LOCAL PRESS

Nikolic: Attempt at destabilizing the region (RTS)

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic strongly condemned yesterday’s incident at the Partizan Stadium. Nikolic stated that the intentions of those who organized and carried out the plan with the aircraft that carried the flag of a “Greater Albania” to cause unrest in Serbia and to try to destabilize the entire region are apparent. “Sports games are not a place for placing provocative political messages,” said the President, and added that it was a promotion of the unscrupulous and unachievable idea of a “Greater Albania”, which was expected to encounter a sharp reaction at the stadium and across the country. “Serbia has done everything to leave the past behind us and to develop friendly relations,” underlined President Nikolic. The upcoming visit by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama is expected in Serbia as a sign of establishing extraordinary relations, said the President, adding that after the “assassination on establishing friendship between Serbia and Albania,” it is obvious that it will Albania take decades, if not centuries, to become a normal state, without hatred toward the Serbs. Yesterday’s mindless action should be strongly condemned by the national leadership of Albania and its public, opines the President.

Vucic: Albanian extremists wanted to trample on our pride (Novosti)

“This was an organized action aimed at destabilizing Serbia and the entire region. The intention of Albanian extremists was to depict Serbia as a country intolerant towards differences and to humiliate all of its citizens,” Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told Novosti, commenting the spelt of Albanian extremists at the Partizan Stadium during and following the Serbia-Albania match. “They wanted to trample on our pride, and we showed the gangs of fake Albanian officials who were in the VIP lounge the clear difference between them and us. The state will undertake all measures envisaged by law to punish all offenders who are found to have committed offenses. Vucic also says he is still waiting for Brussels’ clear stand on the outrageous incident that is politically inspired: “I am waiting for the reaction of the EU whose representatives here I had informed three hours before the match that the Albanians are preparing provocations and a serious incident,” said Vucic.

Dacic: Stadium incident was planned political provocation (Blic)

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic has said that an incident during the Serbia-Albania football match was a deliberate and planned political provocation. He believes that Serbia bears no responsibility for the fact the European championship qualifier game was interrupted and could not be resumed late on Tuesday. “This has never happened on any football game and was prepared in advance. For me, the central question is how will the European Union and UEFA react, because had someone from Serbia unfurled a ‘Greater Serbia’ flag in Tirana or Pristina that would make it to the agenda of the UN Security Council,” he told Blic, and added: “This incident is particularly controversial because of the fact the brother of the Albanian prime minister, who is supposed to be a guest here, did it. All this puts a political dimension of the whole event and this is a political provocation.” Dacic added that during the day on Tuesday “EU diplomats exerted pressure so that the Albanian fans, whom the Serbian authorities wanted to keep at the airport, are allowed to go to the stadium – even though they had no tickets.”
Analysts on the stadium incident (RTS/Beta)
Appearing as on the morning news of Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS), political analyst Dragomir Andjelkovic assessed that what happened in Belgrade was no incident, but was systematically planned and carried out by those who do not wish Vladimir Putin to visit Belgrade, who do not wish to see a stable Serbia. He also said it was an attempt at polarizing the Serbian society, stoking the flames within Serbia itself, and an insult to the national pride. On the other hand, Andjelkovic is convinced that nobody will call out Albanian politicians for this parade of chauvinism, from Tetovo, via Bujanovac, Kosovo and Metohija, to Albania. Military analyst Zotan Dragisic assessed that the incident is a consequence of a major failure in the organization of the match that was an event of high security risk. “It is incomprehensible how such aircraft and device that is controlled could have been taken inside the stadium. It must be established where it came from, whether someone outside the stadium controlled it, and what is the range of the aircraft,” Dragisic told Beta. He said he hoped the police established facts in regard to the appearance of the aircraft on the stadium having in mind that the safety of President Tomislav Nikolic could have been at risk as he was following the match from the VIP lounge.

Drecun: Strong basis of jihadists emerging (Politika/Beta/RTS)

The Chair of the Serbian parliament’s Committee for Kosovo and Metohija Milovan Drecun has warned that over the past 20 years a strong basis of jihadists has been formed in these parts, especially in Kosovo and Metohija, which has acquired a regional character but that there is still no adequate response from the international community nor the region. “There is still no strong joint regional action or action of the entire international community to prevent it,” Drecun told reporters at the Serbian parliament. “The basis is particularly strong in Kosovo and Metohija, where radical Islam is being preached in more than 100 mosques, as well as the jihadist ideology which claims that Christians are the Muslims’ natural enemies. Many children in Kosovo and Metohija grow up surrounded by such radical ideology and fall prey to jihadists. Over the past 20 years these parts have seen the creation of a very strong basis of Islamic jihad that has the full potential for recruiting jihadists, which has been proved in the example of Syria and Iraq. The Islamic State messages on the monastery are not harmless at all and they show the presence of a network of radical Islam that is extremely strong in the area of Decani and Pec and no one should accept the explanation that it was done by minors. It is even more dangerous if those messages were sprayed by children because that means that they live in an environment that preaches radical Islam and they can easily fall prey to radical Islamists. It has lately been noticed that there are two channels through which radical Islamists are drafted for Syria and Iraq,” said Drecun.

Dodik on Serbia-RS relations (Novosti)

The Republika Srpska (RS) President Milorad Dodik has assessed that following his victory at the elections and after staying at the position of the entity leader, relations between the RS and Serbia will further advance, with emphasis on political and economic cooperation within the Agreement on Special Parallel Ties. Dodik stressed that political cooperation will especially reflect in implementing the policy of non-recognition of Kosovo and Metohija by B&H. Pointing out that emphasis should be also placed on joint progress of the RS and Serbia towards the EU, while maintaining relations with Russia, Dodik notes that he is especially pleased with the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Belgrade that will be an opportunity for them to meet again.

REGIONAL PRESS

Sorensen: We expect quick formation of government at all levels (Fena)

“I welcome the overall regular implementation of elections. Now we expect the quick formation of governments at all levels, so the newly elected government can dedicate themselves to the real challenges that face Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H),” Ambassador Peter Sorensen, the Head of the EU Delegation to B&H told Fena.Sorensen believes that economic reforms are urgently needed to create new jobs and improve people’s lives, as stated in the Agreement for Growth and Jobs, and that B&H must strengthen its efforts on the path toward the EU. One of the most important issues that need to be resolved is the establishment of an efficient coordination mechanism for B&H to have access to valuable EU funds, and so they can speak with the EU with one voice. “We are aware of the admonitions of international and domestic observers noted in their preliminary observations. B&H will need especially to take into account possible recommendations from the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights at the OSCE (OSCE/ODIHR),” said Sorensen. He supported the work of the B&H Central Electoral Commission in resolving complaints connected with holding the elections. “B&H citizens elected those they think will best perform the job and achieve needed results. Now it is up to the elected to do this in the next four years,” said Sorensen.

SNSD Party wins majority in election for RS parliament (Fena)

The B&H Central Election Commission announced today the preliminary, unofficial and incomplete results for the RS parliament. Based on 78.78 percent of vote counts, the results are as follows: SNSD-Milorad Dodik – 169,248 votes; SDS/PUP/SRS RS – 138,539 votes. They are followed by DNS-NS-SRS with 48,776 votes, the Socialist Party – 25,702 votes, the National Democratic Movement – 25,460 votes. The Coalition Homeland won 17,776 votes, SNS – 11,813; For Justice and Order-list of Nebojsa Vukanovic – 7,219; SDP B&H – 6,925; Party of Fair Politics – 6.418 votes while other small parties won less than 2,500 votes.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

‘Albanian PM’s brother arrested’ as Euro qualifier with Serbia abandoned (AFP/AP/Reuters, 14 October 2014)

The brother of Albania’s prime minister has reportedly been arrested in Belgrade. He is accused of flying a drone, carrying a flag, into the stadium where a match between Serbia and Albania had to be abandoned.

The Serbian Interior Ministry said Rama had been arrested for controlling a drone, carrying an adapted version of the Albanian flag, from his seat in an executive box at Belgrade’s Partizan stadium.

The drone, depicting a so-called “Greater Albania,” had made a series of passes over the pitch, before – in the 41st minute – Serbian player Stefan Mitrovic grabbed at the flag, triggering a brawl as Albanian players tried to protect it.

The flag was pulled down by Serbian player Stefan Mitrovic

Several Serbia fans invaded the pitch and clashed with the Albanian team and, after the delay had lasted about half an hour, English referee Martin Atkinson abandoned the Euro 2016 qualifying match.

“What happened is something we can’t comprehend at the moment,” Serbia captain Branislav Ivanovic told reporters.

“We wanted to continue the match, but Albanian players said they were not psychologically ready,” Ivanovic added.

“We can only regret that football took a back seat but it is difficult to draw any conclusions or make any comments now.”

Booing and flares thrown

Even before the game, Serbia fans had booed during the Albanian national anthem. Albanian players also complained flares had been thrown onto the pitch.

Despite the Interior Ministry assertion that Rama had been arrested – news that was carried by Serbian state television – officials in Tirana said they believed he was on his way home.

The disagreements between the two nations mean passions run high on the pitch

The Group I game had always been seen as potential tinderbox, given the tension that still exists after the ethnically-Albanian Kosovo region seceded from Serbia in February 2008. Albanian fans had been warned against traveling to the game, and most were barred from attending.

Some Serbians accuse Tirana of seeking to create a “greater Albania” that would unite ethnically Albanian communities in Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, southern Serbia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Divisions Cemented as Nationalists Hold On to Power in Bosnia-Herzegovina Vote (VICE News, by Daniel Nolan, 14 October 2014)

Bosnia-Herzegovina’s main nationalist politicians have held onto power in the weekend’s elections, cementing ethnic divisions and threatening progress in a country struggling with a stagnating economy and soaring levels of unemployment.

Voters cast their ballots on Sunday for presidential, national, regional and local representatives in a six-layer system of government, which is said to be among the world’s most complicated.

As expected, Milorad Dodik, a nationalist who espouses secession for Bosnian Serbs, will remain president of the ethnic-Serb Republika Srpska, albeit with a narrow victory margin.

The country’s central election commission confirmed the preliminary results on Tuesday, saying the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats politician had received 47.1 percent to the Serbian Democratic Party’s Ognjen Tadic’s 45.1 percent.

Up to ten per cent of ballots were spoiled on Sunday, according to some estimates, showing the escalating dissatisfaction with Bosnia’s well-paid but inefficient politicians. This sentiment boiled over into unprecedented — non-ethnic — riots in Tuzla on February 5, and quickly spread across the Muslim-Croat Federation.

Despite this widespread discontent, the poll is unlikely to bring about real change, as the Balkan country remains hemmed in by the 1995 Dayton Agreement: an externally imposed constitution designed to end a war, but which has entrenched division and sectarian interests.

Srecko Latal, an analyst with Social Overview Service, a research organization in Sarajevo, said the elections had cemented those divisions further, leaving the country “stuck” in its economic and political woes and threatening hopes of progress.

“All three sides for the past 20 years have been unable to reach any compromise, so the country is paralyzed,” he told the New York Times. “They can’t agree on the past and they can’t agree on the present — never mind the future.”

The Dayton Agreement brought an end to a brutal war, but the price of peace has been nearly two decades of stagnation, thanks to that unwieldy power-sharing deal brokered for the Bosniak, Serb and Croat communities.

Ever since the country has been divided into two semi-autonomous halves: the ethnic-Serb Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The formerly liberal Dodik had run on an election ticket that he would like the Republika to be “less and less an entity and more a state.”

The Croats have meanwhile been represented by several of the country’s ten federal units, or cantons. This democratic gridlock can also be seen by the 106 laws that parliament has passed in the last four years, down from 180 in the 2006-10 period.

Modern Bosnian politics is based on party “strongmen.” While Dodik heads the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, Bakir Izetbegovic leads the Party of Democratic Action in the Federation and Dragan Covic rules the Croatian Democratic Union, which represents Bosnian Croats. In Bosnia, political platforms are superseded by pipe-dreams of Serb independence, Bosniak dominance or Croatian “third entity” status.

One new glimmer of hope is the split of the ethnic-Serb vote in Republika Srpska. Dodik retained his post of entity president, but will now need to engage in more meaningful policy debate after Mladen Ivanic took the Serb post of the state presidency for the Party of Democratic Progress, which may also take control of the legislature.

Jasmin Mujanovic, a visiting scholar at New York’s Columbia University, said that “with the Serb post of the state presidency and possibly even the RS legislature in “opposition” hands, we may finally begin to see a substantive policy debate in the Serb community in Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

Nevertheless the weekend election has returned “mainly the same main players that have been here for ten to fifteen years,” Damir Kapidzic, a professor of political science at the University of Sarajevo, told VICE News.

According to Kapidzic, “the most important issue is getting foreign investment and jobs and people have been voting for jobs and welfare. There are two main things that need to happen now: that a government is formed, and that they can formulate an economic agenda,” he added.

With jobless statistics estimating an unemployment rate as high as 44 per cent, a repeat of the post-2010 election debacle, when politicians took 16 months to form governments at the state and Federation level, would not be tolerated this time. May’s massive floods — which caused damages of an estimated €2 billion ($2.5bn), or 15 per cent of Bosnia’s gross domestic product — have further aggravated the economic situation. Consequently “this election was about security of a different kind: security of income and welfare, above EU membership,” Kapidzic added.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which monitors elections, noted that the ethnic divide was a key factor in the election. The OSCE rued the country’s “lack of a shared vision of the country’s future and of co-operation among the three constituent peoples” in its post-election report. The overall picture remains a country unable to move on from its past. As OSCE Special Co-ordinator Roberto Battelli put it: “The lack of political will to move beyond the Dayton agreement prevents the country from moving away from the current inter-ethnic divides and towards real progress for the country”.

Mladic Witness: Bosnian Serbs Didn’t Organise Expulsions (BIRN, by Denis Dzidic, 15 October 2014)

A defence witness told Ratko Mladic’s war crimes trial that the Bosnian Serb military and civilian authorities did not organise the expulsion of non-Serbs from the Rogatica area in 1992.

Milenko Jankovic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Rogatica company, told his former military chief Mladic’s war crimes trial at the Hague Tribunal on Tuesday that Muslims and Croats left Rogatica voluntarily at the beginning of 1992.

“Muslims left Rogatica mainly before the war, and at the beginning of the war, the others left with their [military] units. Serbs mainly stayed or stayed with their relatives in the nearby villages, but there was no organised expulsion for sure,” Jankovic told the UN-backed court.

He said he had no knowledge about non-Serbs being detained in the police’s ‘public safety station’ in the town.

“The station had no room for someone to be detained and I can assure you that no one was detained in those rooms, there was no room,” Jankovic said.

Mladic is being tried for the persecution and expulsion of Bosniaks and Croats from 15 municipalities controlled by Bosnian Serb forces, including Rogatica.

He is also charged with genocide in Srebrenica, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

Ratomir Maksimovic, former member of the command of Bosnian Serb Army’s Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, also started testifying at Tuesday’s hearing. He said that Serb forces never intentionally targeted civilians or public transport in Sarajevo during the 1992-95 siege of the city.

Maksimovic said that the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps only responded to gunfire from the Bosnian Army’s First Corps, and that its actions were purely defensive.

“There never was a thought about taking offensive actions against Sarajevo,” he said.

The trial continues.

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Media summaries are produced for the internal use of the United Nations Office in Belgrade, UNMIK and UNHQ. The contents do not represent anything other than a selection of articles likely to be of interest to a United Nations readership.