LOCAL PRESS

Dacic: Important that EU keeps focus on Western Balkans (Tanjug)

Serbian First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said in Berlin today that it was of crucial importance for the EU to keep focus on the Western Balkans since the European perspective is the key factor for promoting regional cooperation and success of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. Speaking at the Sixth Conference of Foreign Ministers of Southeast Europe, Dacic said that the success of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue has shown that the enlargement policy still represents a strong motivation force for the Western Balkans and that it confirmed that the EU is an essential factor in promoting peace and stability in the region. “It is precisely for this reason that it is of crucial importance for the EU to keep focus on the Western Balkans. I am deeply convinced that this is the mutual interest of all of us,” the Serbian Foreign Ministry stated. Dacic said that Serbia is determined to continue the active and constructive policy of regional cooperation, as well as normalization of relations with Pristina, which was also confirmed by the regional conference of the Western Balkans’ foreign and economy ministers in Belgrade on 23 October. He reiterated that Serbia’s key foreign policy priority is full membership in the EU, as well as that the vision of the joint European future is the vision of all of us in the Western Balkans.

Interpol’s warrants for crimes in Kosovo and Metohija (RTS/Tanjug)

The investigation into 14 cases against members of the former KLA for crimes against Serbs and members of other ethnic communities has been completed, Deputy Prosecutor for War Crimes Dragoljub Stankovic said at the session of the parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija. Interpol’s warrant has been issued for a total of 95 persons, but the authorities in Pristina are not doing anything on their extradition, stressed Stankovic. He also says that states whose citizens are suspected of crimes “reluctantly extradite to Belgrade”, Tanjug reports. According to him, from March 1998 to 1999, a total of 113 persons were killed or some other crime was perpetrated against them. Stankovic mentioned a series of cases of different crimes and said there were cases where certain suspects were arrested, that the case was formed, but then the court in Kosovo would suspend proceedings against them. He said that three persons had been extradited so far, that one was arrested accidentally, and that the result of that was the formation of two cases in the case of the Djakovica group. When it comes to cooperation with EULEX and the Special Investigative Team in Brussels, Stankovic pointed out that cooperation needs to be mutual and added that in the case of the Orahovac group against 36 KLA members an investigation was launched in 2007 but that only one person was extradited to Serbia. “The Serbian panel didn’t believe the witness, he was released from detention and after that escaped when the case was formed again,” said Stankovic. In the meantime, he added, two of these 36 persons were arrested in Albania and handed over to EULEX. Both were found guilty and received sentences.

Odalovic: Crimes committed during KFOR’s presence in Kosovo and Metohija (RTS)

The Chairman of the Serbian government’s Commission for Missing Persons Veljko Odalovic has stated that most of the crimes were carried out under the mandate of the international mission that had at the time 50,000 KFOR members on the ground. According to him, now is the right moment and opportunity to do everything to assist the Special Investigative Team in Brussels to shed light on as many as possible crimes. “Perhaps the time will come when this creation that is called a state will collapse,” said Odalovic. He said Serbia was still searching for 522 missing persons and that all lists with names and last names had been submitted, that the Commission is not encouraged very much that they will be found, but that he believes things will change for the better. “We have victims, people we are looking for; we know or suppose that we know who the perpetrators of the crimes are. So far, we have found 346 of them and this is not an adequate number of what is realistic,” said Odalovic. He concluded that there is a conspiracy of silence in Kosovo and Metohija, while this is not the case in Serbia and that nobody will be silent about crimes that occurred regardless on what side they were committed.

Pristina preparing new requests ahead of resumption of dialogue (Novosti)

The resumption of the dialogue is not in sight, but Pristina has already opened the cards – it requests the signing of a legally binding agreement and the establishment of diplomatic relations with Serbia, all this to be completed within the next four years. “We want the dialogue to be in the same format as previously with a framework and time limit,” Atifete Jahjaga had recently said. On the side, Belgrade thinks that the dialogue doesn’t have a time limit, that it should remain status neutral and result in improving living conditions in Kosovo and Metohija. Participant in the dialogue and the Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric tells Novosti that it is important for the negotiations to last as much as needed to reach political agreements on normalization and improvement of conditions for everyday life: “At issue is a very complex political process and the duration and manner in which it takes place often irritates. However, it is important to stay focused on the final result: long-term normalization of relations, which is extremely important for the future of Serbs and Albanians. There is no place for circumvention of status issues.” The Chairman of the Serbian parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija Milovan Drecun tells Novosti that normalization doesn’t have a time limit and that it is difficult to say when it will be completed, since almost one year has been wasted over the political blockade in Pristina: “The problem is also that Pristina has a different view of the normalization and that it uses it for realizing its strategic goals and reaching agreements between two states.”

Hague would like to release seriously ill Seselj (B92/Tanjug)

The Hague Tribunal has asked Holland and Serbia to state by 6p.m. on providing guarantees for Vojislav Seselj’s temporary release. The court said it received additional confidential information that indicates Seselj’s health has deteriorated. Considering this new turn of events, the court is considering granting temporary release to the accused, a statement said. The UN tribunal further noted that it previously also considered the possibility of granting provisional release to Seselj but that due to the lack of his cooperation that procedure was canceled.

Albanians in southern Serbia invocating Rama (Novosti)

The Albanians in southern Serbia are awaiting with uncertainty the confirmation that Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama will visit them. Even though there is no official agenda, they say they are ready to provide him hospitality. Serbian MP Saip Kamberi from the PZDD tells Novosti that he is certain that the Albanian Prime Minister will talk with the Albanian representatives in southern Serbia: “We will see whether the talks will take place in Belgrade or in the south once we receive the official protocol.” Presevo Mayor Ragmi Mustafa says: “We are ready to welcome the Prime Minister, because this is a historical moment for us.” Several sources confirmed to Novosti that the Albanians will organize to come to Belgrade and welcome Rama if his plan doesn’t include a visit to southern Serbia.

REGIONAL PRESS

SDA-HDZ B&H meeting concludes: Doors to coalition open to all (Oslobodjenje)

The meeting of leaders from the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ B&H) began yesterday at SDA headquarters in Sarajevo. Bakir Izetbegovic told a press conference after the meeting that he had an eventful meeting with Dragan Covic, stressing that they considered the basis of formation of a government should be the SDA and HDZ B&H at all levels. “We think it is necessary to start forming a government at all levels. Additionally, coalitions must be formed on the basis of programs. When it comes to the SDA, those are discussions around the EU, NATO, the fight against corruption and crime, citizens’ security, the economy, constitutional changes, the electoral law, social justice,” said Izetbegovic. The HDZ B&H President Dragan Covic said that he informed Izetbegovic of his discussions with the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) representatives in Mostar. “Now we will have discussions with the Democratic Party (DS) and the Party of Democratic Progress (PDP) representatives. The goal is establishing a government at all levels. I believe that in the next ten days, we will have a program framework and will have a clear agreement on party relations at all levels when it comes to these two parties. I am optimistic and I stand by the notion that by the end of the year we can have a government. The most important question we discussed today is how to stabilize the economic situation in B&H, so I believe that in the next ten days we will have a clear answer. There is no question on which these two parties don’t have a common stance,” Covic said. Before the meeting, Izetbegovic also gave a statement to the media as the SDA vice president, saying that he expects agreement from the two parties. “The HDZ B&H and SDA are the basic coalition. We will invite others to speak with us, and after that to create helpful coalitions and schedules. No one is still unacceptable and the doors are open to all. This is a joint matter and everyone is in the game. The SNSD is one of the main partners, because they won in RS and have the largest number of Serb delegates in the Parliamentary Assembly,” says Izetbegovic. Covic said that it pleases him that the SDA and HDZ B&H will discuss everything. “We will talk about everything that we said in the bilateral meeting as well. I am certain that we will agree to concur on the quick procedure of establishing a government and we will build a joint platform at all levels of government in B&H,” said Covic.

Karadzic’s daughter MP in RS parliament (Hina)

The daughter of Radovan Karadzic, who is in The Hague and accused of war crimes, was elected member of the Republika Srpska (RS) parliament at the general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H). After recounting of ballots and the assigning of so called compensatory seats to larger parties, the seat went to Sonja Karadzic Jovicevic (47) who was on the opposition list of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS). She won slightly less than 3.300 voters, a mandate was given to her by summing the votes collected by minor parties that did not cross the threshold of three percent. Karadzic’s daughter at the time of the war hosted her own radio station at Pale, reminds the agency Hina. It is interesting that at the time of the election campaign, her mother Ljiljana Zelen-Karadzic gave support to the current and the future RS President Milorad Dodik, who is a direct opponent to the Serb Democratic Party (SDS). Together, during the election campaign, they cut the ribbon on the new dorm at Pale announcing, at the occasion, that they will suggest that the institution carries the name of Radovan Karadzic. In response to the activation of Sonja Karadzic Jovicevic in politics, president of the Association “Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa” Hatidza Mehmedovic said it is worrying because “although the part of the war criminals is locked up in prisons and trialed by the courts, their ideology and project that were designed in the 90’s, is still being implemented on B&H territory”.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

EU to name expert to review Kosovo mission corruption charges (EUbusiness, 4 November 2014)

(BRUSSELS) – EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini said Tuesday she will appoint an independent legal expert to review allegations of corruption at the European Union’s justice mission in Kosovo.

EU Rule of Law Mission (EULEX) and Kosovo judicial authorities have already launched a joint investigation into allegations that some top EULEX officials had taken bribes to drop criminal cases.

“I intend to appoint as a matter of urgency an independent and experienced legal expert to review the mission’s mandate implementation with a particular focus on the handling of the allegations of corruption,” Mogherini told a press conference in Brussels.

Mogherini said she would communicate the name of the expert once one has been appointed, which she hoped would happen within “a reasonable time framework.”

“This is in our interests… to be completely transparent, to be completely reliable in terms of credibility” of EULEX, she said.

She added that the expert’s work will not substitute for that of the judiciary.

The allegations were made last week by Maria Bamieh, a British prosecutor at EULEX who has been suspended pending an internal inquiry into leaks of confidential documents.

Bamieh told AFP a week ago that EULEX officials were taking bribes to halt some high-profile cases.

She accused EU mission chief prosecutor Jaroslava Novotna, a Czech national, and former EU chief judge Francesco Florit of Italy of taking bribes from local criminals to drop three cases of organised crime, including murder. The bribes were allegedly taken in 2012 in 2013.

Local media reported that both Novotna and Florit were offered 350,000 euros ($441,000) each.

Bamieh also claimed that her boss, Canadian prosecutor Jonathan Ratel, was obstructing her in unveiling the information.

EULEX is the EU’s largest civilian mission. It was launched in 2008 in order to strengthen the rule of law in Kosovo, just months after it broke away from Serbia. Currently it has some 1,500 members.

EULEX prosecutors and judges have the power to step in and take on sensitive cases that cannot be handled effectively by the local judiciary.

Serbia Urged to Speed Up War Crimes Prosecutions (BIRN, by Milka Domanovic, 4 November 2014)

If the Serbian authorities continue prosecutions at the current slow pace, many perpetrators may never be punished for the crimes they committed in the 1990s, Amnesty International warned.

“The reality is that in Serbia, the process of tackling impunity and delivering justice has been painfully slow,” John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s director for Europe and Central Asia, said on Tuesday at the Belgrade presentation of the global rights group’s latest report on Serbia.

The report, entitled ‘Serbia: Ending Impunity for Crimes Under International Law’, which was published in June but launched on Tuesday in Serbian, said that Belgrade should be pressurised during EU accession talks to tackle the culture of impunity for war crimes.

Between “the big names prosecuted in the Hague and the very small fish in the justice system in this country”, a large number of perpetrators have not been brought to justice, Dalhuisen said.

Amnesty’s Balkans researcher Sian Jones also warned that many suspects might never be taken to court because the Serbian prosecutor’s office for war crimes is “under-resourced and understaffed”.

“With the present rate of progress, it will be several hundred years before the rest of the war crimes cases are addressed and of course by then it would be too late,” Jones said.

Amnesty’s report was published ahead of the launch of Serbia’s membership negotiations with the EU, which will involve discussions on the country’s human rights situation.

Jones said that the shortcomings on war crimes prosecutions should be acknowledged by the European Commission, but the Serbian authorities should also address the issue.

“They need to show the political will, commitment, and they need to show the courage to take the measures outlined in the [Amnesty] report and to begin to address the culture of impunity for crimes under international law,” she said.

Serbia must also stop denying victims access to justice, Jones urged.

“Serbia remains the only country in the region which does not have a law on missing persons, it does not have mechanisms to provide reparations to survivors of war crimes of sexual violence,” she said.

UN War Crimes Court May Release Ailing Serb (AP, 5 November 2014)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal is considering temporarily releasing an ailing Serb ultranationalist who is awaiting verdicts in his trial for allegedly using hate-laced speeches to incite atrocities in Bosnia and Croatia.

Serbian doctors who visited Vojislav Seselj recently say he is suffering from colon cancer that has spread to his liver. The United Nations court has not released details of Seselj’s health.

In a filing released Wednesday, the presiding judge in Seselj’s long-running trial says that “to avoid the worst-case scenario, the Chamber is examining the possibility of provisional release that would allow the Accused to receive treatment in the most suitable environment.”

The 60-year-old Seselj has been in custody in The Hague since surrendering to the tribunal in 2003. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Bosniaks, Croats Cement Govt Alliance in Bosnia (BIRN, by Elvira M. Jukic, 5 November 2014)

The two main Bosniak and Croat parties met to discuss the election results, saying that their coalition should form the basis for all other governing coalitions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Bosnia’s main Bosniak party, the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, and its main Croatian party, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, met on November 4 in Sarajevo to cement alliances concerning the formation of governments in the country following recent elections.

Party chiefs Bakir Izetbegovic of the SDA and Dragan Covic of the HDZ agreed to talk to other parties too in the next ten days and then set priorities.

“We estimated that the basis of all coalitions… on various levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina will be the SDA and the HDZ,” Izetbegovic said. “That will be the cornerstone in the construction of future coalitions,” he added.

Covic said that coalitions involving the same political partners should start from the level of the cantons inside Bosnia’s larger entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Covic earlier met Milorad Dodik, head of the main Serbian party in the country, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, and agreed that the parties would work together in government as the main Croatian and Serbian parties respectively.

Izetbegovic and the SDA, however, lean more towards supporting the opposition bloc in Bosnia’s mainly Serbian entity, Republika Srpska instead of the SNSD.

The Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, and the Party of Democratic Progress, PDP, together won roughly the same number of votes as Dodik’s party – and thus also claim a right to form the entity government.

“There are two blocs in Republika Srpska, so we will let them solve their puzzle,” Izetbegovic observed.

“As far as the SDA is concerned, we would not mind [power being held by] the alternative bloc of the SDS and PDP, plus those parties that go along with them,” he added.

However, Covic said that Dodik and his colleagues in the SNSD had “convinced us that they will have the majority in Republika Srpska”.

The SDA and HDZ won most votes in the elections in the ten cantons of the Federation. In elections for the parliament of the Federation entity, the SDA won around 275,000 votes and the HDZ-led coalition around 118,000 votes.

The SDA and HDZ won similar amounts of votes in elections to the Bosnian state parliament.

In Republika Srpska, Dodik’s SNSD won 249,000 votes for elections to the state parliament while the SDS and its allies won 211,000. The situation regarding votes was similar on an entity level as well.

Macedonian opposition determined not to return to parliament (Independent Balkan News Agency, by Naser Pajaziti, 5 November 2014)

The Macedonian opposition is determined not to return to parliament, in spite of the constant calls of the majority and international community.

This decision was taken after a meeting held between the three main parties of the opposition, LSDM, NSDP and LDP.

“There’s no return to parliament. On Wednesday, we will start meetings with citizens all over Macedonia. We have targeted 16 cities where along with the citizens, we will discuss current political issues”, declared the leader of LSDM, Zoran Zaev.

Asked if communication and dialogue for the solution of the political crisis has been cut off once and for all, Zaev said that he’s ready to hold talks with the majority about the issues outlined by the opposition.

“We have our clear demands for the formation of the technical government, cleansing of the voters’ lists and changes in the electoral code, issues that relate to the freedom of the media, registration of the population and the demand to hold free parliamentary elections”, underlined the leader of Macedonian opposition.

On November 10, speaker of Parliament Trajko Veljanovski will hold a session in order to verify the resignation of opposition MPs, who have boycotted parliament for six months now, following their decision not to recognize the elections. Veljanovski has warned that all opposition mandates will be revoked and that partial elections will be held.

Mladic Witness: Serbs ‘Humiliated’ by Bosniaks (BIRN, by Denis Dzidic, 5 November 2014)

A defence witness told Ratko Mladic’s trial that Bosnian Serbs had to set up their own government and police before the war because they were being outvoted and obstructed by Bosniaks.

Nedjo Vlaski, a former state security official at the Bosnian interior ministry, told Mladic’s trial at the Hague Tribunal on Tuesday that Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic’s decision to establish separate Serb political and police structures reflected “the social reality of that time”.

“The constant humiliations and overruling of Serb staff and then a violation of procedures in all institutions were of such proportions that the only possible reaction was to act in that way,” he said.

Vlaski told the UN-backed court that in late 1991 and early 1992 there was “a desperate need to protect Serb personnel and interests”.

He said that he saw “political and media preparations for war against Serbs” before the conflict broke out.

Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic is on trial for genocide in Srebrenica and several other municipalities, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

He is also accused of the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats from 15 municipalities under Serb control, one of which is Trnovo.

During cross- examination, Vlaski said he attended Crisis Staff meetings in the Trnovo municipality in April and May 1992 as “an observer and guest who dealt with security issues”.

He said that during that period, “joint government with Muslims in Trnovo was not possible” because they “were doing everything to obstruct the actions of the Serb government in police and other structures”.

Asked by the prosecution whether he knew that the Serb Crisis Staff prepared an attack on Bosniak villages in Trnovo in May 1992, Vlaski said that he did not.

“That is unlikely because the municipality of Trnovo has such a demographic composition that its population was only 30 per cent Serb and a peaceful solution to the conflict suited for us,” 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.