LOCAL PRESS

Vucic and Mustafa discuss cooperation over phone (Tanjug)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has had a telephone conversation with Prime Minister of the interim administration in Pristina Isa Mustafa on future cooperation between Belgrade and Pristina and position of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, Tanjug has learned. Vucic and Mustafa agreed on Wednesday evening that all problems should be solved through a dialogue and that after establishing a direct contact they will in future discuss about all potential problems.

Dacic: Defining project and presenting them to EU (Radio Serbia)

The informal ministerial conference on the infrastructural projects, held in Pristina, has shown the relaxation of the relations in the Balkans and the joint striving, which should not be spoiled by some individual statements, pointed Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic. After the gathering of the foreign and transport ministers of the region, he said it was also the main accomplishment of the meeting, while stressing that the peace and stability in the region should be developed on the basis of common interests, and not depending on love or hate. We need to define the projects and present them to the EU, Dacic emphasized, adding that the ministers will continue the work on the West Balkan transportation network on 24 June in Riga, being that Latvia is chairing the EU. He has announced that this network will be presented on 27 August, in Vienna, and the goal is to make it an integral part of the European transportation network by 2030. Dacic has explained that it requires the preparation of the projects, so one billion euro from the IPA funds will be earmarked for that purpose.

Serbian Minister of Construction, Traffic and Infrastructure Zorana Mihajlovic has stated that the conference in Pristina strives to lead to the better regional connections and development of infrastructure, thus improving the quality of life for the citizens. She has said that for the first time the discussion touched upon the European transportation network for the West Balkans, dealing with the road, railway and water traffic. The corridors 10 and 11, which are passing through Serbia, are both elements of that fundamental network. The new aspect is that it will also include the highway Nis-Pristina-Tirana-Valona, and the railroad Kraljevo-Rudnica-Pristina-Skopje, Mihajlovic specified.

European Commissioner for Neighborhood Policy Johannes Hahn has confirmed during the conference that the EU will allocate one billion euro for the improvement of the infrastructure in the West Balkans. The projects in the fields of infrastructure, transport and energy supply are the keys of economic development and new jobs, Hahn pointed. He said that in this year 100 million euro from the IPA finds would be available as a guarantee for the investments. The Commissioner has noted that in Vienna the priority projects will be presented, and added that they are the best guarantee for the connections and reconciliation among the Balkan nations. While stressing the need to adopt the common transportation policy for the countries of the region, Hahn has stated it would be binding for those states and for the EU. He pointed that the Union would help the countries of the West Balkans in the successful realization of the projects, and continue to help them in the implementation of reforms.

European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc, who addressed the participants via the video link, has emphasized that the West Balkans is the most important region for cross-border cooperation in the EU.

Djuric: Brussels agreement is not a buffet (Tanjug)

Politically, establishment of the Union of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo and Metohija is an obligation under the Brussels agreement and it is advocated by Belgrade and the representatives of the Serb (Ruska) List in the province, the Hhead of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric said. The Brussels agreement is not a buffet where everyone can take what suits them, Djuric said at a conference on respect of European human rights conventions in Kosovo, organized by the Strasbourg House of Justice. Under Kosovo laws, many rights contained in European conventions are guaranteed to Serbs, but not much of that is respected in practice, Djuric said. The MP of the Socialist Party of Serbia Dejan Radenkovic said that there is almost no sphere of life in which there is no violation of European conventions related to the rights of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, including the rights to property, employment and use of their mother tongue. According to him, for this reason it is necessary to insist with European officials that everything contained in the Kosovo Constitution and laws related to the rights of Serbs in the province should be respected to the letter. Analyst Dusan Janjic of the Forum for Ethnic Relations noted that, in discussions with representatives of the international community, Belgrade must insist on guarantees for respect of the rights of Kosovo Serbs.

Pavicevic: Normalization of relations with Pristina is occurring every day (Tanjug)

Normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina is occurring every day and it is heading in a better direction, said the liaison officer of the Serbian government in Pristina Dejan Pavicevic. At the panel discussion “Four Years of Negotiations: Normalization of Relations between Belgrade and Pristina” he pointed out that many agreements have been implemented, but that much more still needs to be implemented. He recalled that this year commenced with the signing of the agreement on the judiciary and that an informal ministerial meeting was held in Pristina yesterday. Last year, many things were done at the technical level, but the problem was that we waited for the formation of the government in Pristina, said Pavicevic.

Sadiku: Process of normalization of relations is successful (Tanjug)

The process of normalization of the Belgrade-Pristina relations is successful having in mind the period in which it is taking place and the results it is producing, Pristina’s liaison officer in Belgrade Valjdet Sadiku said. At the panel discussion “Four Years of Negotiations: Normalization of Relations between Belgrade and Pristina”, Sadiku said that he believed there was no alternative and that the only option lied in the continuation of the process that was not only useful but also necessary for both Belgrade and Pristina. There is visible progress, Sadiku said and added that improvement is visible although the Pristina side is not completely satisfied. We would like to see greater progress in a number of areas, especially when it comes to a better life for citizens, he said.

Milenkovic: Preparation for opening negotiating chapters (RTS)

The Head of the Office for EU Integration Ksenija Milenkovic told the morning news of Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS) that the screening process of the negotiating chapters was successfully completed and expects that the first chapters will be opened by the end of the year. Milenkovic assesses that the chapters in the field of ecology and agriculture will be the most difficult ones to open. “Now follows the preparation for the opening of chapters, for our negotiating positions for certain chapters, which is the key of our strategy. We will not only present our negotiating position to the EU, but we will also show in what deadlines we want to harmonize the fields,” says Milenkovic. She says that most of the work has been done for Chapters 23 and 24. “Underway is the drafting of the third version of action plans and we want them to be the last versions,” she says. When it comes to Chapter 35 on negotiations with Pristina, Milenkovic points out that Serbia is devoted to the resumption of the dialogue and implementation of all elements for which agreements had been achieved. She says that the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini will arrive in Belgrade on Friday when the time frame for resuming the dialogue will be defined. Milenkovic stresses that good relations between Belgrade and Moscow cannot be an obstacle nor can slow down Serbia’s path towards the EU. According to her, Serbia is gradually harmonizing its foreign policy with that of the EU, and the goal is to reach one hundred percent harmonization when it joins the EU.

Miscevic: Screening completed, report to follow (TV B92)

The Head of the Serbian negotiating team in the EU accession talks EU Tanja Miscevic said that that the following step in the negotiations would be a report from the screening, which was brought to completion with a chapter relating to financial and a budget issues. The results of the completed screening cannot be seen immediately, but are expected to show very quickly, for example in administrative procedures being speeded up, Miscevic said, adding that citizens would gradually feel improvements as a result of the screening process being completed in Brussels. Miscevic told TV B92 that Serbia was not only to adopt new legislation but also to really implement new regulations and prepare action plans to demonstrate that it could achieve the goals set. One can often hear at high-level political meetings that Serbia was entering EU membership negotiations on a level much higher than any other country before, she said.The Serbian side has been working to align its legislation with that of the EU for 10 years now and certain standards have already been achieved, said Miscevic.

Policemen were majority part of the public at the marking of NATO anniversary (New Serbian Political Thought)

The Dveri Movement learns from members of the Serbian Interior Ministry that the majority part of the public at the marking of the NATO anniversary of bombing were policemen without uniforms who were called from all over Serbia in order to be a decoration for Vucic’s play and promotion. Namely, policemen throughout Serbia were informed on 24 March that they were travelling to Belgrade. They were not told what the reason was, but were just told not to wear uniforms, weapons and handcuffs. Every policeman received 2,500 Dinars and paid travel expenses for this party-political abuse of the police. This is the latest scandalous way of using state institutions for party purposes of the Serbian Progressive Party and an example of senseless spending of state money during the false savings.

REGIONAL PRESS

Government of the Sarajevo Canton appointed (klix.ba)

At the first working session, the Sarajevo Canton Assembly appointed the government of the Sarajevo Canton. In the next four years, the government will be led by Prime Minister Elmedin Dino Konakovic. Thirty five members of the Assembly attended the session. The ministerial functions have been taken over by the ministers from the Party of Democratic Action, Democratic Front, and B&H Patriotic Party-Sefer Halilovic.

Appointed ministers:

Elmedin Dino Konakovic – Prime Minister (SDA)

Jasmin Halebic – Ministry of Finance (SDA)

Muharem Sabic – Ministry of Agriculture (SDA)

Senad Hasanspahic – Ministry of Public Utilities and Infrastructure (SDA)

Mujo Fiso – Ministry of Transportation (SDA)

Elvir Kazazovic – Ministry of Education, Science, and Youth (SDA)

Cedomir Lukic – Ministry of Physical Planning (SDA)

Predrag Kurtes – Ministry of Internal Affairs (DF)

Samer Residat – Ministry of Culture and Sport (DF)

Karolina Karacic – Ministry for Labor, Social Policy, Displaced Persons, and Refugees (DF)

Emira Tanovic Mikulec – Ministry of Health (DF)

Enver Smajkan – Ministry of Justice and Administration (DF)

Muharem Fiso – Ministry for the Issues of Veterans (BPS)

FB&H government approved budget proposal for 2015 (klix.ba)

At today’s session in Sarajevo, the FB&H government unanimously determined the Proposal of the budget of FB&H for 2015. The Proposal of the budget of Federation of B&H for 2015 amounts to 2.334.147.169 BAM, that is for 141.4 million BAM or 5.7% lower compared to the Budget for 2014. Structure of the expenditure side represents the implementation of restrictive public spending measures, which is one of priorities of economic policy in coming years.

Fiscal policy will be oriented to activities that will contribute to the economic and social strengthening of Federation of B&H and B&H. Regarding this, harsh austerity measures in all segments of public spending are continued, as announced by the press service of the B&H government. Also, the Draft law on the Execution of the budget for FB&H for 2015 has been sent to urgent parliamentary procedure today.

Cvijanovic: RS government is the only executive institution in all of B&H after general elections (Srna)

The RS Prime Minister Zeljka Cvijanovic stated that, five months after the general elections, the RS government is the only formed institution of executive authority in the whole of B&H, and that on 8 April it will be 100 days of the work of the RS government. “Perhaps Mladen Bosic is sorry that the RS government was the first executive authority in B&H to be formed, and that we have adopted the Economic Policy and 2015 Budget, and that the first set of reform laws has entered parliamentary procedure, and that the government meets its obligations on a regular basis, and that, among others, Brussels has recognized the reform processes implemented by the RS government,” emphasized Cvijanovic.

Australian MP joins calls to recognize Macedonia under its constitutional name (Republika)

Australian MP Alannah MacTiernan, who represents the western city of Perth, joined calls to begin referring to the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name, instead of using the interim reference. MacTiernan spoke in parliament after Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said, in a letter addressed to a Macedonian Australian organization, that the Government will continue using the reference until Macedonia and Greece reach a mutually acceptable solution to the name issue. “I too understand how strongly Australian Macedonians, and indeed, all Macedonians object to the United Nations naming of Macedonia as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. I think common sense tells us that we should no longer continue to burden a country with a name that it hates. I note that the United States and the United Kingdom have taken steps to use the title the Republic of Macedonia, and I would very much like to see a bipartisan approach adopted on this issue,” MacTiernan said in parliament. She is a representative from the opposition Labor Party, coming from Perth, a city with a significant Macedonian community. Another MP from Perth, Luke Simpkins from the ruling Liberal Party, recently opened the same issue and asked that the Tony Abbott government changes its position. Australian politicians are also faced with pressure from the Greek community, somewhat larger than the Macedonian one, which asks that Australia keeps its current policy. Earlier this month, Minister Bishop wrote a response to a letter sent from a Macedonian organization in Western Australia to inform that the government will continue to use the reference. This has caused anger in the Macedonian Australian community, which sees this policy not only as an improper referring to their native country, but also as something that intrudes on their own right to national self-determination, as Australian citizens.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Serbian FM visits Kosovo first time since 1999 war (Xinhua, 26 March 2015)

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic Wednesday visited Pristina, capital of the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, marking the first visit to Kosovo by a Serbian official since the 1999 war. Dacic attended the ‘Western Balkan 6’ conference, hosted by Kosovar Foreign Minister Hashim Thaci, together with foreign ministers of Albania, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. “This conference shows a relaxed relationship in the Balkans,” Dacic told journalists after the conference, stressing that the occurrence of such a meeting relied on relaxed relations and the improved movement of people, goods and capital in the region. The Serbian minister’s first visit to Pristina was commended by Thaci. “It’s a new commitment for a European Kosovo, a European Serbia, and a European region. It’s an added message for a full normalization of relations between us,” said Thaci. Thaci and Dacic have been involved in the EU-facilitated dialogue for the normalization of Belgrade-Pristina relations. Thaci underlined that Dacic’s visit to Pristina is a contribution to the implementation of the Brussels Agreement reached by prime ministers of the two countries on April 2013. European Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn also attended the conference. He said that as a first step, up to 130 million euros (about 143 million U.S. dollars) will be available this year for infrastructure and transport projects in the Western Balkan as part of the Instrument of Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) II, an EU instrument for supporting reforms in the ‘enlargement countries’ for the period of 2014-2020. Hahn stressed that the EU is ready to commit as much as 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in total to improving the connectivity within this region and between the region and the European Union by the end of 2020.

Ambassador’s Resignation Exposes Bosnian Serb Rifts (BIRN, by Srecko Latal, Elvira M. Jukic, 26 March 2015)

The Bosnian ambassador to Serbia, a close associate of the President of the Republika Srpska, has resigned amid a deepening power struggle in the Bosnian Serb bloc. Bosnia’s ambassador to Serbia, Ranko Skrbic, resigned on Wednesday, citing “substantial and conceptual disagreements with the current policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” local media reported Skrbic’s resignation letter as saying. The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina has confirmed receipt of the resignation of ambassador Skrbic and said it will discuss the matter on one of its next sessions. “I don’t want to be an exponent of such a policy of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I want even less to implement such a foreign policy towards Serbia,” Skrbic said in the resignation letter submitted to the Bosnian Presidency. Skrbic’s appointment a year-and-a-half ago has become one of the most disputed issues in the Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska. For years he has been considered a close associate of Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska and the leader of its strongest party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD. Opposition parties, civil society and some independent media organizations accused him of involvement in corruption scandals during his time as a former health minister. The Bosnian Serb opposition Party of Democratic Progress, PDP – whose leader, Mladen Ivanic, is the Chairman of the Bosnian Presidency – on Wednesday said Skrbic only resigned because he knew that the Bosnian Presidency would dismiss him on Thursday. Skrbic knew the whole of Republika Srpska expected him to be dismissed over numerous malpractices and corruption scandals that were linked to his name,” the party’s statement noted. Skrbic’s resignation is likely to strengthen the opposition bloc, built around the main opposition Serbian Democratic Party, SDS. Despite its falling popularity, the SNSD has retained in power in Republika Srpska following last year’s elections. But it has had to move into opposition at state level, where Bosniak and Croat parties have selected the Serbian opposition bloc as its partner in the ruling coalition. Tensions between the SNSD, the Serb opposition bloc and Bosniak and Croat parties from the Federation entity have intensified over the past few weeks over the distribution of key positions in state and entity institutions. The SNSD has blocked the work of the state House of Representatives since the beginning of the year, and the state parliament’s House of Peoples since last week, in an apparent attempt to win some key positions in parliamentary bodies. A senior Bosnian Serb politician told Balkan Insight on Wednesday that Skrbic’s resignation came after Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic indicated to Dodik at their meeting on Tuesday that Serbia will not support Dodik’s attempts to stymie reforms. “This forecasts a further deepening of power struggles, not only between the SNSD and SDS, but also within the SNSD,” the same source told Balkan Insight.

The EU is Paying a Protection Racket in Bosnia (BIRN, by Kurt Bassuener, 26 March 2015)

By outsourcing conditionality to Bosnia’s own politicians, the EU is prioritising the ‘stability’ of the elites over the interests of Bosnia’s own citizens. Last Friday, the EU Foreign Affairs Council voted to activate the Stabilization and Association Agreement, SAA, with Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had long been on ice due to Bosnia’s noncompliance with conditions set forth by the EU. The new EU initiative for the country, which Germany and Britain launched four months ago, effectively removed an obstacle to activating the SAA, signed in early 2008 – implementation of the European Court of Human Rights’ December 2009 Sejdic-Finci ruling. Instead, political leaders simply had to make an “irrevocable written commitment” to conduct long-overdue reforms, enumerated in the EU-announced Compact for Growth last year. With an agreement between the political parties now in place to form governments at state level and in the Federation entity, there is a great deal of vocal optimism that Bosnia’s “European path” has been reopened. The EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, stated that she hoped to “keep the energy and the momentum that I found in Sarajevo last time on the reform process to get closer to the European Union”. Don’t believe the hype. It remains far from clear exactly what reforms are to come. The EU-led international community in Bosnia appears to believe that with the SAA in force and with an ostensible commitment from Bosnia’s politicians to reform, the usual inducements of the enlargement process will begin to have the desired effect. To believe this is to ignore nearly a decade of experience, however. Bosnia and Herzegovina seems to be only one example of a trend that has now become clearer in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and the deepening carnage in Syria. Stability is now the watchword for all Western actors in the Western Balkans as well as the rest of the Mediterranean basin. Progress is seen as desirable, of course, but not at the price of instability. While appetites vary between EU and international actors on how much instability might be tolerable in the Western Balkans, the cautious German view is dominant. This has been manifest in the reluctance to stop payment of Instruments for Pre-accession Assistance, IPA, funds, which occurred last year. It is also evident in the attitude towards using international financial institutions, IFIs, as levers to press political elites – whose survival depends on infusion of foreign capital to fund their patronage systems – to adopt reforms they have resisted. This struggle continues within the EU, with some members, such as Britain and the Benelux countries, calling for a harder line. It remains to be seen how this will play out in efforts to develop the “written commitment” into a policy agenda. The indications are not promising. As with the written commitment, it seems that the development of the governments’ to-do lists, timelines, and consequences will be developed consensually, in the name of “ownership,” rather than a common Western front on requirements. This amounts to the EU outsourcing its own conditionality – an approach that will hardly impress local politicians as serious. It is like being able to vote on one’s own homework assignment. Because the EU initiative deals solely with the enlargement tools, the EU, led by Berlin, has unilaterally reduced collective international leverage over the politicians it aims to induce to reform. By refusing to also involve non-EU actors in planning the approach and by sidestepping the enforcement obligations the EU has taken on with EUFOR, the EU has left its flank open on the security – and therefore stability – front. The EU is deliberately shunning its responsibility to maintain a safe and secure environment, SASE, freely undertaken in December 2004 when it took this Dayton responsibility over from NATO. EUFOR numbers a mere 600 troops. Were it tested, it would collapse. This leaves the political elite open to employ its most useful tool, the ability to generate fear without restraint. Its other tool of social control, patronage, is thereby secured. Once one has eschewed clarity on maintaining SASE – which Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond tried to remedy in his October op-ed, the only lever to maintain stability is money. The politicians know this and are therefore unlikely to be intimidated into pursuing painful reforms. They have locked the EU and wider international community into a protection racket. External actors want to keep Bosnia stable and are willing to pay, thereby protecting the interests of the elites who have no interest in reforms to improve the lot of citizens. Bosnia’s resource curse is the international community. Worse yet, the stage is set for the EU-led international community to actually compound the damage to Bosnia and Herzegovina that is already sustained in the name of reform. The EU is now hostage to its own declarations of progress. Once political capital has been invested, the effort must be proclaimed a success. Promoting this illusion of momentum – as seen to date in the Structured Dialogue on justice and home affairs – may well be applied across the full spectrum of SAA/acquis contents. A process of de-facto confederalization of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, is being actively pursued by the Serbian and Croatian parties in Bosnia under the guise of the so-called “coordination mechanism.” Furthermore, the EU is painting itself into a corner, both by political circumstance and institutional habit. While the Compact and EU initiative are couched as a response to popular concerns, Bosnia’s own citizens are merely accessories in the new approach. They are expected to assist the EU in the pursuit of its own policy goals, without any prior effort to develop a common agenda to serve the interests of Bosnia’s citizens and EU members (and taxpayers) alike. The potential is thus there for Bosnia’s citizens to come to see the EU and wider international community as being aligned with their own oligarchical political class against them. This may well develop into a very uncomfortable position for the EU and one that runs contrary to the Stabilität über Alles foundation of the policy. Of course, this potential trajectory remains contingent on policy decisions that can still be made within the EU structures, membership, and by non-EU actors as well. Thus far, while there has been grumbling on the part of the US, other non-EU actors, and even among EU members about the course chosen and the method by which it was devised, there has been a projection of unity behind the EU initiative. However, aligning with a policy that is doomed to fail is hardly a sound policy choice. The EU is choosing to fail in Bosnia, which does not serve its own interests. Non-EU Peace Implementation Council members, other international actors, and even EU member parliaments need to employ all their leverage to try and steer this initiative in the right direction. If they cannot, they should not simply go along for the ride. Much of this direction will also depend on the new EU leadership in Bosnia and on the incoming EUSR/Head of Delegation, Lars Gunnar Wigemark. His predecessor, Peter Sorensen, played it safe, failing to define the role of the “reinforced EUSR” as a real player in Bosnia. The policy remains on bureaucratic autopilot. Building a popular constituency in Bosnia for a functioning country, which could ultimately join and contribute to the EU will be necessary to achieve even the short to medium term goals of the initiative and the Compact. The potential popular constituency is out there. But, to catalyze it, the EU, particularly the Commission, will have to leave its comfort zone: developing domestic pressure on its ostensible partners in the political elite. Agriculture is an obvious area where this might be done, and where a clear constituency exists. However, there is no evidence yet of such a creative leap being contemplated, let alone strategically pursued.

Kurt Bassuener is co-founder and Senior Associate of the Democratization Policy Council, a global initiative for accountability in democracy promotion.

Meet the US government historian who tracks down Bosnian war criminals in America (The Telegraph, by Philip Sherwell, 26 March 2015)

As the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre approaches, a team of US government investigators ploughs through old files to hunt war criminals who built new lives in America

From his cluttered Washington office, its walls lined with maps of the Balkans and the desk piled high with documents detailing shocking atrocities, Michael MacQueen hunts the international war criminals who have sneaked into America to start new lives. The quietly-spoken historian is at the heart of a small team of US government investigators who help track down and deport the murderers and torturers of conflicts across the globe from El Salvador to Rwanda to Vietnam.

And as this summer’s 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre approaches, their key targets are Bosnian Serbs who played a role in Europe’s worst atrocity since 1945 and then moved to the US, hiding their bloody pasts and often portraying themselves as victims of the sort of horrors they committed. US immigration officials have launched proceedings to kick out at least 150 Bosnian immigrants – mainly Serbs, but also Croats and Muslims – because they are believed to have participated in atrocities. In total, up to 300 Bosnians living in the US have already been identified as war crimes suspects, a number that officials told The New York Times could rise to 600 as authorities in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia supply further paperwork. About half are Bosnian Serbs linked to the horrors of Srebrenica when more than 8,300 Muslim men and boys were shot dead and buried in mass graves in July 1995. “Our goal is to make sure there is no safe haven in America for war criminals,” Mr MacQueen told The Telegraph. “We are always searching for more of these individuals. This is not a mission with an end date.” International efforts to track down and prosecute those who committed atrocities during the conflict have intensified as the world prepares to mark the anniversary of a massacre that still casts a dark shadow far beyond the killing fields of eastern Bosnia. Serbia last week police took into custody eight former Bosnian Serb special police officers suspected of taking part in the atrocity in the first such arrests ordered by the Belgrade government. Ratko Mladic, the commander of Bosnian Serb forces at Srebrenica, and Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb political leader, areboth currently on trial at the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague. In the US, Mr MacQueen is part of a small team at of nine lawyers and three historians from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) branch of Department of Homeland Security’s who work with Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agents in a joint war crimes unit. America only has limited laws – and a high legal bar – for prosecuting alleged foreign war criminals on its own soil. So instead, its government investigators rely on violations of immigration laws, such as fraudulent use of the visa system by withholding information about military pasts, to target those they have identified as war crime suspects. Pursuing alleged mass murderers for paperwork violations smacks somewhat of how the US authorities eventually convicted Al Capone, the notorious Chicago gangster, on tax evasion charges after they were unable to build a case to prosecute him as a violent crime boss. But many have since been prosecuted for human rights abuses in their home countries after deportation from the US. For Mr MacQueen, who previously investigated Nazi Holocaust suspects in the US, it is a painstaking but deeply rewarding process as he and his colleagues follow a growing paper trail of documents, testimony and records to track down their targets. Most slipped into the US in the wave of Bosnian war refugees who fled the carnage and its aftermath. And many quietly built new lives here, marrying and raising children, living apparently blameless existences, their recent histories unknown even to close family and relatives. But ICE’s war crimes investigators are determined to make sure those pasts catch up with them. “The tolerance of impunity has a deeply corrosive effect on us all,” said Mr MacQueen. “There can never be a time limit when it comes to atrocities of this scale.” Kathleen O’Connor, a prosecutor at the Justice Department’s human rights section, made a similar point in an appeal broadcast on Voice of American to Bosnians around the world for information about possible war crimes. “Justice can be served in the United States despite the fact that many years have gone by and that the conduct occurred overseas, far away,” she said in a message translated into Bosnian. As part of his investigations, Mr MacQueen spends several weeks a year in the former Yugoslavia. He has developed good relations with legal authorities across the fractured ethnic divides of the post-break-up countries, even with officials in Banja Luka, the “capital” of the Bosnian Serb government that was once fiercely opposed to the West. Those trips give him a deeply visceral motivation to pursue his work as he meets survivors and relatives of the dead and drives past neighbourhoods that are still empty as a result of the ethnic cleansing campaigns. “It’s impossible to screen out personal feelings about the subject matter,” he said. “Sometimes on a naked hill I will see the burned shell of a single house. It always strikes me how much effort those people put in to make their way up there to target just one home.” In America, lawyers for some Bosnian Serb war crimes suspects say that federal investigators are too zealous and have targetted low level “grunts” who may have been members of militia forces but were little more than bystanders at a time of atrocities by all parties. “This is guilt by association,” said Christopher Brelje, a Phoenix lawyer for 12 Bosnian Serbs who are facing deportation for alleged war crimes, some at Srenrenica. “My clients are not war criminals. They’ve basically been found guilty of not disclosing their involvement with Bosnian Serb forces. But they were not commanders, they had no rank, and they are certainly not murderers.” Officials at ICE cannot comment on specific cases and immigration hearings are usually closed sessions, with identities not made public. But a department spokesman did explain the principles behind the cases pursued by the war crimes centre. “These cases involve intentional lying or covering up matters related to serious human rights violations and often to other immigration matters as well, to include perpetrators who claimed to be the victims of persecution,” the official told The Telegraph. “All individuals who served in the [Bosnian Serb] military were required, regardless of rank, to report their service to US immigration officials. “Culpability is not limited to only top commanders and trigger-pullers. Under US immigration law, it is possible to assist in human rights violations without falling into those two limited categories. “A huge operation like Srebrenica, which was conducted over a broad expanse of territory over a compressed time period and had many thousands of victims, only succeeded with the assistance, including so called ‘low level’ assistance, of the great majority of the participants of the engaged units.” As more records become available from around the world, the war crimes centre is also developing a database of those barred from entering the US because of their alleged participation in human rights abuses. There are 66,000 names on the list so far. “We’re trying to put ourselves out of business by identifying these individuals so that we no longer have to deport them for lying their way into the country,” he said. A historian by training and an investigator by practice, Mr MacQueen studied ethnic conflicts in east and central Europe at college 40 years ago. “It has proved a very good background for working on the Holocaust and the former Yugoslavia,” he noted. And at 65, he said he no plans to retire any time soon. Too many suspects remain at large.

Macedonia Albanians May Block Parliament Over ID Law (BIRN, by Sinisa Jakov Marusic, 25 March 2015)

Macedonia’s junior ruling party is threatening to block the work of parliament with hundreds of amendments if its senior partner pushes on with two laws that tighten up the issue of citizenships and IDs. Macedonia’s junior ruling party, the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, says it will do what it takes to block the adoption of the new provisions proposed by the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party, which it deems anti-Albanian. “We will stop the adoption of such provisions by any means, including by blocking parliament’s work with thousands of amendments, because we suspect they [the new laws] are against the interests of Albanians,” a senior DUI member told BIRN on Tuesday under condition of anonymity. The first provision is a proposed change in the Law on ID Cards, which means that people will have to submit written proof of their residency in Macedonia each time they apply for a new ID card. The second controversial provision is a change to the Law on Residency, which involves scrapping the residency rights of Macedonian citizens who live abroad for more than three months. Such provisions will prove very problematic for Macedonian Albanians, many of whom work aboard for extended periods, the source said. “It will be difficult for the Albanians to renew their Macedonian citizenship, which means that the number of Albanians in the country will be artificially diminished,” the source said. On Monday, the parliamentary commission sessions dedicated to discussing these bills was postponed indefinitely. A DUI MP, Rafiz Aliti, told the media that the postponement was due to ongoing negotiations with the DUI’s partners from the VMRO DPMNE party. “If such bill arrives in a plenary session we will use the double majority principle and simply not vote for it,” Aliti said speaking about the law on ID cards, which requires a “double” majority of votes, from both Macedonian and Albanian MPs, to pass.

For the second provision, which does not need a double majority, he said that talks are also ongoing. However, the party source said that the DUI was preparing thousands of amendments that would halt its adoption, should talks fail. Albanians make up about a quarter of country’s population of 2.1 million. The situation resembles events in autumn 2012 when the same ethnic divisions emerged over a proposed law envisaging state help for members of the Macedonian armed forces who fought in the 2001 armed conflict with Albanian militants. The law excluded veterans who fought on the side of the Albanian rebels, whose leaders later formed the DUI.

The DUI was forced at the end to slow the bill’s adoption with thousands of amendments. However, in spite of the row, the two parties continued their coalition. Some see the row between the two government parties as a deliberate plan designed to boost their popularity in their respective ethnic camps. “The provisions passed in a government session where they were debated and approved by DUI ministers. Now they are shamelessly claiming they will block the adoption of the changes in parliament,” a legislator of the opposition Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA, Gazment Aliu, told the media. The distraction over the bills comes amid a serious political crisis in Macedonia, where the opposition has accused the Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, of orchestrating the surveillance of some 20,000 people. Tapes of alleged wiretapped conversations revealed by the opposition Social Democrats have lifted the lid on a range of suspected wrongdoings by senior officials, including election fraud, intimidation, the politically motivated jailing of opponents, surveillance of journalists and interfence with the media, the judiciary and the prosecution. The opposition says it obtained the material from sources in the Macedonian secret services. Gruevski has insisted that the tapes were created by unnamed “foreign secret services” in collaboration with the opposition in order to destabilise the country. The DUI has called for internationally brokered dialogue between the two sides.