LOCAL PRESS
Dacic: Trepca not discussed in Brussels (TV N1)
Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic has stated that the talks in Brussels did not touch upon the mining-metallurgy plant Trepca. He told TV N1 that he expects the talks with Pristina to be resumed soon, with the goal of opening the negotiating chapters with the EU, but he warned that Trepca might represent a problem. We have left the question of property for the later phase in the negotiations, Dacic explained. He has pointed that Serbia is the owner of numerous companies in Kosovo and Metohija, and they must not be allowed to be sold easily, as their value is measured in millions of euros. Those are strategically important companies that employ a large number of Kosovo Serbs, Dacic underlined.
Serbia continues to repay Kosovo debts (Politika)
Since 2001, Serbia has been regularly repaying debts of the companies from Kosovo and Metohija inherited from the time of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), the Directorate for Public Debt confirmed to Politika. According to the data of the National Bank, Serbia has taken over 858 million euros of debts of the province of Kosovo and Metohija towards the foreign creditors as the public debt. Part of this debt includes obligations incurred between the 1970s and 1990s towards the World Bank, Paris and London creditors’ clubs, the Council of Europe Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, the European Railway Association, the Kuwait government, the unregulated debt to the Libyan government and the clearing debt towards former Czechoslovakia. From 2002 until 31 December 2014, Serbia repaid part of the Kosovo debt of around 547, 95 million euros (based on equity – 154, 76 and interest – 393, 19 million euros). According to the data of the Serbian National Bank of 31 December 2014, part of Serbia’s public foreign debt that refers to the obligations of the debtors and users from the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, and which is due in the period from January 2015 until 2041, based on the equity amounts to around 351, 26 million euros.
Odalovic: Not only Trepca to be discussed in Brussels (RTS)
“Trepca should not be a topic during the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, but Serbia’s property in Kosovo and Metohija,” the Secretary General of the Serbian Foreign Ministry Veljko Odalovic told the morning broadcast of Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS). “Trepca is not the only public company. There is Skijalista (Ski Resorts), there is a large part of assets of Telekom, Post of Serbia, NIS,” said Odalovic. He says that Serbia is still repaying international debts for property that remains outside its management and ownership. Odalovic assesses that in the case of Trepca at issue was an attempt at seizing an institution, but that representatives of international institutions with which the government of Serbia talked showed a high degree of understanding for this topic and that the international community has recognized that this topic should be treated differently. He opines that it is good that great unity was reached against the attempt at seizing an institution such as Trepca. The Kosovo institutions tried before the Brussels dialogue to strengthen their position by bringing both Serbian representatives and the international community before a fait accompli and previously resolving the status of one of the vital companies in Kosovo and Metohija. Speaking about the difference between how the part of Trepca that remained in the southern part of Kosovska Mitrovica looks like today and how Kisnica, Novo Brdo, Ajvalija look today, Odalovic pointed that where there were Kosovo institutions, everything is destroyed and abandoned, and that everything works where there is Serbia in the north.
No change of owner without consent of Serbs (Danas)
The prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo, with the mediation of international community representatives, reached agreement on resolving the disputable issue of Trepca, but also other companies in Kosovo, Danas has learned from diplomatic sources in Pristina. According to Danas’ interlocutors, the agreement provides for the Kosovo government to send to its assembly the amended Law on public companies whereby a moratorium is being established on Trepca’s transformation, provides for a special law without a deadline for adopting it, and for the transformation of other companies into public, which will require gathering of consent of the municipality where the company is located, which is, as it was explained to Danas, especially important for Serbia. This is important because part of Trepca is located in the Serb majority municipalities. As Danas was told, the Kosovo Assembly should also amend the Law on liquidation whereby the bankruptcy of companies will be eliminated as of 2 February. Danas’ sources expect a stormy debate in the Kosovo Assembly over these amendments to the laws. Danas’ diplomatic sources noted that primarily the representatives of France, and then of Great Britain and the US, had assisted the Serbian side in reaching this agreement.
Ljajic: Croatian president pumping patriotic muscles (Danas)
“Neither the UN Secretary-General nor Serbia are addresses for messages concerning Vojislav Seselj. The only correct address for the request to return him to The Hague is the ICTY Panel,” Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and the Chairman of the National Council for Cooperation with the ICTY Rasim Ljajic tells Danas. “Grabar Kitarovic is pumping her patriotic muscles. Why didn’t she say these things in the election campaign? Now she is at the beginning of the mandate and trying to strengthen her position. Unfortunately, with such statements and requests she is interfering in the ICTY’s work, but also additionally complicating Serbia-Croatia relations,” says Ljajic.
McAlister: No conditioning of Brussels dialogue with Trepca (Politika/Tanjug)
European Parliament’s rapporteur for Serbia David McAlister has stated in Brussels that Serbia should not be conditioning the dialogue on the normalization of Belgrade-Pristina relations with Kosovo to give up the nationalization of the Trepca mine. “I heard before the session that Serbia said it would suspend participation in the high-level political dialogue if the Kosovo government nationalizes Trepca,” McAllister told members of the EP Foreign Affairs Committee. “If the news is true, it is most unfortunate,” the EP rapporteur said, stressing that the dialogue with Pristina is one of the key conditions for Serbia’s progress in the EU integration process. He hopes the first chapters in the accession talks of Serbia and the EU will be opened within next six months. I tried to make my report on Serbia’s progress in European integrations as concise as possible, McAlister said, adding that during the visit to Belgrade he was assured Serbia was sincerely devoted to the European path. “The Serbian train is heading for Brussels, and I hope that first negotiating chapters will be opened in the first half of this year,” McAlister noted. As four key points in the process of European integrations, he pointed to the rule of law, structural economic reforms, harmonizing the foreign policy with the European one, and continuing the process of normalization of the relations with Pristina.
Usurpation of Trepca began with its seizure (Novosti)
“I am agreeing to this interview for two reasons. The first one is that it benefits our state. The second is that I was asked this by Vecernje Novosti.” Before us is Novak Bjelic, with a master’s degree in economy, the former director of Trepca, who raised this plant during the five-year mandate (1995 to 2000) from a certain cripple to the most successful Kosovo company. It was a time when this plan was not only a former “golden thread” of the Serbian economy, but also the hope in the existence and survival of our nation in the southern Serbian province. “I wouldn’t like this to be a story about my fate. What I am and who I am relates to the destiny of a company such as Trepca, in which I built only part of my life. Trepca is a symbol; a measure of the strength of the Serbs in the province of Kosovo-Metohija; a measure of the upcoming negotiations in Brussels. On that scale, and this is especially important, it is necessary to place emphasis on the fact that Trepca, in the days when it was usurped, was the private property of Serbian-registered companies. The inviolable right of companies to their private property is valid in the Western world. Then why did they violate this right? That is the point of departure on which our defense should be based. If they ever get a state, they will never get Trepca.” We are showing Novak Bjelic the statement from Pristina, which is summarized in the sentence of provincial Prime Minister Isa Mustafa, who said: “Trepca is the ownership of Kosovo!” Bjelic says “That is a lie! Trepca was forcibly seized from Serbian companies, much to the shame of the international community that received, according to UNSCR 1244, the right to administer the province of Kosovo-Metohija, but not the right to administer the private property of this plant.” We return back to the days when Trepca was seized by force. During that time after Bjelic’s five-year mandate, Trepca had 16,000 employees. When he arrived to the mine, it had four times fewer employees on unpaid mandatory leave. In the meantime it did business under conditions of the toughest sanctions, with an uncertain income, and with hope that it could support the Serbian nation and state, because it was the only company that had resisted occupation for a whole year; the richest property in the Balkans. “Bernard Kouchner was the Head of UNMIK during that time. One of his first tasks was to forcibly occupy Trepca, in whatever way possible. He started diplomatically. First, he requested us to send him the ownership structure of the plant. The request was sent to me personally. I delivered it to him: Trepca is a stock company. The co-owners are: Serbian banks, insuring companies and several other Serbian companies…This has put Kouchner and his team into a great throes, but he accepted that Trepca is private property. But, since all public companies in the ownership of the state of Serbia have already been illegally occupied by Kosovo Albanians, including Elektro Kosovo, Kouchner ordered to cut off electricity to the Trepca plant. However, we managed to lay the cables through Rogozan and to deliver electricity from Novi Pazar. Then they came up with the idea of cutting water supply. They invented an almost identical story that served four years later as the cause for the pogrom of the Serbs. Allegedly, in the part of the Ibar River where we drew water, two Albanian boys drowned so water supply needed to be closed from the position towards Trepca. We recognized the intention and managed on our own. Trepca continued to work. Soon afterwards they accused us of polluting the air. They sent a team to inform us how we are poising women, children, and also KFOR soldiers. They stormed into the plant with gas masks, resembling aliens. I informed them that we are examining the state of eventual pollution nearly every week and that there had not been one single disturbing data. It was not of any help that France, whose soldiers were in the Trepca sector, sent its then Health Minister, who also announced that there was no danger to their soldiers from pollution… Then we were paid a visit by the US general within KFOR William Nash and his team. He had already met once with my associates when he kept his feet on the table all the time like a cowboy. I received him and clearly told him: Mr. Nash, the chimney of Trepca is several hundred meters from my cabinet. As you can see, I am breathing fine. The house of my family is also 300 meters away. You must understand: Trepca is our watchtower. Yes, our watchtower. I didn’t have an illusion, for one moment that soon something will happen that will be an introduction into the final usurpation of Trepca by force. That is why we prepared for the worst. We organized day and night shifts. Thousand people were on shifts.” His premonitions came true. At the dawn of 14 August 2000 a seizure of Trepca followed: “Three thousand KFOR soldiers from land and form air stormed into our plant. One could not see the dawn from at least 50 helicopters. I understood that the employees were in panic. Of course, I was the first one they arrested. They interrogated me for three hours. If you ask me whether I believed during those moments that I would survive, no, I didn’t. Instinct told me not to resist so the usurper would not have an alibi. After three hours, they gave me Kouchner’s order: Novak Bjelic, the director of Trepca, is being banned, without return, from the territory of Kosovo-Metohija. Heavily armed KFOR soldiers escorted me to the Jarinje administrative boundary line crossing.” What was happening in the meantime? “It happened that Kouchner appointed none other than Hashim Thaqi to the post of president of the Trepca board of directors. And it also happened that half a year after my expulsion, a meeting was held in the Serbian government, during the time of those unfortunate crises teams,” recalls Bjelic, documenting everything that he speaks about with stenographic notes. “This was the transitional Serbian government. I saw nothing good in what these crisis teams represented. I knew: the usurpation of Trepca began with KFOR’s violent and forcible seizure and ended with these crisis teams; definitely ended. Since my expulsion, I never crossed the administrative boundary line between Serbia proper and the province of Kosovo-Metohija, because Kouchner’s ban is still in force. Do I have emotions, you ask. I do. How could I not have them?”
REGIONAL PRESS
Lagumdzija spoke with Ban Ki-moon (Fena)
Deputy Chairman of the B&H Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs Zlatko Lagumdzija met yesterday in New York with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Permanent Representatives of United States and China to the UN, Ambassador Samantha Power and Ambassador Liu Jieyi. In separate meetings Lagumdzija informed Ban Ki-moon and ambassadors about the political situation in B&H, especially in terms of formation of the government after the general elections and current events regarding the accession of B&H to the EU. He informed them about the initiative for acceleration of European integration process for B&H, which, as he assessed, represents a great opportunity for our country and its European path. They also discussed regional cooperation in the Western Balkans, global fight against terrorism, as well as the crisis in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East. At the meeting with Ambassador Samantha Power, the most attention was devoted to the new European initiative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, regional cooperation, and adequate marking of 20 years since the genocide in Srebrenica as an important symbol of a different, secure and prosperous future in the wider region. “Accelerating European, and especially NATO path of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a key prerequisite for regional stability,” said Lagumdzija.
Glavas released today (Srna)
The decision of B&H Court to free Branimir Glavas was delivered today to Mostar prison. The Croatian Constitutional Court revoked the verdict, in which he was sentenced for war crimes against Serb civilians in Osijek. In accordance with the Courts decision Glavas was released today. The Croatian Constitutional Court overruled on 12th of January a final verdict of the Supreme Court, in which Glavas was sentenced to eight years in prison and requested the new trial. The Zagreb County Court announced on 16th of January warrant for Glavas’s arrest, which means that if he returns to Croatia after he was released from prison, he would be arrested, because the earlier first degree sentence by this court in now in effect. Glavas will most likely remain in B&H, in Drinovci near Gruda, where he has built a family home. If the Croatian Ministry of Internal Affairs issues an international arrest warrant, Glavas could theoretically be arrested in B&H, but he is protects from extradition by dual citizenship that he has, said recently the Zagreb County Court spokesman Kresimir Devcic. Glavas was sentenced in cases of “Garage” and “Sellotape” to eight years in prison for war crimes against Serbian civilians in Osijek in 1991, and so far he has served three-fifths of a prison sentence.
Diaspora Party: Dodik’s goal is to create political chaos (Oslobodjenje)
The B&H Diaspora Party said today that it supported, in its earlier statements, the initiative to unblock reforms and accelerate B&H’s European path, “because it is in the interest of recovery of the ailing economy and economic prosperity of the country”. “We are happy also about the fact that the majority of leaders of B&H’s parliamentary parties supported the initiative. The statements by the president of the smaller B&H entity are not unexpected, because Dodik’s policy of continued breaking-up of B&H continues even after the last parliamentary elections,” the statement reads. The Diaspora Party points out that “his insistence that a statement by the B&H Presidency must be founded on the constitution, the Dayton Agreement, and the arrangement of B&H as it is now, two entities and three constitutive peoples, defining the competencies and so on, have as the goal in the very beginning disabling implementation of this initiative”. “Dodik’s goal is to create such a political atmosphere in which B&H politicians, as before, will not be able to agree on anything and accept the initiative, already engaging in unnecessary debates and outwitting one another, on which the foreign ministers of Great Britain, Philip Hammond, and Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, warned us. The demands around specifying the responsibilities of the entities, cantons, and Brcko District are a policy of continuity of “dilution” and weakening of the constitutional responsibilities of the state parliament and common institutions, in order to frustrate the influence of parliamentary parties that formed the governments and transfer decision-making and harmonization power to the entity level,” the party presidency said in a statement.
EP debate on Serbia: Croatian right-wing would like the freedom for criminals (Blic)
Group of Croatian MP’s in the European Parliament demanded that Serbia immediately releases Croatian veteran Veljko Maric, who is accused of war crimes. “Serbia has taken the right to sentence the Croatian citizens for crimes committed on Croatian territory, which represents the violation of our sovereignty,” said the MP Ruza Tomasic. Veljko Maric, Croatian “defender” who is serving a 12-year-sentence in Sremska Mitrovica prison was found guilty by the High Court for murdering Serb civilians during the war in Croatia. The Foreign Affairs Committee discussed yesterday in Brussels the draft report on Serbia, prepared by the EP Rapporteur for Serbia David McAllister. The Croat right-wing MP’s in addition to the release of Maric, have asked that Serbia’s progress towards the EU be conditioned by resolution of the Danube border dispute with the Croatia. Tomasic also re-launched the issue of Vojislav Seselj, demanding that the government of Serbia “clearly distances itself from his statements in accordance with the previously adopted EP resolution”. The majority of delegates during the discussion supported McAllister’s draft, which, after the submission of the amendment and one more round of discussions next month, will be adopted at the EP plenary session in March. This document does not contain the remarks of Croatian politicians.
SDSS: We do not recognize Kolinda (Novosti)
The last statements of the new Croatian President did not echo well here in Vukovar. If we recall Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic from the days when she was Chief of Croatian diplomacy and later on the Ambassador in Washington, she simply isn’t the same person we see today- stated Vojislav Stanimirovic the President of The Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS)
It looks certain that HDZ could win the Parliamentary elections too. If that happens, would it worsen the position of Serbs in Croatia?
“We had the cooperation with two governments of HDZ, because as a minority we simply had no choice, but they, it seems that way, have controlled the Right-wing. Now that’s not the case. That’s why I think that if HDZ takes over the power in the country, that Right-wing would be under their control.”
What is the current situation in Vukovar?
“The current situation is bad, but for the Serbs and the Croats together, young people are going away, there is no work. And when talking about the Serbs, nothing that has been put on a paper has been followed through. There is no employment, Serbs are being discriminated against in the cases of property ownership payouts, and everything has been done too slow and in unfair way.
The issue of retirement pensions hasn’t been solved, simply because there is no political will to follow the law.”
In what phase is the project of joint school in Vukovar?
“The idea was that the school should be attended you Serb and Croat children together and that the school should have next to English and Croatian language the language of the minorities too. Also to learn about the history of minority people, but the realization of the project is still too far away.”
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
Belgrade Favourite Wins Local Kosovo Poll (BIRN, by Una Hajdari, 19 January 2015)
Belgrade-backed candidate Vladeta Kostic won the extraordinary mayoral election in the Kosovo town of Gracanica. Vladeta Kostic, the candidate of the Belgrade-backed Civic Initiative “Srpska”, was elected as the new mayor of Gracanica on Sunday with 65 per cent of the votes. The poll in the main Serbian town south of the River Iber was initially expected to be a tight race between Kostic, a relatively unknown candidate, and Nenad Rasic, the candidate of the Progressive Democratic Party and former Minister of Labour and Social Welfare in Pristina. The election was held to replace former mayor Branimir Stojanovic, who left the post to take up the position of Deputy Prime Minister in the Kosovo government. Media reports before the polls suggested that Rasic stood no chance against the Belgrade-backed candidate. Rasic has had a constructive relationship with the Albanian-majority Pristina government, being one of the few Serb politicians in Kosovo who speaks fluent Albanian. For this, he has been marked a “Thaci Serb” by staunch opponents of the independence of Kosovo, a reference to his position in the government of former Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci. In a speech after he voted at the Kralj Milutin Elementary School in Gracanica, Rasic said “the Serbs need to stop being a bargaining chip between Pristina and Belgrade.” “The Kosovo Serbs have been manipulated. The way in which the candidate [for the “Srpska” list] was chosen is not in the spirit of democracy,” he said. Ordinary people in Gracanica said they were facing more urgent everyday problems. “We need jobs, employment. Our fate in Kosovo is directly tied to that,” one local man, Branislav Andrijevic, told BIRN. The Civic Initiative “Srpska” was formed before the local elections in November 2013, with the goal of putting forward candidates that ran “on a platform supported by Belgrade”. With the signing of the Brussels Agreement to normalise relations between Pristina and Belgrade in 2013, the Serbian government agreed to the formation of the Association of Serb Municipalities, granting Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo broad powers. “Srpska” officials are expected to coordinate the formation of the Association with Belgrade this year.
Kosovo: Despair on Thaci prompts EU exodus (EUobserver, by Jeton Zulfaj, 20 January 2015)
Pristina: Poverty and corruption, or escape to the EU – stark choices for Kosovo’s young people
On 6 January in the New Year, Ali Fetahu, a 55-year old Kosovar man, was found dead from the cold in Hungary while trying to get to Germany. He was one of thousands of people who are leaving Kosovo illegally after former PM Hashim Thaci’s PDK party agreed a coalition deal with the LDK in December. The new government means more of the same old problems: corruption, waste, and unemployment. The exodus also brings back sad and not so distant memories of the 1990s, when almost one third of Kosovars fled the Milosevic regime. Young people and unemployed parents are taking a gamble on human traffickers, risking everything to get “a chance in life” – a chance they don’t see in Kosovo.
Independence in 2008 brought hope.
Investments from the Kosovar diaspora started to pour in. The economy began growing by almost 10 percent a year. But it didn’t last. Partly, due to Europe’s subsequent economic crisis. But mainly due to high-level graft and lack of political vision. Kosovo sold its crown jewels in disastrous, fast-track privatisations of top state companies. The buyers – mostly unknown people with clandestine links to politicians – didn’t invest to increase production or jobs. Under Thaci’s previous government, underground structures crippled the economy, with his cronies forging monopolies for their own firms, cheating the tax man, and frightening off decent investors by fostering a culture of bribery and lawlessnes. It’s a pyramid of corruption which will take a long time to dismantle. Today, few would doubt the Thaci years are lost years. His leadership has seen the economy stagnate. In 2013 growth fell to just 2.5 percent. Last year was no better. He ruled, but he didn’t govern. He and his associates became richer and richer while ordinary people sank into poverty. He lives a life of luxury, with a penchant for fancy clothes, each item of which he has embroidered with his monogram: HTH. The fact he will stay at the centre of power, with the help of LDK leader Isa Mustafa, means nothing will change. But at the same time, according to the World Bank, the number of people entering the labour force is growing. The result is 40 percent unemployment, rising to 55 percent for the 15-24s. Kosovo’s interior ministry shows these same young people form the majority of those trying to escape.
Something simple
If the Kosovo elite is primarily to blame, the EU could still do something simple to help.
All western Balkan countries – except Kosovo – were in recent years granted EU visa-free travel.
The exception has made Kosovo one of the most isolated places in Europe. The isolation is prompting people like Ali Fetahu to risk making a better life by any means. It’s also preventing Kosovar students, hundreds of whom are being educated in some of the EU’s best universities, from giving back to the EU economy. When they come home, they’re stuck. They can’t get a legitimate job in the EU without a visa, and they can’t get a visa without an employment contract. With more than two-thirds of Kosovar Albanians already living outside Kosovo, most of them in EU countries, freedom of movement – the freedom to be with your loved ones – has the weight of a fundamental human right. The EU and Kosovo began visa liberalisation talks in 2012. It has already met the technical criteria set out in the EU roadmap. The one criterion it can’t meet is lowering the number of asylum seekers. But to lower that number, Kosovo’s economy has to get back to growth – it has to enter a post-HTH era. There is no threat to the EU from lifting visas for the 1.8 million Kosovar citizens. The longer the EU keeps Kosovo in isolation, the more money it puts in the pockets of human traffickers and the more misery it helps create.
Jeton Zulfaj is a graduate from Lund University in Sweden, with a masters in European Affairs
Bosnian Leaders ponder new EU Declaration (Balkan Insight, by Elvira M. Jukic, 19 January 2015)
Top European diplomats’ visit is expected to give a boost to the EU’s new plan for the country, although political differences over a declaration committing Bosnia and Herzegovina to reforms remain. After last week’s visit by the German and British foreign ministers, Bosnian leaders are mulling over a new text for the declaration that is supposed to set in motion a new EU plan for the troubled country, although two Serb political blocs are still in dispute over the issue. The chairman of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency Mladen Ivanic told local media over the weekend he was optimistic that the new EU initiative would move forward after German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his British counterpart Phillip Hammond visited the Bosnian capital on Friday and met Bosnia’s presidency, parliament and representatives of 14 key local parties. “The declaration will be slightly amended, all within the framework of the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Dayton Peace Accords,” Ivanic said. “When this declaration gets corrected, it will be acceptable,” said Zeljka Cvijanovic, prime minister of the Serb-led Republika Srpska entity told local media over the weekend. However Cvijanovic also used her statement to criticise Bosnian Serb opposition parties and their leaders, accusing them of trying to sell out Republika Srpska’s autonomy to Bosniak politicians. The declaration pledging Bosnian leaders’ continued interest in European integrations is the first step in the implementation of a new EU plan for Bosnia, which was initiated by Steinmeier and Hammond in November last year and then adopted by EU leaders in December. As soon as Bosnian leaders adopt the declaration, the EU is expected to activate Bosnia’s Stabilisation and Association Agreement, originally put forward in 2008 but never activated at the time, so the country can move on with its reform agenda. But the new EU plan ran into problems immediately after the country’s tripartite presidency, headed by Serb member Ivanic, drafted the decalaration and sent it to political parties on December 31. Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik dismissed the declaration on January 2, insisting that it must respect the significance and the role of the country’s two political entities and should not be used for the centralisation of Bosnia. The two opposing Serb political blocks – one led by Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, and the other gathered around the Serb Democratic Party, SDS, and Ivanic’s Party of Democratic Progress, PDP, appeared to be at odds with each other over the declaration. This led Steinmeier and Hammond to hold additional talks with the heads of all parties from Republika Srpska on Friday afternoon. Dodik said afterwards that the dispute was due to different understandings of the statement. Ivanic said meanwhile that there was nothing in the declaration that could damage Bosnia and Herzegovina or Republika Srpska. “With additional explanation, I am convinced that this declaration will be acceptable to all,” he said.
Jailed Macedonian journalist temporarily released (Associated Press, 20 January 2015)
SKOPJE, Macedonia — Macedonian media say a journalist recently jailed after an appeals court upheld his conviction for revealing the identity of a protected witness has been granted temporary release because of health problems. Tomislav Kezarovski left jail Tuesday and joined about 2,000 people demonstrating outside the appeals court in his support and demanding more press freedom. Kezarovski was initially sentenced in October 2013 to 4½ years for revealing in a 2008 magazine article the identity of a protected witness in a murder case. The appeals court upheld his conviction but cut his sentence to two years. Kezarovski had been under house arrest but was ordered to serve the remaining time in jail. Local media said Kezarovski would have to return to jail on Feb. 18.
Dodik Urged to Quit Bosnian Serb Party Leadership (BIRN, by Elvira M. Jukic, 19 January 2015)
A former senior figure in Milorad Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats said that the Bosnian Serb party was in a dire situation and its leader should resign. Rajko Vasic, former general secretary of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, rocked Bosnia’s political scene over the weekend with a blog post that urged the party’s leader Milorad Dodik to step down. The post was a brutal analysis of the worsening internal situation inside the SNSD, which accused Dodik of hijacking the party, bringing “feudal-managerial” people into both the party and into the Republika Srpska government, and dismissing all those who dare to disagree with him. Vasic said that the situation had weakened the SNSD internally and also led to poor results in the latest elections in October 2014. He projected that without major changes, the SNSD and Dodik would completely lose power in the next one or two election cycles. “Completely consciously and conscientiously, I put forward the demand that Milorad Dodik should withdraw from the position of president of the SNSD and take the place of honorary president,” Vasic wrote. “That demand is based on the need for Dodik to be distanced from organisational and personnel policy,” he added. For many years, Vasic was believed to be one of the main forces behind the SNSD’s political success, but he was also considered something of a loose cannon for his undiplomatic statements and brutally straightforward blogs. In June 2013 he was forced to resign from his party position after writing a blog post calling students who were protesting against the government at the time “bastards”. Vasic’s analysis of the situation inside the party was backed by Igor Radojicic, one of the highest-ranking SNSD members. Radojicic, who in the past served as the speaker of the Republika Srpska National Assembly, and is now an MP in the entity’s parliament, wrote on Twitter that this was “the best and most systematic analysis of the situation within the SNSD ever written.” Radojicic is one of the most popular SNSD politicians in Republika Srpska and many see him a potential successor to Dodik, who has been leading the party since its beginnings in 1996. Vasic’s blog post and Radojicic’s tweet have added authority to warnings from local experts about growing rifts within the SNSD. In the last general elections, the SNSD lost between 20,000 and 30,000 votes in ballots at different administrative levels. Although the party managed to establish a weak coalition to form a government in Republika Srpska after the election, it found itself under pressure due to accusations that it allegedly bought the support of two MPs from opposition parties who helped it reach a slim majority and get support for its new cabinet. Dodik himself only narrowly defeat his main opponent, Ognjen Tadic, in the race for the Republika Srpska presidency, while his closest ally, Zeljka Cvijanovic, lost to opposition candidate Mladen Ivanic in the contest to become the Serb member of the tripartite Bosnian presidency.
Croatian MEPs Accuse Serbia of Unjust Prosecutions (BIRN, by Marija Ristic, 20 January 2015)
Croatian members of the European parliament called on the EU to help prevent Serbia from prosecuting people for war crimes committed on Croatian territory. “Serbia has allowed itself to prosecute Croatian citizens for war crimes committed on Croatian territory, which is undermining our sovereignty,” Ruza Tomasic, a right-wing European lawmaker from Croatia said on Monday at a session of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee. Tomasic demanded the release of Veljko Maric, a Croatian fighter currently in jail in Serbia for war crimes, urging the European parliament to also call for his extradition to Croatia. “A Croatian citizen, he has been sentenced for killing a Croatian citizen in Croatia and is now sentenced in Serbia. He needs to be released,” Tomasic said. Maric was sentenced by a Belgrade court to 12 years in jail in 2012 for killing an ethnic Serb civilian in October 1991 in the Croatian village of Rastovac. He was arrested at the Serbia-Bulgaria border crossing on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by Belgrade. In December, the Croatian justice ministry asked its Serbian counterpart for the third time for Maric to be extradited and allowed to serve his sentence in his home country. So far Belgrade has refused. According to Serbian law, the Belgrade war crimes court has the right to prosecute all crimes committed during the wars in the former Yugoslavia, even if they didn’t take place on Serbian territory.
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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.
