LOCAL PRESS

Dacic: Military neutrality of Serbia, not a step closer to NATO (Tanjug/TV Pink)

Serbia is a neutral country in military terms and we have not taken a step closer towards NATO membership, said Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic. He told TV Pink, commenting on the individual partnership plan (IPAP) between Serbia and NATO, that Serbia had no intention of joining NATO, but that there was a joint interest in building peace in the region, in cooperation with NATO. He said that cooperation between Serbia and NATO had very well-known bases and that a contract on partnership for peace had been mutually signed. By cooperating with NATO, we have received guarantees that no Kosovo security forces of any kind can enter northern Kosovo without NATO’s consent, said Dacic. He said that Serbia’s goal was to build partnership relations with everyone, adding that Serbia has the same observer status in the Organization for Collective Security and Cooperation, which is led by Russia.

Stojanovic: Union of Serb Municipalities is our political priority (TV Pink)

The formation of the Union of Serb Municipalities (ZSO) remains a priority for Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, said Kosovo Deputy Premier Branimir Stojanovic, stressing that it is necessary to resolve other problems, such as privatization and full protection of the property and rights of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and Metohija. He said that the ten conclusions that representatives of the municipalities with the Serb majority in Kosovo reached at a meeting in Gracanica a few days ago, reflect the needs of all Kosovo Serbs, instead of a political party or an option. He told TV Pink that this also represented a message to Pristina that Serbs want to work together on resolving issues and that they are not ready for political blackmail and the fait accompli policy.

Northern Kosovo expects Zbogar’s assistance for blocked municipal budgets (Politika)

The municipalities in northern Kosovo and Metohija are hoping that the EU will help them resolve problems with Pristina when it comes to the blocking of the budget, but also with finally receiving 5.5 million Euros from the Fund for the North. On 3 March, Pristina stopped depositing money on the accounts of the municipalities of northern Kosovska Mitrovica, Zvecan, Leposavic and Zubin Potok. “The resolution of the problem of money transfer between the Kosovo Finance Ministry and four northern Kosovo municipalities is in the hands of the EU, which has been the mediator in the signing of the Brussels agreement, but also subsequent rounds of the technical dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina,” Minister for Local Self-Government in the Kosovo government Ljubomir Maric tells Politika. “We told the Head of the EU Office in Pristina Samuel Zbogar that the problem with the adoption of the budget of four northern municipalities had been created in Pristina, since they were adopted in the envisaged period, but also corrected along with suggestions of the Kosovo Finance Ministry and the international community. We told him that Pristina is violating the Brussels agreement and that we will not deviate from what was initialed in 2013, under the EU auspices. Namely, we will not accept for the employees in the healthcare and education to fall under the system of Kosovo ministries, because they had not been placed yet on the table of the negotiating teams of Belgrade and Pristina, and the agreement notes that this will be defined later on,” said Maric. Leposavic Mayor Dragan Jablanovic tells Politika that they told Zbogar they would not suffer blackmail from Pristina. “We told him that we also expect them to deposit on the municipal accounts 5.5 million Euros, which are on the account of the Fund for the North, collected from the income from the Jarinje and Brnjak administrative crossings,” says Jablanovic. He notes that they said the money from the Fund would not be paid for salaries, but would be invested in the infrastructural facilities, agriculture, and purchase of land so the people in northern Kosovo could live normally. Jablanovic said that Zbogar had agreed that the money should be deposited on the municipal accounts, according to the strategy decided by the Fund Board, which is composed of one Serb and one Albanian representative along with Zbogar.

Implementation of the Law on Judiciary in northern Kosovo as of Wednesday (Novosti)

The process of implementing the agreement on the judiciary according to the agreement between the Belgrade and Pristina delegations, i.e. the agreement on the election of judges and prosecutors that will work in the courts in northern Kosovo, should start on 25 March. Kosovo Justice Minister Hajradin Kuci expects that they will announce the competition for judges and prosecutors on 25 March, while the Kosovo prosecutor’s council will decide on the deadline of the competition and number of posts. According to Novosti, the competition will be conducted by the Kosovo institutions, while the process of elections and verifications of judges will be conducted by EULEX. Based on the Brussels agreement on the judiciary, one Basic Court and one Basic Prosecution will be formed for the southern and northern parts of Mitrovica, for Leposavic, Zvecan and Zubin Potok, as well as for the Albanian majority municipalities – Vucitrn and Srbica, whose president will be a Serb, while the chief prosecutor of the Basic Prosecution will be an Albanian.

Anti-government protesters march in Belgrade (Beta/B92)

Supporters of the Dveri Movement during the weekend held a protest gathering in front of the Serbian government building in Belgrade. They asked for the process of the country moving closer to the EU and NATO to be halted, and accused Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic of committing high treason because he abolished Serbian institutions in Kosovo and Metohija. One of the Dveri leaders, Bosko Obradovic, said the rally was in fact organized “against the government of Tony Blair, in which Aleksandar Vucic serves only as a spokesperson”, referring to the recent hiring of the former British prime minister as a consultant. According to Obradovic, Dveri’s task is “to gather together a strong opposition that will put an end to Serbia’s downfall that has been ongoing since October 2000”. He announced that the first task of the anti-government protest is to force early elections that would see “patriotic forces” return to parliament. Obradovic described the ruling SNS party as “the biggest fraud in the history of Serbia”, and accused it of controlling and manipulating the media. He spoke in favor of Serbia’s closer ties with Russia. Academician Kosta Cavoski also addressed the protest to say the Brussels agreement reached during the EU-sponsored Kosovo negotiations “removed the last vestiges of Serb statehood” in Kosovo and in that way recognized the unilaterally declared independence of the province. Another member of the Dveri leadership, Vladan Glisic, read a list of demands that included an end to Serbia moving closer to the EU and NATO, annulling of the Brussels agreement, exiting the slavery of the IMF, reestablishing the previous level of salaries and pensions, and meeting the demands of the teachers on strike. Glisic also demanded higher taxes on agricultural products imported from the EU, an end to plans to sell Telekom and EPS, and liberating the media from the pressure of the ruling party. The protest that, according to police estimates, gathered “more than 1,000 people”, ended without incidents with the participants marching from the government building to the public broadcaster RTS, where the Dveri officials once again asked that this media outlet engages in “objective reporting.” The protesters carried flags of Serbia, Russia, Novorossiya (New Russia) and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, as well as portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and shouted offensive slogans against the Serbian prime minister.

Keefe: Opportunity for Belgrade’s initiative (RTS/FoNet)
It is possible that Serbia opena the first chapter in EU accession negotiations this year, the Ambassador of Great Britain to Serbia Denis Keefe said. “This is a year of challenge but also of opportunities for Serbia. Last year there was a lot of work related to reforms and negotiations with Brussels,” Denis Keefe said in an interview to FoNet and noted that we are now at the stage of implementation of these reforms and that the reports of screening are ready, which is a technical, but important job. According to him, Serbia has a chance to take the initiative, to achieve real progress and tell the EU member states that now a real discussion should start.
Keefe, however, believes that it all depends on the real progress in key areas such as justice, rule of law, media and dialogue with Pristina. For the opening of Chapter 35, as Keefe explained, the application of the Brussels agreement on normalization of relations between Pristina and Belgrade is required. “There was a pause during the last year, but on February 9, a new round of dialogue was held. There has been progress, but it takes even more. I think it is possible,” Keefe said.

REGIONAL PRESS

Existing B&H Council of Ministers not according to Constitution (FTV)

The proposal of the new B&H Council of Ministers is not in accordance with the B&H Constitution and Law on the Council of Ministers, FTV reports. In the ministry of traffic and communications, the minister and deputy minister are from the constitutive people, which is in violation with the Constitution and Law. According to the B&H Constitution and the Law on the Council of Ministers, this kind of distribution is impossible. Article 4 of the B&H Constitution states that two-thirds of the ministers can be appointed from the B&H Federation. The chairman will appoint deputy ministers (which will not be from the same constitutive people, as well as their ministers), who will assume duty after the approval of the House of Representatives. Article 7 of the Law on the B&H Council of Ministers states that each ministry has one deputy ministry. Deputy ministers are from different constitutive people in relation to the minister, envisaged by Article 7 of this Law.

Prodanovic: SNSD will not support existing B&H Council of Ministers (Srna) 

The Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) will not support the existing proposal for the Council of Ministers in the B&H House of Representatives and will definitely not correct the mistake that occurred with proposing the candidates for the minister and deputy minister of transport and communications from the same constitutive people, SNSD member Lazar Prodanovic told Srna. “It has so far never happened that a minister in the Council of Ministers and his deputy are from the same constitutive people, in this case from the same Entity as well,” said Prodanovic, who is a member of the parliamentary Committee for Election of the Council of Ministers. Prodanovic believes that Denis Zvizdic, candidate for the Council chairperson, should deal with this oversight together with his coalition partners. “I’m not ruling out the possibility that the problem with the election of the Council of Ministers occurred when the coalition partners, like it happened with the Federation government, were probably unable to reach a full agreement, which is why the final election of the Council is postponed. It is likely that all this is not a coincidence,” said Prodanovic. Slavko Matanovic of the Democratic Front (DF) is a candidate for the B&H minister of transport and communications, while Predrag Kozul of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) has been proposed for his deputy. Both candidates are members of the same people – Croat. According to the B&H Constitution and Council of Ministers Act, such a distribution of positions is impossible.

Dodik: Proof of absurdity of B&H (Srna)

The Republika Srpska (RS) President Milorad Dodik has told Srna that the whole process of trying to form a new B&H Council of Ministers and Federation’s governmental structures has shown the full absurdity of Bosnia and Herzegovina as an impossible country, which many people, even some from the Federation, have been warning of for years. Asked to comment on the deadlock in the formation of government at the FB&H and state level, Dodik said that, with regard to the formation of the FB&H structures, there had always been a notable and constant lack of Serbs, while these days, during the government formation, there was mention of an “excess” of Serbs, which was ridiculous for an entity that had been ethnically cleansed of Serbs almost completely. Dodik pointed out that for an umpteenth time, the issue of legitimacy of representatives of a people had arisen, and that the leaders of the Party of Democratic Action, Bakir Izetbegovic, and Democratic Front, Zeljko Komsic, were taking part in all that again, whose policies had for years been the biggest problem of everyone in the country, but that no one was willing to admit to it. “Instead of acknowledging the reality and trying to create and carry out realistic policies, and instead of forming the government of the winning parties, Izetbegovic refused to do it, in an attempt to create a state for himself yet again, to the detriment of someone else at that. The result is exactly what is now happening with the formation of government,” said Dodik. He said it was absurd that High Representative Valentin Inzko was surprised about Sarajevo’s inability to form the government, adding that Inzko had circumvented the truth throughout his tenure and, together with the politicians from Sarajevo, mainly accused the RS, as well as the ruling coalition, and Dodik himself of the failures. “It is high time the OHR and the function of the High Representative were abolished, which would halt their destructive involvement in internal politics. For the time being, we, who formed the government, adopted the budget and economic policies a while ago, are not in the Sarajevo political mud, nor will we ever be. The way things are now, the incompetent Izetbegovic-Komsic duo, and it seems Inzko too, as well as some fixers from the international community, will keep wallowing in that mud,” said Dodik. All this only proves, says Dodik, what he has been saying for years – that Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot survive without realistic policies that will respect equally both the entities and the constitutive peoples, and the election will of the people. “For years Dodik has been their biggest problem and biggest excuse for all their failures. I am not in those processes now, they have their obedient partners, the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), Party of Democratic Progress (PDP), and People’s Democratic Movement (NDP), so why can’t they resolve those issues then?” asked Dodik. Talking about the new EU initiative for B&H, Dodik ascertained that the story of a quasi-European path was just a trick because once the newly set conditions were met and candidate status was reached, which was offered no sooner than in two years’ time, it would again be necessary to deal with the Sejdic-Finci and coordination mechanism issues. “It is easy to see that some international fixers, together with the obedient SDS and PDP, are trying to create an illusion about some new European momentum. It has been forgotten that former EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn offered us only two conditions for getting candidate status immediately – Sejdic-Finci and coordination mechanism. To both those conditions the RS had an adequate reply, but the gridlock occurred in the Federation of B&H,” said Dodik.

Protest in Doboj against decision for this town to join “Associaton of Turkish Municipalities” (Glas Srpske)

The Chairman of the Presidency of the Doboj Veteran’s Organization Zoran Bijelic said at the protest rally that the Doboj Mayor Obren Petrovic must resign. The protests, at which around two thousand residents gathered, were organized by the Doboj Veteran’s Organization, because the local authorities didn’t cancel the decision on accession of Doboj to the Association of Turkish Municipalities. This decision was recently passed by the Doboj Municipal Assembly and caused anger among the veterans and other residents. “This is our last message and we hope this rally was not in vain. We think that the mayor will submit his resignation, and if he doesn’t, we will launch a campaign of collecting signatures of residents, which is a legal and legitimate way for Petrovic to be removed from power,” said Bijelic. The controversial decision on the accession of Doboj to this Turkish Association with headquarters in Istanbul was passed by the deputies of the municipal majority composed of the SDS, NDP, DNS and SDP.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Is there hope for RECOM? (Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, by Caterina Bonora, 23 March 2015)

The latest updates on the struggle for a regional commission for investigating the war crimes of the 1990s in the Balkans

After a stand-by phase during which the advancement of the prospective regional commission appeared to have stalled, last November the delegates of the Coalition for RECOM and the envoys of the governments of the former Yugoslavia agreed upon some next steps for the initiative. If adopted, RECOM, full name “Regional Commission for Establishing the Facts about War Crimes and Other Gross Violations of Human Rights Committed on the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia”, should become an intergovernmental body, officially recognized by all of the seven former Yugoslav states, charged with investigating the war crimes of the 1990s (more precisely from January 1, 1991, to December 31, 2001). As often maintained by its supporters, only with the cooperation of all of the countries that once formed Yugoslavia will it be possible to establish a comprehensive record of the rights violations perpetrated during that turbulent decade. The RECOM project has been around for a while now, as its inception dates back to 2004-5, when, in the wake of the umpteenth failure to create a truth commission in Bosnia Herzegovina, a handful of human rights NGOs from the region started a conversation about an alternative solution. The NGOs’ activists, among which figured most prominently Nataša Kandić from the Humanitarian Law Center (Belgrade) and Vesna Teršelić from Documenta (Zagreb), proposed a new approach, which would not just include all the countries of the region, but would also originate from the local civil society, as opposed to foreign organizations or domestic political institutions. The idea immediately found the support of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) based in New York City. The massive consultation process that took place between 2006 and 2011 epitomized the bottom-up character of the initiative, by involving thousands of organizations and individuals from all over the region; and became one of the largest, possibly the largest, public debate ever organized on transitional justice issues. Since 2011, however, the progress of the initiative appeared to have virtually stalled, or at least it was perceived as such by many civil society organizations from the region. The initiative had entered a delicate phase of negotiation with the regional governments, which were each to appoint a special envoy, who would then issue a report on the feasibility of the Commission. This stage, beset by political issues related to the appointment and work of the envoys, lasted for almost four years.

The statute changes

Finally, last November some crucial developments gave new impulse to the initiative.

During RECOM’s general assembly, the envoys presented their report, which contains a series of changes to the statute necessary for its adoption by the countries of the former Yugoslavia.

The assembly representing the members of the initiative for RECOM adopted the changes almost unanimously (one vote against, two abstentions out of 104 present delegates). What do these changes mean for the future commission? According to RECOM’s monthly newsletter “Voice”, first, they simplify the procedure for choosing the members of the commission. Second, while in the previous model, the commission’s funds should have come from the participating states, now RECOM will be funded “by domestic and foreign donations, as well as by international organizations”. While this could raise concerns about the commission’s sustainability, the RECOM initiative has demonstrated to be able to raise external funds throughout the consultation process and beyond, with significant contributions awarded by the European Union and an array of American foundations, among which the Rockefeller Brothers, Open Society, NED, etc. The third, and perhaps most significant change regards the commission’s punitive powers. As a matter of facts, the commission was never supposed to hold judicial powers similar to those of a tribunal, e.g. to pronounce somebody guilty of a crime with retributive consequences. Though tribunals could later on use the information unveiled by the commission to initiate new cases, its exclusive purpose is that of establishing the facts. RECOM’s activists had spent much energy during the consultation process in conveying this fact to the representatives of the governments and of the judicial institutions, among which also the ICTY, who were concerned that the commission could interfere with the tribunals’ work. A hint of punitive power was contained for example in art. 17.8 of the original statute, according to which the commission could issue a criminal complaint “for the purpose of sanctioning an individual who refuses to give a statement” (i.e. to testify)—hence coming close to a power of subpoena. According to the adopted changes, all the residuals of such punitive powers will be given up too, so as to remove any doubt about the non-judicial character of the RECOM commission. Of course, this could impair the capacity of the commission to summon witnesses, especially if involved in the perpetration of war crimes. However, in the brief history of truth commissions, there are very few examples of investigative bodies vested with such powers. Conversely, commissions as renowned and impactful as the Argentinean and Chilean ones did not have subpoena powers and had to operate without any sort of collaboration from the side of the military, i.e. those responsible for most of the atrocities. Hence, the changes briefly reviewed here do not seem to alter the original idea of RECOM or its prospective impact.

The matter of the research

What could be instead determining the commission’s outcome is the subject matter of its research, which remains undefined to date. While it is settled that the commission will research about the war crimes committed in the region in the 1990s, it is still not clear to what extent. The minimum so far agreed upon would be a list of human losses and of places of detention where rights violations took place. However, the original statute envisages much more than that. In fact, the objectives of the commission enumerated in article 14 included also an enquiry into “the political and social circumstances that decisively contributed to the outbreak of wars or other forms of armed conflict as well as to the commission of war crimes and other gross human rights violations”. What is commonly called in RECOM the issue of the “causes of the war” was one of the most contentious during the public consultations. On the one hand, researching the causes of the wars of the 1990s sounds admittedly like a daunting task for a temporary commission. On the other, a mere list of victims and human rights violations would remain mute about the role played in the violence by political institutions, as well as about other factors that, besides and before the collapse of the SFRY, led to the disasters of that decade. In other words, without some work of contextualization, the RECOM commission would incur the same problems that haunt criminal tribunals, whose exclusive focus on the accountability of the individual accused prevents them from illuminating the responsibility of states and institutions. The broader picture would be missed again in favor of a somewhat de-politicized reconstruction of single episodes. But this is all theoretical reasoning, and no conclusion can be drawn at this point on the issue of the breadth of the reconstruction the commission will engage in. In fact, the “causes of the war” are still part of the statute, as the envoys of the region’s presidents have left the final decision on this crucial issue to the presidents themselves.

The next step

Therefore, the next step for RECOM would have been to have the presidents of the countries of the region discuss together the final proposal for the statute and agree upon a common way to inform the public about their support to the establishment of the RECOM commission.

In order to accelerate this step, last December the coalition for RECOM sent a letter to the region’s Presidents and the members of the Presidency of Bosnia Herzegovina encouraging them to do so. However, the changes in the region’s political panorama with the general elections in Bosnia Herzegovina in October and the presidential elections in Croatia in December/January have again slowed down the process. In fact, the two new members of the presidency in Bosnia Herzegovina and the new president in Croatia must first be consulted about the mentioned changes, which were agreed upon by the envoys of their predecessors. As reported by one of RECOM’s members, the organization Transitional Justice, Accountability and Remembrance (TJAR) of Sarajevo, RECOM’s activists promptly contacted the new President in Croatia and the two new members of the Presidency in Bosnia Herzegovina to organize meetings with them, but due to their full agendas they have not managed to obtain appointments yet. Hence, after having come closer to the establishment of the commission than ever before, RECOM’s advancement is again somewhat suspended until the politicians will decide to direct their attention to it again. The inevitable vulnerability of the initiative to the region’s political context is a consequence of the RECOM’s activists’ decision to have an official commission, rather than an informal one recognized only by the civil society organizations. According to them, in fact, only the official acknowledgment of the war-related crimes at the political level can fully restore the dignity of the victims and further reconciliation in the region.

Sarajevo’s struggles to contain jihadism (Deutsche Welle, 21 March 2015)

Bosnia-Herzegovina is often under suspicion of providing a particularly high number of recruits for terrorist group “Islamic State” (IS). However, its Muslim population rejects extremists.

It’s a provocation: again and again, banners of the so-called “Islamic State” surface in Gornja Maoca, a small village in northeastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. They are seen on one wall, then another. Locals take pictures of those banners and send them to the press. The result is always the same: a unit of the Bosnian anti-terror force SIPA (State Investigation and Protection Agency), is deployed from Sarajevo. But by the time the force arrives in Gornja Maoca, the banners have usually disappeared. Bosnia-Herzegovina’s security forces do not enjoy a very good reputation among the country’s population. But when it comes to radical islamists SIPA cannot be accused of inactivity. In 2011, Bosnian Muslim Mevlid Jasarevic carried out a machine gun attack on the US embassy in Sarajevo in broad daylight. Since then, the country has been on the alert.

Jail sentences for jihadists

SIPA conducts crackdowns on a regular basis. In order to keep “travellers in terror” at bay, the Bosnian parliament adopted a law in June 2014 forbidding citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina to take part in foreign fighting. Those who recruit jihad fighters or leave the country with that sort of recruitment in mind could face up to ten years in prison. In the wake of Jasarevic’s machine gun attack, Gornja Maoca became known across the country. Previously, no one in Bosnia-Herzegovina had been familiar with the assailant’s native village. Jasarevic’s physical appearance – a dense beard, a long robe – betrayed his affiliation: he was an adherent of the Wahhabi orientation of Sunni Islam, as practised in Saudi Arabia. Its supporters are sometimes called Salafists.

A European Islam

“This movement of Islam is at odds with the Sunni Hanafi orientation, which has been practised in Bosnia-Herzegovina for centuries,” explains Enes Karic, professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Sarajevo. Ottoman rule began in Bosnia in 1456, which was followed by a process of Islamization in the population. According to Karic, Islam developed into an “urban” doctrine, its major interpretations emerging from “urbanized” madrasas (Islamic schools). “In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Islam was always involved in an exchange of ideas with the country’s other religions: Catholic and Serbian-Orthodox Christianity, as well as Judaism,” Karic explained. By 1878, when Bosnia-Herzegovina was under Habsburg rule, Bosnian Muslims were living in a secular society in which religion played an important role, but did not dominate everyday life. Despite that tradition, a group of radical Islamists, including the Wahhabis of Gornja Maoca, has now gained ground in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Primarily, this is a result of the Bosnian war, which broke out in 1992 and lasted until 1995. At the time, volunteers from various Islamic countries entered Bosnia-Herzegovina, supposedly joining the fight on behalf of the Muslim population.

Financial backing from Saudi Arabia

When the war was over, not all of those Islamist fighters left the country. Many among the 2,000 mercenaries were issued Bosnian passports and went on to recruit young people for their religious struggle. In addition, Saudi charity foundations now regard Bosnia-Herzegovina as their sphere of influence. They have poured a lot of money into the construction of places of worship, including the King Fahd Mosque in Sarajevo, the biggest mosque in the Balkans with a capacity of 4,000, which was inaugurated in 2000 and is dominated by Wahhabis. “In local mosques, as well as among the majority of the indigenous Muslim population, the extremists encounter rejection,” said Dennis Gratz, chairman of the social liberal political party Nasa Stranka. “In spite of that, poverty and poor economic prospects foster radicalization.”

At the same time, Gratz suggests, several Bosnian politicians are making efforts to appease Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Gratz thinks Erdogan advocates a neo-Ottoman version of Turkish foreign policy, pursuing a return to conservative Islam, which seemed to be a thing of the past in Turkey. In a study compiled on behalf of the US Military Academy in West Point, analyst Steven Oluic provided a summary of the dilemma that affects Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as the community of Balkan nations and other European countries: “Bosnia’s ability to resist extremism and radical Islam is largely dependent on continued western engagement in the region.” The study also has this to say about the ability of Bosnian Muslims to face the challenge of radical Islamists: their ideologies could in theory be resisted, given that a majority of the Bosnian Muslim population rejects a radical interpretation of Islam.

Bosniak Soldier Acquitted of Killing Hadzici Serbs (BIRN, 23 March 2015)

Former Bosnian Army serviceman Azemin Sadikovic was cleared of killing four Serb civilians in the village of Kasatici in the Hadzici municipality in May 1992. The cantonal court in Sarajevo acquitted Sadikovic of war crimes on Monday, ruling that there was not enough evidence to convict him. “We could not give credence to the one and only witness who said that Azemin Sadikovic killed those civilians, as the indictment alleges,” said presiding judge Jasenko Ruzdic. Ruzdic said that a statement from a protected witness was the only evidence that the prosecution defence presented, and a verdict cannot be founded on just one protected witness’s statement. The judge said that the court had found that the defendant was not one of the fighters who killed the Serb civilians. “The attack on the village of Kasatici was carried out by the territorial defence force, and the trial chamber established that Sadikovic was a member of the armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Ruzdic said. The verdict can be appealed at the supreme court in Bosnia’s Federation entity.

EU Tightens Borders With Construction of Croatia’s “Schengen Wall” (Sputnik, 20 March 2015)

Those on the Bosnian side of the roughly 1000 kilometer border between the two countries await the consequences of Croatia’s requested inclusion into the Schengen Area.

The Croatian government’s application to join the Schengen area of free movement has become a source of apprehension in Bosnia, whose residents, 1.1 million of whom also have Croatian citizenship, are used to a traditionally relaxed regime at the border between the two countries, where they have until recently been waved through after showing their driving license or ID card. Bakir Dautbašić, Secretary of State for Security in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Council of Ministers, told Avaz.ba that Croatian officials are already putting in place many of the requirements for acceptance to the Schengen area, and that Bosnian citizens will be sure to feel the extra stringency when they cross the border for their summer holidays this year. “They have seriously gone about their work, it’s clear that Croatian border officials do their job zealously,” he said. Croatia joined the EU on July 1 2013, and earlier this month the Croatian government announced its application to become a member of the currently 26 strong Schengen area, which Brussels will evaluate in  2016. The country has received €120 million [$130 million] from the EU’s Schengen Facility fund to strengthen its border controls, which it has until July 2016 to spend. “We take these funds seriously, they have to be used in a focused way, very strictly and without mistakes, otherwise the money has to be returned,” said Croatian Minister of Internal Affairs  Ranko Ostojić earlier this month. According to media reports, among the apparatus at the disposal of the Croatian authorities will be helicopters equipped with night vision equipment, radar stations and even medical equipment able to detect a racing heartbeat. On February 27 Croatian newspaper Jutarnji List reported that Brussels, worried by the increasing numbers of immigrants from the Balkans seeking asylum in Western Europe, has not excluded the extreme measure of instituting a visa regime for citizens of western Balkan countries, after figures were published showing that in 2014 more than 50000 people from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro made asylum applications in EU countries, the vast majority of which were refused, an increase of 40 percent on the previous year. “A number of EU countries have been confronted with terrorist attacks and problems with people who misuse freedom of movement, raising the question of what will happen when the Schengen zone extends further,” said Ostojić. “Above all this concerns the eventual admittance of Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia in the Schengen area. However, Croatia is currently watching its own border, and the future European border, very well.”

And where do we go from here? Macedonia and the EU (Open Democracy, by Simonida Kacarska, 22 March 2015)

From today’s perspective, it seems amazing to think that Macedonia was actually one of the frontrunners on the road to European integration in the Balkans, even before the most recent member of the EU club, Croatia. On 4 March 2015, the High Representative/Vice President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini and European Neighborhood Commissioner Johannes Hahn expressed readiness to (once again) help Macedonia in managing an ongoing political crisis between the opposition and the government. This latest EU offer comes after the Prime Minister pressed charges against the leader of the opposition for espionage and violent overthrow. At the same time, a major wiretapping scandal was made public by the biggest opposition party, Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM). Since early February, the SDSM leadership has been gradually broadcasting wiretapped recordings between the government ministers containing elements of abuse of official power, use of state resources for party purposes, pressure on the judiciary and media, to name just a few. According to them more than 20,000 people, including current and former ministers, opposition leaders and journalists were subject to surveillance for the last four years. This scandal comes after a 9 year inter-ethnic coalition government headed by the Internal Democratic Revolutionary Organisation – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE), a party that came to power in 2006 when Macedonia had just become a candidate for EU membership. In a short lived coalition with the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) until 2008, and with the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) since, VMRO-DPMNE came to power promising economic revival with technocratic leadership.  Although this might have been the objective in the first half of their rule, the last five years have take a quite different turn with backsliding on various fronts, especially political rights, such as freedom of expression. For example, since 2008 the key government undertaking has been a lavish architectural project in Skopje, involving the construction of numerous buildings and monuments raising many eyebrows in the relatively poor post-Yugoslav state. This project has materialised hand in hand with the use of nationalistic discourses and increasing stronghold of the parties in power over the state administration, imprisonment of journalists, failure to sanction or process duly cases related to corruption, to name just a few. This state capture has been further made possible by the continuous lack of a functioning opposition in the national institutions, including the Parliament. In fact, Macedonia has been in a perpetual political crisis since the end of 2012 when the opposition was forcefully removed from the parliamentary hall during the discussions for the annual budget. Although the major opposition party SDSM participated in the local elections of 2013 and the general elections of 2014, they have been operating outside of the institutions for the last two years.

In parallel, the media landscape has been violated by transferring government funds to outlets supportive of the ruling political parties. In these circumstances, crucial legislation and policies have been passed without meaningful public or institutional consultation. In practice, the parties in power have attempted to create a public environment in which they can operate with very little criticism or dissent. These events have largely coincided with the blockade of Macedonia’s further EU integration prompted by the dispute with Greece over the country’s constitutional name. As a result of this dispute, Macedonia has had six (futile) consecutive recommendations for starting the accession negotiations with the EU. In fact, the small country of two million which was praised in the early 1990s as the peaceful reformer in the Balkans has become the longest standing candidate for EU membership without negotiations after Turkey. From today’s perspective, it seems amazing to think that Macedonia was actually one of the frontrunners on the road to European integration in the Balkans, even before the most recent member of the EU club, Croatia. In fact, the last meaningful internal reforms in the context of EU probably took place in 2009 when the EU decided to offer Macedonia and its regional neighbours the possibility to travel without visas. Since then, the Europeanisation of Macedonia has been one failed initiative after another, although this process was praised for its transformative power in Eastern Europe in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The European Commission has attempted various forms of engagements with Macedonia on the margins of what would be normal modes of communication with an acceding country, as the latter are procedurally impossible. These have included both technical contacts between the civil servants as well as high level discussions between the Prime Minister and the Enlargement Commissioner. None of them have in fact worked as they are quite contrary to the logic of the accession process as such which offers the prospect of membership in exchange for pursuing often difficult reforms. With the name issue in the way of the regular accession conditionality, the EU has in fact compromised its potential for bringing transformative change in Macedonia. In addition, although in the early years of this difficult relationship the Commission was reluctant to provide outright criticisms, the latest 2014 progress report on the country was an exception to the rule. In it, the European Commission has recognised backsliding and conditioned the maintaining of the recommendations for launching accession negotiations upon progress in the reforms. The deadlock on the EU integration front has had an internal price as well, since the trust in the EU has been constantly declining among the public that is still nevertheless supportive of EU membership. Symbolically, the EU still carries weight in Macedonia because EU integration has been a shared goal and a binding tissue of the two otherwise largely divided communities in the country, i.e. the ethnic Macedonian and Albanian. For Macedonia, which underwent an internal inter-ethnic conflict in 2001, the EU accession prospects were the common objective for all communities living in the country. Further delays in the country’s path towards the Union are likely to widen the already visible gap between the ethnic Macedonian and Albanian citizens in the country, fuelling nationalistic tactics and a sense of transformation fatigue. A major alternative promoted by the government have been the so called free economic zones where foreign companies are provided with financial incentives for transferring their largely low skilled production outlets to the country. While these companies have provided much needed employment, the country still remains at the bottom in Europe with unemployment of around 30%. Officially, attempts were also made also to reach out to or engage with non-EU countries, such as Russia and India, though these have also been unsuccessful. Even with major government efforts at attracting investments etc, the political instability and stagnation on the EU road have taken their toll. Hence, the country still receives modest per-capita investment amounts and the economy is in a difficult state in parallel with its troubling EU integration. Not surprising, in such circumstances, the state administration has remained the primary employment channel and has been extensively used by the parties in power as a mean of ensuring survival. In light of the circumstances, this last wiretapping scandal, for many, signals the existence of authoritarian and likely illegal practices in the country. Still, given the major accusations of the opposition, the institutional responses have been feeble. At the same time, some of the arguments used in the public debate condone such practices, indicating a worrying trend of acceptance and normalization of authoritarianism. Signs of emerging dissent with the overall mode of governing were recent waves of protests of students, teachers, journalists and contracted workers at the end of 2014 and early 2015, which were important primarily as an example that there the party control over every aspect of public life can be cracked. Due to the pressure of these groups and the burden of the tapping scandal hanging over his head, the Prime Minister has succumbed partly to pressures leading to concessions on numerous policies, which was unimaginable just a few months ago. In this context, it is likely that the help of Mogherini and Hahn is not optional, but a necessity due to the multitude of internal challenges the country is facing. On the bright side, the EU does hold a track record of crisis solving in the Balkans. In addition, a serious effort in Macedonia will also enable the Union to regain trust among the population and reclaim its position as a democratizing agent. Yet, given that the Greek veto has compromised EU conditionality in Macedonia it is difficult to see whether and how the EU can engage meaningfully the local political actors. One can only hope that the EU officials will have a major ace up their sleeve on their next trip to Skopje.