LOCAL PRESS

Nikolic: Up to government to decide on the platform (Radio Belgrade/Beta)

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic has stated that it is up to the government to decide whether it will accept the entire or parts of his platform on Kosovo and Metohija or whether it will forward it to the parliament. He told journalists that the platform in is in the government, but didn’t specify when the decision on it could be made. I presented in the platform the stand regarding the Brussels agreement between Belgrade and Pristina, i.e. that he supports the work of the Serbian government that is conducting the state internal and foreign policy, said the Serbian President. “That was my stand and it will be recorded that I had a stand,” said Nikolic.

In regard to the refugee crisis, Nikolic said that shifting the ball of the difficult situation caused by this crisis only to Serbia’s court is neither ethical nor natural.Nikolic said that selfishness has also emerged in some EU members, adding it was probably encouraged. “We are not selfish and this nation will hold out for as long as it can, and when there’s not enough for us, there won’t be enough for the migrants either, who are forced to spend more time in Serbia than would be normal,” the Serbian President remarked. He added it was absurd that a country that is not a member of the EU respects all standards more than those who are members and who are now almost out of control – without receiving any criticism, advice, or order from Brussels. “If there is anyone in Europe seriously thinking about the continent’s security, safety, and survival it is time they finally said what it was, and for all EU members to implement it,” Nikolic concluded.

Vucic: Differences only regarding Kosovo issue (RTS)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has ended his three-day visit to the US. In a statement to Radio and Television of Serbia on Thursday evening, Vucic said that he had received commendations for Serbia in all meetings, and that apart from the Kosovo issue, the differences of opinion between Belgrade and Washington were getting smaller. Asked whether Serbia, despite certain differences had a sincere friend in the US, Vucic had said Serbia was building sincere and friendly relations with the US. “We are doing our best and trying to build the best possible relations, and what I see on the other side is good will and respect,” he said.
Kosovo secretly creating an army (Blic)

In the midst of the phase in the dialogue with Belgrade and without the permission of the Kosovo Serbs, Hashim Thaqi and Isa Mustafa have decided to form their army. It would be created from the Kosovo security forces that are now in charge of the civil defense and do not have heavy weapons. “Kosovo will have its armed forces and we received NATO support for that,” said Kosovo Foreign Minister Thaqi. He and Prime Minister Mustafa have a secret plan of transforming the Kosovo security forces into an army through the amendment of the existing laws, for which they only need a simple majority in the assembly. This way they will avoid the Serb List because the Serb votes would be necessary for amending the Constitution without which the army cannot be formed. The Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric advises the Kosovo Albanians to instead think about schools and jobs for all people in Kosovo. “In a time when we all want peace and safety and speak about reconciliation, who needs new armies in the Balkans? Didn’t we have enough arms, wars and suffering?” Djuric tells Blic. The Chairperson of the Serbian parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija Milovan Drecun believes that Pristina is trying to bypass the Serbs. “UNSCR 1244 clearly states that there can be no armed formations there, except international, so Serbia cannot accept that. The authorities in Pristina, faced with the formation of the Community of Serb Municipalities and the court for KLA crimes, is trying to compensate losses,” says Drecun. He thinks that the government in Pristina really has the support of NATO for this decision. However, Blic’s sources in Kosovo says that the rumor is that Hashim Thaqi is also working on breaking up the Serb List, i.e. trying to make a deal with the this list’s leader Aleksandar Jablanovic – for Jablanovic and his loyal deputies to support the formation of the army and amendment of the Kosovo Constitution in replacement of posts in the government. We couldn’t manage to get a comment from Jablanovic.

Croatia moves to Plan B (B92)

“The refugee crisis is not threatening the security of Croatia, but it creates a problem,” Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic has said. “We will start implementing new methods, not like Hungary. We will implement our Plan B, we will be more flexible. We can no longer accept people in the way it is formally prescribed, by registering and accommodating them. We’ll give them water, food, care for the sick, and let them move on. We will not let them walk in the streets, especially if it rains. There is no threat to the lives of refugees in Turkey. Greece is not supervising the Schengen border, it turns a blind eye. For some reason – Greece is doing this, and Europe is doing this. Then refugees are directed towards Croatia because Hungary and Slovenia have closed their borders. Croatia will not have hundreds of thousands of refugees while Europe is choosing whom to take in, and whom not to,” said Milanovic.  Asked to comment on the warning made by Serbian Labor Minister Aleksandar Vulin that his country would take Croatia to international courts if it shuts down the border and international roads, Milanovic replied that he had no comment – “because the eagle does not hunt for flies”.

REGIONAL PRESS

Inzko to Ban Ki-moon: Referendum to be put to one side without any further delay (Fena)

High Representative Valentin Inzko has submitted a Report to the Secretary General of the United Nations informing the Secretary General and the Security Council of recent actions by the authorities of Republika Srpska (RS) toward organizing a referendum on the state judicial institutions and the authorities of the High Representative, in which he elaborates why these actions are a direct violation of the Dayton Peace Agreement. “In my capacity as the final authority regarding the interpretation of the General Framework Agreement for Peace, I have determined the RS to be in clear breach of the Agreement,” the High Representative said, summarizing the report’s conclusions. “No one is disputing the right of the RS to organize referenda on matters falling within the entity’s area of responsibility,” Inzko continued, “but the B&H Court and Prosecutor’s Office are institutions created to carry out the responsibilities of the B&H state, while the authorities of the High Representative are covered under international law. Both of these issues fall outside of the area of responsibility of the RS authorities.” “At a time when citizens living in the RS are facing difficulties related to issues which are the direct responsibility of the RS authorities – issues such as education, healthcare and job creation – the SNSD and its coalition partners in the RS have chosen to generate a crisis with the international community on matters which are outside of the entity’s area of responsibility,” High Representative Inzko noted. “Rather than focusing on addressing these concrete problems faced by citizens, the RS leadership has chosen to drive the entity into deeper crisis and isolation. This is not in the interest of the people living in the RS.” “What is now necessary to rectify the situation is for the referendum to be put to one side without any further delay,” concluded the High Representative.

Decision on referendum breaches neither law nor Dayton accord (Srna)

Speaker of the Republika Srpska (RS) National Assembly, Nedeljko Cubrilovic, stated on Thursday that neither law nor the Dayton Accord was breached when decision to call a referendum on the Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) Court and the Prosecutor’s Office was made by the RS Parliament. “It is the experts’ opinion, too. The RS Constitutional Court has confirmed this position,” said Cubrilovic. He has remarked that the basic right of a nation and region is to declare on their status, position, issues that are of special significance to that particular nation and the region. Commenting on a letter that High Representative to B&H, Valentin Inzko, sent to the UN, in which he noted down that RS breaches the Dayton Peace Agreement, Cubrilovic has said that he does not know what guided Inzko to send such the letter to the UN, and stated that this should not affect holding the referendum. “The letter does not specify either article or item of the Dayton Peace Agreements that has been breached, it only refers to Inzko as supreme interpreter of the agreement, which we certainly do not deny,” Cubrilovic told the reporters in Celinac. High Representative to B&H, Valentin Inzko, informed UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the UN Security Council that the authorities of RS breach the General Framework Agreement for Peace (Dayton Agreement) by activities related to the referendum on the judicial institutions of B&H and the competencies of the High Representative.

Migrants continue pouring into Tovarnik across “green line” (Hina)

About 2,000 migrants arrived in the eastern Croatian border town of Tovarnik early Friday morning and are now at the railway station waiting to be bussed to reception centres, police said unofficially. Given that the border crossings with Serbia in Vukovar-Srijem and Osijek-Baranja counties are closed to all traffic, police are collecting migrants along the so-called green line and taking them to the train station in Tovarnik. An estimated 8,000 migrants from the Middle East have arrived in Tovarnik since Wednesday morning when an initial wave of migrants hit Croatia after Hungary closed its border with Serbia. According to information from the Ministry of the Interior, 11,003 migrants had entered Croatia by 10pm on Thursday after seven border crossings with Serbia were closed.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Kosovo and Serbia Offer Havens for Jail-Dodgers (BIRN, by Petrit Collaku, 16 September 2015)

Convicted criminals from Kosovo and Serbia only have to cross each other’s borders in order to escape serving jail sentences for the crimes that they committed. Lemja Xhema got a hero’s welcome when she arrived in the town of Fushe Kosove near Pristina earlier this month, campaigning for votes in a municipal election. In some other countries however, Xhema would have been in jail, not running for election. The former head of Kosovo Post and Telecom was found guilty of corruption in 2008 and sentenced to three years in prison. But before the supreme court confirmed the sentence in 2011, she fled – reportedly to her hometown of Medvegje in Serbia. An Interpol arrest warrant was issued by the UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, on behalf of the Pristina authorities because Kosovo is not a member at the international police organisation. But after the statute of limitations in her case expired in May 2014, Xhema’s name was removed from the Interpol wanted list and the Kosovo authorities ceased to pursue her.

Criminals like Xhema have repeatedly been able to evade justice in Kosovo by escaping to other countries and so avoid spending time in prison. Fugitives can also return without fear of arrest if they are not extradited in time because of the statute of limitations in Kosovo’s Criminal Code.

Legal experts in Kosovo further claim that the criminals can live freely as fugitives because Pristina is still not a member of the Interpol and Europol police institutions which would help with extraditions.

The Kosovo independence issue

Fugitives from Serbia can also escape jail by fleeing to Kosovo’s northern, Serb-majority area because Belgrade does not request the extradition of its criminals when they are arrested by Pristina’s police. This is because the Serbian government refuses to accept any documents from Kosovo courts because it does not recognise the Pristina authorities’ claims to independence.

Serbia also refuses to cooperate when Kosovo criminals wanted by Interpol are hiding in Serbia.

The justice ministry in Pristina said that it has a technical agreement with the EU rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, to facilitate extradition issues with countries that do not recognise Kosovo’s independence. “We even have this line of communication with Serbia,” the ministry’s press office told BIRN. The justice ministry declined however to say how many bilateral agreements on extradition it has with countries that have recognised Kosovo’s statehood.

But extradition problems mean that some convicted criminals get away. One high-profile example is the former mayor of Kacanik, Xhabir Zharku, who was sentenced in 2011 to three years in prison for extortion and the illegal possession of weapon. The supreme court confirmed the sentence in 2012, but Zharku escaped to Sweden and cannot be extradited to Kosovo because he holds Swedish citizenship. When asked about whether EULEX could offer assistance in such extradition cases, spokesperson Besa Domi responded: “If there is a valid warrant for the arrest of these persons, it is up to the Kosovo Police to execute the warrant.”

Fear of war crimes prosecutions

Kosovo’s main problems stem from the fact that it is not a member of international police organisations like Interpol and Europol, said Fisnik Korenica from the Group for Legal and Political Studies, a Pristina-based think tank. But Korenica argued that the Serbian government its own problems when it comes to extradition requests for fugitives hiding in Kosovo. “Serbia was never interested in having a bilateral agreement with Kosovo on the extradition issue because we [Kosovo] would ask for all the [Serbian] criminals that committed war crimes in Kosovo to be sent back here,” Korenica said. An incident earlier this year highlighted Korenica’s point. In February, on the basis of a request from UNMIK, Interpol issued ‘red notices’ for 17 former members of Serbian forces, including a ruling party MP, over allegations that they committed war crimes in Kosovo in April 1999. The notices, the closest thing to an international arrest warrant, were issued as a result of an investigation by EULEX into crimes committed in the villages of Meja, Korenica, Orize and others in the Reka e Keq area during the Kosovo conflict. Most of the men live in Serbia, but Belgrade refused to arrest them for two reasons – because Serbia does not extradite its own citizens for war crimes as they are protected by the constitution, and because it doesn’t recognise authorities in Kosovo. According to Korenica, Kosovo’s government has refused a recommendation from civil society groups in Pristina to include an extradition agreement as a condition in the ongoing Brussels-mediated dialogue with Serbia aimed at normalising relations. The recent agreement between Kosovo and Serbia to bring the courts in the Serb-dominated north under Pristina’s legislative control is not enough, Korenica argued. “Kosovo has become a territoryof people wanted by the law. These people can commit crimes here and can go anywhere in the world, staying free and not being chased by the forces of justice,” he said.

North Kosovo’s ‘safe haven’

Predrag Vulicevic, a Serbian citizen known as ‘Pedja’, was arrested on March 2015by Kosovo police in the north of the divided town of Mitrovica on an Interpol warrant arrest which was issued by the Serbian authorities. He escaped from Serbia to avoid a three-year prison sentence for drug smuggling and other criminal offences. Vulicevic was in detention on remand in Kosovo but was then released, his lawyer told BIRN. “He is free now. He was released from detention because Serbia did not made an extradition request,” said lawyer Kapllan Baruti.

In February 2015, Kosovo and Serbia reached an agreement on integrating the courts in Serb-run northern Kosovo into Pristina’s judicial system – an attempt to fill the justice vacuum in the north of the country. But Naim Rashiti from the International Crisis Group said that just integrating the Serb judges and prosecutors into the Kosovo system is not enough. “Even after the integration of the judges and prosecutors in the north, realistically there will be little impact because Serbia does not recognise Pristina’s authority, it doesn’t recognise the decisions of Kosovo courts – and vice versa,” Rashiti told BIRN. “Serbia still lacks the will to communicate with Pristina. It is legally forbidden for them,” he said, referring to Serbia’s rejection of Kosovo’s independence. Rashiti said the institutional vacuum and the lack of cooperation made it the northern part of Kosovo a safe haven for Serbian criminals. “It is politics that made this happen. Criminals are allowed to hide in the north and they cause many trouble,” said Rashiti.

Meanwhile Kreshnik Gashi from BIRN’s weekly TV show ‘Justice in Kosovo’ criticised local judges who don’t take urgent steps to prevent criminals fleeing, especially when they also have citizenship of another country in which they can take refuge without fear of extradition.

“In such cases, the courts should take decisions to confiscate passports and travel documents from those who are accused,” said Gashi. He warned that as long as Serbia refuses to arrest people wanted by Kosovo and vice versa, criminals will continue to exploit these opportunities to escape justice.

The Balkan mine trap awaiting refugees (Middle East Eye, by Simona Sikimic, 17 September 2015)

Cluster bombs and mines littered by various armies and paramilitary groups pose a risk to refugees as migration routes grow more irregular

The changing route of migration in the Balkans is putting refugees at risk of coming increasingly close to mine fields scattered throughout the region. Mine fields, left over from the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, litter not only the Croatia–Serbia border, but parts of southern Serbia and much of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Overall around 750 square kilometres are still suspected to be filled with unexploded ordinance in the ex-Yugoslavia – some 50,000 in Croatia and up to 120,000 in Bosnia, according to the Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Centre. The issue first attracted international attention on Wednesday when scores of refugees began to enter Croatia from Serbia for the first time, but the refugee influx to the EU over recent months had already prompted emergency mine clearance work in Serbia and Bosnia. At the start of the month, Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) sent emergency teams into southern Serbia to speed up mine demarcation and clearance and also to spread awareness about the mines, giving out leaflets in Arabic and English to warn those coming in. The organisation also says it was thinking about how its action in Bosnia will be impacted by a possible influx of migrants and refugees there. While the migration issue is not new, Darvin Lisica, the regional director of Norwegian People’s Aid for South Eastern Europe, told Middle East Eye that the crossings are getting increasingly erratic. Before, people largely came by road or used smugglers to help them. But since this summer, as increasing numbers of people have come, they are now using illicit routes that put them in greater danger. “We can see that the routes are changing very quickly indeed,” Lisica said. “We saw this very clearly earlier this week when [early on Tuesday] Hungary closed the border. People changed their routes and suddenly we saw thousands of people head to the Croatian border where there are un-cleared mine fields.” The fields in Croatia are marked, although there is still great concern that people – especially those crossing at night or in a hurry – will not be able to see the signs. However, the situation in Serbia and especially in Bosnia – where mines have been left in a much more ad hoc manner and cover between two to three percent of the total surface area – is much more precarious. Serbia has already seen more than 120,000 refugees and migrants – mainly from the Middle East – cross through this year. Until recently, 35,000 were still estimated to be there and more are coming in from Macedonia. Very few have so far reached Bosnia, but several aid groups told MEE that they expected that refugees could enter soon and had been preparing for their arrival. In Serbia, near the border with Kosovo, there are unmarked and unknown fields which were left by Serbian paramilitary groups in the late 1990s as the tensions with ethnic Albanians intensified. No records on their locations were kept. Further complicating the picture is the existence of NATO cluster munitions that were dropped on Serbia during the 1999 NATO bombing campaign aimed at stopping Serbian aggression in Kosovo. In 2008, 111 countries agreed to make them illegal under international law, but these deadly and indiscriminate weapons have never been fully cleared. The Action Mine Centre for Serbia said that cluster munitions can still be found in an area around 6 square kilometres – about the size of Gibraltar. While locals tend to know areas to avoid, few migrants and refugees are even aware that there is a danger. “Some, but not all, of the people we meet who are coming in know there was a war, but they very rarely think that there might be mines here,” Lisica said. “These things are unfortunately not taken seriously until someone dies, and when someone is killed, it is too late.” In Croatia, officials estimate that since the beginning of the Balkan wars in 1991, about 2,500 people have died from land mines, and some 500 since. In Bosnia, the number is even bigger and more than 8,000 people have died, including 1,732 who have been killed since the war ended in late 1995. Last year alone, six people were killed and 10 injured in Bosnia. “That is a lot of deaths for a country where there is peace and the conflict ended more than 20 years ago,” Lisica said. The problem, according to Adam Komorowski, the commercial director at UK-based Mines Advisory Group, is that while there was a lot of initial interest and international assistance for mine clearance, this waned once high-risk areas where civilians tended to go were demarked and cleared. But the “refugee crisis has put them back into play as a serious issue because people are likely to take much more risk,” Komorowski told MEE. “So suddenly they are being brought back into the spotlight.” Nor are these the first minefields Syrian refugees would have encountered on their way to Europe where they hope to be granted asylum in places like Germany and Sweden. Large parts of the Syria–Turkey border are also lined with mines that have never been cleared. “There are 100,000s of mines literally stretching the length of that border,” said Komorowski. “The Syrian war has held up progress in clearing that and there have been reports that more mines were now being added.” De-mining teams in the Balkans said they are monitoring the situation very closely and pouring in extra resources to ensure migrants and refugees stay safe, but their work is being frustrated by the constant shifting of the migration patterns. “The situation is changing very quickly, almost every day,” a spokesperson for the Red Cross in Serbia told MEE. “It can be difficult to know where people will be and where they will set up camps.” NPA’s Lisica said his teams have to constantly carry out analyses on “micro-locations” just to keep up to speed. With the Hungarian-Serbian border looking like it will remain closed, and the Serbia-Croatia border now closed as well, a wider shift is expected over the coming weeks as new arrivals in Greece seek out alternative routes to the wealthier EU states. Threats from the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban that his country would soon start to build a fence on parts of its border with Croatia – after it completes construction on its border with Serbia and Croatia – will also likely only lead to people seeking out fresh options. The coming winter, which sees temperatures readily fall well below freezing in much of the Balkans, is also expected to shift migration patterns. NPA’s Lisica said he believes that the migration route will soon shift closer to the coasts where the weather is milder. This will bring more uncertainty and a fresh set of challenges. “We all have to work together because this is a regional problem – it is not just Serbia’s – we all have to realise that [the refugee influx] will impact the whole of South East Europe and is not going to end any time soon.”

* * *

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.