself in."
In a State Duma session Monday, reaction to Milosevic's death ranged from distrust of the UN tribunal to expressions of respect for the Serbian authorities' wishes.
United Russia Duma Deputy Konstantin Zatulin called for a public inquiry in Russia into Milosevic's death.
"We cannot trust this mission to the tribunal itself, or to the Western leaders who turn an epitaph to Milosevic into an indictment," Zatulin said.
International Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachyov called on Russia to respect the position of the Serbian government over Milosevic's death. He also said the Duma would adopt a resolution Wednesday criticizing the Hague tribunal over what he said was its anti-Serbian stance and for not allowing Milosevic to travel to Moscow.
"Russian lawmakers will also insist on a full and unbiased international investigation of the reasons that led to Milosevic's death, in which Russian experts will participate," Kosachyov said, Interfax reported.
Memorial prayers for Milosevic were held in several Russian Orthodox churches on Sunday, Interfax reported, citing the Moscow Patriarchate.
Coverage of Milosevic's death on Russian state television was overwhelmingly sympathetic toward Milosevic, with several commentators defending him and blaming the Hague tribunal for his death.
National newspapers, however, were more evenhanded in their coverage, with some articles offering criticism of his role in the Balkans conflicts.
"He was a man who, I believe, dedicated his life to the good of his people, his country," former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov told Rossia television on Sunday.
Alexei Sazonov / AP
A man holding a portrait of Milosevic at the U.S. Embassy picket on Monday.
Primakov blamed Milosevic's death on the UN tribunal and the Serbian authorities who handed him over to The Hague in 2001.
Mikhail Margelov, head of the Federation Council's Foreign Affairs Committee, told the channel, "It is important that the court in The Hague has not ruled while Milosevic was alive whether he was guilty or was not."
Milosevic's elder brother, Borislav, a former Yugoslav ambassador to Russia, told Rossia that the tribunal had "discredited itself legally and morally."
Some newspapers on Monday were more balanced in their consideration of Milosevic and his legacy, giving space to criticism of him and offering a broader perspective of his role in the Balkans wars.
Kommersant wrote in a front-page article Monday that Milosevic had used Russia, Yugoslavia and the Serbs to serve his own quest for power, while Izvestia attempted to debunk views common in Russia that Milosevic was a great statesman and ally of Moscow.
Borislav Milosevic, who lives in Moscow, was himself hospitalized overnight Sunday. He was taken to Moscow's Bakulev heart surgery center, where his brother had asked to come for treatment. He denied speculation that he had suffered a heart attack.
Borislav Milosevic said Monday that he would travel to Belgrade to attend his brother's funeral.
The death of Milosevic, dubbed the "Butcher of the Balkans" in some Western media reports, could cause some diplomatic embarrassment for Russia, as it has quietly been sheltering his family, despite international warrants being issued for Milosevic's widow, Mira Markovic, and their son Marko Milosevic.
Since 2001, numerous unconfirmed reports in the Russian and international media have said Markovic and Marko Milosevic are living in Moscow.
On Monday, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said Marko Milosevic had applied for a visa at the Dutch Embassy in Moscow to travel to The Hague and take his father's remains to Belgrade for burial.
Marko Milosevic also surfaced Monday on Channel One television, saying that if Serbia did not offer him and his family safety guarantees, he would ask Russia for permission to bury his father in Moscow instead, Reuters reported.
"I just lost my father and do not want to risk my mother," he said, Reuters reported.
"I have already asked the Russian authorities, although for now unofficially, whether we could bury him in Moscow ... if we need to, until the conditions in Serbia are right to move his body there."
Natalya Krainova contributed to this report.
Serb President Blames Tribunal for Death
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC
Associated Press Writer
BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro
Serbian President Boris Tadic said Monday the U.N. war crimes tribunal is responsible for Slobodan Milosevic's death, but he added that it would not hamper Serbia's future cooperation with the court.
"Undoubtedly, Milosevic had demanded a higher level of health care," Tadic said in an interview with The Associated Press. "That right should have been granted to all war crimes defendants."
He added, "I think they are responsible for what happened."
Milosevic died Saturday of a heart attack in his prison cell near the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. The former Serbian president had recently demanded to be temporarily released to go to Moscow for treatment after years of suffering from heart problems and high blood pressure.
But the judges refused, ruling that even with Russian guarantees to send him back to the court, they were afraid he would not return.
"Unfortunately, today we are getting messages from the tribunal that they are not responsible," Tadic said. "I think they are responsible for what happened."
A Dutch toxicologist said Monday that Milosevic was taking antibiotics that diluted prescriptions for his ailments while he was pleading with a U.N. tribunal for permission to get treatment in Russia.
Tadic, whose Democratic Party led a popular revolt that toppled Milosevic in 2000, said that despite "the lack of credibility" the tribunal has among Serbs, Serbia will try to hand over more war crimes suspects, including top fugitive Ratko Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb army commander wanted on genocide charges.
Milosevic's death "won't jeopardize our cooperation with the tribunal," Tadic said.
Tadic reiterated that he would not issue a pardon that would abolish an international arrest warrant for Milosevic's widow, Mirjana Markovic, if she planned to attend his funeral in Belgrade. He said that the ultimate decision on the warrant would be made by a Serbian court Tuesday.
"I won't lift the responsibility off the person who is suspected of some very serious crimes in the past," Tadic said. He also said that holding a state funeral for Milosevic "would be highly inappropriate."
A Belgrade district court said Monday it would reconsider a demand by Milosevic's family lawyers to waive an arrest warrant for Markovic to enable her to return from Russia and attend the ex-president's funeral.
It remains unclear where and how Milosevic will be buried.
Markovic, considered the power behind the scenes during Milosevic's warmongering 1990s rule, has been charged here with abuse of power during Milosevic's reign. Some other allegations link her directly to several murders of Milosevic's political opponents.
Tadic said he was certain that Milosevic's death would not help his ultranationalist allies regain power in Serbia, despite signs that they have rallied around the policies of their former leader.
"Today in Serbia we have a fight (for power) by those who ruled together with Milosevic," Tadic said, referring to Radical Party ultranationalists and Milosevic's Socialists.
"But I'm absolutely confident that there will be no turning back on the political scene in Serbia," Tadic said. "Not even Milosevic's death will change Serbia's path toward democracy."
Associated Press Writer
BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro
Serbian President Boris Tadic said Monday the U.N. war crimes tribunal is responsible for Slobodan Milosevic's death, but he added that it would not hamper Serbia's future cooperation with the court.
"Undoubtedly, Milosevic had demanded a higher level of health care," Tadic said in an interview with The Associated Press. "That right should have been granted to all war crimes defendants."
He added, "I think they are responsible for what happened."
Milosevic died Saturday of a heart attack in his prison cell near the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. The former Serbian president had recently demanded to be temporarily released to go to Moscow for treatment after years of suffering from heart problems and high blood pressure.
But the judges refused, ruling that even with Russian guarantees to send him back to the court, they were afraid he would not return.
"Unfortunately, today we are getting messages from the tribunal that they are not responsible," Tadic said. "I think they are responsible for what happened."
A Dutch toxicologist said Monday that Milosevic was taking antibiotics that diluted prescriptions for his ailments while he was pleading with a U.N. tribunal for permission to get treatment in Russia.
Tadic, whose Democratic Party led a popular revolt that toppled Milosevic in 2000, said that despite "the lack of credibility" the tribunal has among Serbs, Serbia will try to hand over more war crimes suspects, including top fugitive Ratko Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb army commander wanted on genocide charges.
Milosevic's death "won't jeopardize our cooperation with the tribunal," Tadic said.
Tadic reiterated that he would not issue a pardon that would abolish an international arrest warrant for Milosevic's widow, Mirjana Markovic, if she planned to attend his funeral in Belgrade. He said that the ultimate decision on the warrant would be made by a Serbian court Tuesday.
"I won't lift the responsibility off the person who is suspected of some very serious crimes in the past," Tadic said. He also said that holding a state funeral for Milosevic "would be highly inappropriate."
A Belgrade district court said Monday it would reconsider a demand by Milosevic's family lawyers to waive an arrest warrant for Markovic to enable her to return from Russia and attend the ex-president's funeral.
It remains unclear where and how Milosevic will be buried.
Markovic, considered the power behind the scenes during Milosevic's warmongering 1990s rule, has been charged here with abuse of power during Milosevic's reign. Some other allegations link her directly to several murders of Milosevic's political opponents.
Tadic said he was certain that Milosevic's death would not help his ultranationalist allies regain power in Serbia, despite signs that they have rallied around the policies of their former leader.
"Today in Serbia we have a fight (for power) by those who ruled together with Milosevic," Tadic said, referring to Radical Party ultranationalists and Milosevic's Socialists.
"But I'm absolutely confident that there will be no turning back on the political scene in Serbia," Tadic said. "Not even Milosevic's death will change Serbia's path toward democracy."
Serbia to Permit Milosevic Funeral to Be Held in Belgrade
By NICHOLAS WOOD
BELGRADE, Serbia, March 13 — The Serbian government offered to allow the funeral and burial of Slobodan Milosevic to take place in Belgrade, paving the way for a gathering of nationalists and supporters of the former president that has not been seen in more than five years.
Government officials said a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, would be removed, enabling her and her family to attend what the one senior government official insisted would be a private ceremony.
Ms. Markovic had been wanted by a court in Belgrade after she failed to appear at a hearing to face fraud charges last year. The underlying charge, of fraud related to an apartment sale, still hangs over her, in theory. She is believed to have been living in Moscow for the last three years, during much of the time when her husband stood trial in The Hague on charges of committing war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo in the 1990's.
Mr. Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, was found dead in his cell on Saturday, months before the case would have ended. He was 64.
An autopsy showed that a heart attack killed him, the United Nations war crimes tribunal said in The Hague on Sunday. The result was disclosed as new evidence emerged that Mr. Milosevic had been taking medicine not prescribed by his physicians, including an antibiotic known to diminish or blunt the effect of the medicines he had been taking for heart and blood-pressure problems.
The timing of the funeral was not announced. Despite the government's wishes for a quiet private ceremony, nationalists and supporters of the former president are certain to seize on it as a chance to rally.
Members of Mr. Milosevic's Socialist Party appeared to be seizing the opportunity to revive its flagging poll ratings and plan a mass gathering of supporters. The party was once the largest in Serbia, and now one that commands just over 5 percent of the vote.
Serbia's ultra-nationalist Radical Party, currently the most popular political party in Serbia, was also expected to ask its supporters to attend, party officials said. "I believe that first he has to be placed somewhere so people have a couple of days to express their respects, and then a large funeral," said Vladimir Krsljanin, a former foreign relations adviser to Mr. Milosevic.
"There will be foreign delegations and speeches and so on," Mr. Krsljanin said. He added the government needed to provide for the kind of ceremony the former president deserved.
"Such a large gathering of people and emotions can turn into something else, if the government doesn't show maturity," he said. "You cannot act against the masses."
Preparing the way, Deputy Prime Minister Mirosljub Labus told regional news stations that the government had informed the Milosevic family that it would allow the family to attend "a private funeral."
According to the independent news agency Beta, an assistant prosecutor in Belgrade, Mira Ilic, said the state prosecution service had asked that a detention order for Ms. Markovic be annulled by the county court. The court was expected to take its decision on Tuesday morning.
She is believed to have been living in Moscow for the past three years, with her son. At the same time, pressure grew among Mr. Milosevic's supporters abroad for a further investigation into his death and more specifically the discovery of a drug normally prescribed for tuberculosis in his blood. Russia's foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said he had prepared a team of doctors to take part in the investigation under way by The Hague tribunal.
Russia had offered guarantees that if Mr. Milosevic could travel to Russia for treatment, he would later return to The Hague, Mr. Lavrov said.
"In essence, they did not trust Russia," he said. "This cannot help but disturb us. And it cannot help but alarm us that Slobodan Milosevic died shortly after that.
"Since they did not believe us, we also have the right not to believe and not to trust those performing the post-mortem examinations," he said. "We have requested that the tribunal allow our doctors to take part in the examination, or at the very least to peruse the results."
The Russians and Serbs have long had close relations, and much of the Milosevic family has worked or taken refuge in Moscow. The Russian general, Leonid G. Ivashov, who visited Milosevic in prison in The Hague and testified on his behalf, said in Moscow: "I suspect that one of the reasons the tribunal did not allow his trip to Russia was because in Moscow, they would discover what drugs he had been given by the prison doctors, and they were afraid of being exposed."
In Belgrade, Mr. Milosevic's supporters appeared already to have come to a similar conclusion that their former leader had been murdered. Outside the headquarters of the Socialist Party in Belgrade, party members queuing in the rain to sign a book of condolence messages had no doubts he had been deliberately poisoned.
"They slipped it into his food," said Gjorgje Stejic, a 51-year-old machine engineer. "I am sure he was killed. That's what all of us think."
A 74-year-old retired high school teacher, Kolja Tanakovic, said, "They didn't have the evidence to convict him and so they murdered him."
Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the tribunal, said at a news conference on Sunday before the autopsy result was released that she did not rule out suicide. She also said Mr. Milosevic had been thoroughly monitored by medical aides, and that it was "very strange, even if it is of course possible, that he should have died so suddenly without these medics having noticed a worsening of his condition."
The death of Mr. Milosevic sent shock waves through the tribunal, putting it on the defensive just as a defining moment in the history of the Yugoslav war crimes prosecutions appeared at hand. His death also raised a whole set of new issues for the United States and European Union, which had hoped that the conclusion of his four-year trial, with conviction widely expected, would help expedite resolution of other problems that are vestiges of Mr. Milosevic's catastrophic rule in the 1990's. A January report by the prison doctor that was disclosed Sunday by Zdenko Tomanovic, one of Mr. Milosevic's lawyers, said an antibiotic known as rifampicin, used to treat serious bacterial infections, like tuberculosis and leprosy, had been found in Mr. Milosevic's blood.
Marlise Simons contributed reporting from The Hague
BELGRADE, Serbia, March 13 — The Serbian government offered to allow the funeral and burial of Slobodan Milosevic to take place in Belgrade, paving the way for a gathering of nationalists and supporters of the former president that has not been seen in more than five years.
Government officials said a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, would be removed, enabling her and her family to attend what the one senior government official insisted would be a private ceremony.
Ms. Markovic had been wanted by a court in Belgrade after she failed to appear at a hearing to face fraud charges last year. The underlying charge, of fraud related to an apartment sale, still hangs over her, in theory. She is believed to have been living in Moscow for the last three years, during much of the time when her husband stood trial in The Hague on charges of committing war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo in the 1990's.
Mr. Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, was found dead in his cell on Saturday, months before the case would have ended. He was 64.
An autopsy showed that a heart attack killed him, the United Nations war crimes tribunal said in The Hague on Sunday. The result was disclosed as new evidence emerged that Mr. Milosevic had been taking medicine not prescribed by his physicians, including an antibiotic known to diminish or blunt the effect of the medicines he had been taking for heart and blood-pressure problems.
The timing of the funeral was not announced. Despite the government's wishes for a quiet private ceremony, nationalists and supporters of the former president are certain to seize on it as a chance to rally.
Members of Mr. Milosevic's Socialist Party appeared to be seizing the opportunity to revive its flagging poll ratings and plan a mass gathering of supporters. The party was once the largest in Serbia, and now one that commands just over 5 percent of the vote.
Serbia's ultra-nationalist Radical Party, currently the most popular political party in Serbia, was also expected to ask its supporters to attend, party officials said. "I believe that first he has to be placed somewhere so people have a couple of days to express their respects, and then a large funeral," said Vladimir Krsljanin, a former foreign relations adviser to Mr. Milosevic.
"There will be foreign delegations and speeches and so on," Mr. Krsljanin said. He added the government needed to provide for the kind of ceremony the former president deserved.
"Such a large gathering of people and emotions can turn into something else, if the government doesn't show maturity," he said. "You cannot act against the masses."
Preparing the way, Deputy Prime Minister Mirosljub Labus told regional news stations that the government had informed the Milosevic family that it would allow the family to attend "a private funeral."
According to the independent news agency Beta, an assistant prosecutor in Belgrade, Mira Ilic, said the state prosecution service had asked that a detention order for Ms. Markovic be annulled by the county court. The court was expected to take its decision on Tuesday morning.
She is believed to have been living in Moscow for the past three years, with her son. At the same time, pressure grew among Mr. Milosevic's supporters abroad for a further investigation into his death and more specifically the discovery of a drug normally prescribed for tuberculosis in his blood. Russia's foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said he had prepared a team of doctors to take part in the investigation under way by The Hague tribunal.
Russia had offered guarantees that if Mr. Milosevic could travel to Russia for treatment, he would later return to The Hague, Mr. Lavrov said.
"In essence, they did not trust Russia," he said. "This cannot help but disturb us. And it cannot help but alarm us that Slobodan Milosevic died shortly after that.
"Since they did not believe us, we also have the right not to believe and not to trust those performing the post-mortem examinations," he said. "We have requested that the tribunal allow our doctors to take part in the examination, or at the very least to peruse the results."
The Russians and Serbs have long had close relations, and much of the Milosevic family has worked or taken refuge in Moscow. The Russian general, Leonid G. Ivashov, who visited Milosevic in prison in The Hague and testified on his behalf, said in Moscow: "I suspect that one of the reasons the tribunal did not allow his trip to Russia was because in Moscow, they would discover what drugs he had been given by the prison doctors, and they were afraid of being exposed."
In Belgrade, Mr. Milosevic's supporters appeared already to have come to a similar conclusion that their former leader had been murdered. Outside the headquarters of the Socialist Party in Belgrade, party members queuing in the rain to sign a book of condolence messages had no doubts he had been deliberately poisoned.
"They slipped it into his food," said Gjorgje Stejic, a 51-year-old machine engineer. "I am sure he was killed. That's what all of us think."
A 74-year-old retired high school teacher, Kolja Tanakovic, said, "They didn't have the evidence to convict him and so they murdered him."
Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the tribunal, said at a news conference on Sunday before the autopsy result was released that she did not rule out suicide. She also said Mr. Milosevic had been thoroughly monitored by medical aides, and that it was "very strange, even if it is of course possible, that he should have died so suddenly without these medics having noticed a worsening of his condition."
The death of Mr. Milosevic sent shock waves through the tribunal, putting it on the defensive just as a defining moment in the history of the Yugoslav war crimes prosecutions appeared at hand. His death also raised a whole set of new issues for the United States and European Union, which had hoped that the conclusion of his four-year trial, with conviction widely expected, would help expedite resolution of other problems that are vestiges of Mr. Milosevic's catastrophic rule in the 1990's. A January report by the prison doctor that was disclosed Sunday by Zdenko Tomanovic, one of Mr. Milosevic's lawyers, said an antibiotic known as rifampicin, used to treat serious bacterial infections, like tuberculosis and leprosy, had been found in Mr. Milosevic's blood.
Marlise Simons contributed reporting from The Hague
Death of a tyrant and a loser
Leader
Monday March 13, 2006
The Guardian
When the Bosnian journalist Mirna Jancic went to The Hague to report on the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, she was repelled by the way in which the defendant, not infrequently, managed to turn the proceedings into a soap opera with himself as leading man. In the blandly modern courtroom, which reminded her of the command deck of Starship Enterprise, Milosevic, conducting his own defence, rudely questioned the veracity of prosecution witnesses who had lost family and friends in the wars that he had instigated. In spite of reproofs from the court, he rambled on in self-important fashion, quoted proverbs, cited supposed historical parallels, told jokes, and made, or at least began to make, political speeches. He insisted on calling a long list of witnesses who could offer no factual evidence but seemed to be there mainly to demonstrate that he, Milosevic, was a man with many connections. Yet, even so, Jancic wrote, "In my eyes the court represented victory over nihilism. Here was something that would not allow things to be forgotten or crimes to go unpunished."
Milosevic's determined filibustering drew out the trial month after month, and some may fancifully see his death, natural or otherwise, as a kind of triumphal last manoeuvre. Yet Milosevic's behaviour in court was of a piece with his political career as a whole. Tactically shrewd, strategically inept and morally void, he went down the road to war without ever really considering why he was doing so, what the human costs would be, and whether there was any real chance of building an enlarged Serbia on the ruins of the Yugoslav federation. His own commitment to the Greater Serbia idea was lukewarm. It was a vehicle useful to him rather than a vision he served. Other Serbian leaders and intellectuals were genuine believers in that project, which does not excuse, but goes some way to explain, the crimes for which they were responsible.
But, for Milosevic, all that mattered, it seemed, was to stay on top and to stay ahead of the game. Because he was wily and sharp, he time and again escaped the consequences of his miscalculations, aided in this by western leaders so fearful of involvement in the Balkans that they allowed themselves to be taken in by his apparent rationality, his charm and his quickness of mind. A judicious assessment of the situation in the former Yugoslavia should have led to a much earlier understanding of the fact that Milosevic and Serbia were bound to be losers in the end, given the potential strength of Croatia and Bosnia. Even when the military balance began to shift against Serbia, western countries continued to deal with Milosevic, giving him a major role in the flawed Bosnian settlement, and opening the way towards the final tragedy of the Kosovo war. It was only then that the scales really fell from western eyes.
Milosevic's legacy will nevertheless be the opposite of what he would have wished for. His actions helped establish the idea of liberal intervention that emerged in the 90s after the first Iraq war and in response to the Rwandan massacres and the Balkan conflicts. Assuming a right to violently intervene in the affairs of Serbia's neighbours, he ended by provoking a series of interventions against Serbia that established the principle that neither sovereignty nor specious arguments about civil war can protect a leader or a regime guilty of crimes against its own and neighbouring peoples. Expecting that he himself would escape punishment, and indeed would remain in power even if Serbia were defeated, he found himself ejected from office and handed over to a new kind of international court. The trials of others, including Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, seem likely, sooner or later, to follow, unless they cheat justice by taking their own lives. But whatever happens in their cases, the ending of the culture of impunity owes much to Slobodan Milosevic.
Monday March 13, 2006
The Guardian
When the Bosnian journalist Mirna Jancic went to The Hague to report on the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, she was repelled by the way in which the defendant, not infrequently, managed to turn the proceedings into a soap opera with himself as leading man. In the blandly modern courtroom, which reminded her of the command deck of Starship Enterprise, Milosevic, conducting his own defence, rudely questioned the veracity of prosecution witnesses who had lost family and friends in the wars that he had instigated. In spite of reproofs from the court, he rambled on in self-important fashion, quoted proverbs, cited supposed historical parallels, told jokes, and made, or at least began to make, political speeches. He insisted on calling a long list of witnesses who could offer no factual evidence but seemed to be there mainly to demonstrate that he, Milosevic, was a man with many connections. Yet, even so, Jancic wrote, "In my eyes the court represented victory over nihilism. Here was something that would not allow things to be forgotten or crimes to go unpunished."
Milosevic's determined filibustering drew out the trial month after month, and some may fancifully see his death, natural or otherwise, as a kind of triumphal last manoeuvre. Yet Milosevic's behaviour in court was of a piece with his political career as a whole. Tactically shrewd, strategically inept and morally void, he went down the road to war without ever really considering why he was doing so, what the human costs would be, and whether there was any real chance of building an enlarged Serbia on the ruins of the Yugoslav federation. His own commitment to the Greater Serbia idea was lukewarm. It was a vehicle useful to him rather than a vision he served. Other Serbian leaders and intellectuals were genuine believers in that project, which does not excuse, but goes some way to explain, the crimes for which they were responsible.
But, for Milosevic, all that mattered, it seemed, was to stay on top and to stay ahead of the game. Because he was wily and sharp, he time and again escaped the consequences of his miscalculations, aided in this by western leaders so fearful of involvement in the Balkans that they allowed themselves to be taken in by his apparent rationality, his charm and his quickness of mind. A judicious assessment of the situation in the former Yugoslavia should have led to a much earlier understanding of the fact that Milosevic and Serbia were bound to be losers in the end, given the potential strength of Croatia and Bosnia. Even when the military balance began to shift against Serbia, western countries continued to deal with Milosevic, giving him a major role in the flawed Bosnian settlement, and opening the way towards the final tragedy of the Kosovo war. It was only then that the scales really fell from western eyes.
Milosevic's legacy will nevertheless be the opposite of what he would have wished for. His actions helped establish the idea of liberal intervention that emerged in the 90s after the first Iraq war and in response to the Rwandan massacres and the Balkan conflicts. Assuming a right to violently intervene in the affairs of Serbia's neighbours, he ended by provoking a series of interventions against Serbia that established the principle that neither sovereignty nor specious arguments about civil war can protect a leader or a regime guilty of crimes against its own and neighbouring peoples. Expecting that he himself would escape punishment, and indeed would remain in power even if Serbia were defeated, he found himself ejected from office and handed over to a new kind of international court. The trials of others, including Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, seem likely, sooner or later, to follow, unless they cheat justice by taking their own lives. But whatever happens in their cases, the ending of the culture of impunity owes much to Slobodan Milosevic.
'Serbians will use this to revive their sense of victimhood'
Jonathan Steele
Monday March 13, 2006
The Guardian
In Kosovo, the scene of Slobodan Milosevic's most recent atrocities, Albanians reacted yesterday with anger and annoyance to the former leader's death.
Many felt cheated of justice, while local politicians feared Serbia was slipping back into the past as Kosovo's rulers are negotiating with Belgrade over their demand for independence, the clash which led to Milosevic's campaign of ethnic cleansing in 1998.
"It's definitely bad news. Everybody here was expecting his conviction and hoping it would open a new page for all who suffered," Blerim Shala, editor of the newspaper Zeri and senior adviser to the Kosovan delegation negotiating with Belgrade told the Guardian.
"It's a setback for the talks with Belgrade. It will be harder for Serbian society to look itself in the mirror. Serbian leaders are using this event to launch a counterattack and revive their sense of victimhood. I was astonished at seeing Serbian TV stations' coverage of his death. There's less support for reform in Serbia now than when [Milosevic] was arrested five years ago. Serbia's president, Boris Tadic, was the first to send condolences to Milosevic's family. Serbian leaders are afraid of each other, of their citizens, of their past and their future. How can one expect them to move forward ..."
Veton Surroi, a newspaper publisher and party leader who testified against Milosevic at the Hague tribunal, said he regretted the former Yugoslav president did not live longer. "I wish he lived 100 years and spent all those years in prison living with the memory of all the victims caused by his wars," he said.
In Bosnia, groups representing the mothers and widows of the 8,000 Muslims massacred in Srebrenica regretted his death meant he would never face justice. But there was relief that the man who encouraged Bosnia's Serbs to launch a war was dead. "Finally, we have some reason to smile; God is fair," said Hajra Catic, who heads an association of widows.
Sulejman Tihic, the chairman of Bosnia-Herzegovina's presidency, said the best punishment for Milosevic would have been a sentence from the UN court. "Because of the victims, and for truth and justice I regret that the trial at the UN tribunal has not been concluded," he said.
Monday March 13, 2006
The Guardian
In Kosovo, the scene of Slobodan Milosevic's most recent atrocities, Albanians reacted yesterday with anger and annoyance to the former leader's death.
Many felt cheated of justice, while local politicians feared Serbia was slipping back into the past as Kosovo's rulers are negotiating with Belgrade over their demand for independence, the clash which led to Milosevic's campaign of ethnic cleansing in 1998.
"It's definitely bad news. Everybody here was expecting his conviction and hoping it would open a new page for all who suffered," Blerim Shala, editor of the newspaper Zeri and senior adviser to the Kosovan delegation negotiating with Belgrade told the Guardian.
"It's a setback for the talks with Belgrade. It will be harder for Serbian society to look itself in the mirror. Serbian leaders are using this event to launch a counterattack and revive their sense of victimhood. I was astonished at seeing Serbian TV stations' coverage of his death. There's less support for reform in Serbia now than when [Milosevic] was arrested five years ago. Serbia's president, Boris Tadic, was the first to send condolences to Milosevic's family. Serbian leaders are afraid of each other, of their citizens, of their past and their future. How can one expect them to move forward ..."
Veton Surroi, a newspaper publisher and party leader who testified against Milosevic at the Hague tribunal, said he regretted the former Yugoslav president did not live longer. "I wish he lived 100 years and spent all those years in prison living with the memory of all the victims caused by his wars," he said.
In Bosnia, groups representing the mothers and widows of the 8,000 Muslims massacred in Srebrenica regretted his death meant he would never face justice. But there was relief that the man who encouraged Bosnia's Serbs to launch a war was dead. "Finally, we have some reason to smile; God is fair," said Hajra Catic, who heads an association of widows.
Sulejman Tihic, the chairman of Bosnia-Herzegovina's presidency, said the best punishment for Milosevic would have been a sentence from the UN court. "Because of the victims, and for truth and justice I regret that the trial at the UN tribunal has not been concluded," he said.
A Petty Hitler
By Wesley K. Clark
March 13, 2006; Page A18
The Wall Street Journal
Slobodan Milosevic's death in The Hague is a real tragedy for the international community. But most of all it will be a tragedy for the Serbs themselves. It will likely be another step in a series of historic Serb failures, martyrdom and isolation, all of which Milosevic himself grandly evoked to gain and maintain his power. I knew him as a nationalist leader and wartime adversary.
Along with the other Americans on Richard Holbrooke's 1995 Balkan peace talks mission, I spent countless hours with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. As NATO's then supreme allied commander, Europe, I haggled with Milosevic about war criminals and the Dayton Peace Agreement implementation in 1997, delivered NATO's warnings and threat in 1998, implored his cooperation in heading off renewed conflict, and then, when all else failed, I led the NATO military campaign which forced him to end ethnic cleansing and remove his troops and police from Kosovo. In 2003, I faced him again when I testified for the prosecution in his war crimes trial at The Hague.
While his death at The Hague ends his interminable trial, nothing is resolved. His death only compounds many of the difficult issues still facing the international community, Europe and Serbia itself.
In his 64 years, Milosevic was an army officer, a Communist, a bureaucrat, a banker and, above all, a Yugoslav Serb who used his skills and harsh nationalist rhetoric to parlay himself into the highest office in Yugoslavia only to then alienate and attack his fellow Yugoslav citizens. In four successive conflicts which he all lost, Milosevic used war as a means of plundering and disassembling his own country. He forced millions from their homes and caused several hundred thousands of deaths. He was rational and sometimes cunning, often a brilliant tactical negotiator but ultimately a fool of a strategist, whose reckless crimes included murder and genocide, and who has cost humanity as a whole and his own Serbs dearly.
* * *
As a young man Milosevic was a dutiful communist and an outstanding student who scored top marks in school. His mother was a teacher who encouraged his studies but kept him away from sports. He fell in love with Mira Markovic, a personal favorite of Tito, who lost her mother during World War II in still unresolved circumstances. Her partisan mother was captured by the Nazis who interrogated, tortured, confessed and then supposedly killed her. More likely she was released only to be killed as a collaborator by fellow partisans. Milosevic himself lost both his parents and an uncle to suicide. But though he clearly had a dark side, I never saw Milosevic as a suicide risk -- he was too committed to himself and to his ideas.
During the many hours of our negotiations in the summer and autumn of 1995, we dined with him, chatted with him about history and geopolitics, and talked about everything from his experiences as a young man in America to his concerns for his family. Given his gruff, commanding manner, many joked during the Dayton peace talks that he was the real Godfather. But we quickly came to think of him more appropriately as a petty Hitler, an unlawful dictator capable of malice, murder and ethnic cleansing. Any arrangement with him had to be weighed morally: for its legitimization of Milosevic as well as its value in ending a bloody conflict.
During the Dayton peace talks, all of Milosevic's "qualities" were at display: his stubborn cunning and blustering outbursts, his often grandiose dreams of Serbia as one of the seven gateways of Europe, his patent disloyalty to his fellow Serbs and transparent lies about everything from Srebrenica to his attitudes toward other nations. He smoked and drank excessively, even as he complained about his blood pressure and his health. At the Paris signature ceremony for the Dayton negotiations, Milosevic was center stage, conversing with world leaders like President Bill Clinton. But he failed to deliver on many of his promises, especially regarding indicted war criminals like former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic. By the late summer of 1997, Serb resistance to NATO-led enforcement of the peace accords was rising and we called again on Milosevic for help. But he stubbornly refused to assist us. He still held dreams of a greater Serbia and he thought he had NATO's measure.
In the spring of 1998 he unleashed the next round of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, this time turning his Special Police against a prominent Albanian family in Kosovo, killing 60 of them, including women and children. For most of that year NATO struggled to find a balanced approach, alternating negotiations with intensifying threats to head off another war in former Yugoslavia. But Milosevic foolishly believed he could defy NATO warnings and launch a broad ethnic cleansing effort with impunity.
It was another strategic miscalculation by Milosevic. NATO followed through in its threats, unleashing a 78-day, gradually intensifying air campaign and threatened ground intervention. Coupled with Russian diplomatic assistance and his indictment for war crimes, Milosevic was forced to pull his forces out of Kosovo. It was yet another blow to his vision of a greater Serbia. When he tried the next year to win re-election, his opponents in Belgrade were ready -- demanding an honest vote and his resignation. Soon he was delivered to The Hague.
Predictably, his cause of death is being disputed by some of his Serb countrymen who blame the U.N. He will surely be lionized and glorified by the radical nationalists he so nurtured.
History's longest war crimes trial will never be concluded. Milosevic's many victims and their families will be denied justice. And the Serb people themselves will have one more escape from the awful truth of the crimes under Milosevic's leadership. His death comes at a bad time.
Serbia is struggling to acknowledge its past and face its future.
Indicted war criminals like Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic are still at large -- most likely living under official protection. The future status of Kosovo is unresolved and Serb participation in a resolution would be helpful. Another challenge will be Montenegro's upcoming referendum on its independence. And even as Serbia looks westward for help, its future alignment is still unsettled as the Serb people struggle to recognize how badly they have been deceived and misled.
Even during Milosevic's rule, many in Serbia yearned to join the EU and work with NATO. Its economic modernization would strengthen all its neighbors, including NATO members Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. Its participation as a modern state would help promote political reconciliation and development throughout the Balkans. But all this means giving up the kind of hypernationalism that Milosevic trumpeted and fanned, and for many in Serbia, this has long been a mythology they have come to believe to offset the reality of deprivations, corruption and poverty.
Milosevic's death will likely bury the truth beneath another layer of charges and countercharges. His trial had been a long-running national TV drama in Serbia. The impact there of the evidence so painstakingly presented was blunted by Milosevic's star status at home and his grandiloquent and often irrelevant argumentation.
Now there will be no conviction and Serbia's weak leaders will have to cope with yet another obstacle in re-educating and reorienting their people. His death is as much a tragedy as his life. Both in life and in death, Milosevic has deprived millions of people of justice, hope and a better future.
Mr. Clark was supreme allied commander of NATO during the 1999 Kosovo campaign and a Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency in 2004.
March 13, 2006; Page A18
The Wall Street Journal
Slobodan Milosevic's death in The Hague is a real tragedy for the international community. But most of all it will be a tragedy for the Serbs themselves. It will likely be another step in a series of historic Serb failures, martyrdom and isolation, all of which Milosevic himself grandly evoked to gain and maintain his power. I knew him as a nationalist leader and wartime adversary.
Along with the other Americans on Richard Holbrooke's 1995 Balkan peace talks mission, I spent countless hours with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. As NATO's then supreme allied commander, Europe, I haggled with Milosevic about war criminals and the Dayton Peace Agreement implementation in 1997, delivered NATO's warnings and threat in 1998, implored his cooperation in heading off renewed conflict, and then, when all else failed, I led the NATO military campaign which forced him to end ethnic cleansing and remove his troops and police from Kosovo. In 2003, I faced him again when I testified for the prosecution in his war crimes trial at The Hague.
While his death at The Hague ends his interminable trial, nothing is resolved. His death only compounds many of the difficult issues still facing the international community, Europe and Serbia itself.
In his 64 years, Milosevic was an army officer, a Communist, a bureaucrat, a banker and, above all, a Yugoslav Serb who used his skills and harsh nationalist rhetoric to parlay himself into the highest office in Yugoslavia only to then alienate and attack his fellow Yugoslav citizens. In four successive conflicts which he all lost, Milosevic used war as a means of plundering and disassembling his own country. He forced millions from their homes and caused several hundred thousands of deaths. He was rational and sometimes cunning, often a brilliant tactical negotiator but ultimately a fool of a strategist, whose reckless crimes included murder and genocide, and who has cost humanity as a whole and his own Serbs dearly.
* * *
As a young man Milosevic was a dutiful communist and an outstanding student who scored top marks in school. His mother was a teacher who encouraged his studies but kept him away from sports. He fell in love with Mira Markovic, a personal favorite of Tito, who lost her mother during World War II in still unresolved circumstances. Her partisan mother was captured by the Nazis who interrogated, tortured, confessed and then supposedly killed her. More likely she was released only to be killed as a collaborator by fellow partisans. Milosevic himself lost both his parents and an uncle to suicide. But though he clearly had a dark side, I never saw Milosevic as a suicide risk -- he was too committed to himself and to his ideas.
During the many hours of our negotiations in the summer and autumn of 1995, we dined with him, chatted with him about history and geopolitics, and talked about everything from his experiences as a young man in America to his concerns for his family. Given his gruff, commanding manner, many joked during the Dayton peace talks that he was the real Godfather. But we quickly came to think of him more appropriately as a petty Hitler, an unlawful dictator capable of malice, murder and ethnic cleansing. Any arrangement with him had to be weighed morally: for its legitimization of Milosevic as well as its value in ending a bloody conflict.
During the Dayton peace talks, all of Milosevic's "qualities" were at display: his stubborn cunning and blustering outbursts, his often grandiose dreams of Serbia as one of the seven gateways of Europe, his patent disloyalty to his fellow Serbs and transparent lies about everything from Srebrenica to his attitudes toward other nations. He smoked and drank excessively, even as he complained about his blood pressure and his health. At the Paris signature ceremony for the Dayton negotiations, Milosevic was center stage, conversing with world leaders like President Bill Clinton. But he failed to deliver on many of his promises, especially regarding indicted war criminals like former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic. By the late summer of 1997, Serb resistance to NATO-led enforcement of the peace accords was rising and we called again on Milosevic for help. But he stubbornly refused to assist us. He still held dreams of a greater Serbia and he thought he had NATO's measure.
In the spring of 1998 he unleashed the next round of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, this time turning his Special Police against a prominent Albanian family in Kosovo, killing 60 of them, including women and children. For most of that year NATO struggled to find a balanced approach, alternating negotiations with intensifying threats to head off another war in former Yugoslavia. But Milosevic foolishly believed he could defy NATO warnings and launch a broad ethnic cleansing effort with impunity.
It was another strategic miscalculation by Milosevic. NATO followed through in its threats, unleashing a 78-day, gradually intensifying air campaign and threatened ground intervention. Coupled with Russian diplomatic assistance and his indictment for war crimes, Milosevic was forced to pull his forces out of Kosovo. It was yet another blow to his vision of a greater Serbia. When he tried the next year to win re-election, his opponents in Belgrade were ready -- demanding an honest vote and his resignation. Soon he was delivered to The Hague.
Predictably, his cause of death is being disputed by some of his Serb countrymen who blame the U.N. He will surely be lionized and glorified by the radical nationalists he so nurtured.
History's longest war crimes trial will never be concluded. Milosevic's many victims and their families will be denied justice. And the Serb people themselves will have one more escape from the awful truth of the crimes under Milosevic's leadership. His death comes at a bad time.
Serbia is struggling to acknowledge its past and face its future.
Indicted war criminals like Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic are still at large -- most likely living under official protection. The future status of Kosovo is unresolved and Serb participation in a resolution would be helpful. Another challenge will be Montenegro's upcoming referendum on its independence. And even as Serbia looks westward for help, its future alignment is still unsettled as the Serb people struggle to recognize how badly they have been deceived and misled.
Even during Milosevic's rule, many in Serbia yearned to join the EU and work with NATO. Its economic modernization would strengthen all its neighbors, including NATO members Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. Its participation as a modern state would help promote political reconciliation and development throughout the Balkans. But all this means giving up the kind of hypernationalism that Milosevic trumpeted and fanned, and for many in Serbia, this has long been a mythology they have come to believe to offset the reality of deprivations, corruption and poverty.
Milosevic's death will likely bury the truth beneath another layer of charges and countercharges. His trial had been a long-running national TV drama in Serbia. The impact there of the evidence so painstakingly presented was blunted by Milosevic's star status at home and his grandiloquent and often irrelevant argumentation.
Now there will be no conviction and Serbia's weak leaders will have to cope with yet another obstacle in re-educating and reorienting their people. His death is as much a tragedy as his life. Both in life and in death, Milosevic has deprived millions of people of justice, hope and a better future.
Mr. Clark was supreme allied commander of NATO during the 1999 Kosovo campaign and a Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency in 2004.
Taleban 'kills foreign hostages'
The Taleban says it has killed four foreigners kidnapped at the weekend in southern Afghanistan.
A spokesman for the group, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, said the bodies of three Albanians and a German had been dumped "between Helmand and Kandahar".
The authorities have not confirmed the claim. The company the four foreigners worked for says they were all Albanian.
Four Afghan nationals seized at gunpoint along with the foreigners were freed on Monday.
There have been several incidents in recent months involving the kidnapping of foreigners in Afghanistan.
A spokesman for the group, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, said the bodies of three Albanians and a German had been dumped "between Helmand and Kandahar".
The authorities have not confirmed the claim. The company the four foreigners worked for says they were all Albanian.
Four Afghan nationals seized at gunpoint along with the foreigners were freed on Monday.
There have been several incidents in recent months involving the kidnapping of foreigners in Afghanistan.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Anger, tears as Milosevic's Kosovo victims regret his death without punishment
FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer
March 12, 2006 2:23 PM
DJAKOVICA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Slobodan Milosevic's forces robbed Ferdone Qerkezi of her husband and sons, spawning a desire for justice that was not extinguished by his death.
Qerkezi last saw her male relatives alive in 1999, when Serb policemen took them from a basement hide-out during Milosevic's campaign to rid the province of ethnic Albanian separatists.
''He should have been dragged through streets of towns and thrown into a bottomless pit so no one could ever find him,'' said the 52-year-old Qerkezi. ''For what he has done to us, there is no punishment on earth that befits him.''
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians did not mourn Milosevic Sunday, and many were disappointed by his death a day earlier, feeling the former Yugoslav president escaped justice before a verdict in his war crimes trial at the U.N. tribunal in The Hague.
''He has drained the blood out of my family,'' Qerkezi said. ''He could never have suffered the way I do.''
Her house in the western town of Djakovica is now a shrine to those who do not live there any more; her husband and four sons - the youngest aged 14, the eldest 23. She wears the golden wedding rings of two of her sons' widows, who moved away after they realized their husbands would never come back.
Her life in ruins, Qerkezi wavers between sorrow and rage at the thought of Milosevic dying peacefully.
''No matter his death, he should be sentenced,'' Qerkezi said, waving her hands uncontrollably, her eyes reddened. ''His family should not be able to see him even dead in the next 500 years.''
Her brother-in-law Kasim Qerkezi's 18-year-old son, Vegim, was taken by Serb police on the same date - March 27, 1999 - days after NATO started its aerial bombardment of Milosevic's forces in an attempt to stop the crackdown. Kasim Qerkezi was equally bitter about Milosevic's death.
''He was like a snake that always slips away,'' he said. ''He died without paying back a fraction of what he owed to all of us.''
It was in Kosovo that Milosevic shot to prominence, whipping up Serbs' nationalist fervor with a 1989 speech in Kosovo Polje, near Pristina, where Ottoman forces defeated a Christian army led by Serbian Prince Lazar in 1389.
And it was for alleged crimes committed during his crackdown on ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo that Milosevic was first indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in 1999.
The tribunal eventually charged the former president with 66 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s. He was extradited to the U.N.-court in June 2001.
In Kosovo, the prosecution accused him of direct responsibility for crimes including the deportation of 800,000 Kosovo Albanians and the murders of about 600 individually identified ethnic Albanians.
For more than six years, Qerkezi' searched in vain for her husband and four sons. Then, in August 2005, officials told her they had found the bones of her youngest son, Edmond, and her oldest, Artan, in a mass grave.
Today the two are buried in a hillside graveyard overlooking the town of Djakovica, along with 86 residents killed during the war. Qerkezi's husband, Hilmi, and two other sons - Armend, 22, and Ardian, 18 - were never found.
AP-WS-03-12-06 1722EST
March 12, 2006 2:23 PM
DJAKOVICA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Slobodan Milosevic's forces robbed Ferdone Qerkezi of her husband and sons, spawning a desire for justice that was not extinguished by his death.
Qerkezi last saw her male relatives alive in 1999, when Serb policemen took them from a basement hide-out during Milosevic's campaign to rid the province of ethnic Albanian separatists.
''He should have been dragged through streets of towns and thrown into a bottomless pit so no one could ever find him,'' said the 52-year-old Qerkezi. ''For what he has done to us, there is no punishment on earth that befits him.''
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians did not mourn Milosevic Sunday, and many were disappointed by his death a day earlier, feeling the former Yugoslav president escaped justice before a verdict in his war crimes trial at the U.N. tribunal in The Hague.
''He has drained the blood out of my family,'' Qerkezi said. ''He could never have suffered the way I do.''
Her house in the western town of Djakovica is now a shrine to those who do not live there any more; her husband and four sons - the youngest aged 14, the eldest 23. She wears the golden wedding rings of two of her sons' widows, who moved away after they realized their husbands would never come back.
Her life in ruins, Qerkezi wavers between sorrow and rage at the thought of Milosevic dying peacefully.
''No matter his death, he should be sentenced,'' Qerkezi said, waving her hands uncontrollably, her eyes reddened. ''His family should not be able to see him even dead in the next 500 years.''
Her brother-in-law Kasim Qerkezi's 18-year-old son, Vegim, was taken by Serb police on the same date - March 27, 1999 - days after NATO started its aerial bombardment of Milosevic's forces in an attempt to stop the crackdown. Kasim Qerkezi was equally bitter about Milosevic's death.
''He was like a snake that always slips away,'' he said. ''He died without paying back a fraction of what he owed to all of us.''
It was in Kosovo that Milosevic shot to prominence, whipping up Serbs' nationalist fervor with a 1989 speech in Kosovo Polje, near Pristina, where Ottoman forces defeated a Christian army led by Serbian Prince Lazar in 1389.
And it was for alleged crimes committed during his crackdown on ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo that Milosevic was first indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in 1999.
The tribunal eventually charged the former president with 66 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s. He was extradited to the U.N.-court in June 2001.
In Kosovo, the prosecution accused him of direct responsibility for crimes including the deportation of 800,000 Kosovo Albanians and the murders of about 600 individually identified ethnic Albanians.
For more than six years, Qerkezi' searched in vain for her husband and four sons. Then, in August 2005, officials told her they had found the bones of her youngest son, Edmond, and her oldest, Artan, in a mass grave.
Today the two are buried in a hillside graveyard overlooking the town of Djakovica, along with 86 residents killed during the war. Qerkezi's husband, Hilmi, and two other sons - Armend, 22, and Ardian, 18 - were never found.
AP-WS-03-12-06 1722EST
Milosevic 'died of heart attack'
Preliminary results from the autopsy conducted on Slobodan Milosevic indicate he died of a heart attack, sources at The Hague tribunal say.
Official results from the examination are expected within an hour.
The former Yugoslav President was found dead on Saturday in the Netherlands, where he was on trial for war crimes.
Mr Milosevic's lawyer said that the day before he died, he had complained he was being poisoned. Some have also suggested he may have killed himself.
Official results from the examination are expected within an hour.
The former Yugoslav President was found dead on Saturday in the Netherlands, where he was on trial for war crimes.
Mr Milosevic's lawyer said that the day before he died, he had complained he was being poisoned. Some have also suggested he may have killed himself.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
From Balkan tyranny to a lonely cell by Tim Judah
Tens of thousands were slaughtered and millions of lives were ruined as a petty official with a glint in his eye brought genocide back to Europe. Tim Judah recounts the reign and downfall of the Butcher of the Balkans
Tim Judah
Sunday March 12, 2006
Observer
He came, said a young Serbian monk who was there, like 'an antique god'. A million Serbs had come to hear their leader at Kosovo Field, to mark their defeat at the hands of the Turks 600 years before. Milosevic got out of the helicopter and mounted the podium. 'Once,' he said 'we were brave and dignified.' Now, 'six centuries later, again we are in battles and quarrels. They are not armed battles, though such things should not be excluded.'
One thing people did understand. A phoenix was rising, the phoenix of Serbian nationalism. But even then, so late in the day, few were to understand that Milosevic meant war and the end of everything they knew. A few months later Milosevic warned again, to a vast crowd in Belgrade: 'We shall win ... regardless of the obstacles facing us inside and outside the country. We shall win despite the fact that Serbia's enemies outside the country are plotting against it, along with those in the country. We tell them that we enter every battle ... with the aim of winning it.'
Whatever else people in the former Yugoslavia may disagree upon, few would argue that these speeches were a turning point beyond which there was no return. Curiously, obvious though that may seem today, relatively few realised at the time, or could bring themselves to understand that these were declarations of war, which would end in the destruction of their country, the deaths of tens of thousands and the ruin of millions.
Who would have believed that this man would rise so far and destroy so much? Born in provincial Pozarevac in 1941 he was the second son of recent Montenegrin immigrants. His father had trained for the priesthood but, after the war, abandoned his family and committed suicide in 1962. Milosevic and his brother were brought up by their strait-laced communist school teacher mother Stanislava, who in 1972 was also to take her own life.
Slavoljub Djukic, Milosevic's unofficial biographer, says the young Slobodan was 'untypical'. He was 'not interested in sports, avoided excursions and used to come to school dressed in the old fashioned way - white shirt and tie'. He 'preached' to his schoolmates and, as one of his old friends said, he could 'imagine him as a station-master or punctilious civil servant'.
And indeed that is exactly what he might have become had he not fallen in love and married Mirjana Markovic, his school sweetheart, and the woman widely believed to have been the driving force behind him. Related to the communist aristocracy of Tito's Yugoslavia, Mira, as she was known, pushed her Slobodan. She once said she could imagine him as leader of Yugoslavia, as the new Tito. In another time, she might have had her way. If she was, as she is so often painted, the Lady Macbeth of the piece, then it was her, or their, vaulting ambition, which was to end in so much blood and tragedy.
At university and beyond Milosevic did well. He worked for various firms and as befitted the times was a communist party member and apparatchik. By 1986 Milosevic was head of Serbia's Central Committee but still, despite the power that this implied, he had not yet really been noticed. He was, for most people just another boring official.
It was Kosovo that was to give him his chance. An autonomous province of Serbia, its majority Albanian population were restive. But Kosovo's minority Serbs felt harassed and discriminated against. Milosevic seized his chance. He betrayed his friends who had sent him to calm fears and, sensing that communism was on the wane, played the nationalist card. He became their champion. In so doing Milosevic became a changed character. It was as though he had come to life, a man now ruthless and determined, a man sensing real power was within his grasp.
At home with Mira he plotted the downfall of his enemies. Conspiring with the director of Serbian television he mounted a modern media campaign which soon gave him full power not just in Serbia but soon in Vojvodina in the north of Serbia, in Montenegro and then in Kosovo whose autonomy he was to abolish. By now his eyes were firmly set on the greatest prize of all. He would be master of all Yugoslavia.
It is often thought that Milosevic was a nationalist. He was not and his speeches are not particularly infused with the language of nationalism. It was power he wanted. Once he had crushed the Kosovo Albanians and brought the Montenegrins into line, it was inevitable that others in Yugoslavia would not want to follow him. He wanted power but he had let the evil genie out of the bottle. As it became clear that Milosevic wanted all Yugoslavia for himself, Croats and Slovenes decided to leave. Each, as they said, would now be master in their own house.
So, now, by 1990 Milosevic changed tack. If Slovenes and Croats wanted to leave Yugoslavia they could so, so long as they did not take areas inhabited by Serbs with them. Above all this applied to Croatia and to Bosnia. As Milosevic was to threaten, Serbs might not be good at business, but they 'knew how to fight'.
Evil times were to follow. On the one hand Milosevic and his old friend and enemy, Franjo Tudjman, the president of Croatia, fought, but at the same time they met, they talked and plotted the division of Bosnia.
Milosevic armed the Serbs in Croatia and then the Bosnian Serbs. Backed by the Yugoslav army, Croatian Serbs launched the war. Their idea was literally to 'amputate' as much as a third of Croatia and annexe it to what would one day be a greater Serbia. By the end of 1991 they and Milosevic had carved out a Serbian statelet in Croatia and now he wanted to do the same in Bosnia. But, in a way, Bosnia was his downfall. He never expected Bosnia's Muslims to fight. Serbian forces quickly seized 70 per cent of Bosnia. But this part of the war was easy. Bosnia's Muslims and Croats were mostly unarmed.
Throughout the summer of 1992 euphoric Serbian forces looted and burned their way across the country, driving before them hundreds of thousands of non-Serbs. It would soon be over, they thought. But Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, stubbornly refused to fall and within months the brutality of the seige and prison camps such as Omarska turned the world against them. The war was to drag on till 1995. With the Americans helping the Croats and arms arriving in ever greater quantities to support the Bosnian Muslims, the tide turned. With all sides exhausted, Bosnian Serb lines being breached and Nato bombing of Bosnian Serb positions, Milosevic, in the unlikely setting of a US airforce base in Dayton, Ohio, agreed to peace.
Now he had enemies to fight at home. Stealing local elections in Serbia he had to face down hundreds of thousands of angry Serbs. But he survived. Then came the Kosovo war. Now, perhaps, he could rid this land, which the Serbs considered the cradle of their history, of the Albanians who now make up more than 90 per cent of its population. But after the massacre of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica in Bosnia 1995 Nato acted, and following 78 days of bombing they drove his forces out in 1999. Eighteen months later he was to fall, much to the joy of millions of his people. Soon after this, Serbia's new government, led by Zoran Djindjic, arrested him and in 2001 on the fateful anniversary of the 1389 battle of Kosovo sent him to face justice at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in the Hague.
Milosevic was a pied piper who started wars but did not win them. In the dock he has repeated that he was defending his people against a diabolical plot. To those of us who remember the joy with which his men whooped as they fired down on Sarajevo or grimly did their business 'cleansing' Muslims and Croats and Albanians, his defence was a travesty.
In 1990 Yugoslavia was a prosperous country about to sign an agreement with the EU. Now the vast majority of people who live in its successor states, are poorer than they were, and millions have seen their lives and dreams destroyed.
Soon, some of the characters that came to life with the pied piper's call, such as Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, may also come to trial at The Hague, but there will never be any escaping the fact that, killers though they may have been, Milosevic was the puppet master.
Recently a trial began in Belgrade of a man accused of murdering prisoners after the fall of Srebrenica. He said: 'It is certain that I am guilty before God, but whether I am guilty for executing my orders, it is up to you to assess.'
In this world at least, Milosevic has escaped his judgment.
· Tim Judah is the author of The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, and Kosovo: War and Revenge, both published by Yale University Press
Milosevic's career:
April 1987: Catapults to prominence with inflammatory speech in Kosovo to Serbs demanding protection from ethnic Albanian majority in province.
1989: Becomes President of Serbia, strips Kosovo of autonomy.
1992: UN-patrolled ceasefire in Croatia takes effect. Milosevic bankrolls Bosnian Serb rebellion.
1995: Agrees to settlement of Bosnian war at US-sponsored peace talks.
February 1998: Sends troops to crush new Albanian uprising in Kosovo.
October 1998: Nato allies authorise airstrikes against Serb military targets.
Oct 5, 1999: Ousted after huge mobs rampage through Belgrade.
April 1, 2001: Arrested following 26-hour stand-off with police.
June 28, 2001: Flown to The Hague to face trial on war crimes charges.
Tim Judah
Sunday March 12, 2006
Observer
He came, said a young Serbian monk who was there, like 'an antique god'. A million Serbs had come to hear their leader at Kosovo Field, to mark their defeat at the hands of the Turks 600 years before. Milosevic got out of the helicopter and mounted the podium. 'Once,' he said 'we were brave and dignified.' Now, 'six centuries later, again we are in battles and quarrels. They are not armed battles, though such things should not be excluded.'
One thing people did understand. A phoenix was rising, the phoenix of Serbian nationalism. But even then, so late in the day, few were to understand that Milosevic meant war and the end of everything they knew. A few months later Milosevic warned again, to a vast crowd in Belgrade: 'We shall win ... regardless of the obstacles facing us inside and outside the country. We shall win despite the fact that Serbia's enemies outside the country are plotting against it, along with those in the country. We tell them that we enter every battle ... with the aim of winning it.'
Whatever else people in the former Yugoslavia may disagree upon, few would argue that these speeches were a turning point beyond which there was no return. Curiously, obvious though that may seem today, relatively few realised at the time, or could bring themselves to understand that these were declarations of war, which would end in the destruction of their country, the deaths of tens of thousands and the ruin of millions.
Who would have believed that this man would rise so far and destroy so much? Born in provincial Pozarevac in 1941 he was the second son of recent Montenegrin immigrants. His father had trained for the priesthood but, after the war, abandoned his family and committed suicide in 1962. Milosevic and his brother were brought up by their strait-laced communist school teacher mother Stanislava, who in 1972 was also to take her own life.
Slavoljub Djukic, Milosevic's unofficial biographer, says the young Slobodan was 'untypical'. He was 'not interested in sports, avoided excursions and used to come to school dressed in the old fashioned way - white shirt and tie'. He 'preached' to his schoolmates and, as one of his old friends said, he could 'imagine him as a station-master or punctilious civil servant'.
And indeed that is exactly what he might have become had he not fallen in love and married Mirjana Markovic, his school sweetheart, and the woman widely believed to have been the driving force behind him. Related to the communist aristocracy of Tito's Yugoslavia, Mira, as she was known, pushed her Slobodan. She once said she could imagine him as leader of Yugoslavia, as the new Tito. In another time, she might have had her way. If she was, as she is so often painted, the Lady Macbeth of the piece, then it was her, or their, vaulting ambition, which was to end in so much blood and tragedy.
At university and beyond Milosevic did well. He worked for various firms and as befitted the times was a communist party member and apparatchik. By 1986 Milosevic was head of Serbia's Central Committee but still, despite the power that this implied, he had not yet really been noticed. He was, for most people just another boring official.
It was Kosovo that was to give him his chance. An autonomous province of Serbia, its majority Albanian population were restive. But Kosovo's minority Serbs felt harassed and discriminated against. Milosevic seized his chance. He betrayed his friends who had sent him to calm fears and, sensing that communism was on the wane, played the nationalist card. He became their champion. In so doing Milosevic became a changed character. It was as though he had come to life, a man now ruthless and determined, a man sensing real power was within his grasp.
At home with Mira he plotted the downfall of his enemies. Conspiring with the director of Serbian television he mounted a modern media campaign which soon gave him full power not just in Serbia but soon in Vojvodina in the north of Serbia, in Montenegro and then in Kosovo whose autonomy he was to abolish. By now his eyes were firmly set on the greatest prize of all. He would be master of all Yugoslavia.
It is often thought that Milosevic was a nationalist. He was not and his speeches are not particularly infused with the language of nationalism. It was power he wanted. Once he had crushed the Kosovo Albanians and brought the Montenegrins into line, it was inevitable that others in Yugoslavia would not want to follow him. He wanted power but he had let the evil genie out of the bottle. As it became clear that Milosevic wanted all Yugoslavia for himself, Croats and Slovenes decided to leave. Each, as they said, would now be master in their own house.
So, now, by 1990 Milosevic changed tack. If Slovenes and Croats wanted to leave Yugoslavia they could so, so long as they did not take areas inhabited by Serbs with them. Above all this applied to Croatia and to Bosnia. As Milosevic was to threaten, Serbs might not be good at business, but they 'knew how to fight'.
Evil times were to follow. On the one hand Milosevic and his old friend and enemy, Franjo Tudjman, the president of Croatia, fought, but at the same time they met, they talked and plotted the division of Bosnia.
Milosevic armed the Serbs in Croatia and then the Bosnian Serbs. Backed by the Yugoslav army, Croatian Serbs launched the war. Their idea was literally to 'amputate' as much as a third of Croatia and annexe it to what would one day be a greater Serbia. By the end of 1991 they and Milosevic had carved out a Serbian statelet in Croatia and now he wanted to do the same in Bosnia. But, in a way, Bosnia was his downfall. He never expected Bosnia's Muslims to fight. Serbian forces quickly seized 70 per cent of Bosnia. But this part of the war was easy. Bosnia's Muslims and Croats were mostly unarmed.
Throughout the summer of 1992 euphoric Serbian forces looted and burned their way across the country, driving before them hundreds of thousands of non-Serbs. It would soon be over, they thought. But Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, stubbornly refused to fall and within months the brutality of the seige and prison camps such as Omarska turned the world against them. The war was to drag on till 1995. With the Americans helping the Croats and arms arriving in ever greater quantities to support the Bosnian Muslims, the tide turned. With all sides exhausted, Bosnian Serb lines being breached and Nato bombing of Bosnian Serb positions, Milosevic, in the unlikely setting of a US airforce base in Dayton, Ohio, agreed to peace.
Now he had enemies to fight at home. Stealing local elections in Serbia he had to face down hundreds of thousands of angry Serbs. But he survived. Then came the Kosovo war. Now, perhaps, he could rid this land, which the Serbs considered the cradle of their history, of the Albanians who now make up more than 90 per cent of its population. But after the massacre of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica in Bosnia 1995 Nato acted, and following 78 days of bombing they drove his forces out in 1999. Eighteen months later he was to fall, much to the joy of millions of his people. Soon after this, Serbia's new government, led by Zoran Djindjic, arrested him and in 2001 on the fateful anniversary of the 1389 battle of Kosovo sent him to face justice at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in the Hague.
Milosevic was a pied piper who started wars but did not win them. In the dock he has repeated that he was defending his people against a diabolical plot. To those of us who remember the joy with which his men whooped as they fired down on Sarajevo or grimly did their business 'cleansing' Muslims and Croats and Albanians, his defence was a travesty.
In 1990 Yugoslavia was a prosperous country about to sign an agreement with the EU. Now the vast majority of people who live in its successor states, are poorer than they were, and millions have seen their lives and dreams destroyed.
Soon, some of the characters that came to life with the pied piper's call, such as Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, may also come to trial at The Hague, but there will never be any escaping the fact that, killers though they may have been, Milosevic was the puppet master.
Recently a trial began in Belgrade of a man accused of murdering prisoners after the fall of Srebrenica. He said: 'It is certain that I am guilty before God, but whether I am guilty for executing my orders, it is up to you to assess.'
In this world at least, Milosevic has escaped his judgment.
· Tim Judah is the author of The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, and Kosovo: War and Revenge, both published by Yale University Press
Milosevic's career:
April 1987: Catapults to prominence with inflammatory speech in Kosovo to Serbs demanding protection from ethnic Albanian majority in province.
1989: Becomes President of Serbia, strips Kosovo of autonomy.
1992: UN-patrolled ceasefire in Croatia takes effect. Milosevic bankrolls Bosnian Serb rebellion.
1995: Agrees to settlement of Bosnian war at US-sponsored peace talks.
February 1998: Sends troops to crush new Albanian uprising in Kosovo.
October 1998: Nato allies authorise airstrikes against Serb military targets.
Oct 5, 1999: Ousted after huge mobs rampage through Belgrade.
April 1, 2001: Arrested following 26-hour stand-off with police.
June 28, 2001: Flown to The Hague to face trial on war crimes charges.
Taleban 'kidnap four Albanians'
Taleban militants have kidnapped four Albanians and their Afghan guards in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, a Taleban spokesman has said.
Qazi Yousuf, who claims to speak on behalf of the Taleban, told reporters that their fate would be decided by the Taleban's supreme leader Mullah Omar.
Afghan officials in Kandahar say they are investigating the claim.
There have been several incidents in recent months involving the kidnapping of foreigners in Afghanistan.
Qazi Yousuf, who claims to speak on behalf of the Taleban, told reporters that their fate would be decided by the Taleban's supreme leader Mullah Omar.
Afghan officials in Kandahar say they are investigating the claim.
There have been several incidents in recent months involving the kidnapping of foreigners in Afghanistan.
BREAKING NEWS: MILOSEVIC FOUND DEAD AT THE HAGUE
(CNN) -- Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has been found dead in his cell in The Hague, Netherlands where he was being tried on war cimes charges, according to the United Nations war crimes tribunal. He was 64.
An official in the chief prosecutor's office said Milosevic was found at about 10 a.m. Saturday and that he apparently had been dead for several hours. An autopsy will be performed, the official said.
Referring to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, his widow, Mirjana, told CNN: "The tribunal has killed my husband."
Reacting to the death, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said the many victims of the bloody Balkan wars should not be forgotten. (Watch the bloody story of the Balkans wars)
"With the death of Milosevic, one of the main actors if not the main actor in the Balkan wars of the late 20th century has left the scene.
"I would like to spare a thought for all those who suffered so much from ethnic cleansing, tens of thousands of men, women and children, which Milosevic conceived and planned."
The tribunal did not say how Milosevic had died but Douste-Blazy told reporters he died of natural causes.
"Milosevic was found lifeless on his bed in his cell at the United Nations detention unit," the U.N. tribunal said in a statement.
"The guard immediately alerted the detention unit officer in command and the medical officer. The latter confirmed that Slobodan Milosevic was dead."
The tribunal said Dutch police and coroners were called in and started an inquiry.
The former Serbian president had been on trial since 2002 on 66 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes during the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
He had been held at the Hague since 2001 when he was transferred from the Serbian capital Belgrade following his overthrow in 2000.
Milosevic had suffered a heart condition and high blood pressure which had repeatedly interrupted his trial in the Hague.
The tribunal had recently rejected Milosevic's request to travel to Russia for specialist medical treatment, CNN's Christiane Amanpour reported. Milosevic had said he would appeal against the decision, saying his health was worsening.
CNN's Brent Sadler, who reported on the bloody Balkans wars of the 1990s, said there would now likely be an adverse backlash in Serbia as it grapples with huge international pressure to hand over alleged war criminals Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.
"Much of Milosevic's trial was transmitted on Serbian and international television and people there haven't been allowed to forget their former president.
"Politicians and the people were already split over war crime suspects and it is going to make the issue of the handover of Mladic and Karadzic even more divisive," Sadler said.
Ethnic strife
Milosevic's war crimes trial at the Hague had just entered its fifth year when he died.
The long legal proceeding was in its defense phase when it began, a marathon proceeding covering 66 counts involving war crimes from the Balkan conflict in the 1990s.
The counts included his role in the fighting in the disputed Serbian province of Kosovo and the civil warfare in Bosnia and Croatia after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
That country, a non-Warsaw Pact communist nation composed of six separate republics, raged with ethnic strife as it broke apart during the fall of communism.
One of many Balkan war crimes suspects who have been brought to The Hague, Milosevic was the best-known symbol and the most politically powerful, and authorities had been attempting to prove that he backed or even authorized violence by Serb forces.
He faced charges of crimes against humanity, violations of the laws and customs of war, and genocide, an explosive charge emanating from the Bosnian conflict, in which tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims were killed or chased from their homes by Bosnian Serb forces.
In Srebrenica, about 8,000 males were killed, while Sarajevo was terrorized by a Bosnian-Serb-led siege.
He pleaded not guilty to all counts and faced life in prison.
Milosevic had repeatedly said he was not responsible for ordering killings and rapes and was defending the Serbian people against terror.
An official in the chief prosecutor's office said Milosevic was found at about 10 a.m. Saturday and that he apparently had been dead for several hours. An autopsy will be performed, the official said.
Referring to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, his widow, Mirjana, told CNN: "The tribunal has killed my husband."
Reacting to the death, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said the many victims of the bloody Balkan wars should not be forgotten. (Watch the bloody story of the Balkans wars)
"With the death of Milosevic, one of the main actors if not the main actor in the Balkan wars of the late 20th century has left the scene.
"I would like to spare a thought for all those who suffered so much from ethnic cleansing, tens of thousands of men, women and children, which Milosevic conceived and planned."
The tribunal did not say how Milosevic had died but Douste-Blazy told reporters he died of natural causes.
"Milosevic was found lifeless on his bed in his cell at the United Nations detention unit," the U.N. tribunal said in a statement.
"The guard immediately alerted the detention unit officer in command and the medical officer. The latter confirmed that Slobodan Milosevic was dead."
The tribunal said Dutch police and coroners were called in and started an inquiry.
The former Serbian president had been on trial since 2002 on 66 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes during the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
He had been held at the Hague since 2001 when he was transferred from the Serbian capital Belgrade following his overthrow in 2000.
Milosevic had suffered a heart condition and high blood pressure which had repeatedly interrupted his trial in the Hague.
The tribunal had recently rejected Milosevic's request to travel to Russia for specialist medical treatment, CNN's Christiane Amanpour reported. Milosevic had said he would appeal against the decision, saying his health was worsening.
CNN's Brent Sadler, who reported on the bloody Balkans wars of the 1990s, said there would now likely be an adverse backlash in Serbia as it grapples with huge international pressure to hand over alleged war criminals Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.
"Much of Milosevic's trial was transmitted on Serbian and international television and people there haven't been allowed to forget their former president.
"Politicians and the people were already split over war crime suspects and it is going to make the issue of the handover of Mladic and Karadzic even more divisive," Sadler said.
Ethnic strife
Milosevic's war crimes trial at the Hague had just entered its fifth year when he died.
The long legal proceeding was in its defense phase when it began, a marathon proceeding covering 66 counts involving war crimes from the Balkan conflict in the 1990s.
The counts included his role in the fighting in the disputed Serbian province of Kosovo and the civil warfare in Bosnia and Croatia after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
That country, a non-Warsaw Pact communist nation composed of six separate republics, raged with ethnic strife as it broke apart during the fall of communism.
One of many Balkan war crimes suspects who have been brought to The Hague, Milosevic was the best-known symbol and the most politically powerful, and authorities had been attempting to prove that he backed or even authorized violence by Serb forces.
He faced charges of crimes against humanity, violations of the laws and customs of war, and genocide, an explosive charge emanating from the Bosnian conflict, in which tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims were killed or chased from their homes by Bosnian Serb forces.
In Srebrenica, about 8,000 males were killed, while Sarajevo was terrorized by a Bosnian-Serb-led siege.
He pleaded not guilty to all counts and faced life in prison.
Milosevic had repeatedly said he was not responsible for ordering killings and rapes and was defending the Serbian people against terror.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Picture of the Day: Kosovo's New Prime Minister - Agim Ceku
Agim Ceku addresses the Kosovo Parliament after his election as Kosovo prime minister. "We want a democratic and tolerant Kosovo. The creation of the state of Kosovo is the will of its people and this government," Ceku told the assembly.(AFP/Ermal Meta)
New Kosovo PM wants independence
New Kosovo PM wants independence
Kosovo's new PM has said he expects the territory to become fully independent of Serbia - hours after Belgrade said it would oppose any such outcome.
Agim Ceku was speaking after being sworn in as prime minister in Pristina.
Serbian foreign minister Vuk Draskovic earlier told the BBC his country could never accept an independent Kosovo.
The UK has meanwhile said independence for Kosovo - currently governed by the UN, though formally still part of Serbia - is "almost inevitable".
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Kosovo's status could not be resolved using any solution based on the situation before 1999, when the province was still fully controlled by Belgrade.
Nato air strikes in 1999 forced Serbian forces to withdraw from the province, where they had been accused of repressing the ethnic Albanian majority.
Kosovo has since then been a UN protectorate. This year saw the start of UN-brokered talks to decide whether it ultimately gains independence.
Serb concerns
Mr Ceku said on Friday that he wanted negotiations to lead to a democratic and tolerant Kosovo.
"The creation of the state of Kosovo is the will of its people and this government," he said.
Mr Ceku was sworn in as prime minister following the resignation last week of his predecessor, Bajram Kosumi, who lost his party's support in a reshuffle.
In his first speech as leader, Mr Ceku pledged to protect the rights of Kosovo's minority Serb community.
Switching from the Albanian language to Serbian, he said the Serbs "do have and will have a future in democratic Kosovo" and urged them to take part in political life.
Mr Ceku is an ethnic Albanian commander whose soldiering career started in the army of the former Yugoslavia.
He went on lead the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in their fight against Serbian forces.
Belgrade accuses him of war crimes against Serbs and has voiced disquiet at his appointment as PM.
Kosovo's 120-seat parliament backed Mr Ceku's nomination by 65 votes to 33 on Friday.
Popular
Earlier on Friday, the Serbian foreign minister said his country could never accept a fully independent Kosovo.
Mr Draskovic told the BBC that the result would be a humiliation for Serbia, dangerous for the region and the whole of Europe.
The province is still legally part of Serbia and Montenegro - but it has been under UN protection since 1999.
Mr Ceku is currently the head of the Kosovo Protection Corps, a civil emergency force.
He is said to be very popular among Kosovo Albanians and has been seen as a dynamic leader.
Kosovo Albanians, who make up the majority, want independence for the province. But Serbia is concerned about the rights of the Serb minority.
Kosovo's new PM has said he expects the territory to become fully independent of Serbia - hours after Belgrade said it would oppose any such outcome.
Agim Ceku was speaking after being sworn in as prime minister in Pristina.
Serbian foreign minister Vuk Draskovic earlier told the BBC his country could never accept an independent Kosovo.
The UK has meanwhile said independence for Kosovo - currently governed by the UN, though formally still part of Serbia - is "almost inevitable".
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Kosovo's status could not be resolved using any solution based on the situation before 1999, when the province was still fully controlled by Belgrade.
Nato air strikes in 1999 forced Serbian forces to withdraw from the province, where they had been accused of repressing the ethnic Albanian majority.
Kosovo has since then been a UN protectorate. This year saw the start of UN-brokered talks to decide whether it ultimately gains independence.
Serb concerns
Mr Ceku said on Friday that he wanted negotiations to lead to a democratic and tolerant Kosovo.
"The creation of the state of Kosovo is the will of its people and this government," he said.
Mr Ceku was sworn in as prime minister following the resignation last week of his predecessor, Bajram Kosumi, who lost his party's support in a reshuffle.
In his first speech as leader, Mr Ceku pledged to protect the rights of Kosovo's minority Serb community.
Switching from the Albanian language to Serbian, he said the Serbs "do have and will have a future in democratic Kosovo" and urged them to take part in political life.
Mr Ceku is an ethnic Albanian commander whose soldiering career started in the army of the former Yugoslavia.
He went on lead the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in their fight against Serbian forces.
Belgrade accuses him of war crimes against Serbs and has voiced disquiet at his appointment as PM.
Kosovo's 120-seat parliament backed Mr Ceku's nomination by 65 votes to 33 on Friday.
Popular
Earlier on Friday, the Serbian foreign minister said his country could never accept a fully independent Kosovo.
Mr Draskovic told the BBC that the result would be a humiliation for Serbia, dangerous for the region and the whole of Europe.
The province is still legally part of Serbia and Montenegro - but it has been under UN protection since 1999.
Mr Ceku is currently the head of the Kosovo Protection Corps, a civil emergency force.
He is said to be very popular among Kosovo Albanians and has been seen as a dynamic leader.
Kosovo Albanians, who make up the majority, want independence for the province. But Serbia is concerned about the rights of the Serb minority.
ICTY tightens release conditions of ex-Kosovo PM Haradinaj pending war crimes trial
An appeals panel of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [official website] ruled Friday that former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], currently held at the Hague pending trial for alleged war crimes against Kosovar Serbs, can be provisionally released and allowed to go back to Kosovo until his trial begins in 2007 [JURIST report], but only on condition that any requests by him to appear in public and engage in public political activities be cleared by the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) [official website] with the advice of the prosecution, and that UNMIK must justify to the court and to the prosecution any permission granted.
The Trial Chamber of the court first granted provisional release to Haradinaj [JURIST report]in June 2005, but ICTY prosecutors who had objected to his resumption of political activity in the country appealed. The Appeals Chamber subsequently stayed the ruling [JURIST report] in December pending its own decision.
The Trial Chamber of the court first granted provisional release to Haradinaj [JURIST report]in June 2005, but ICTY prosecutors who had objected to his resumption of political activity in the country appealed. The Appeals Chamber subsequently stayed the ruling [JURIST report] in December pending its own decision.
Kosovo independence 'almost inevitable': British FM
SALZBURG, Austria, March 10, 2006 (AFP) -
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Friday that Kosovo's movement towards independence is "almost inevitable," and said Serbia may have to accept that reality.
"We know about concerns by the Serbian government against possible independence," he said, when asked about opposition to calls for the majority ethnic Albanian Serb province, currently the subject of final status talks.
"But there is a reality which I'm afraid the Serbian population in the end may well have to accept which is that a big majority of people in Kosovo are likely to be in support of independence.
"Everybody accepts that the pre-1999 situation is unsustainable as a basis for the future. And if that is the case then a pathway towards independence becomes almost inevitable."
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Friday that Kosovo's movement towards independence is "almost inevitable," and said Serbia may have to accept that reality.
"We know about concerns by the Serbian government against possible independence," he said, when asked about opposition to calls for the majority ethnic Albanian Serb province, currently the subject of final status talks.
"But there is a reality which I'm afraid the Serbian population in the end may well have to accept which is that a big majority of people in Kosovo are likely to be in support of independence.
"Everybody accepts that the pre-1999 situation is unsustainable as a basis for the future. And if that is the case then a pathway towards independence becomes almost inevitable."
EU ponders Kosovo's way towards independence
In Short:
The issue of Kosovo's quest for independence from Serbia will feature high on the EU foreign ministers' Salzburg meeting agenda. According to Commissioner Rehn, Serbia should not rule the province again.
RELATED
• EU-Western Balkans relations
Brief News:
The president of Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu, is scheduled to meet with the EU's foreign ministers who hold a two-day informal council meeting on 10-11 March in Salzburg, Austria. Regional co-operation in the Western Balkans is one of the key topics of the meeting. The ministers will be briefed by Martti Ahtisaari, the UN's special envoy to the Kosovo talks.
Belgrade and Pristina are currently engaged in UN and EU-sponsored negotiations on Kosovo's independence. Status talks started in February in Vienna. The next round of talks is scheduled for 17 March.
In a speech in Athens, Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn reiterated the EU's intention to promote a negotiated solution based on the understanding that "there can be no return for Kosovo to Belgrade's rule." The EU also expects Kosovo to be "realistic" by recognising that "status can only come with standards, especially as regards minority protection and decentralisation measures."
Meanwhile, the head of the Russian State Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee, Konstantin Kosachev, said that Moscow believes that it is premature to settle the status of Kosovo, and that no decision can be taken that bypasses the leadership in Belgrade. Serbia has recently proposed that the issue of Kosovo's final status should be frozen for 20 years.
Some 90% of Kosovo's two million population are ethnic Albanians and they are pushing for full independence.
In a related development, Kosovo's provisional assembly was scheduled on 10 March to elect a new government under Prime Minister-nominate Agim Ceku. Ceku, a former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leader, is set to replace Bajram Kosumi, who resigned last week, in the post. Ceku's nomination has been strongly criticised by Serbia on the grounds that he is considered a war criminal by Belgrade.
The issue of Kosovo's quest for independence from Serbia will feature high on the EU foreign ministers' Salzburg meeting agenda. According to Commissioner Rehn, Serbia should not rule the province again.
RELATED
• EU-Western Balkans relations
Brief News:
The president of Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu, is scheduled to meet with the EU's foreign ministers who hold a two-day informal council meeting on 10-11 March in Salzburg, Austria. Regional co-operation in the Western Balkans is one of the key topics of the meeting. The ministers will be briefed by Martti Ahtisaari, the UN's special envoy to the Kosovo talks.
Belgrade and Pristina are currently engaged in UN and EU-sponsored negotiations on Kosovo's independence. Status talks started in February in Vienna. The next round of talks is scheduled for 17 March.
In a speech in Athens, Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn reiterated the EU's intention to promote a negotiated solution based on the understanding that "there can be no return for Kosovo to Belgrade's rule." The EU also expects Kosovo to be "realistic" by recognising that "status can only come with standards, especially as regards minority protection and decentralisation measures."
Meanwhile, the head of the Russian State Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee, Konstantin Kosachev, said that Moscow believes that it is premature to settle the status of Kosovo, and that no decision can be taken that bypasses the leadership in Belgrade. Serbia has recently proposed that the issue of Kosovo's final status should be frozen for 20 years.
Some 90% of Kosovo's two million population are ethnic Albanians and they are pushing for full independence.
In a related development, Kosovo's provisional assembly was scheduled on 10 March to elect a new government under Prime Minister-nominate Agim Ceku. Ceku, a former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leader, is set to replace Bajram Kosumi, who resigned last week, in the post. Ceku's nomination has been strongly criticised by Serbia on the grounds that he is considered a war criminal by Belgrade.
Kosovo's Lawmakers Replace Parliament Speaker
PRISTINA (AP)--Kosovo's lawmakers replaced the parliament speaker Friday after the previous leader was dismissed in a political reshuffle.
Kole Berisha replaces Nexhat Daci, who was also part of the team negotiating Kosovo's final status with Serbia.
The 120-seat parliament voted 102-2 with three abstentions in favor of Berisha. The remaining lawmakers were not present.
Daci was forced out as part of a broader reshuffle within the governing coalition last week, which also included the resignation of Kosovo's Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi. But he refused to step down voluntarily, and accused U.S. diplomats in Kosovo of pushing him out.
U.S. officials have denied the accusations.
Berisha is the vice president of the Democratic League of Kosovo, the party which governs the province in coalition with the smaller Alliance for the Future of Kosovo.
Kosovo has been administered by the U.N. since 1999, and U.N.-sponsored talks aim to resolve its status by year's end. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority insist on full independence, but Serbs want Belgrade to retain control.
Kole Berisha replaces Nexhat Daci, who was also part of the team negotiating Kosovo's final status with Serbia.
The 120-seat parliament voted 102-2 with three abstentions in favor of Berisha. The remaining lawmakers were not present.
Daci was forced out as part of a broader reshuffle within the governing coalition last week, which also included the resignation of Kosovo's Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi. But he refused to step down voluntarily, and accused U.S. diplomats in Kosovo of pushing him out.
U.S. officials have denied the accusations.
Berisha is the vice president of the Democratic League of Kosovo, the party which governs the province in coalition with the smaller Alliance for the Future of Kosovo.
Kosovo has been administered by the U.N. since 1999, and U.N.-sponsored talks aim to resolve its status by year's end. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority insist on full independence, but Serbs want Belgrade to retain control.
Serbs reject independent Kosovo
Serbs reject independent Kosovo
Serbia's foreign minister has said his country can never accept a fully independent Kosovo, ahead of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers.
The province is still legally part of Serbia and Montenegro - but it has been under UN protection since 1999.
Ministers from Balkan states aspiring to EU membership are at the two-day talks in the Austrian city of Salzburg.
Delegates will also discuss how to keep the Palestinian territories functioning without funding a Hamas-led government.
Both the EU and the US are debating whether to stop donations after the militant group takes over following its election win.
Hamas does not recognise the right of Israel to exist and is regarded by many as a terrorist organisation.
Ministers are also expected to consider:
• The recent Danish cartoon row and ways in which the Christian and Islamic worlds can avoid such clashes in future
• EU policy on Iran in light of the recent referral to the United Nations Security Council over its nuclear activity
• The situation in the Ukraine and the forthcoming elections in Belarus.
However, correspondents say new policies will be thin on the ground as the meeting is informal.
'Humiliation'
Serbia's foreign minister told the BBC he planned to deliver a message to his European counterparts that Serbia could never accept a fully independent Kosovo.
Vuk Draskovic said the result would be a humiliation for Serbia, dangerous for the region and the whole of Europe.
Talks are due to resume about the status of Kosovo, with many in the international community preferring that it becomes a state in its own right.
Mr Draskovic also acknowledged that the Serbian army and police were shielding Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic, who is wanted for war crimes at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The EU has warned Serbia its talks on closer ties with the Union would be disrupted if it failed to co-operate fully with the tribunal.
Serbia's foreign minister has said his country can never accept a fully independent Kosovo, ahead of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers.
The province is still legally part of Serbia and Montenegro - but it has been under UN protection since 1999.
Ministers from Balkan states aspiring to EU membership are at the two-day talks in the Austrian city of Salzburg.
Delegates will also discuss how to keep the Palestinian territories functioning without funding a Hamas-led government.
Both the EU and the US are debating whether to stop donations after the militant group takes over following its election win.
Hamas does not recognise the right of Israel to exist and is regarded by many as a terrorist organisation.
Ministers are also expected to consider:
• The recent Danish cartoon row and ways in which the Christian and Islamic worlds can avoid such clashes in future
• EU policy on Iran in light of the recent referral to the United Nations Security Council over its nuclear activity
• The situation in the Ukraine and the forthcoming elections in Belarus.
However, correspondents say new policies will be thin on the ground as the meeting is informal.
'Humiliation'
Serbia's foreign minister told the BBC he planned to deliver a message to his European counterparts that Serbia could never accept a fully independent Kosovo.
Vuk Draskovic said the result would be a humiliation for Serbia, dangerous for the region and the whole of Europe.
Talks are due to resume about the status of Kosovo, with many in the international community preferring that it becomes a state in its own right.
Mr Draskovic also acknowledged that the Serbian army and police were shielding Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic, who is wanted for war crimes at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The EU has warned Serbia its talks on closer ties with the Union would be disrupted if it failed to co-operate fully with the tribunal.
Agim Ceku voted new Kosovo PM
Kosovo's parliament has elected former rebel leader Agim Ceku as the province's new prime minister.
His controversial nomination followed the resignation of Bajram Kosumi amid wide criticism of his administration.
It could further strain ties with Serbia, which says the move might endanger talks over Kosovo's future.
Mr Ceku, 45, an ethnic Albanian, was a commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army which fought against Serbian forces for independence in the late 1990s.
Serbia has issued an arrest warrant for him, accusing him of crimes against Serbians in both Kosovo and Croatia.
Popular
The 120-seat parliament backed Mr Ceku's nomination by 65 votes to 33 on Friday.
His appointment comes at a sensitive time for the province as the UN is sponsoring talks on the future of Kosovo.
On Friday, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic said his country could never accept a fully independent Kosovo. He told the BBC that the result would be a humiliation for Serbia, dangerous for the region and the whole of Europe.
The province is still legally part of Serbia and Montenegro - but it has been under UN protection since 1999.
Mr Ceku is currently the head of the Kosovo Protection Corps, a civil emergency force.
He is said to be very popular among Kosovo Albanians and has been seen as a dynamic leader.
Kosovo Albanians, who make up the majority, want independence for the province. But Serbia is concerned about the rights of the Serb minority.
His controversial nomination followed the resignation of Bajram Kosumi amid wide criticism of his administration.
It could further strain ties with Serbia, which says the move might endanger talks over Kosovo's future.
Mr Ceku, 45, an ethnic Albanian, was a commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army which fought against Serbian forces for independence in the late 1990s.
Serbia has issued an arrest warrant for him, accusing him of crimes against Serbians in both Kosovo and Croatia.
Popular
The 120-seat parliament backed Mr Ceku's nomination by 65 votes to 33 on Friday.
His appointment comes at a sensitive time for the province as the UN is sponsoring talks on the future of Kosovo.
On Friday, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic said his country could never accept a fully independent Kosovo. He told the BBC that the result would be a humiliation for Serbia, dangerous for the region and the whole of Europe.
The province is still legally part of Serbia and Montenegro - but it has been under UN protection since 1999.
Mr Ceku is currently the head of the Kosovo Protection Corps, a civil emergency force.
He is said to be very popular among Kosovo Albanians and has been seen as a dynamic leader.
Kosovo Albanians, who make up the majority, want independence for the province. But Serbia is concerned about the rights of the Serb minority.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Kosovo President to attend EU meeting
(Brussels, DTT-NET.COM)-The new President of Kosovo is to meet with EU’s foreign ministers who are gathering for two day informal discussions in Salzburg on Friday and Saturday on European affaires including developments in western Balkans region.
Austrian officials ( the country which holds the rotating EU presidency) said that Fatmir Sejdiu has been invited together with representatives of UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) to discuss with 25 ministers of European nations the latest in Kosovo related to the last month launched talks with Serbian.
Ministers are also to discuss the upcoming independence referendum in Montenegro scheduled for 21 May.
Regional cooperation in the Western Balkans is among the topics of the meeting, following a January proposals of European Commission
Austrian officials ( the country which holds the rotating EU presidency) said that Fatmir Sejdiu has been invited together with representatives of UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) to discuss with 25 ministers of European nations the latest in Kosovo related to the last month launched talks with Serbian.
Ministers are also to discuss the upcoming independence referendum in Montenegro scheduled for 21 May.
Regional cooperation in the Western Balkans is among the topics of the meeting, following a January proposals of European Commission
EU says Serbia can't rule Kosovo again
Serbia should admit that it cannot rule Kosovo again, EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn said while speaking about enlargement in Athens on Thursday (9 March), Balkans agency DTT-NET.COM writes.
He stated that Brussels expects "realism that there can be no return for Kosovo to Belgrade's rule, and there must be willingness to ensure a sustainable settlement that creates a stable, democratic and multiethnic Kosovo in the European framework."
The commissioner added that the ethnic Albanian leadership of Kosovo must reach out to the Serbian ethnic minority as a matter of urgency.
"[Kosovo's] status can only come with standards, especially as regards minority protection and decentralisation measures, the implementation of which must be urgently intensified," he stated.
"The implementation of EU standards now and not in some unspecified future - it should be the first priority of the new government of Kosovo."
Belgrade wants to freeze Kosovo status
Mr Rehn's words on Serbian rule are unlikely to get a favourable reception in Belgrade, which last month proposed to the UN that the issue of Kosovo's final status should be frozen for 20 years.
The commissioner's comment is in line with statements by senior UK diplomat John Sawers in February that Kosovo should be independent.
Kosovo legally belongs to Serbia but has been under UN administration since the EU and the US intervened to stop ethnic clashes in the region in 1999.
Pristina and Belgrade are currently in UN and EU-sponsored negotiations on the possibility of Kosovan independence, with the next round of talks tabled for 17 March.
Ethnic Albanians, pushing for independence, make up 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million-strong population.
Tension surrounding the talks rose last week after Pristina nominated a former guerrilla general indicted for war crimes by Belgrade, Agim Ceku, to be prime minister.
Belgrade asked the UN to block the appointment but the Serbian request was rejected by the international community despite quiet concerns in Brussels about the fragility of the Kosovo peace process.
Kosovo as universal precedent
The prospect of Kosovan independence could also have repercussions for other separatist states in the EU and its neighbours.
Serbian contacts told British conservative MEP Charles Tannock in February that if Kosovo becomes independent, the ethnic-Serb enclave of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina will also call for independence.
Meanwhile, Russia is pushing the idea that the Kosovo solution should set a universal precedent for handling Northern Cyprus and breakaway Moldovan republic Transniestria, as well as Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh in South Caucasus.
"What's so unique about Kosovo?" Russian ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizov said in an interview with EUobserver on Thursday.
"There are similarities in the international community accepting or rejecting the self-determination of an unrecognised character, unrecognised entities. It's not only Abkhazia and South Ossetia but also North Cyprus."
He stated that Brussels expects "realism that there can be no return for Kosovo to Belgrade's rule, and there must be willingness to ensure a sustainable settlement that creates a stable, democratic and multiethnic Kosovo in the European framework."
The commissioner added that the ethnic Albanian leadership of Kosovo must reach out to the Serbian ethnic minority as a matter of urgency.
"[Kosovo's] status can only come with standards, especially as regards minority protection and decentralisation measures, the implementation of which must be urgently intensified," he stated.
"The implementation of EU standards now and not in some unspecified future - it should be the first priority of the new government of Kosovo."
Belgrade wants to freeze Kosovo status
Mr Rehn's words on Serbian rule are unlikely to get a favourable reception in Belgrade, which last month proposed to the UN that the issue of Kosovo's final status should be frozen for 20 years.
The commissioner's comment is in line with statements by senior UK diplomat John Sawers in February that Kosovo should be independent.
Kosovo legally belongs to Serbia but has been under UN administration since the EU and the US intervened to stop ethnic clashes in the region in 1999.
Pristina and Belgrade are currently in UN and EU-sponsored negotiations on the possibility of Kosovan independence, with the next round of talks tabled for 17 March.
Ethnic Albanians, pushing for independence, make up 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million-strong population.
Tension surrounding the talks rose last week after Pristina nominated a former guerrilla general indicted for war crimes by Belgrade, Agim Ceku, to be prime minister.
Belgrade asked the UN to block the appointment but the Serbian request was rejected by the international community despite quiet concerns in Brussels about the fragility of the Kosovo peace process.
Kosovo as universal precedent
The prospect of Kosovan independence could also have repercussions for other separatist states in the EU and its neighbours.
Serbian contacts told British conservative MEP Charles Tannock in February that if Kosovo becomes independent, the ethnic-Serb enclave of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina will also call for independence.
Meanwhile, Russia is pushing the idea that the Kosovo solution should set a universal precedent for handling Northern Cyprus and breakaway Moldovan republic Transniestria, as well as Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh in South Caucasus.
"What's so unique about Kosovo?" Russian ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizov said in an interview with EUobserver on Thursday.
"There are similarities in the international community accepting or rejecting the self-determination of an unrecognised character, unrecognised entities. It's not only Abkhazia and South Ossetia but also North Cyprus."
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Serbia's Foreign Debt Rises to $15.467 Bln at End-2005- Table
BELGRADE (Serbia and Montenegro), March 7 (SeeNews) - Serbia's foreign debt rose to $15.467 billion (12.87 billion euro) at the end of 2005 from $14.099 billion a year earlier, preliminary central bank figures showed on Tuesday.
SERBIA'S FOREIGN DEBT (in billions of U.S. dollars):
......................................................................END'05...........END'04
TOTAL DEBT.................................................15.467.............14.099
International financial institutions...................4.722...............5.089
--IMF...............................................................0.866...............0.962
--IBRD............................................................2.133................2.472
--IDA..............................................................0.468................0.432
--EUROFIMA.................................................0.161................0.160
--IFC................................................................0.073................0.119
--EIB................................................................0.326................0.282
--European Community....................................0.324...............0.354
--EUROFOND...................................................0.022..............0.029
--EBRD.............................................................0.349................0.280
Governments...................................................3.680..................3.690
--Paris Club.....................................................2.945...................3.016
---consolidated debt..........................................2.581.................2.806
---debt after 20.12.2000.....................................0.364................0.210
--other governments..........................................0.734..................0.674
London Club-restructured debt.........................1.076....................1.08
London Club-non-restructured debt..................0.088....................0.084
Other creditors...................................................4.282.....................2.976
Short-term debt...................................................1.514......................0.999
Clearing debt......................................................0.106.......................0.182
NOTE: Serbia's end-2005 foreign debt figure included the $1.144 billion in debt owed by the country's southern province of Kosovo, now a U.N. protectorate.
SERBIA'S FOREIGN DEBT (in billions of U.S. dollars):
......................................................................END'05...........END'04
TOTAL DEBT.................................................15.467.............14.099
International financial institutions...................4.722...............5.089
--IMF...............................................................0.866...............0.962
--IBRD............................................................2.133................2.472
--IDA..............................................................0.468................0.432
--EUROFIMA.................................................0.161................0.160
--IFC................................................................0.073................0.119
--EIB................................................................0.326................0.282
--European Community....................................0.324...............0.354
--EUROFOND...................................................0.022..............0.029
--EBRD.............................................................0.349................0.280
Governments...................................................3.680..................3.690
--Paris Club.....................................................2.945...................3.016
---consolidated debt..........................................2.581.................2.806
---debt after 20.12.2000.....................................0.364................0.210
--other governments..........................................0.734..................0.674
London Club-restructured debt.........................1.076....................1.08
London Club-non-restructured debt..................0.088....................0.084
Other creditors...................................................4.282.....................2.976
Short-term debt...................................................1.514......................0.999
Clearing debt......................................................0.106.......................0.182
NOTE: Serbia's end-2005 foreign debt figure included the $1.144 billion in debt owed by the country's southern province of Kosovo, now a U.N. protectorate.
Kosovo Serb leader meets premier designate, thinking of entering government
Text of report by Radio-Television Kosovo TV website on 7 March
Kosova [Kosovo] Serb leader Oliver Ivanovic has confirmed that yesterday he met newly appointed Prime Minister Agim Ceku, and that the meeting was held at the Kosova government hall. According to Ivanovic, Ceku invited him to have an official meeting. Ivanovic told RTK that it was possible that the meeting would be held on Thursday [9 March]. He left today for Belgrade for consolations with Serbian officials.
It is expected that during the Ceku-Ivanovic meeting the latter will request to enter the Kosova government, but only if current Minister of Return Slavisa Petkovic is removed from this post. Ivanovic said that the Serb List for Kosova, which represents most Kosova Serbs, is going to make a definite decision by the end of the week whether they are returning to the Kosova Assembly and all other Kosova institutions.
Kosova [Kosovo] Serb leader Oliver Ivanovic has confirmed that yesterday he met newly appointed Prime Minister Agim Ceku, and that the meeting was held at the Kosova government hall. According to Ivanovic, Ceku invited him to have an official meeting. Ivanovic told RTK that it was possible that the meeting would be held on Thursday [9 March]. He left today for Belgrade for consolations with Serbian officials.
It is expected that during the Ceku-Ivanovic meeting the latter will request to enter the Kosova government, but only if current Minister of Return Slavisa Petkovic is removed from this post. Ivanovic said that the Serb List for Kosova, which represents most Kosova Serbs, is going to make a definite decision by the end of the week whether they are returning to the Kosova Assembly and all other Kosova institutions.
Kosovo's ruling coalition agrees on composition of new government
PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Kosovo's ruling coalition agreed Wednesday on the composition of the new government, but made minor changes following a political reshuffle.
The Democratic League of Kosovo, the main party in the coalition government, decided to sack the province's deputy prime minister but keep most cabinet members in the same positions, said Eqrem Kryeziu, the party's vice president.
Adem Salihaj will be replaced by Lutfi Haziri, who will also continue to serve as the minister for local government, Kryeziu said.
The party also nominated Fatmir Rexhepi, a member of parliament, to lead the Interior Ministry for the first time.
The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, the much smaller coalition partner, will also keep its ministers after party member Bajram Kosumi resigned from the premiership last week.
The reshuffle came after the government was criticized for a lackluster performance.
Kosovo's parliament is to convene Friday to decide whether Lt. Gen. Agim Ceku becomes the province's next prime minister. Ceku, a former ethnic Albanian guerrilla commander and currently the head of civilian Kosovo Protection Corps, said he agreed to the combination.
Kosovo's ruling coalition holds a slim majority in the province's assembly, indicating that Ceku's appointment will be approved.
Ceku, 44, sided with Croatia's army in the fight against Serbs during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s and commanded the Kosovo Liberation Army, the guerrilla group which battled Serb forces.
Serbian officials accuse him of war crimes and have issued an arrest warrant for him, but he denies any wrongdoing.
Kosovo has been a de-facto U.N. protectorate since the end of the 1998-99 war there between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serb forces. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority insist on full independence, but Serbs want Belgrade to retain control.
The Democratic League of Kosovo, the main party in the coalition government, decided to sack the province's deputy prime minister but keep most cabinet members in the same positions, said Eqrem Kryeziu, the party's vice president.
Adem Salihaj will be replaced by Lutfi Haziri, who will also continue to serve as the minister for local government, Kryeziu said.
The party also nominated Fatmir Rexhepi, a member of parliament, to lead the Interior Ministry for the first time.
The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, the much smaller coalition partner, will also keep its ministers after party member Bajram Kosumi resigned from the premiership last week.
The reshuffle came after the government was criticized for a lackluster performance.
Kosovo's parliament is to convene Friday to decide whether Lt. Gen. Agim Ceku becomes the province's next prime minister. Ceku, a former ethnic Albanian guerrilla commander and currently the head of civilian Kosovo Protection Corps, said he agreed to the combination.
Kosovo's ruling coalition holds a slim majority in the province's assembly, indicating that Ceku's appointment will be approved.
Ceku, 44, sided with Croatia's army in the fight against Serbs during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s and commanded the Kosovo Liberation Army, the guerrilla group which battled Serb forces.
Serbian officials accuse him of war crimes and have issued an arrest warrant for him, but he denies any wrongdoing.
Kosovo has been a de-facto U.N. protectorate since the end of the 1998-99 war there between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serb forces. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority insist on full independence, but Serbs want Belgrade to retain control.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Parliament likely to vote Friday on Ceku's appointment as Kosovo prime minister
PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Kosovo's parliament has tentatively agreed to convene Friday to decide whether Lt. Gen. Agim Ceku will become the province's next prime minister, officials said.
The Serbian government, which accuses Ceku of war crimes, has failed in a bid to have the U.N. mission in Kosovo block his appointment. Belgrade says a Ceku administration would endanger ongoing talks on Kosovo's future.
Kosovo's ruling coalition holds a slim majority in the province's assembly, indicating that Ceku's appointment will be approved.
Ceku, 44, sided with Croatia's army in the fight against Serbs during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Serbian officials have issued an arrest warrant for him, but he denies any wrongdoing.
Kosovo has been a de-facto U.N. protectorate since the end of the 1998-99 war there between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serb forces. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority insist on full independence, but Serbs want Belgrade to retain control over it.
The Serbian government, which accuses Ceku of war crimes, has failed in a bid to have the U.N. mission in Kosovo block his appointment. Belgrade says a Ceku administration would endanger ongoing talks on Kosovo's future.
Kosovo's ruling coalition holds a slim majority in the province's assembly, indicating that Ceku's appointment will be approved.
Ceku, 44, sided with Croatia's army in the fight against Serbs during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Serbian officials have issued an arrest warrant for him, but he denies any wrongdoing.
Kosovo has been a de-facto U.N. protectorate since the end of the 1998-99 war there between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serb forces. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority insist on full independence, but Serbs want Belgrade to retain control over it.
Kosovo Serb minister says he will not refuse to work in Ceku's cabinet
[Announcer] The new prime minister of Kosovo will most probably be elected at a session of the Kosovo Assembly by the end of this week. The candidate, Agim Ceku, will complete the list of his associates at the beginning of next week, the Albanian-language Kosovo press has said.
The minister of returns and only representative of the Serb community in the Kosovo government, Slavisa Petkovic, said that he would not refuse to be in Agim Ceku's cabinet. On the other hand, representatives of the Serb List for Kosovo-Metohija [headed by Oliver Ivanovic] said they would consider whether they should participate in some Kosovo institutions, following consultations this week. Jelena Aleksic has a report.
[Reporter] The Pristina newspaper Zeri said that Agim Ceku was intensively working on the list of his advisers, while Koha Ditore carried Ceku's statement that he would not elect any new ministers but that he would fire the disobedient ones. [Passage omitted; more press roundup]
Despite the fact that Ceku's list for the composition of the new government is not complete, and that the Serbian government had called for a halt to his election, Returns Minister Slavisa Petkovic said that he would not refuse to be in Agim Ceku's cabinet.
[Petkovic] Belgrade's position does not concern me for the simple reason that Agim Ceku is going to be elected prime minister. Belgrade has already certainly negotiated with him as early as in London in 19[date indistinct] but it will certainly have to talk with him once again. That means that this is demagoguery on their [Belgrade] part, and I am not really interested. [Passage omitted]
Source: Radio B92, Belgrade, in Serbian 0800 gmt 7 Mar 06
The minister of returns and only representative of the Serb community in the Kosovo government, Slavisa Petkovic, said that he would not refuse to be in Agim Ceku's cabinet. On the other hand, representatives of the Serb List for Kosovo-Metohija [headed by Oliver Ivanovic] said they would consider whether they should participate in some Kosovo institutions, following consultations this week. Jelena Aleksic has a report.
[Reporter] The Pristina newspaper Zeri said that Agim Ceku was intensively working on the list of his advisers, while Koha Ditore carried Ceku's statement that he would not elect any new ministers but that he would fire the disobedient ones. [Passage omitted; more press roundup]
Despite the fact that Ceku's list for the composition of the new government is not complete, and that the Serbian government had called for a halt to his election, Returns Minister Slavisa Petkovic said that he would not refuse to be in Agim Ceku's cabinet.
[Petkovic] Belgrade's position does not concern me for the simple reason that Agim Ceku is going to be elected prime minister. Belgrade has already certainly negotiated with him as early as in London in 19[date indistinct] but it will certainly have to talk with him once again. That means that this is demagoguery on their [Belgrade] part, and I am not really interested. [Passage omitted]
Source: Radio B92, Belgrade, in Serbian 0800 gmt 7 Mar 06
Kosovo officials ban poultry imports from Serbia after confirmation of avian flu
Excerpt from report by Agron Halitaj entitled "Avian flu affects Serbia, threatens Kosova" published by the Kosovo Albanian newspaper Koha Ditore on 3 March
Prishtina [Pristina], 2 March: Avian flu has come closer to Kosova [Kosovo] than ever before. Officials in Serbia admitted for the first time on Thursday [2 March] that a dead swan found in the area of Backi Monostor, Sombor Municipality, has been diagnosed with the flu.
As soon as the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development of Kosova heard about this, it decided to ban imports of poultry and poultry products from that country [Serbia]. Ministry spokesperson Jusuf Salihu confirmed this, saying that the decision to ban poultry imports is automatic not only for Serbia, but for every country that is affected by this deadly virus.
"This is done as a measure to prevent the spread of the H5N1 virus in our country and, as such, it is envisioned within the government's operational plan to fight and prevent avian flu in Kosova," Salihu said.
So far this ministry has banned imports of poultry from Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, France, Slovenia, Greece and a number of Asian states.
But the Kosovar authorities consider the case confirmed in Serbia to be the most serious alarm signal received from the neighbouring states thus far.
The avian flu in Serbia was confirmed following tests carried out at the Veterinary Institute of Novi Sad and the Specialized Veterinary Institute in Kraljevo. The Serbian media have reported that the samples will also be sent for confirmation to the Weybridge laboratory in England.
Last week, UNMIK [UN Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo] chief Soeren Jessen-Petersen said that it is only a matter of days before Kosova is affected by avian flu. Jusuf Dedushaj, director of the National Institute of Public Health, confirmed the same thing, saying the appearance of this disease in the surrounding countries proves that it is an illusion to think that we will not be affected by avian flu.
Being on the front line in the war against avian flu, the Ministry of Agriculture has taken a number of preventive measures already. [Passage omitted]
Source: Koha Ditore, Pristina, in Albanian 3 Mar 06
Prishtina [Pristina], 2 March: Avian flu has come closer to Kosova [Kosovo] than ever before. Officials in Serbia admitted for the first time on Thursday [2 March] that a dead swan found in the area of Backi Monostor, Sombor Municipality, has been diagnosed with the flu.
As soon as the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development of Kosova heard about this, it decided to ban imports of poultry and poultry products from that country [Serbia]. Ministry spokesperson Jusuf Salihu confirmed this, saying that the decision to ban poultry imports is automatic not only for Serbia, but for every country that is affected by this deadly virus.
"This is done as a measure to prevent the spread of the H5N1 virus in our country and, as such, it is envisioned within the government's operational plan to fight and prevent avian flu in Kosova," Salihu said.
So far this ministry has banned imports of poultry from Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, France, Slovenia, Greece and a number of Asian states.
But the Kosovar authorities consider the case confirmed in Serbia to be the most serious alarm signal received from the neighbouring states thus far.
The avian flu in Serbia was confirmed following tests carried out at the Veterinary Institute of Novi Sad and the Specialized Veterinary Institute in Kraljevo. The Serbian media have reported that the samples will also be sent for confirmation to the Weybridge laboratory in England.
Last week, UNMIK [UN Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo] chief Soeren Jessen-Petersen said that it is only a matter of days before Kosova is affected by avian flu. Jusuf Dedushaj, director of the National Institute of Public Health, confirmed the same thing, saying the appearance of this disease in the surrounding countries proves that it is an illusion to think that we will not be affected by avian flu.
Being on the front line in the war against avian flu, the Ministry of Agriculture has taken a number of preventive measures already. [Passage omitted]
Source: Koha Ditore, Pristina, in Albanian 3 Mar 06
Kosovo Serb body expels member for "working against interests of Serbian people"
Text of report in English by Belgrade-based Radio B92 text website on 7 March
Pristina, 7 March: Kosovo's Serbian National Council [SNV] stated today that it had decided to rid its ranks of Belgrade's Kosovo status delegation member, Randjel Nojkic.
According to the SNV, Nojkic has been "working against the interests of the Serbian people and outside the principles of the SNV."
The council states that Nojkic began his destructive activity in 2004, when, overlooking the SNV's stances and recommendations, he decided to participate in the Kosovo parliamentary elections.
The SNV stated that Nojkic had gone against the stances of the SNV, "not only by participating in the elections, but also by participating in the regional institutions and being a member of several Kosovo parliamentary work groups".
Pristina, 7 March: Kosovo's Serbian National Council [SNV] stated today that it had decided to rid its ranks of Belgrade's Kosovo status delegation member, Randjel Nojkic.
According to the SNV, Nojkic has been "working against the interests of the Serbian people and outside the principles of the SNV."
The council states that Nojkic began his destructive activity in 2004, when, overlooking the SNV's stances and recommendations, he decided to participate in the Kosovo parliamentary elections.
The SNV stated that Nojkic had gone against the stances of the SNV, "not only by participating in the elections, but also by participating in the regional institutions and being a member of several Kosovo parliamentary work groups".
Monday, March 06, 2006
Ex-Milosevic ally kills himself
Former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic has committed suicide in his prison cell in The Hague, the UN war crimes tribunal has said.
Babic, 50, was serving a 13-year prison term for crimes against humanity, after admitting persecuting the non-Serb population in Croatia's Krajina region.
He was a key ally of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic but later testified against him at the tribunal.
He was found dead on Sunday evening, the tribunal said in a statement.
BABIC: RISE AND FALL
1990 : Mayor of Knin
May 1991 - Feb 1992 : President of Krajina (first an "autonomous region" then a "republic") later foreign minister and prime minister
1995 : Flees with other Serbs as Croatian army takes Krajina
2002 : Testifies against Slobodan Milosevic
2003 : Surrenders to tribunal
2004 : Pleads guilty to persecuting non-Serbs, sentenced to 13 years
2005 : Loses appeal against sentence
2006 : Commits suicide
"The Dutch authorities were called immediately. After conducting an investigation, they confirmed that the cause of death was suicide," the statement said.
It did not say how Babic had killed himself.
A spokeswoman for the tribunal, Alexandra Milenov, told the BBC that, like all detainees, Mr Babic was subject to regular monitoring.
"He was checked at six o'clock and everything was found to be all right and at six-thirty when he was checked again his body was found."
A tribunal judge has opened an inquiry.
Retribution fear
Babic feared retribution for testifying against Slobodan Milosevic in 2002, and had been had been serving his sentence at a secret location, at his own request.
There was nothing unusual in his demeanor
Tribunal spokeswoman, Alexandra Milenov
He was brought back to The Hague last month to testify in the trial of Milan Martic, his successor as Croatian Serb leader.
Babic was president of the self-declared breakaway Krajina Serb republic, covering about one-third of Croatian territory, after Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
He was jailed in 2004 for crimes committed during Croatia's 1991-1995 war.
In return for his guilty plea, prosecutors dropped four other charges of murder, cruelty and the wanton destruction of villages.
Last year, judges rejected an appeal against his lengthy sentence.
Pain
A dentist by profession, Mr Babic had expressed shame and remorse over his actions in Krajina.
He reportedly reaffirmed this in February saying his guilt was a "pain that I have to live with for the rest of my life".
However, tribunal spokeswoman Alexandra Milenov said he had given no indication that he was contemplating suicide.
"There was nothing unusual in his demeanor," she said.
It is the second time a detainee in The Hague has committed suicide. The first was Slavko Dokmanovic, another Croatian Serb leader, in 1998.
Babic, 50, was serving a 13-year prison term for crimes against humanity, after admitting persecuting the non-Serb population in Croatia's Krajina region.
He was a key ally of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic but later testified against him at the tribunal.
He was found dead on Sunday evening, the tribunal said in a statement.
BABIC: RISE AND FALL
1990 : Mayor of Knin
May 1991 - Feb 1992 : President of Krajina (first an "autonomous region" then a "republic") later foreign minister and prime minister
1995 : Flees with other Serbs as Croatian army takes Krajina
2002 : Testifies against Slobodan Milosevic
2003 : Surrenders to tribunal
2004 : Pleads guilty to persecuting non-Serbs, sentenced to 13 years
2005 : Loses appeal against sentence
2006 : Commits suicide
"The Dutch authorities were called immediately. After conducting an investigation, they confirmed that the cause of death was suicide," the statement said.
It did not say how Babic had killed himself.
A spokeswoman for the tribunal, Alexandra Milenov, told the BBC that, like all detainees, Mr Babic was subject to regular monitoring.
"He was checked at six o'clock and everything was found to be all right and at six-thirty when he was checked again his body was found."
A tribunal judge has opened an inquiry.
Retribution fear
Babic feared retribution for testifying against Slobodan Milosevic in 2002, and had been had been serving his sentence at a secret location, at his own request.
There was nothing unusual in his demeanor
Tribunal spokeswoman, Alexandra Milenov
He was brought back to The Hague last month to testify in the trial of Milan Martic, his successor as Croatian Serb leader.
Babic was president of the self-declared breakaway Krajina Serb republic, covering about one-third of Croatian territory, after Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
He was jailed in 2004 for crimes committed during Croatia's 1991-1995 war.
In return for his guilty plea, prosecutors dropped four other charges of murder, cruelty and the wanton destruction of villages.
Last year, judges rejected an appeal against his lengthy sentence.
Pain
A dentist by profession, Mr Babic had expressed shame and remorse over his actions in Krajina.
He reportedly reaffirmed this in February saying his guilt was a "pain that I have to live with for the rest of my life".
However, tribunal spokeswoman Alexandra Milenov said he had given no indication that he was contemplating suicide.
"There was nothing unusual in his demeanor," she said.
It is the second time a detainee in The Hague has committed suicide. The first was Slavko Dokmanovic, another Croatian Serb leader, in 1998.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Serbia - A nation on trial for its past
The Christian Science Monitor
Serbia and Montenegro may become the first country to be found guilty of genocide.
By Peter Ford and Beth Kampschror
PARIS AND SKOPJE, MACEDONIA - Serbia and Montenegro, already struggling to find its place in Europe, risks becoming the first state ever to be formally branded genocidal, as judges at the World Bank last week began hearing arguments in a Bosnian lawsuit over crimes committed during the war in the early 1990s.
The case could make Serbia, as the successor state to Yugoslavia, liable for tens of billions of dollars in reparations. But Bosnian Muslims say the suit's importance lies elsewhere, in creating an accurate and unchallengeable account of the conflict, which continues to poison regional politics.
"For our future, to have clean relations with our neighbors, we need to have a clear vision of our past and our future," says Sakib Softic, the lead Bosnian lawyer at the World Court in The Hague. "The international court has the authority, with its judgment, to finish up these questions from our past and move on toward the future."
While another international court in The Hague is trying individuals - including former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic - for war crimes, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as the World Court is officially known, hears cases between states.
Bosnia must prove to the court not only that genocide occurred, through the policy of "ethnic cleansing," but that the Bosnian Serb militias committing it did so on the orders of Yugoslav government officials, and with their support.
The Bosnian side "seeks to establish responsibility of a state which, through its leadership and through its organs, committed the most brutal violations of ... the most sacred instruments of international law," Mr. Softic told the 16-judge panel in his opening statement last week.
When they present their oral arguments this week, Serbia's lawyers are expected to argue that the court has no jurisdiction over the case because when it was brought in 1993, the former Republic of Yugoslavia was not clearly recognized as a member of the United Nations, and thus not of the ICJ either.
It was on those grounds that in 2004 the court dismissed a suit filed by Serbia and Montenegro against the US-led bombing of Serbia during the 1999 Kosovo war.
Serbia's lawyers are also expected to argue that however horrific the crimes committed in Bosnia by Bosnian Serb forces, such as the massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys near Srebrenica, the authorities in Belgrade were not responsible for them.
The case will challenge the ICJ, which is more accustomed to dealing with reconciling territorial claims in boundary disputes between nations. "This is a very, very political affair, and the decision will be a grave one," says Emmanuel Decaux, an international law professor at the University of Paris II.
In the field of international humanitarian law, the ICJ has been overshadowed by ad hoc war-crimes tribunals like those set up in The Hague to try cases arising from the Balkan wars, and in Arusha, Tanzania, to deal with those responsible for the Rwandan genocide, and by the recently created International Criminal Court, which has yet to hear a case.
"We are in the process of creating the architecture of international accountability for human rights violations," says Nicholas Howen, head of the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists. "You need to hold individuals responsible, but there is a big gap if you can't say the machinery of a state is responsible, too."
The court's judgment, not expected until late this year, is eagerly awaited in Bosnia-Herzegovina. "I expect the court ... to give a good decision and say that Serbia is guilty," says Refik Begic, the Muslim mayor of Bratunac, a majority Serb town in eastern Bosnia. "If we are to trust each other and establish a good relationship, we need to know what happened here."
Serbian leaders, however, say that raking over the coals of the past will be bad for the future. The lawsuit could have "dramatically negative effects on future relations in the Balkans," Serbia's deputy prime minister, Miroljub Labus, told Nezavisne Novine, a newspaper published in Bosnia-Herzegovina's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska.
But in a region divided as much as anything by opposing memories and interpretations of what happened during the war "this [case] is about establishing the nature of the war, whether it was aggression or whether it was civil war," says Nerma Jelacic, a human rights investigator in Sarajevo.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), where Mr. Milosevic is on trial, has already ruled that genocide did occur in Bosnia. Although the ICJ is not bound by that precedent, "it would be very troubling, and troublesome for the coherence of international justice" if the ICJ judges find otherwise, says Professor Decaux.
It will not be easy, however, for the Bosnian side to establish the Yugoslav government's responsibility for the war crimes its proxy forces committed. Prosecutors at the ICTY have sometimes had trouble proving all the links in alleged chains of command between the battlefields and Belgrade, and Bosnian lawyers at the World Court will not be able to use all the evidence presented at the ICTY, some of which Belgrade provided only on the condition it not be released to third parties.
The hearings will continue until May 9, when the judges will retire to consider what they have heard, along with thousands of pages of legal arguments. That is expected to take several months. The case was first brought in 1993, and has been prolonged by repeated procedural incidents and political upheavals in Belgrade.
But rather than blunting the impact of the judgment, the long delay might actually give it greater force, suggests Mr. Howen. "It shows the timeless nature of the crimes, the timeless need for accountability, and the timeless nature of the law," he says.
Serbia and Montenegro may become the first country to be found guilty of genocide.
By Peter Ford and Beth Kampschror
PARIS AND SKOPJE, MACEDONIA - Serbia and Montenegro, already struggling to find its place in Europe, risks becoming the first state ever to be formally branded genocidal, as judges at the World Bank last week began hearing arguments in a Bosnian lawsuit over crimes committed during the war in the early 1990s.
The case could make Serbia, as the successor state to Yugoslavia, liable for tens of billions of dollars in reparations. But Bosnian Muslims say the suit's importance lies elsewhere, in creating an accurate and unchallengeable account of the conflict, which continues to poison regional politics.
"For our future, to have clean relations with our neighbors, we need to have a clear vision of our past and our future," says Sakib Softic, the lead Bosnian lawyer at the World Court in The Hague. "The international court has the authority, with its judgment, to finish up these questions from our past and move on toward the future."
While another international court in The Hague is trying individuals - including former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic - for war crimes, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as the World Court is officially known, hears cases between states.
Bosnia must prove to the court not only that genocide occurred, through the policy of "ethnic cleansing," but that the Bosnian Serb militias committing it did so on the orders of Yugoslav government officials, and with their support.
The Bosnian side "seeks to establish responsibility of a state which, through its leadership and through its organs, committed the most brutal violations of ... the most sacred instruments of international law," Mr. Softic told the 16-judge panel in his opening statement last week.
When they present their oral arguments this week, Serbia's lawyers are expected to argue that the court has no jurisdiction over the case because when it was brought in 1993, the former Republic of Yugoslavia was not clearly recognized as a member of the United Nations, and thus not of the ICJ either.
It was on those grounds that in 2004 the court dismissed a suit filed by Serbia and Montenegro against the US-led bombing of Serbia during the 1999 Kosovo war.
Serbia's lawyers are also expected to argue that however horrific the crimes committed in Bosnia by Bosnian Serb forces, such as the massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys near Srebrenica, the authorities in Belgrade were not responsible for them.
The case will challenge the ICJ, which is more accustomed to dealing with reconciling territorial claims in boundary disputes between nations. "This is a very, very political affair, and the decision will be a grave one," says Emmanuel Decaux, an international law professor at the University of Paris II.
In the field of international humanitarian law, the ICJ has been overshadowed by ad hoc war-crimes tribunals like those set up in The Hague to try cases arising from the Balkan wars, and in Arusha, Tanzania, to deal with those responsible for the Rwandan genocide, and by the recently created International Criminal Court, which has yet to hear a case.
"We are in the process of creating the architecture of international accountability for human rights violations," says Nicholas Howen, head of the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists. "You need to hold individuals responsible, but there is a big gap if you can't say the machinery of a state is responsible, too."
The court's judgment, not expected until late this year, is eagerly awaited in Bosnia-Herzegovina. "I expect the court ... to give a good decision and say that Serbia is guilty," says Refik Begic, the Muslim mayor of Bratunac, a majority Serb town in eastern Bosnia. "If we are to trust each other and establish a good relationship, we need to know what happened here."
Serbian leaders, however, say that raking over the coals of the past will be bad for the future. The lawsuit could have "dramatically negative effects on future relations in the Balkans," Serbia's deputy prime minister, Miroljub Labus, told Nezavisne Novine, a newspaper published in Bosnia-Herzegovina's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska.
But in a region divided as much as anything by opposing memories and interpretations of what happened during the war "this [case] is about establishing the nature of the war, whether it was aggression or whether it was civil war," says Nerma Jelacic, a human rights investigator in Sarajevo.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), where Mr. Milosevic is on trial, has already ruled that genocide did occur in Bosnia. Although the ICJ is not bound by that precedent, "it would be very troubling, and troublesome for the coherence of international justice" if the ICJ judges find otherwise, says Professor Decaux.
It will not be easy, however, for the Bosnian side to establish the Yugoslav government's responsibility for the war crimes its proxy forces committed. Prosecutors at the ICTY have sometimes had trouble proving all the links in alleged chains of command between the battlefields and Belgrade, and Bosnian lawyers at the World Court will not be able to use all the evidence presented at the ICTY, some of which Belgrade provided only on the condition it not be released to third parties.
The hearings will continue until May 9, when the judges will retire to consider what they have heard, along with thousands of pages of legal arguments. That is expected to take several months. The case was first brought in 1993, and has been prolonged by repeated procedural incidents and political upheavals in Belgrade.
But rather than blunting the impact of the judgment, the long delay might actually give it greater force, suggests Mr. Howen. "It shows the timeless nature of the crimes, the timeless need for accountability, and the timeless nature of the law," he says.
Serbia’s request to block Kosovo’s PM appointment rejected
(Prishtina/DTT-NET.COM)-The head of UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has rejected Friday’s request for Serbia’s government to prevent the appointment of new Prime Minister of UN administrated province, who is wanted by Serbian authorities for alleged war crimes.
Soren Jessen Petersen told radio Voice of America (VOA) that he is unlikely to prevent Agim Ceku from taking the head of Kosovo’s government.
"He has a lot of credentials, and I already know from many talks with him that he will focus a lot on the minority issues…So, they [the Serbian government] may not like it today. But they will like what they see in a month or two." Jessen Petersen said.
Serbian government warned on Friday that talks between Belgrade and Prishtina launched last month could be damaged if former chief of Ethnic Albanian guerrilla will lead Kosovo’s cabinet and urged the head of UN mission to forbidden his appointment.
“The international community through its representatives took the responsibility to create all the necessary conditions for the talks to be unhindered and held in line with the acknowledged democratic standards… The Serbian government is demanding from Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Soren Jessen-Petersen to act according to his authorisations stated in the UN SC Resolution 1244 and prevent the appointment of Agim Ceku.” Serbian government said in a statement following an urgent meeting.
The second round of talks on minority self-rule plan at municipal level in Kosovo is scheduled for 17 March in Vienna, Austria.
The chief commander of former Kosovo guerrilla of Ethnic Albanians (Kosovo Liberation Army-KLA) Ceku was nominated for the post of Prime Minister of UN administrated province, as Bajram Kosumi last stepped down following the pressure from his party.
During the NATO air strikes, Ceku was the chief commander of KLA which fought against Serbian forces. Earlier he joined Croatian forces during the 1992-1995 war also against Serbian army.
After the war ended in mid 1999, Ceku took the command of the civil emergency structure, Kosovo Protection Force, which is comprised mainly by former KLA members.
Serbia issued an arrest warrant against Ceku in 2002 and charged him for alleged crimes against Kosovo Serbs during 1999 Kosovo war.
Soren Jessen Petersen told radio Voice of America (VOA) that he is unlikely to prevent Agim Ceku from taking the head of Kosovo’s government.
"He has a lot of credentials, and I already know from many talks with him that he will focus a lot on the minority issues…So, they [the Serbian government] may not like it today. But they will like what they see in a month or two." Jessen Petersen said.
Serbian government warned on Friday that talks between Belgrade and Prishtina launched last month could be damaged if former chief of Ethnic Albanian guerrilla will lead Kosovo’s cabinet and urged the head of UN mission to forbidden his appointment.
“The international community through its representatives took the responsibility to create all the necessary conditions for the talks to be unhindered and held in line with the acknowledged democratic standards… The Serbian government is demanding from Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Soren Jessen-Petersen to act according to his authorisations stated in the UN SC Resolution 1244 and prevent the appointment of Agim Ceku.” Serbian government said in a statement following an urgent meeting.
The second round of talks on minority self-rule plan at municipal level in Kosovo is scheduled for 17 March in Vienna, Austria.
The chief commander of former Kosovo guerrilla of Ethnic Albanians (Kosovo Liberation Army-KLA) Ceku was nominated for the post of Prime Minister of UN administrated province, as Bajram Kosumi last stepped down following the pressure from his party.
During the NATO air strikes, Ceku was the chief commander of KLA which fought against Serbian forces. Earlier he joined Croatian forces during the 1992-1995 war also against Serbian army.
After the war ended in mid 1999, Ceku took the command of the civil emergency structure, Kosovo Protection Force, which is comprised mainly by former KLA members.
Serbia issued an arrest warrant against Ceku in 2002 and charged him for alleged crimes against Kosovo Serbs during 1999 Kosovo war.
In Serbia, Deaths Set Off a Lucrative Race for Profit - The New York Times
By NICHOLAS WOOD
NOVI SAD, Serbia, Feb. 26 — Dragan Peric was shocked to learn that his father, hospitalized for a mere stomach ulcer, had died. But the call came from the hospital, the city's Institute for Internal Medicine, so his mother and uncle began a sad round of calls to relatives.
Then two men appeared at the front door, offering the services of their funeral home.
The family had not called them, said Mr. Peric, a 21-year-old carpenter, but since funeral services were needed, they got the job. But when they went to the hospital's morgue, there was no Peric registered. After a confused search, the family discovered that the man declared dead was quite alive, just in a different ward.
Senior hospital officials later explained what had happened: a nurse had seen Mr. Peric's empty bed, and, assuming the worst, phoned the tip into the funeral home for a cash reward.
She had the dubious good manners to let the family know, too.
The hospital said the nurse would be disciplined, and the lawyer for the funeral home denied it had paid for tip-offs of deaths.
But medical workers at Serbian hospitals say it is routine for nurses, doctors, ambulance staff members and even postal workers to cash in on news of the dead.
Funeral companies pay the equivalent of $70 to $100 for information that gives them a crucial edge on their competition. It would not take many tips for a nurse to equal her monthly salary of around $250.
Medical workers say the collusion between hospitals, nursing homes and funeral homes began a decade ago, when the economy was reeling from international sanctions put in place to pressure Serbia into supporting a peaceful resolution to the Bosnian conflict.
That was when private funeral companies began to compete with Lisje, the city-owned funeral home that is Novi Sad's largest.
"It is usual in Serbia that such information is worth money," said Sladzana Cabrilo, a Lisje spokeswoman. She accused the private companies of taking advantage of families when they are "confused and sad." The reality is, she said, "if you come first, you will get a job."
There are about 30 funeral homes in this city of about 300,000 people. The typical cost of funeral arrangements is $320, and much more for an expensive coffin.
Doctors, nurses, pathologists, workers at hospital call centers — even postal employees who read outgoing telegrams informing families of death — are all in a position to trade in death tip-offs, said a 53-year-old nurse who asked not to be identified because she did not want her colleagues to know she was discussing the practice.
"I have heard of cases where families were called by two or three companies before they were formally told their relative had died," she said.
The collusion between health workers and funeral homes echoes a scandal that emerged in Zodz, Poland, in 2002. Prosecutors there investigated a similar trade and found that ambulance workers were deliberately arriving late at emergencies to increase their chances of finding business for funeral homes.
Prosecutors also discovered the widespread use of a muscle relaxant, which they believe was used to kill patients. Two doctors and two ambulance workers are on trial charged in the deaths of 18 people.
No evidence of such practices has come to light in Serbia, and its economy is now growing.
But corruption in medical care is regarded as deeply entrenched, with doctors expecting additional payment from patients for services that are already paid for by the state.
Slobodan Curic, a senior medical director at the Novi Sad hospital where Mr. Peric did not die, said neither the police nor the senior medical staff took the collusion with funeral homes seriously enough.
"In Novi Sad we are being more open about this," he said. "It exists throughout all of Serbia. I think only the police can do something. But they think it is a small issue."
The Peric family said it planned to press charges against the funeral home, named Miran San, or Peaceful Sleep, whose directors came to its door.
The funeral home's lawyer, Nebojsa Karanovic, denied wrongdoing and said it was the hospital, and not his clients, that was responsible for the mistaken death announcement.
The company "never gave a single dinar for any piece of information," he said. "All this case shows is that private funeral companies are quick at doing their work."
NOVI SAD, Serbia, Feb. 26 — Dragan Peric was shocked to learn that his father, hospitalized for a mere stomach ulcer, had died. But the call came from the hospital, the city's Institute for Internal Medicine, so his mother and uncle began a sad round of calls to relatives.
Then two men appeared at the front door, offering the services of their funeral home.
The family had not called them, said Mr. Peric, a 21-year-old carpenter, but since funeral services were needed, they got the job. But when they went to the hospital's morgue, there was no Peric registered. After a confused search, the family discovered that the man declared dead was quite alive, just in a different ward.
Senior hospital officials later explained what had happened: a nurse had seen Mr. Peric's empty bed, and, assuming the worst, phoned the tip into the funeral home for a cash reward.
She had the dubious good manners to let the family know, too.
The hospital said the nurse would be disciplined, and the lawyer for the funeral home denied it had paid for tip-offs of deaths.
But medical workers at Serbian hospitals say it is routine for nurses, doctors, ambulance staff members and even postal workers to cash in on news of the dead.
Funeral companies pay the equivalent of $70 to $100 for information that gives them a crucial edge on their competition. It would not take many tips for a nurse to equal her monthly salary of around $250.
Medical workers say the collusion between hospitals, nursing homes and funeral homes began a decade ago, when the economy was reeling from international sanctions put in place to pressure Serbia into supporting a peaceful resolution to the Bosnian conflict.
That was when private funeral companies began to compete with Lisje, the city-owned funeral home that is Novi Sad's largest.
"It is usual in Serbia that such information is worth money," said Sladzana Cabrilo, a Lisje spokeswoman. She accused the private companies of taking advantage of families when they are "confused and sad." The reality is, she said, "if you come first, you will get a job."
There are about 30 funeral homes in this city of about 300,000 people. The typical cost of funeral arrangements is $320, and much more for an expensive coffin.
Doctors, nurses, pathologists, workers at hospital call centers — even postal employees who read outgoing telegrams informing families of death — are all in a position to trade in death tip-offs, said a 53-year-old nurse who asked not to be identified because she did not want her colleagues to know she was discussing the practice.
"I have heard of cases where families were called by two or three companies before they were formally told their relative had died," she said.
The collusion between health workers and funeral homes echoes a scandal that emerged in Zodz, Poland, in 2002. Prosecutors there investigated a similar trade and found that ambulance workers were deliberately arriving late at emergencies to increase their chances of finding business for funeral homes.
Prosecutors also discovered the widespread use of a muscle relaxant, which they believe was used to kill patients. Two doctors and two ambulance workers are on trial charged in the deaths of 18 people.
No evidence of such practices has come to light in Serbia, and its economy is now growing.
But corruption in medical care is regarded as deeply entrenched, with doctors expecting additional payment from patients for services that are already paid for by the state.
Slobodan Curic, a senior medical director at the Novi Sad hospital where Mr. Peric did not die, said neither the police nor the senior medical staff took the collusion with funeral homes seriously enough.
"In Novi Sad we are being more open about this," he said. "It exists throughout all of Serbia. I think only the police can do something. But they think it is a small issue."
The Peric family said it planned to press charges against the funeral home, named Miran San, or Peaceful Sleep, whose directors came to its door.
The funeral home's lawyer, Nebojsa Karanovic, denied wrongdoing and said it was the hospital, and not his clients, that was responsible for the mistaken death announcement.
The company "never gave a single dinar for any piece of information," he said. "All this case shows is that private funeral companies are quick at doing their work."
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Analysis: Balkans' obstacles to recovery
Analysis: Balkans' obstacles to recovery
By DAVID PATRICK LUNDQUIST
WASHINGTON, March 4 (UPI) -- Euro-bickering dominates the political atmosphere of the Balkans, where statesmen have effectively traded their guns for writing utensils, allowing them to draft referenda and free-trade agreements.
Steadily healing from a past decade or two of disintegration and ethnic cleansing, southeastern Europe prepares itself to engage in more serious political discourse.
Just how long it will take the states of the region to achieve their collective and respective goals remains in doubt due to issues new and old. While the multiethnic populations of the Balkan countries attempt to heal their wounds, their leaders try to initiate the reforms that may assist the disparate processes already underway.
The 1995 Dayton Accords quelled the first Bosnian War. In 1999, though, the Clinton administration led a NATO air-strike campaign on Serbian positions to halt Serbian attacks on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Croatian and Serbian generals are now facing arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague.
The fighting may be over but the region's myriad of territorial and economic problems continue to hamper development and recovery efforts.
Erhard Busek, special coordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, a Brussels-based intergovernmental body, asseverates that "the region is moving in the right direction," but notes that significant barriers persist to realizing the kind of post-Cold War equanimity witnessed in the rest of Europe.
In recent years, many if not all of the Balkans countries have taken steps to enter 21st century continental Europe. Officials from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development judged the elections at various levels of government in several states to be fair and legitimate.
At present, 31 free-trade agreements link Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia & Montenegro, Moldova, Macedonia and Romania. Because of this, says, Busek, trade has doubled in the last few years.
In October 2005, the aforementioned eight countries signed a landmark agreement with the EU to strengthen safety and supply of energy to southeastern Europe. For this and other reasons, the European Union loaned a total of $4.3 billion to members of the area, signaling the EU's interest in developing the region to the standard of modernized Europe.
But even specialists of the Balkans recognize the enormous impediments before them. Busek identifies both lingering and newly arising matters as highly concerning.
Foremost, corruption, both small-scale and large, acts as a drag upon economic growth as well as a mark against the legitimacy of those countries. Narcotics traffickers, dealing primarily in heroin originating in Afghanistan, use the rugged and mountainous topography of southeastern Europe as a gateway to Central and Western Europe.
To maximize success, traffickers will bribe local officials. On the other end of the spectrum, national lawmakers demonstrate susceptibility to bribery and other forms of corruption, sometimes initiated by Western corporations. Because patronage and various forms of corruption are vested in history -- the notoriously corrupt Ottoman Empire once ruled the region -- Busek warns that it may long before this tradition is uprooted.
Similarly, following an intense period of conflict, the Balkans remain heavily militarized. Dismantling weapons installations and securing vulnerable facilities will be essential to both regional security, as well as alleviating the concerns of the EU and the United States. Many view arms availability and recovering states as a mixture for disaster insofar as they provide terrorists with a fertile base.
Next, Busek recommends, privatization must commence in order to attract capital from Western investors. Problematically, "the privatization process is difficult sometimes because political interests keep (businesses) in the hands of the state." With economic growth in the area overall reaching 5 percent to 7 percent of GDP in the foreseeable future, he says, the prospects for such a process are favorable.
Factors inhibiting economic expansion include other systemic issues, like faltering education and the classic "brain drain" effect. Most of the region lacks the educational infrastructure to compete in science and math, subjects critical to growth.
Brain drain refers to the phenomenon of the flight of the educated elites. Seeking opportunity elsewhere, members of the intelligentsia who could help to reconstruct the Balkans take up residence in Western Europe and the United States. Vjeran Pavlakovic, co-editor of a new book on Serbia, explains that a sense pervades "that there is no political future to Serbia" because of the loss of talent.
Inclusion in the European Union remains a goal for the political leaders of the Balkan countries. Bulgaria, for one, will enter the EU in 2008. Sometimes, though, leaders' and diplomats' goals diverge quite starkly from those of their peoples. For example, scholars Martin Sletzinger and Nida Gelazis of the Wilson Center's East European Studies Program in Washington, D.C. point out, "Croatia's case is illustrative. It has led the pack in the Western Balkans in the EU integration process, but membership negotiations were postponed in March when unreformed nationalists strongly resisted the EU's demand that Croatia turn over" General Ante Gotovina, who has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
In recent news, just weeks ago, reports surfaced that Serbian officials had cornered or captured one of the most-wanted Serbian war criminals, Ratko Mladic, who remains implicated in the killing of about 7,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995. The Serbian government denies these reports as unfounded rumors, sources in Belgrade told United Press International.
Even before EU accession, the very cartographic integrity of the region must be secured. At issue is the upcoming referendum in Serbia and Montenegro, wherein Montenegrin voters may opt to secede from their marriage to Serbia and become an independent state. If they do so, Serbian President Boris Tadic vows to honor that decision.
Also in Serbia, Kosovars continue to agitate for independence, but against greater odds than Montenegro. Erhard Busek at this point does not advocate independence for Kosovo, and for the sake of regional stability believes it "probably more prudent" for Kosovo to gain complete autonomy instead.
Others disagree. Charles Kupchan, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University contends that, for reasons of practicality also, "the time has come to let pragmatism triumph over principle -- and move toward independence for Kosovo."
Much like in Croatia, a gap between the leaders and the masses on the fate of Kosovo exists in Serbian politics. Busek hears from Serbian politicians who must stoke nationalistic impulses for political purposes, but secretly gripe that such extremism is not likely to lead to progress in Serbia.
As for the Stability Pact itself, Busek says he would like to embark on roadmap which would lead to free-standing region and regional stability in the Balkans, even if that includes the dissolution of the Stability Pact. If this is to occur, the region must "grow up and show responsibility," he believes, a weighty task in an area with a storied history of domination by outsiders.
By DAVID PATRICK LUNDQUIST
WASHINGTON, March 4 (UPI) -- Euro-bickering dominates the political atmosphere of the Balkans, where statesmen have effectively traded their guns for writing utensils, allowing them to draft referenda and free-trade agreements.
Steadily healing from a past decade or two of disintegration and ethnic cleansing, southeastern Europe prepares itself to engage in more serious political discourse.
Just how long it will take the states of the region to achieve their collective and respective goals remains in doubt due to issues new and old. While the multiethnic populations of the Balkan countries attempt to heal their wounds, their leaders try to initiate the reforms that may assist the disparate processes already underway.
The 1995 Dayton Accords quelled the first Bosnian War. In 1999, though, the Clinton administration led a NATO air-strike campaign on Serbian positions to halt Serbian attacks on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Croatian and Serbian generals are now facing arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague.
The fighting may be over but the region's myriad of territorial and economic problems continue to hamper development and recovery efforts.
Erhard Busek, special coordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, a Brussels-based intergovernmental body, asseverates that "the region is moving in the right direction," but notes that significant barriers persist to realizing the kind of post-Cold War equanimity witnessed in the rest of Europe.
In recent years, many if not all of the Balkans countries have taken steps to enter 21st century continental Europe. Officials from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development judged the elections at various levels of government in several states to be fair and legitimate.
At present, 31 free-trade agreements link Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia & Montenegro, Moldova, Macedonia and Romania. Because of this, says, Busek, trade has doubled in the last few years.
In October 2005, the aforementioned eight countries signed a landmark agreement with the EU to strengthen safety and supply of energy to southeastern Europe. For this and other reasons, the European Union loaned a total of $4.3 billion to members of the area, signaling the EU's interest in developing the region to the standard of modernized Europe.
But even specialists of the Balkans recognize the enormous impediments before them. Busek identifies both lingering and newly arising matters as highly concerning.
Foremost, corruption, both small-scale and large, acts as a drag upon economic growth as well as a mark against the legitimacy of those countries. Narcotics traffickers, dealing primarily in heroin originating in Afghanistan, use the rugged and mountainous topography of southeastern Europe as a gateway to Central and Western Europe.
To maximize success, traffickers will bribe local officials. On the other end of the spectrum, national lawmakers demonstrate susceptibility to bribery and other forms of corruption, sometimes initiated by Western corporations. Because patronage and various forms of corruption are vested in history -- the notoriously corrupt Ottoman Empire once ruled the region -- Busek warns that it may long before this tradition is uprooted.
Similarly, following an intense period of conflict, the Balkans remain heavily militarized. Dismantling weapons installations and securing vulnerable facilities will be essential to both regional security, as well as alleviating the concerns of the EU and the United States. Many view arms availability and recovering states as a mixture for disaster insofar as they provide terrorists with a fertile base.
Next, Busek recommends, privatization must commence in order to attract capital from Western investors. Problematically, "the privatization process is difficult sometimes because political interests keep (businesses) in the hands of the state." With economic growth in the area overall reaching 5 percent to 7 percent of GDP in the foreseeable future, he says, the prospects for such a process are favorable.
Factors inhibiting economic expansion include other systemic issues, like faltering education and the classic "brain drain" effect. Most of the region lacks the educational infrastructure to compete in science and math, subjects critical to growth.
Brain drain refers to the phenomenon of the flight of the educated elites. Seeking opportunity elsewhere, members of the intelligentsia who could help to reconstruct the Balkans take up residence in Western Europe and the United States. Vjeran Pavlakovic, co-editor of a new book on Serbia, explains that a sense pervades "that there is no political future to Serbia" because of the loss of talent.
Inclusion in the European Union remains a goal for the political leaders of the Balkan countries. Bulgaria, for one, will enter the EU in 2008. Sometimes, though, leaders' and diplomats' goals diverge quite starkly from those of their peoples. For example, scholars Martin Sletzinger and Nida Gelazis of the Wilson Center's East European Studies Program in Washington, D.C. point out, "Croatia's case is illustrative. It has led the pack in the Western Balkans in the EU integration process, but membership negotiations were postponed in March when unreformed nationalists strongly resisted the EU's demand that Croatia turn over" General Ante Gotovina, who has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
In recent news, just weeks ago, reports surfaced that Serbian officials had cornered or captured one of the most-wanted Serbian war criminals, Ratko Mladic, who remains implicated in the killing of about 7,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995. The Serbian government denies these reports as unfounded rumors, sources in Belgrade told United Press International.
Even before EU accession, the very cartographic integrity of the region must be secured. At issue is the upcoming referendum in Serbia and Montenegro, wherein Montenegrin voters may opt to secede from their marriage to Serbia and become an independent state. If they do so, Serbian President Boris Tadic vows to honor that decision.
Also in Serbia, Kosovars continue to agitate for independence, but against greater odds than Montenegro. Erhard Busek at this point does not advocate independence for Kosovo, and for the sake of regional stability believes it "probably more prudent" for Kosovo to gain complete autonomy instead.
Others disagree. Charles Kupchan, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University contends that, for reasons of practicality also, "the time has come to let pragmatism triumph over principle -- and move toward independence for Kosovo."
Much like in Croatia, a gap between the leaders and the masses on the fate of Kosovo exists in Serbian politics. Busek hears from Serbian politicians who must stoke nationalistic impulses for political purposes, but secretly gripe that such extremism is not likely to lead to progress in Serbia.
As for the Stability Pact itself, Busek says he would like to embark on roadmap which would lead to free-standing region and regional stability in the Balkans, even if that includes the dissolution of the Stability Pact. If this is to occur, the region must "grow up and show responsibility," he believes, a weighty task in an area with a storied history of domination by outsiders.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
State-building - Montenegro's independence
(c) The Economist Newspaper Limited, London 2006. All rights reserved
Ahead of Montenegro's independence referendum in May
The European Union endorses hurdles for an independence vote
LAKE SKADAR, straddling the border between Albania and Montenegro, is one of the most beautiful spots in the Balkans. Tiny, mysterious islands rise from its blue-green waters. Drive from Albania along the lake and you see something else: a country returning from the mists of time. At the frontier the flag of Montenegro flaps lazily in the wind. Travellers are checked by Montenegrin police and customs officers. Nothing odd here—except that their country does not exist. If the Montenegrin government gets its way, it soon will.
Technically Montenegro is part of a loose federal “state union” with Serbia, whose 8m people dwarf Montenegro's 673,000. Throughout the Balkan wars of the 1990s Montenegro stood by Serbia. But since 1997 various governments led by Milo Djukanovic have been hoping to restore the independence that the country lost to the old Yugoslavia in 1918.
Unlike public opinion in neighbouring Kosovo, however, support for independence is far from wholehearted, suggest the polls. If pro-union parties boycott the referendum on independence, now set for May 21st, a crisis could ensue. Hence a plan proposed by Miroslav Lajcak, the Slovak special envoy for the European Union. He has suggested that any referendum must be endorsed by 55% of those voting; and that, to be valid, at least 50% of the electorate must take part. The EU's foreign ministers have backed Mr Lajcak's proposal.
Polls suggest that independence is supported by around 41% of Montenegrins and opposed by 32%. Since Mr Lajcak's plan first became public, Montenegrins have become keen mathematicians. The referendum may produce a slim majority for independence, but much will depend on turnout. Yet if the vote in favour is just 54.9%, says Dragan Koprivica, spokesman for the pro-union Socialist People's Party, the government “would not have the right to promote an independent country.”
Pro-independence politicians are seething about the Lajcak plan. They say it is undemocratic, since it means that a pro-union vote is worth more than a pro-independence one. Montenegrin officials also complain that they were blackmailed by the EU, which insisted that, unless they accepted the Lajcak plan, it would not allow monitoring of the referendum by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, undermining the vote.
Miodrag Vlahovic, Montenengro's foreign minister, declares that, if there is even a one-vote majority in favour of independence, “it is absolutely clear, the state union will not exist any more.” The implication is that Montenegrins who participate in joint institutions with Serbia, such as the army and the foreign ministry, would be recalled. Mr Koprivica says that his party activists report that Mr Djukanovic's people are offering euro150 ($180) bribes to secure votes. But the pro-union party has an uphill struggle of its own: its members are mostly old and its leaders are linked to the ugly face of Serbian nationalism.
Pro-independence supporters joke that officials from Brussels act as though they work “for the Soviet Union not the European Union”. Mr Vlahovic insists that “who will win in Montenegro will be decided in Montenegro, and not in Brussels.” He seems confident of victory. Mr Djukanovic's supporters believe they can win a 57% majority for independence; some sources add that the party is keeping this quiet because, with a tight battle ahead, it does not want to foster complacency.
Ahead of Montenegro's independence referendum in May
The European Union endorses hurdles for an independence vote
LAKE SKADAR, straddling the border between Albania and Montenegro, is one of the most beautiful spots in the Balkans. Tiny, mysterious islands rise from its blue-green waters. Drive from Albania along the lake and you see something else: a country returning from the mists of time. At the frontier the flag of Montenegro flaps lazily in the wind. Travellers are checked by Montenegrin police and customs officers. Nothing odd here—except that their country does not exist. If the Montenegrin government gets its way, it soon will.
Technically Montenegro is part of a loose federal “state union” with Serbia, whose 8m people dwarf Montenegro's 673,000. Throughout the Balkan wars of the 1990s Montenegro stood by Serbia. But since 1997 various governments led by Milo Djukanovic have been hoping to restore the independence that the country lost to the old Yugoslavia in 1918.
Unlike public opinion in neighbouring Kosovo, however, support for independence is far from wholehearted, suggest the polls. If pro-union parties boycott the referendum on independence, now set for May 21st, a crisis could ensue. Hence a plan proposed by Miroslav Lajcak, the Slovak special envoy for the European Union. He has suggested that any referendum must be endorsed by 55% of those voting; and that, to be valid, at least 50% of the electorate must take part. The EU's foreign ministers have backed Mr Lajcak's proposal.
Polls suggest that independence is supported by around 41% of Montenegrins and opposed by 32%. Since Mr Lajcak's plan first became public, Montenegrins have become keen mathematicians. The referendum may produce a slim majority for independence, but much will depend on turnout. Yet if the vote in favour is just 54.9%, says Dragan Koprivica, spokesman for the pro-union Socialist People's Party, the government “would not have the right to promote an independent country.”
Pro-independence politicians are seething about the Lajcak plan. They say it is undemocratic, since it means that a pro-union vote is worth more than a pro-independence one. Montenegrin officials also complain that they were blackmailed by the EU, which insisted that, unless they accepted the Lajcak plan, it would not allow monitoring of the referendum by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, undermining the vote.
Miodrag Vlahovic, Montenengro's foreign minister, declares that, if there is even a one-vote majority in favour of independence, “it is absolutely clear, the state union will not exist any more.” The implication is that Montenegrins who participate in joint institutions with Serbia, such as the army and the foreign ministry, would be recalled. Mr Koprivica says that his party activists report that Mr Djukanovic's people are offering euro150 ($180) bribes to secure votes. But the pro-union party has an uphill struggle of its own: its members are mostly old and its leaders are linked to the ugly face of Serbian nationalism.
Pro-independence supporters joke that officials from Brussels act as though they work “for the Soviet Union not the European Union”. Mr Vlahovic insists that “who will win in Montenegro will be decided in Montenegro, and not in Brussels.” He seems confident of victory. Mr Djukanovic's supporters believe they can win a 57% majority for independence; some sources add that the party is keeping this quiet because, with a tight battle ahead, it does not want to foster complacency.
Nation Creation
Kosovo's rocky road to independence.
By Carne Ross
Posted Thursday, March 2, 2006, at 12:04 PM ET
Creating new states is a tricky business at the best of times. The delicate crust of stability, both within the putative new state and among those countries that must recognize it, can easily be sundered. Nowhere is that crust more fragile than in the Balkans, as recent history has all too bloodily demonstrated.
Today, Kosovo stands on the cusp of statehood. Still legally a province of Serbia, since 1999 Kosovo has in all but legal form been separate and administered by the United Nations, which late last year initiated a process to decide Kosovo's final status: Will Kosovo be an independent state, and, if so, what kind? Comprised of the usual closed-door meetings and shuttle diplomacy, this process is led by a U.N. special envoy trying to find agreement on what to do, not only among those most concerned—above all the inhabitants of Kosovo itself—but also among the diverse interests of the "international community."
Among the diplomats dealing with the issue, there is wide private consensus that the time for Kosovo's independence has come. But that consensus is accompanied by concern that the process be executed peacefully. In these days of global threats and Middle East turmoil, no one needs another Balkans war.
Kosovo's indeterminate status since the 1999 war has done little to settle relations between the majority Albanian and minority Serbian communities, not least since their alienation has much longer roots. For Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, the war was painful and traumatic but ultimately a release from what they saw as decades of Slav domination. When Serbian President Boris Tadic publicly proposed that he attend the Jan. 26 funeral of Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo's president and icon of national self-determination, the Kosovo government brusquely rejected his suggestion. In his statement, Tadic had unwisely mentioned that Kosovo is still part of Serbia and Montenegro, a red rag to the Kosovar-Albanian community even in less emotional times. For a small nationalist minority in Kosovo, even participating in the U.N. process is too great a concession. Ubiquitous graffiti in Pristina, Kosovo's capital, demands no negotiation in the U.N. talks. For these hard-liners, Kosovo has been independent since 1999; what, therefore, is there to talk about? Meanwhile, the resignation of Kosovo's prime minister is but one sign of the internal and international pressures on the government to perform effectively in this critical period.
For Kosovo's other communities, above all the Serbs, the U.N. talks cause different anxieties. There is still sporadic violence against them (a grenade was recently thrown into the garden of a prominent Kosovo Serb politician), and even if the hostility is much less violent than in the past, many Serbs still do not feel safe to work and travel around their own country. The U.N. process asks what legal protections, monitoring, and other guarantees need to be put in place to ensure their long-term safety. The other core issue is how local government should be restructured to allow maximum self-government for the Serbs and other minorities within the confines of an independent state.
Things are not much more straightforward in the broader "international community" (or, at least, the big powers whose secretive Contact Group controls diplomacy over the Balkans). The United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Germany have more or less decided that independence is the answer for Kosovo's and the region's long-term stability: The overwhelming aspiration of Kosovo's majority could not be clearer; no one in the United Nations or NATO wants to perpetuate the expensive international presence there. The violence of March 2004, when rioting mobs turned on U.N. police and offices, as well as Serb enclaves, showed the international community that its welcome had worn thin (see the International Crisis Group's excellent report). Since the '99 war, a return to Serbian sovereignty has been out of the question. Independence is the only credible option.
Russia, the final member of the Contact Group, may recognize this inevitability, but its representatives have begun to talk about the "universal" applicability of Kosovo's final-status process. Perhaps Moscow intends to bargain Kosovo's independence for concessions elsewhere (Central Asia, Iran?), or, more likely, it is worried that Kosovo's independence might encourage other secessionist movements, perhaps in Russia's own backyard, to accelerate their own struggles for self-determination. For this reason, the United States, Britain, and others have been careful to classify the Kosovo process as "unique."
At present, Serbia, weakly governed by an uneasy moderate coalition and pressured from the nationalist right, is emphatic in its rejection of independence for Kosovo. Remember that the ancient battlefield of Kosovo Polje, outside Pristina, is where Slobodan Milosevic began his nationalist crusade with a provocative speech before half a million Serbs in 1989. Today, nationalist politicians line up to denounce anyone who even contemplates ceding the province (even if many Serbs privately accept this looming reality). If this rejection doesn't elide into acquiescence (no one expects the Serbs to welcome it), the "international community" has a problem. For at the end of all this, the U.N. Security Council, which supervises the U.N. process, must endorse whatever outcome it produces (and must, moreover, vote for a new state to be accepted into the United Nations). China and Russia, both of whose vetoes can summarily block any decision, have said clearly that they will only agree if Belgrade does, too.
Russia and China are worried about their peripheries and "near-abroads"—the Chechnyas, Tibets, and Abkhazias. They are determined to uphold the principle that a state must agree before seceding parts of its territory. In principle, this sounds entirely reasonable. In practice, it may mean that Belgrade is given an unwarranted veto over the whole process. And if independence is blocked for long (say, much beyond the end of this year), violence in Kosovo, and perhaps elsewhere in the Balkans (both Macedonia and southern Serbia have similar tensions), won't be far away.
For the moment, diplomacy proceeds quietly and smoothly, with little drama or press attention. The U.N. special envoy, former president of Finland Marti Ahtisaari, is a wise and experienced operator, but if he—with the backing of the Contact Group and dollops of European Union and American money—cannot persuade (or, more realistically, force) Serbia to accept Kosovo's independence, then expect the dispute once more to march rapidly up the international agenda, to the place where crises and imminent wars dwell. It hasn't happened yet, and the diplomats hope it won't, but when practice and principle come into conflict, in diplomacy as in life, trouble is often the result.
Carne Ross is a former British diplomat and director of Independent Diplomat, a nonprofit advisory group that is advising the Kosovo government in the final-status process.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2137260/
Copyright 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
By Carne Ross
Posted Thursday, March 2, 2006, at 12:04 PM ET
Creating new states is a tricky business at the best of times. The delicate crust of stability, both within the putative new state and among those countries that must recognize it, can easily be sundered. Nowhere is that crust more fragile than in the Balkans, as recent history has all too bloodily demonstrated.
Today, Kosovo stands on the cusp of statehood. Still legally a province of Serbia, since 1999 Kosovo has in all but legal form been separate and administered by the United Nations, which late last year initiated a process to decide Kosovo's final status: Will Kosovo be an independent state, and, if so, what kind? Comprised of the usual closed-door meetings and shuttle diplomacy, this process is led by a U.N. special envoy trying to find agreement on what to do, not only among those most concerned—above all the inhabitants of Kosovo itself—but also among the diverse interests of the "international community."
Among the diplomats dealing with the issue, there is wide private consensus that the time for Kosovo's independence has come. But that consensus is accompanied by concern that the process be executed peacefully. In these days of global threats and Middle East turmoil, no one needs another Balkans war.
Kosovo's indeterminate status since the 1999 war has done little to settle relations between the majority Albanian and minority Serbian communities, not least since their alienation has much longer roots. For Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, the war was painful and traumatic but ultimately a release from what they saw as decades of Slav domination. When Serbian President Boris Tadic publicly proposed that he attend the Jan. 26 funeral of Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo's president and icon of national self-determination, the Kosovo government brusquely rejected his suggestion. In his statement, Tadic had unwisely mentioned that Kosovo is still part of Serbia and Montenegro, a red rag to the Kosovar-Albanian community even in less emotional times. For a small nationalist minority in Kosovo, even participating in the U.N. process is too great a concession. Ubiquitous graffiti in Pristina, Kosovo's capital, demands no negotiation in the U.N. talks. For these hard-liners, Kosovo has been independent since 1999; what, therefore, is there to talk about? Meanwhile, the resignation of Kosovo's prime minister is but one sign of the internal and international pressures on the government to perform effectively in this critical period.
For Kosovo's other communities, above all the Serbs, the U.N. talks cause different anxieties. There is still sporadic violence against them (a grenade was recently thrown into the garden of a prominent Kosovo Serb politician), and even if the hostility is much less violent than in the past, many Serbs still do not feel safe to work and travel around their own country. The U.N. process asks what legal protections, monitoring, and other guarantees need to be put in place to ensure their long-term safety. The other core issue is how local government should be restructured to allow maximum self-government for the Serbs and other minorities within the confines of an independent state.
Things are not much more straightforward in the broader "international community" (or, at least, the big powers whose secretive Contact Group controls diplomacy over the Balkans). The United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Germany have more or less decided that independence is the answer for Kosovo's and the region's long-term stability: The overwhelming aspiration of Kosovo's majority could not be clearer; no one in the United Nations or NATO wants to perpetuate the expensive international presence there. The violence of March 2004, when rioting mobs turned on U.N. police and offices, as well as Serb enclaves, showed the international community that its welcome had worn thin (see the International Crisis Group's excellent report). Since the '99 war, a return to Serbian sovereignty has been out of the question. Independence is the only credible option.
Russia, the final member of the Contact Group, may recognize this inevitability, but its representatives have begun to talk about the "universal" applicability of Kosovo's final-status process. Perhaps Moscow intends to bargain Kosovo's independence for concessions elsewhere (Central Asia, Iran?), or, more likely, it is worried that Kosovo's independence might encourage other secessionist movements, perhaps in Russia's own backyard, to accelerate their own struggles for self-determination. For this reason, the United States, Britain, and others have been careful to classify the Kosovo process as "unique."
At present, Serbia, weakly governed by an uneasy moderate coalition and pressured from the nationalist right, is emphatic in its rejection of independence for Kosovo. Remember that the ancient battlefield of Kosovo Polje, outside Pristina, is where Slobodan Milosevic began his nationalist crusade with a provocative speech before half a million Serbs in 1989. Today, nationalist politicians line up to denounce anyone who even contemplates ceding the province (even if many Serbs privately accept this looming reality). If this rejection doesn't elide into acquiescence (no one expects the Serbs to welcome it), the "international community" has a problem. For at the end of all this, the U.N. Security Council, which supervises the U.N. process, must endorse whatever outcome it produces (and must, moreover, vote for a new state to be accepted into the United Nations). China and Russia, both of whose vetoes can summarily block any decision, have said clearly that they will only agree if Belgrade does, too.
Russia and China are worried about their peripheries and "near-abroads"—the Chechnyas, Tibets, and Abkhazias. They are determined to uphold the principle that a state must agree before seceding parts of its territory. In principle, this sounds entirely reasonable. In practice, it may mean that Belgrade is given an unwarranted veto over the whole process. And if independence is blocked for long (say, much beyond the end of this year), violence in Kosovo, and perhaps elsewhere in the Balkans (both Macedonia and southern Serbia have similar tensions), won't be far away.
For the moment, diplomacy proceeds quietly and smoothly, with little drama or press attention. The U.N. special envoy, former president of Finland Marti Ahtisaari, is a wise and experienced operator, but if he—with the backing of the Contact Group and dollops of European Union and American money—cannot persuade (or, more realistically, force) Serbia to accept Kosovo's independence, then expect the dispute once more to march rapidly up the international agenda, to the place where crises and imminent wars dwell. It hasn't happened yet, and the diplomats hope it won't, but when practice and principle come into conflict, in diplomacy as in life, trouble is often the result.
Carne Ross is a former British diplomat and director of Independent Diplomat, a nonprofit advisory group that is advising the Kosovo government in the final-status process.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2137260/
Copyright 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
SRSG’s statement on resignation of Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi
PRISTINA – Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Kosovo (SRSG) Søren Jessen-Petersen made the following statement after learning of the resignation of Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi:
“I was informed that the Prime Minister has resigned.
Such developments are a part of normal democratic life and are fully in accordance with democratic principles. I would like to thank the Prime Minister for his important contribution to Kosovo’s progress over the last many months.
I urge the future Prime Minister to accelerate standards implementation and to make sure that Kosovo does its utmost to provide the highest quality of life to all of its communities. This is of particular importance as progress on standards will have a strong impact on the outcome of the status process.
I look forward to working closely with the new Prime Minister when elected by the Assembly.”
“I was informed that the Prime Minister has resigned.
Such developments are a part of normal democratic life and are fully in accordance with democratic principles. I would like to thank the Prime Minister for his important contribution to Kosovo’s progress over the last many months.
I urge the future Prime Minister to accelerate standards implementation and to make sure that Kosovo does its utmost to provide the highest quality of life to all of its communities. This is of particular importance as progress on standards will have a strong impact on the outcome of the status process.
I look forward to working closely with the new Prime Minister when elected by the Assembly.”
Serbia holds two over murder of Albanian-American prisoners
BELGRADE, March 1 (Reuters) - Serbia has arrested two people suspected of killing in 1999 three imprisoned Albanian brothers who were American citizens, a Serbian court said on Wednesday.
The bodies of the three brothers of the Bitici family -- Agron, Mehmet and Ilijem -- were found in 2001 in mass graves alongside Kosovo Albanian victims trucked over to Serbia during the 1998-99 conflict in the province of Kosovo.
The three brothers strayed into Serb-controlled territory in Kosovo in 1999 and were sentenced to 17 days imprisonment but when they were released they were taken away and shot, human rights activists say.
The graves were discovered by reformers after they ousted former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is on trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague for atrocities committed in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia.
"Acting on the request of the war crimes prosecutor the investigative judge interrogated the suspects and decided to launch an investigation against them and remand them in custody," the district court said in a statement.
The U.S. embassy in Belgrade welcomed the arrests.
"We applaud the Serbian authorities for taking this important step toward bringing this investigation to a close, and hope all individuals involved -- regardless of their current or previous rank or position ... will be rapidly brought to justice," it said in a statement.
It was the second round of arrests in connection with the discovery in 2001 of three pits with remains of more than 800 victims of the 1998-99 Kosovo war.
Nine Serb policemen were arrested in October last year for the murder of 48 Kosovo Albanians found buried in one of the largest graves near Belgrade. The Bitici brothers were found in a smaller pit in Petrovo Selo, in eastern Serbia.
The Serbian war crimes prosecutor's office said in a separate statement it had worked during the two-year investigation into the case with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) because the brothers were American citizens.
Serbia set up its own war crimes court in 2003 to show it can deal with nationals who committed war crimes during the 1990s and is cooperating with the U.N. tribunal.
The bodies of the three brothers of the Bitici family -- Agron, Mehmet and Ilijem -- were found in 2001 in mass graves alongside Kosovo Albanian victims trucked over to Serbia during the 1998-99 conflict in the province of Kosovo.
The three brothers strayed into Serb-controlled territory in Kosovo in 1999 and were sentenced to 17 days imprisonment but when they were released they were taken away and shot, human rights activists say.
The graves were discovered by reformers after they ousted former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is on trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague for atrocities committed in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia.
"Acting on the request of the war crimes prosecutor the investigative judge interrogated the suspects and decided to launch an investigation against them and remand them in custody," the district court said in a statement.
The U.S. embassy in Belgrade welcomed the arrests.
"We applaud the Serbian authorities for taking this important step toward bringing this investigation to a close, and hope all individuals involved -- regardless of their current or previous rank or position ... will be rapidly brought to justice," it said in a statement.
It was the second round of arrests in connection with the discovery in 2001 of three pits with remains of more than 800 victims of the 1998-99 Kosovo war.
Nine Serb policemen were arrested in October last year for the murder of 48 Kosovo Albanians found buried in one of the largest graves near Belgrade. The Bitici brothers were found in a smaller pit in Petrovo Selo, in eastern Serbia.
The Serbian war crimes prosecutor's office said in a separate statement it had worked during the two-year investigation into the case with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) because the brothers were American citizens.
Serbia set up its own war crimes court in 2003 to show it can deal with nationals who committed war crimes during the 1990s and is cooperating with the U.N. tribunal.
Kosovo prime minister steps down
Bajram Kosumi was appointed in March of last year
Kosovo's Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi has resigned after just under a year in office, official sources in the UN-administered province have said.
Mr Kosumi, a former student activist, has been accused of being ineffective. He is a key member of the delegation in talks on the future of Kosovo.
His resignation comes as a UN mediator arrives in the province for talks.
Officially still part of Serbia, Kosovo has been under UN administration since 1999 and seeks independence.
Ethnic Albanians and Serbs held two days of talks in Vienna last month, which diplomats hope may lead to a deal on Kosovo's status this year.
Kosovo Albanians, who make up the majority, want independence.
Serbia is concerned about the Serb minority.
Kosovo Serbs want wide-ranging self-government for the Serb-inhabited enclaves, which make up 5% of the population.
There are about 1.5 million ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, while about 100,000 Serbs remain following a post-war exodus of non-Albanians.
Kosovo's Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi has resigned after just under a year in office, official sources in the UN-administered province have said.
Mr Kosumi, a former student activist, has been accused of being ineffective. He is a key member of the delegation in talks on the future of Kosovo.
His resignation comes as a UN mediator arrives in the province for talks.
Officially still part of Serbia, Kosovo has been under UN administration since 1999 and seeks independence.
Ethnic Albanians and Serbs held two days of talks in Vienna last month, which diplomats hope may lead to a deal on Kosovo's status this year.
Kosovo Albanians, who make up the majority, want independence.
Serbia is concerned about the Serb minority.
Kosovo Serbs want wide-ranging self-government for the Serb-inhabited enclaves, which make up 5% of the population.
There are about 1.5 million ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, while about 100,000 Serbs remain following a post-war exodus of non-Albanians.
KPC General Agim Çeku – Prime Minister (Express)
Express writes on the front page that the Government of Kosovo is expected to be enriched not only with two new ministers but also with a new Prime Minister. Paper’s sources say that Bajram Kosumi is suppose to leave and that KPC General Agim Çeku has received an offer from the AAK to take the post. Çeku has not accepted the offer, the paper says.
These changes will take place, according to sources, because the Government has failed to show the necessary efficiency in carrying out duties. Another reason for changes, says Express, is the lack of loyalty shown by some ministers and the Prime Minister to the AAK party.
These changes will take place, according to sources, because the Government has failed to show the necessary efficiency in carrying out duties. Another reason for changes, says Express, is the lack of loyalty shown by some ministers and the Prime Minister to the AAK party.
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