LOCAL PRESS

Vucic: If Brussels doesn’t react, Serbia will undertake countermeasures (RTS)

An urgent session of the Bureau for Coordination of all security services has been scheduled for 4pm, Radio and Television of Serbia reports. “If Brussels doesn’t respond to the situation at the Serbian-Croatian border by 2pm, Serbia will undertake countermeasures over the unilateral closure of the border for Serbian freight trucks,” Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has said. He told reporters that Serbia will react peacefully without violating any regulations, adding that Croatia must not humiliate Serbia and ruin its economy without bearing any consequence. Vucic said that the decision of the Zagreb authorities is an enormous scandal. He stated that at Belgrade’s request to explain its decision, Croatia urged Serbia in an official letter to redirect a number of refugees to the Hungarian and other borders of the EU countries, adding that he is shocked with this response. He underlined that by such behavior, Croatia is violating the agreements that Serbia has signed with the EU – the Stabilization and Association Agreement, the Barcelona Convention of the UN and numerous conventions on transit, as well as the interstate agreement inked by the two countries in 1997. Vucic said that Croatia’s move is a brutal attack on Serbia and an attempt at brutal destroying of the Serbian economy, and announced that if the EU does not react, the Serbian government will take measures to protect the interests of its country and people.

Vucic: Relations with the Vatican improving (RTS/Tanjug)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic received outgoing Apostolic Nuncio Orlando Antonini on Tuesday, and thanked him for his personal contribution to improving relations between Serbia and the Vatican. This is also reflected in a better understanding between the Roman Catholic Church and the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Serbian government’s media relations office said in a release. Vucic extended special thanks to Nuncio Antonio for the Holy See’s principled position concerning the non-recognition of the independence of Kosovo that had been unilaterally declared by the Albanians. Apostolic Nuncio Antonini commended the Serbian Prime Minister’s contribution to reconciliation and improvement in relations between the Western Balkan countries. He voiced the hope that Serbia would open the first negotiation chapters in EU entry talks by the end of the year. Antonini underlined that during his six-year term of office in Serbia, he had enjoyed full support and understanding from the Serbian government and the Serbian Orthodox Church, reads the release.

Podgorica to support Kosovo’s bid for UNESCO? (Novosti)

The circle of Montenegro’s official policy – from recognizing independence of the quasi-state of Kosovo, arrival of Hashim Thaqi in Podgorica, the forthcoming opening of the embassy in Pristina to the recent border demarcation – will be closed most probably with supporting Pristina’s accession in UNESCO. “Montenegro will take a stand on this issue when the time comes pending the session, considering its past policy when it comes to the region,” Montenegrin Foreign Minister Igor Luksic told the press. The UNESCO Executive Board will examine on 3 October the request of the false state for membership, while Luksic’s statement indirectly supports Pristina’s application. “The government that recognizes everything that concerns such a creation will give a ‘green light’ to the crime and culturocide against the Serb people and its cultural heritage. This is also indirectly announced by Minister Luksic. Thus, what is Serbian should become Albanian! We also have a similar scenario in Montenegro,” the Chairman of the political council of the New Serb Democracy Budimir Aleksic tells Novosti. He opines that theft of the Serbian culture and spirituality is at work, that the “regime is trying to declare as Montenegrin heritage even the monasteries from the Nemanjic period in order to seize them from the Serbian Orthodox Church, through the proposed Law on freedom of religion on which a fierce debate is being conducted”. “At issue is the same ideological connection between Milo Djukanovic and Hashim Thaqi – theft of the Serbian spiritual and cultural treasure,” concludes Aleksic.

Jablanovic: They signed proclamation over pressure from Belgrade (Politika/Beta)

The leader of the Serb (Srpska) List Aleksandar Jablanovic has stated that he had talked with the Serb List representatives who requested his resignation from all posts in this organization and said they apologized, explaining that they were forced to sign the proclamation over pressures from Belgrade and Pristina. “They told me that over the pressure they were enduring from the Office for Kosovo and Metohija and Kosovo Deputy Prime Minister Branimir Stojanovic they had to sign something, but that they didn’t agree. On the other side, the paradox is even bigger because everything is being done by our people who we appointed in the Kosovo government and which says how much they are illiterate,” said Jablanovic. Speaking about the quotes from the proclamation that he had negotiated about a coalition with the Albanians without agreement with other members of the Serb list and Serbian government, he said he had signed a coalition agreement on entering the Kosovo government with parties whose leaders are Kosovo Albanians after this coalition was approved by the Serbian government, adding the agreement has never been changed.

REGIONAL PRESS

Norbert Hofer backs the referendum in RS (Srna)

One of three members of National council that is presiding over the parliament of Austria, Norbert Hofer backed the idea of a referendum in Republika Srpska (RS) during President Milorad Dodik’s visit in Vienna on Monday, and vowed to raise in his country’s parliament the issue of actions of the Austrian-born high representatives in B&H. “The RS has our full support in these activities (regarding referendum) and we have even established today that certain international rules were violated (by the high representatives in B&H) and agreed that we, the Austrian parliament, will ask our minister of foreign affairs how we should behave in future with this in mind,” Hofer told reporters following the meeting with the RS President in Vienna. Hofer noted that the issue of support to a European nation’s self-determination was of great significance and a priority. “Perhaps the things that don’t belong together cannot grow together. It is an important fact that what does not belong together should be independent, and so the units that are independent can again live alongside each other in friendly relations,” said Hofer. Hofer said that he and Dodik had also discussed the migrant crisis, the popular topic in Europe in general. The RS President said after the meeting that the understanding he encountered in Austria was really great, and added that he had a chance to tell his hosts about the situation in RS and B&H, the referendum issue, and continuing violations of international law by the high representatives. “From this country came two high representatives who violated the international law and I am grateful to Mr. Hofer who agreed to put the issue to the parliament for discussion, and also seek some other possibilities of Austria prosecuting certain actions that were not in compliance with regulations,” Dodik said. Raising the issue of actions of Austrian high representatives is very important for RS as these are the times of further political violence of the High Representative in B&H, who wants to restore interventionism and rigid political decisions, asserted Dodik. “The High Representative is an unauthorized foreigner in B&H who breached his powers and such behavior should be reviewed in the country of the high representatives’ origin and also evaluated from the viewpoint of democratic traditions they have here,” said Dodik. He added that certain legal procedures were considered for suing the former and current high representatives from Austria – Wolfgang Petrich and Valentin Inzko. “We are seeking certain legal procedures to sue Petrich and Inzko before the judicial bodies in Austria for international law and human rights violations. I am confident that we will here find the structures that are willing to take part in the process. We cannot prosecute those people before our own judiciary, but we believe that they are responsible to the judicial bodies of the country they come from to adhere to the international law and human rights, which they grossly violated and are supposed to answer for their actions,” said the RS President. Dodik underlined that Austria was an important trade partner to the RS. “We wish to maintain very good relations with Austria and invite its investors to invest in RS.” The Serb community that has been living and working in Vienna and Austria for decades is strongly integrated and interested in the stability of the society, he asserted. “Bearing in mind the fact that elections are held here too, I am in a position to appeal to all our people who can take part in the political life here to support the political parties that have proved definitely constructive and friendly towards everything our people represents,” Dodik said.

Austrian Embassy in B&H: Hofer’s statements on referendum in RS do not correspond with official position of Austrian government (Fena)

On the occasion of the visit of the RS President Milorad Dodik with Herbert Hofer, the third President of the Austrian National Council, as well as with Heinz-Christian Strache (both opposition politicians from the party FPÖ / Freedom Party of Austria), the Austrian Embassy in B&H stresses that statements about the “referendum” in the RS given at the press conference do not correspond with the official position of the Austrian Federal Government. “Austria considers that the intended referendum in one part of the country of B&H on the state judiciary and competences of the High Representative is in conflict with the Dayton Peace Agreement and thus unconstitutional,” reads the statement of Martin Pammer, the Austrian Ambassadors in B&H.

“Austria, however, supports all constructive measures, aimed at improving cooperation between the various units of government in the country. This includes a dialogue on cooperation in the field of justice, which was earlier this month held under the auspices of Commissioner Hahn’s, during which the Ministers of Justice of the State and the Entities agreed on specific steps for better functioning of the judiciary. This is an important part of a broader reform agenda, the implementation for the benefit of citizens of B&H has now started. Austria will continue to actively support this reform path B&H – as is was the case in the past – and hopes for a decisive participation of all constructive forces in the country, “said Austrian Ambassador to B&H

Austrian Parliament to examine the role of two Austrian high representatives in B&H (Srna)

The RS President Milorad Dodik has assessed the visit to Vienna as highly successful, and stressed that it was agreed to rise in the Austrian Parliament the issue of the role of two Austrian-born high representatives in Bosnia and Herzegovina and their violation of international rights and the Dayton Accords. “These are (former and current) High Representatives, Wolfgang Petritsch and Valentin Inzko. It will be the first time to raise such issue in one of the European parliaments, and I think this is important. It will result in new practices. We will try to do the same in other European parliaments and, undoubtedly, in the European Parliament itself,” Dodik told the reporters in Vienna at a reception organized in his honor. He stressed that he is satisfied with the outcomes of the visit and called on the Serbs who are entitled to vote and decide in Vienna and Austria, to support the Freedom Party of Austria, which president is Heinz-Christian Strache, whose policy is fair to the Serbs. “I came here to support Mr. Strache during the elections for the Vienna Assembly, because he does not hesitate to support the Serbs and RS in exercising our rights, to eliminate the presence of the international representative,” Dodik said. He stated that his meeting with Norbert Hofer, one of three members of the National Council that is presiding over the Austrian Parliament, which took place on Monday morning, was highly important. “We had a chance to discuss all relevant issues. Afterwards, Mr. Strache fully supported and expressed his understanding for RS. Undoubtedly, the full understanding between RS and the people here in the parliament was expressed,” said the RS President. Dodik has stated that he met the President of the Vienna Provincial Parliament, which is one of the greatest. Dodik stated that a dozen ambassadors of different countries – from France, Spain, Lithuania, Russia, Serbia and some from the region, attended the reception organized in Vienna in his honor. “This is certainly good because the reception organized by Hofer in honor of my arrival in such a manner, is noticed by the diplomatic corps, which is undoubtedly of great significance here in Austria,” stated Dodik. According to Dodik, RS and Austria will certainly contribute to greater understanding through such visit.

Commission for referendum in RS formed (klix.ba)

Zeljko Mirjanic was proposed yesterday in the RS National Assembly for the president of the Commission for the conduction of the referendum on the work of the B&H Prosecutor’s Office and the Court. The SNSD will have four members in the commission, DNS and SP two each and SDS-K one member. As Radovan Vukovic, president of the parliamentary Commission for the election and appointment, explained to delegates, besides the former delegate Mirjanic (SNSD), following members were proposed: Ljiljana Dabic, Vili Kuljanac, Mile Dmicic, Dragan Ristic, Zeljko Skondric, Dragoljub Reljic, Dobrila Drinic i Darko Kremenovic. Branislav Borenovic, head of the Club of PDP, said during the discussion that the referendum is too serious matter and that is frivolous to talk about it, if the commission that would conduct it is not formed.

“For more than two months we don’t know whether it will be a referendum or not“, said Govedarica. Srdjan Milovic, delegate of the SNSD said that there will be a referendum and that the leading coalition took the full responsibility for this act and that will be responsible for all they are doing. Delegate of the PDP, Miroslav Brckalo, emphasized that the leading coalition is manipulating with the people of RS with the story about a referendum and that it won on elections on that way. As Brckalo said, it is about a fake protection of the interest of RS, because each time the current government has no responses to the economic problems, it is reaching for a referendum.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Europe migrant crisis: Serbia threatens retaliation after Croatia truck blockade; OECD calls for coordinated approach (Reuters, 22 September 2015)

Serbia threatens to retaliate after neighbour Croatia halts all cargo traffic from Serbia following an influx of asylum seekers over their joint border. Serbia has threatened to retaliate after neighbour Croatia halted all cargo traffic from Serbia following an influx of asylum seekers over their joint border. More than 30,000 people, many of them Syrian refugees, have entered Croatia from Serbia since Tuesday last week, when Hungary barred their entry to the European Union over its southern border with Serbia with a metal fence. Croatia said it cannot cope with the numbers; a new crossing point emerged overnight at the Croatian village of Bapska, with hundreds seen walking through rolling hills to a camp Croatia opened for asylum seekers while authorities organise their transport north to Hungary or west to Slovenia. Several thousand more were waiting in no-man’s land between Sid in Serbia and Tovarnik in Croatia; some spent the night sleeping in a cemetery. Croatia closed all but one road border crossing with Serbia and early on Monday halted trucks from entering on the highway between Belgrade and Zagreb, one of Serbia’s two main arteries to the west. The blockage created a 12-kilometre queue of trucks on the Serbian side. The Croatian government cited security reasons but local media say Zagreb was trying to put pressure on Belgrade to slow the flow of migrants over their border and send more north to Hungary or east to Romania. Croatian interior minister Ranko Ostojic told RTL television: “I think it is perfectly clear that what we are seeing is organised transport of migrants directly to Croatia (from Serbia).”

‘We will be forced to protect our country by legal means’

The Serbian government called an emergency session on Tuesday afternoon to discuss possible counter-measures. “There is no rational, logical explanation for stopping the flow of goods, of cargo traffic, on one of the main arteries,” Serbian justice minister Nikola Selakovic told state television. “Closing that route is inflicting millions in damage to Serbian business and the state every day.” If Croatia does not lift the blockade, Serbian prime minister Aleksandar Vucic said, “due to violations of numerous bilateral and international agreements we will be forced to protect our country by legal means”. “That will hit their country far harder than their measures are hurting ours,” he said.

International organisations make appeal to European nations

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said Europe must urgently produce a co-ordinated response to the mass exodus of asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq, and whatever measures are agreed will need to be extended and beefed up as part of a wider adjustment in long-term migration policy. “Europe has both the obligation and the capacity to deal with this unprecedented and tragic crisis,” the Paris-based organisation, which offers policy advice to industrialised countries, said. Failure to agree a joint emergency plan and couple it with a modernised long-term policy on integration of migrants could fuel the fear of foreigners that partly explains government inaction to date, the OECD said in an annual report. The OECD alludes to voter concern about integration and failure by governments to build consensus on an issue which has in recent years played into the hands of anti-immigrant parties, like France’s National Front. “Migration has been the biggest engine of demographic growth in the EU as a whole since the mid-1990s,” it said. “It is about to become the only one.” A European Union proposal to find spaces for 120,000 refugees will not work unless reception facilities are provided for tens of thousands at any time, the UN refugee agency said. “A relocation program alone, at this stage in the crisis, will not be enough to stabilise the situation,” UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said. EU interior ministers will hold emergency talks on Tuesday to bridge deep divisions over Europe’s worst migration crisis since World War II, as pressure builds for member states to reach an agreement. The meeting will see ministers discuss controversial binding quotas to relocate 120,000 refugees around the EU from frontline states after they failed to reach a deal last week, and ahead of a full summit of the bloc’s 28 leaders on Wednesday.

Serbian Troops Plead Innocent to Kosovo Village Killings (BIRN, by Ivana Nikolic, 18 September 2015)

Twelve former Yugoslav Army troops who are being retried for allegedly killing more than 118 Kosovo Albanians near the town of Pec/Peja in 1999 have pleaded not guilty. Twelve former members of the Yugoslav Army’s 177th Intervention Squad, on trial for torture and looting as well as the killing of 118 Kosovo Albanians, told the Belgrade-based special court on Thursday that they were not guilty. They are accused of committing the crimes in four villages – Ljubenic, Pavljan, Cuska and Zahac – during the Kosovo conflict in April and May 1999. The aim of the attack, according to the indictment, was to permanently expel the Albanian population. The men were initially sentenced to a total of 106 years in February 2014, but the Belgrade-based appeals court annulled the verdict in March, calling it “incomprehensible and contradictory”, and sent the case for retrial. Former Yugoslav Army commander Toplica Miladinovic, who was originally sentenced to 20 years in prison for ordering the unit’s commander Nebojsa Minic, alias ‘Mrtvi’ ‘Dead’), to launch the attacks on the villages, told the trial he had never issued these orders. “I didn’t know Mrtvi in person and I wasn’t his commander. There was no intervention squad in my unit,” Miladinovic told the trial. “Those four villages were not in my area of responsibility,” he added. Minic, one of the most notorious Yugoslav Army officers of that time, died of AIDS-related illness in Argentina in 2005, before being extradited to Serbia on war crimes charges. Srecko Popovic, who was previously sentenced to ten years in jail, told the court that he had always been a part of the Yugoslav Army’s 177th Intervention Squad but not part of “Minic’s special unit”, as some alleged. “Everything I did, I did because I thought it was good for my country,” Popovic said. At the beginning of the trial, the prosecution alleged that the men were members of a paramilitary unit called the Jackals, but later on established all the accused had military ID cards and received salaries from the Yugoslav Army. The prosecution merged the case with another one which started in September 2014, in which three former members of the Yugoslav Army’s 177th Intervention Squad, Vladan Krstovic, Lazar Pavlovic and Milan Ivanovic, are accused of participating in the killings of 46 people in Ljubenic on April 1, 1999. However, some of the other nine men on trial claimed they didn’t fight with Krstovic, Pavlovic and Ivanovic at the time when the crimes were committed. “I know them, but in 1999 we didn’t work together. I only worked with Krstovic and Pavlovic in 1998 when we were part of the special police unit,” said Milojko Nikolic, one of the accused. The case is considered one of the largest ever relating to Kosovo war crimes in the Belgrade courts, with hearings in the initial trial lasting for four years. The attack on the four villages and the subsequent cover-up attempts attacks are explored in a BIRN documentary, ‘The Unidentified’. In August 2014, the Serbian war crimes prosecution also launched an investigation into Dragan Zivanovic, the former commander of the Yugoslav Army’s 125th Brigade, for allegedly doing nothing to prevent the murders of the Albanians and the destruction of homes and property in the four villages. So far however no indictment has been issued.

DUI Defectors to Form New Macedonian Albanian Party (BIRN, by Sinisa Jakov Marusic, 22 September 2015)

Key members of the main ethnic Albanian party in Macedonia, the DUI, are to split off and form a new party in a sign of growing rifts within the DUI’s ranks. In a sign of growing disarray in the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, two leading figures, the MP and head of the party’s general assembly, Zuluf Adili, and Gzim Ostreni, a former DUI secretary general, said they will form a new party called Unity. Ostreni was one-time head of the general staff of the ethnic Albanian insurgents during the armed conflict of 2001. “The new party will have a civic concept, which means that Macedonia should be a country belonging to all who live in it and not just to one or two ethnicities,” Adili said. He said he hoped the Unity party will attract some other current MPs in the DUI. The DUI has 20 of the 123 seats in parliament. “All DUI members who do not have corruption scandals behind them are welcome,” Adili added, noting that this does not include the current DUI leaders. The announced formation of the new party is seen as culmination of a long-standing political rift within the ranks of the country’s main Albanian party, which governs Macedonia in coalition with the VMRO DPMNE party of Nikola Gruevski. Quarrels in the party have turned violent in the past. In October 2014, five people were wounded, one seriously, by a gunfight at the DUI branch in Saraj, near Skopje. In December that year, a fight between DUI members in Struga, in southwest Macedonia, left several people in hospital. Further signs of rifts emerged last year when three DUI parliamentarians refused to support a package of constitutional changes previously agreed between the ruling parties. Divisions intensified in elections in the DUI local branches. In July, two party members were killed in separates shootouts that happened days apart in the towns of Kumanovo and Struga. The DUI is downplaying the latest rupture in the party. Its press centre commented only that it had not been informed of anyone leaving. “We were not informed that anyone is canceling their membership,” the party said. The DUI was formed in 2002, soon after the armed conflict between ethnic Albanian insurgents and the security forces ended with international mediation. Since then, it has been led by the former leader of the armed insurgents, Ali Ahmeti.