LOCAL PRESS

Dacic: Pristina has not fulfilled conditions (Danas)

Thaqi doesn’t realize that the visa-free regime is not a political but a security and technical issue that is decided by the interior and justice ministers, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic tells Danas in response to the question how he comments the call of Kosovo Foreign Minister Hashim Thaqi for protests over the fact that Kosovo didn’t receive the visa-free regime. Dacic says that Kosovo “simply doesn’t fulfill conditions” for the visa-free regime. “By calling for demonstrations, they are only more deeply burying themselves in their catastrophic and international position,” says Dacic. Danas was unofficially told at Serbian government headquarters that they “don’t believe” another round of the Brussels negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina will be held before the holidays.

Dittmann: Not exactly known what legally-binding agreement means (Politika/Tanjug)

German Ambassador to Serbia Axel Dittmann said that there was a joint position in the EU that at the end of the negotiating process between Serbia and the EU, a legally-binding document on

Belgrade-Pristina relations should be agreed. At the “World in 2016” conference organized by the The Economist in Belgrade, he explained that it is not stated anywhere that Serbia needs to recognize Kosovo, but it is still not exactly known what the legally-binding document means. According to him, the dialogue is heading in a good direction, and Belgrade had demonstrated commitment on several occasions, but it is important to implement the agreed and to open new topics.

Belgrade offers solution for Brezovica (Novosti)
The Serbian government will soon offer a solution for Brezovica in the form of an investment program, which will provide sufficient legal guarantees for safe investments to those interested in investing in this ski-resort or other businesses in Kosovo and Metohija. This was announced by the Office for Kosovo and Metohija after yesterday’s decision of the provisional organs of self-administration in Pristina to extend until 30 May 2016 the deadline when French-Andorran consortium needs to ensure the financing of projects in the ski center on Mt Brezovica according to the agreement concluded contrary to the will of the Serbian government and domestic and international legal norms. Kosovo Minister for Administration Ljubomir Maric opposed this decision passed at yesterday’s session: “The Serbian government will continue to support actions in finding a legal remedy for the violence manifested by Pristina in the unilateral privatization procedure of the ski-resort,” reads the statement by the Office for Kosovo and Metohija.

Serb woman punished for protecting her property (Tanjug)

A court in Gjilane has ruled against 75-year-old Persa Stojkovic for her flagrant violation of public order and peace. According to the executive decision, the Serb woman from the village of Paralovo must either pay a fine of EUR 50, or spend three days in prison. Her offense: driving cattle owned by an Albanian family off her land.  TV Plus from Silovo said the Ibishi family lived in the nearby village of Zegovacka Vrbica, and that Stojkovic both received the ruling, and was beaten, and that the police know everything about the attack on the old woman. The Kosovo police director for the Gjilane region, Emina Mahmuti, said there were nine criminal complaints filed against the Ibishis, while Novo Brdo Mayor Svetislav Ivanovic noted that the family was known to the local law and order organs. The elderly woman denies that she did anything wrong and says she will, as a matter of principle rather go to prison than pay the fine. Her sons support her in this decision, while next-door neighbor Blagica Trajkovic told reporters that if Persa goes to prison, others want to go, too. The Office for Kosovo and Metohija stated it was sad proof of a lack of a legal system in Kosovo. The Office noted Persa Stojkovic was being punished for protecting her property, although she has quite obviously been the victim of her Albanian neighbor’s violence and arrogance. The statement said that the courageous elderly woman, thanks to the Kafkaesque court proceedings, has become a symbol of Serb resistance, defiance, and determination to persevere under existential conditions that cannot be found anywhere else in Europe. The office also appealed on the judiciary in Kosovo and Metohija and on EULEX to find legal possibilities to annul or change this senseless and obviously anti-legal ruling. “We demand equality before the law for Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, such as exists in all civilized societies,” the statement said.

Government offers guarantees for release of Stanisic and Simatovic pending retrial (Radio Belgrade)

The Serbian government has agreed to offer guarantees for releasing Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic pending retrial. Serbian Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic told Radio Belgrade that the government will offer guarantees that Simatovic and Stanisic will respond to each summon from The Hague. The Serbian government had reached consent on this issue.

REGIONAL PRESS

B&H to submit the application for the EU membership on January 16 (Nezavisne)

B&H will submit a credible application for the EU membership on 16 January 2016, decided the B&H Presidency at yesterday’s session. After years of delay, B&H will officially apply in January to join the European Union, encouraged by the bloc’s positive assessment of its reform progress, the Chairman of the three-man presidency said on Thursday. “I would say that, after the signing of the SAA, this is a new historic date for B&H,” Dragan Covic, the Croat Presidency Chairman, told reporters. Covic said he expected all outstanding issues to be resolved by the time the application is submitted, though he added it would not be reviewed by the EU before next June.

Izetbegovic: Sooner or later, all decisions of the Constitutional Court will be implemented (Nezavisne)

Member of the B&H Presidency Bakir Izetbegovic, speaking on overcoming the crisis among the political representatives of the B&H entities, said that the way out of the situation is in the implementation of the Constitutional Court’s decisions, who declared the Republika Srpska (RS) Law on Holidays unconstitutional. The decision of the Constitutional Court of B&H has unified the government and the opposition in RS and, according to Izetbegovic, previously there were no hints of temporary unification on the issue. “I was told that unification would be temporary,” added Izetbegovic. Izetbegovic believes that the recent decision to cease the cooperation with the Court and the Prosecutor’s Office of B&H and the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) is an act of powerful people in the RS defending themselves. Regarding the NATO issue, Izetbegovic said that the state level authorities of which the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) is also a part of, has adopted all reference decisions relating to the path of B&H towards the NATO membership. Member of the B&H Presidency referred to the commitments that the B&H needs to fulfill before submitting a credible application for EU membership, which is planned in early 2016. Although the relations between B&H and Serbia are getting better, Izetbegovic said that in the past there were certain crises, which they successfully overcame.

Serb-hunting continues (Srna)

Emil Vlajki, the former RS vice president, has said that the B&H Court continues with hunting the Serbs while the “Serb patriots in B&H institutions remain silent”. Vlajki has said that “legally to repressive institutional system, a new social entertainment in B&H – Serb -hunting in RS has been introduced within two decades of the Serb people demonization”. “Several Serbs accused of alleged or actual war crimes are arrested daily in this area. Prisons are already full of Serbs convicted by the B&H Court. The court officials do not hide their cynical delight on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of this institution, which exists nowhere in the Dayton Agreement,” stated Vlajki. Citing the outcomes of the Court’s performance, which handed down 154 first instance verdicts for 240 persons, 137 second-instance verdicts for 215 persons and 8 third instance verdicts in 10 years, as well as the fact that the War Crimes Department handed down 2,008 years imprisonment, he stressed that neither the ICTY reordered such outcomes in 20 years. “Here, a piece of information is missing – 75 percent of the prison sentences, or approximately 1,500 years imprisonment, refers to the Serbs, 16 percent to the Croats and 9 percent to the Bosniaks in the context of such morbidly expressed (self) satisfaction,” said Vlajki, who heads non-parliamentary Party of Economic And Social Justice. Vlajki, assessing that the crime must be punished, said it hurts when the punishment is one-sided. He added that the families of the Serb victims of the Dobrovoljacka Street, Tuzla, Skelani, Bratunac, Kravica, Cemerno, Podrinje, Sarajevo, Pofalici crimes, whose perpetrators have never been prosecuted, know it best. Vlajki also noted that at least 2,500 Serb civilians were murdered in Sarajevo according to the testimonies of the wartime HQ of the so-called Army of B&H. “While the Serb-hunting continues around-the-clock, the “Serb patriots` in the B&H institutions remain silent as the grave. In fact, they do not remain silent, but proudly point to the `exceptional outcomes` achieved by the B&H Court destroying, primarily, their own people,” says Vlajki.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Serb Monastery Land Case Sparks Kosovo Protest (BIRN, by Petrit Collaku, 17 December 2015)

Around 200 Kosovo Albanians rallied in Decan/Decani in western Kosovo, demanding that disputed land should not be given to a Serbian Orthodox monastery.

The demonstrators rallied on Thursday under the slogan “The property is ours”, protesting about a recent interim decision by Kosovo’s Constitutional Court to prevent the municipal court in Decan/Decani from hearing a case about the land dispute. Some demonstrators, led by a group called the Historians’ League, held placards with slogans like “Monastery, give up on the property” and “The Constitutional Court violated the constitution”. The Visoki Decani monastery became the focus of previous demonstrations in 2012 after the Supreme Court ruled that the disputed 23 hectares of land belonged to the monastery, not to two Kosovo companies which have been claiming it since the 1999 conflict ended between Kosovo Liberation Army fighters and Serbian government forces. However a special chamber within the Supreme Court which deals with privatisations then ruled that the case should be referred to the local Basic Court in Decan/Decani. But the Constitutional Court this month accepted an appeal by the Visoki Decani monastery to review the decisions, and ordered that the local court case be halted until the end of February. This infuriated Kosovo Albanians in Decan/Decani who believed that the process was turning in their favour. Selim Lokaj, one of the organisers of the protest on Thursday, said that the Constitutional Court’s decision was a cowardly act and unacceptable for locals in Decan/Decani. “Just before the case was about to start again in the Basic Court in Decan, the Constitutional Court suspends everything, and this interference is unacceptable,” Lokaj told BIRN. Previous protests in February 2013, when demonstrators were stopped by NATO peacekeeping forces as they tried to approach the monastery gates, led to riot police being deployed at the site and the monastery being shut for the first time since the Kosovo war. The monastery is one of the best-known Serb heritage sites in Kosovo, established in 1327 and housing the grave of its founder, King Stefan Uros ‘Decanski’, although it now sits in solidly ethnic Albanian-populated territory. It has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2004.

Mladic Witness Alleges Srebrenica Massacre Toll Faked (BIRN, 18 December 2015)

An expert witness testifying in Ratko Mladic’s defence sought to prove that hundreds of Bosniaks from Srebrenica killed in an ambush by Bosnian Serb troops were falsely presented as victims of massacres.

Justice Report

Expert witness Dusan Pavlovic told Mladic’s war crimes trial at the Hague Tribunal on Thursday that the bodies of hundreds of Bosniaks alleged to be victims of massacres by Bosnian Serb troops were actually those of men killed in an ambush and skirmishes as they attempted to flee Srebrenica. “Bodies were gathered and buried in graves right after the fighting,” alleged Pavlovic. He claimed that the Bosnian Army also has reports about hundreds of bodies left behind after ambushes by Bosnian Serb troops. “So the question, is where are those bodies? There are thousands of body parts… Some of them were placed in mass graves,” he said. Pavlovic testified on Wednesday that hundreds or possibly thousands of Bosniak civilians and soldiers were killed in the ambush on road between Konjevic Polje and Nova Kasaba as a column of men from Srebrenica tried to break through Serb lines and reach safety in the town of Tuzla. Mladic’s lawyer Branko Lukic presented a statement from a former Bosnian Army solder Nuriz Selimovic, who was one of the survivors from the column. “I think we had at least 4,000 to 5,000 losses,” Lukic quoted Selimovic as saying in his statement. Pavlovic said Selimovic also quoted Swedish diplomat Carl Bildt, who was a EU representative during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bildt wrote that “probably more than 4,000 people lost their lives in brutal ambushes… while the column was trying to reach safety”. Presiding judge Alphons Orie asked Pavlovic if he also believed Bildt’s statement that “in a series of massacres, Mladic prepared the killings of over 3,000 men who were left behind”. Pavlovic replied that his expert report for the court did not deal with the destiny of those men, only the people in the column fleeing towards Tuzla. Former Bosnian Serb military chief Mladic is on trial for genocide against about 7,000 Bosniaks from Srebrenica. According to the charges against him, about 15,000 Bosniak men, a third of whom were armed, began a breakout from Srebrenica on July 12, 1995, after it fell to Bosnian Serb forces. The Serbs set up ambushes for the Bosniaks who were fleeing. He is also on trial for terrorising Sarajevo during the city’s siege, persecuting non-Serbs across the country, and taking UN peacekeepers hostage. After a seasonal break, the trial will resume on February 1.

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Media summaries are produced for the internal use of the United Nations Office in Belgrade, UNMIK and UNHQ. The contents do not represent anything other than a selection of articles likely to be of interest to a United Nations readership.