LOCAL PRESS

Serbs imposed with Kosovo coat of arms (Novosti)

The coat of arms of the so-called republic of Kosovo will be on the ballots for the upcoming parliamentary elections in Kosovo and Metohija, which caused revolt of the Serbs north of the Ibar River, so now there are stories about a boycott. The Serb member of the Central Election Commission (CIK) Nenad Rikalo confirmed for Novosti that the election material will carry all characteristics of statehood: “It is true that the election material is not status neutral.” This decision came as a surprise to the Serbs in the province. “We had promises from Pristina and Belgrade that the ballots will be status neutral and that the elections process in Kosovo is part of the Brussels agreement. Still, I hope that our negotiating team will be able to influence this decision, which will certainly influence, if it is not changed, turnout of Serbs in the north,” North Mitrovica Mayor Goran Rakic says. Leposavic Mayor Dragan Jablanovic believes that the CIK decision can be corrected and that some compromise can be found: “Either the CIK will correct the appearance of ballots or we will in the north ‘eliminate’ marks that violate the neutral status. Serbs in the north do not wish to sign papers with the characteristics of the ‘state’ of Kosovo.” Gracanica Mayor Branimir Stojanovic says that nobody in European practice has so much insisted on some symbols as the Pristina authorities are: “The CIK decision threatens turnout of Serbs for the upcoming elections. That is why the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija rightly expect a reaction of the international community to one more violation of the agreement by Pristina’s side.”

Djuric in charge of Kosovo (Danas)

The Serbian government appointed yesterday presidential advisor Marko Djuric as the new Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija. Thus, the inter-coalition “battle” for Kosovo and Metohija between the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and the Movement of Socialists (PS), whose leader Aleksandar Vulin performed this job in the past, ended in favor of the Progressives. The SNS is now “holding” both the Office and the parliament Committee for Kosovo and Metohija. Since the formation of the government of Aleksandar Vucic, Djuric was the main candidate for the Head of the Office, although it was widely speculated in recent weeks that Vulin, for his own reasons, wishes some of his reliable associates to succeed him. That is one the reasons why the expectation before yesterday’s government session was that Vulin will be replaced by his advisor and reliable man for work in the field Milenko Nikic, who had allegedly settled in the Office and just waited for the appointment. “There was no guessing between the SNS and PS on the new head of the Office, this only existed in the media. The government seriously deals with the Office and its head has not been appointed earlier due to the floods. This was done as soon as the emergency situation was cancelled,” the head of the Serb list for the Kosovo parliamentary elections and PS MP in the Serbian parliament Aleksandar Jablanovic tells Danas. He opines that Djuric is a “good choice because he took part in the Brussels negotiations on behalf of President Nikolic and he is also acquainted with many aspects of the Brussels agreement.” He expects from Djuric a “level of operation in the field that existed during Vulin’s mandate” as well as “new ideas, since a serious job waits in Kosovo, primarily the parliamentary elections.”

Seventeen bodies found in Rudnica (Beta)

The Serbian government Commission for Missing Persons has announced that the remains of 17 bodies and several skeletal remains have so far been found in Rudnica. It is assumed that the Albanians killed during the war in Kosovo are buried in this grave. Excavations at this location started on 23 April on the order of the War Crimes department of the Higher Court in Belgrade.

“The mortal remains of 17 people and several skeletal remains have been exhumed through this process to this day. According to expert estimates, the exhumed mortal remains relate to 21 people whose identity will be established by the DNA method analysis. One part of the exhumed remains is presently in the process of forensic analysis and identification” reads the statement.

Dacic: More than 650,000 Euros raised for flood victims (RTS)

Serbian First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said that more than 650,000 Euros had been raised abroad for help to the victims of severe floods in Serbia and that the campaign continued. The funds have been paid into the specialized accounts opened by Serbian embassies and consulates or have been provided in the form of donations in cash. Considerable aid in goods has been collected as well and is being supplied to Serbia through diplomatic representatives, said Dacic.

REGIONAL PRESS

Bevanda: B&H needs international aid (Srna)

“B&H does not have the internal resources to repair the damage done by flooding on its own, and this is why it needs urgent and concrete aid from the international community,” the Chairman of the B&H Council of Ministers Vjekoslav Bevanda said. At the Forum on Prosperity and Jobs in B&H, Bevanda said that preliminary assessments of damage from the flooding are catastrophic – almost one million people were displaced from their homes, 2,300 schools and health facilities were destroyed, and there are many people whose properties were permanently destroyed and they cannot return to their previous residences no matter how much they invest in repairing their homes. 

NATO membership still a priority (Kanal 5)

“Macedonia has achieved quite a lot on the way to joining NATO and righteously expects to receive a membership invitation by the North Atlantic Council,” Macedonian Deputy Minister of Defense Emil Dimitriev commented on Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s statements during his last visit to Macedonia, Macedonian TV channel Kanal 5 reported. Our expectations are clear and justifiable. We are unable to predict what decisions will be made at the 2014 NATO Summit in Great Britain, said Dimitriev. According to him NATO membership is still a main national priority.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Remains of Kosovo Albanian war victims found in Serbia (AFP, 27 May 2014)
Forensic experts in Serbia have uncovered the remains of ethnic Albanians killed during the Kosovo war in a suspected mass grave, officials said Tuesday, AFP reported.
Since the exhumation began at the Rudnica quarry near the southwestern town of Raska in April, "the remains of 21 persons have been found," Serbia's commission for missing persons said in a statement.
"DNA analysis has shown that 17 of them were Kosovo Albanians, while the remains of four more persons are still being identified," it added.
The exhumation at Rudnica was ordered after human remains were discovered in the area in December after more than three years of searching the site.
War crimes investigators have said the quarry was one of the sites where Serbian forces under then-strongman Slobodan Milosevic moved the remains of Kosovo civilians at the end of the 1998-1999 conflict, reburying them in Serbia in a bid to hide their crimes.
Before the exhumation began, Serbia's war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic told AFP that the grave might contain the remains of as many as 250 Kosovo Albanians.
If confirmed, it could be the largest mass grave found in Serbia.
World Bank: Floods could disrupt Balkans' power supplies for at least six months (Reuters, by Daria Sito-Sucic, 26 May 2014)
SARAJEVO - Devastating floods in the Balkans this month mean economic growth in the region will be lower than forecast this year and power supplies could be disrupted for at least six months, the World Bank said on Monday.
More than 50 people were killed by flooding and landslides in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia after the heaviest rainfall in more than a century caused rivers to burst their banks, sweeping away roads, bridges and homes.
Serbia and Bosnia were worst hit and say the damage inflicted runs to hundreds of millions of euros each, a huge blow to their cash-strapped economies.
Serbia's electricity production has been cut by 40 percent as a result of power outages caused by the floods and power supplies have been disrupted in Bosnia and to a smaller extent in Croatia as well.
"I believe that in the short run, within 2014, the floods will have a downward impact on growth," Ellen Goldstein, the World Bank's country director for southeast Europe, told Reuters.
"The larger problem will be in supplying the power plants with necessary fuel in the longer run ... because of flooding of the mines," Goldstein said.
Power supplies knocked out by the waters, including mines supplying Serbia's biggest power plant, Nikola Tesla, were a particular problem, she said.
Goldstein was speaking after the bank presented its bi-annual economic report for the western Balkan region, projecting average growth of 1.9 percent in 2014 and 2.6 percent in 2015.
She cautioned that the report was compiled before the floods and declined to specify how far the flood damage might effect those figures. However, she said that reconstruction and a rebound in consumption could drive economic recovery in 2015.
"One could very easily see a more difficult recovery in 2014 followed possibly by faster growth as the countries pull back out of the floods," Goldstein said in an interview.
"But we really don't know the magnitude of that."
The World Bank will work with the United Nations and the European Union on assessing the flood damage.
Goldstein said the bank would move quickly to restructure its existing portfolios in the three countries and re-allocate funds toward immediate recovery needs, which includes up to 40 percent of retroactive financing.
"This means that governments can go ahead and begin spending on well established priority needs today, and we can use 40 percent of reallocated funds to reimburse governments once the procedure issue is completed. That can be a matter of days."
Another possibility is that the bank prepares a specific emergency recovery operation, using its IDA crisis response window, which would finance priority goods and services such as imports or repairs in key sectors.
"It will be done extremely quickly, we'll need approval from our Board of Directors before the end of June so that money can begin to flow within a matter of weeks," Goldstein said.
"Overall we can have very cautious optimism and if reforms are pursued and with recovery from the floods, I think we can expect to see a positive growth trajectory and job creation coming forward."
Serbian Opposition Seeks Responsibility For Flood Failures (BIRN, by Marija Ristic, 27 May 2014)
Opposition demands a special parliamentary session dedicated to discussing responsibility for the catastrophic floods that hit Serbia ten days ago
Members of the Democratic Party and New Party have asked the speaker of parliament, Maja Gojkovic, to schedule a parliamentary session to discuss the alleged failure of state and local institutions to prevent the devastating flooding that forced 31,879 people from their homes.
Dragan Djilas, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, said that ministers and mayors of the worst affected 39 municipalities need to be called before parliament to find out whether some of the floods could have been prevented.
“It would be very useful to form an inquiry committee to determine what really happened… If it is then determined that someone was responsible, he should be punished and removed from his position,” Djilas said on Monday.
Djilas’s request for a special parliamentary session dedicated to the floods has been supported by the New Party.
Its leader, Zoran Zivkovic, called on the government to reveal the names of those missing and dead as a result of the floods.
According to government data, 33 people died as a result of the flooding, while number of missing remains unknown.
Zivkovic also said government could have prevented flooding in the town of Obrenovac, which was completely submerged after the waters of the river Kolubara spilled over.
“Flooding in Obrenovac could have been prevented. We knew three days before the flooding that there was an increased possibility of this happening,” Zivkovic said.
He added that the government failed to act properly while the evacuation of people from Obrenovac was going on. “The question is, who is guilty for that?” he asked.
The initiative for a debate will also be supported by the United Pensioners Party, which is part of the coalition government alongside the Socialist Party and Progressive Party.
Zoran Babic, from the Progressives, says his party would not avoid questions of responsibility, and that ministers would answer any questions from parliamentary groups.
“The Progressives have no reason to fear that,” Babic added.
Although the government last Friday lifted the national state of emergency it introduced on May 15, it remains in force in the various towns.
These are Sabac, Sremska Mitrovica, Krupanj, Mali Zvornik, Koceljeva, Vladimirci, Obrenovac, Ljig, Ub, Lajkovac, Osecina, Mionica, Paracin, Svilajnac, Smederevska Palanka, Kosjeric, Bajina Basta and Sid.
Belgrade is still on alert for flooding but authorities maintain that the city is prepared and safe.
War-torn and impoverished, Bosnia faces rebuild once again after floods (The Guardian, by Andrew MacDowall, 25 May 2014)
Uncleared wartime landmines make recovery dangerous, with a majority of known mined areas affected by the disaster
Mitra Colic stands in the shell of her home, anguished by the worst flooding in the Balkans in 150 years. "I have moments when I cry and think: What next? Can I go on like this?" she says.
Colic, a 71-year-old retired cleaner, moved to the northern Bosnian town of Modrica during the Yugoslav war from her home near Vukovar, a city in Croatia that endured one of the longest and bloodiest sieges in that conflict. Now she again faces the prospect of rebuilding her life after the floods that swept across the city in a matter of hours, running three and a half metres (11ft) deep in places and making thousands homeless.
"I'm ill, my body is reacting to this," said Colic from the sodden concrete space that was once her front room. Outside in the sun, relatives scrubbed kitchen appliances in the vain hope they might work again.
"But there were floods like this all over the country, there are many people in my position. This is my home, my life. I want to repair this house – I won't leave," she added.
The floods that hit Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia in the past week are the worst in over a century. Reports suggest three months' of rain fell in a matter of days. In Bosnia alone, 40,000 people have been evacuated and 25 confirmed dead – but the death toll is expected to rise. Bosnia's foreign minister has said the destruction is comparable to that in the 1992-95 war that killed 100,000 people and still scars the country.
The damage across the region is expected to cost billions of euros. It is a disaster that Bosnia – one of the poorest countries in Europe – cannot afford. Here the average net wage is just €420 (£340) a month, and the country relies on EU funding of about €100m a year.
Colic's district – built in the past 20 years and largely populated by ethnic Serbs who fled other parts of the former Yugoslavia during the war – sits beside the river Bosna on a plain beneath a pockmarked medieval fortress shrouded in forest. Muddy lines on buildings show how high the water rose. Suburban roads are now stony dirt tracks, stripped of asphalt. There is a stench of rot. A tanned middle-aged man pushes his bicycle slowly. His house has been entirely swept away, he said.
Downriver, the destruction is more apocalyptic. In what was once an affluent riverside district, one house lies levelled like flat-pack furniture. Next door a swimming pool has been dislodged and sits on the muddy riverbank.
The landslides that are the biggest single danger as floodwaters subside are shifting uncleared wartime minefields.
Of 1,200 sq km of known mined areas, 800 sq km have been affected by flooding and topsoil movement, a diplomatic source told the Guardian. By the end of last week, seven explosions of mines and buried ordnance had been reported and, while there have been no fatalities, the situation poses "a serious risk to recovery efforts", the source said.
"This is a real disaster," said Dusko Pejic, a community mayor in Modrica. "We are poor, and what's happened has made us poorer." Pejic is coordinating humanitarian aid, which at local level involves NGOs and local volunteers.
The Red Cross has brought a mobile field kitchen where men stir a vast vat of cabbage with a paddle, and there is a dusty warehouse piled high with donated clothes, from children's dungarees to white leather high-heeled boots.
The bravery of volunteers across the region has been a defining feature of the disaster. In Modrica, Vidra, a local amateur diving club set up to respond to flooding, scrambled its two dinghies to save people in appalling conditions.
"The water came very, very fast, and was rising quickly," said Zoran Popovic, one of the Vidra volunteers. "It was almost impossible to get our boats on to the river, we kept on capsizing and the waves were a metre and a half high, but we managed. Every time I went out, I didn't know if I could come back.
"Our motivation was the children we could see on the balconies of buildings – when I took one little girl on to the boat, she threw her arms around me and said 'I love you'."
The disaster has also brought Bosnia's fractured communities closer together. Before, Modric was a divided town with a Serb majority, many of whom were refugees like Colic and a Muslim minority largely living in a hillside suburb where the comfortable houses of affluent Bosnian diaspora stand next to buildings studded with bullet holes and shell-damaged ruins. But almost every person the Guardian spoke to emphasised a new spirit of togetherness. Muslim teenagers gathered to collect drinking water to bring to evacuated Serbs in their churches.
"Everyone has helped one another, regardless of nationality," said Mustafa Mustajbegovic, a Modrica municipal official. "This is the silver lining to the cloud."
The evacuation efforts of the army, one of Bosnia's few functional multi-ethnic institutions, have also been praised. But the country's fragmented administrative system means there is no centralised disaster-management system and decision-making is piecemeal and short-term, Sven Seifert, executive director of arche noVa, an NGO providing emergency drinking water, told the Guardian.
Long-term recovery will present a serious challenge, given the lack of resources and weak administrative infrastructure. Unlike Croatia and Serbia, respectively an EU member state and an official membership candidate, Bosnia does not have access to the Union's €500m European Solidarity Fund. The European Commission officials and diplomats have said that cash to support the recovery can be channelled through Bosnia's existing pre-accession funding programme. But many Bosnians, uninsured and suspicious of their ethnically-divided politicians, expect to rebuild their lives through their own efforts, supported by meagre salaries and remittances from family abroad.
Twelve miles north across sodden fields at the confluence of the rivers Bosna and Sava, Samac was the last Bosnian town to be hit by flooding, and the last where waters receded. Tractors pulled trailers stacked high with furniture out of the town in scenes reminiscent of the war. That not salvageable burned on a huge bonfire outside the city limits.
The water poured in rapidly, but the residents, aware of what had happened upstream, were either evacuated or sheltering upstairs in tall buildings.
"In one day everything was destroyed," said Misko Peskic, a young agricultural engineer, as he walks to collect drinking water in the baking sun. "It was just water, everywhere."
On Saturday afternoon, parts of Samac remained flooded. Cars lay overturned in water, trees uprooted, pavements were smashed, and residents and student volunteers from Banja Luka, two and a half hours away, shovelled the huge amounts of mud away from roads and piled ruined furniture and belongings outside homes and shops.
At Indira Hadzic's clothes shop, dresses on hangers were caked in mud, while mannequins and shoes were scattered in the floor. A path had been cleared to the garishly decorated church of St Demetrius, a warrior saint popular in the region, but inside the glutinous mud clung to the floor and altar drapes.
Two blocks away, a young woman commandeered a boat to take her and several cartons of cigarettes to her grandparents, who had refused to leave and were sheltering in their undamaged upstairs flat in a part of town still under water.
Some were less fortunate, but panic has given way to a Balkan pride and resilience. Across the street, Snezana Hadzic stood sobbing as she looked out over the flooded patch of ground where her house stood. She had escaped her home and spent three days at a neighbour's house before being evacuated to a nearby town, and had returned to see what remained.
"I'm devastated and depressed, but what can I do?" she said. "These things happen – life goes on."
Bosnia should be a financial hub: Turkey's deputy PM (World Bulletin, 27 May 2014)
Ali Babacan says Bosnia-Herzegovina has potential to attract foreign investors
It is high time for Bosnia-Herzegovina to be a crossroads of economic and financial dynamism, a hub of development, Turkey's Deputy PM Ali Babacan said Monday.
Attending a welfare and employment forum in Sarajevo during his one-day visit, Babacan said political talks should be maintained in the Balkans in order to attain a consistent development and peace atmosphere.
He said Bosnia-Herzegovina had potential to attract foreign investors if it could achieve political stabilization.
Terming Bosnia as a country "in the heart of Europe," Babacan stressed that stability is a stimulus which fosters economic development and growth.
According to business magazine Forbes, Bosnia has a transitional economy with limited market reforms. Its GDP for the year 2012 was $17.4 billion.
Vrdoljak: Croatia will help Bosnia in post-flood reconstruction (Dalje.com, 26 May 2014)
Croatia will continue providing all the necessary assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina in overcoming the consequences of the devastating floods, Croatian Economy Minister Ivan Vrdoljak said in Sarajevo on Monday.
"These floods have intensified regional cooperation beyond belief," Vrdoljak told the press after meeting with Bosnian Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija to discuss the coordinated action of Croatian and Bosnian authorities.
 Vrdoljak recalled that Croatia had immediately responded to Bosnia and Herzegovina's call for assistance in rescuing people and property. He said that in the coming days and weeks Croatia would make available a portion of its commodity reserves, after which the two countries would jointly approach Brussels for assistance from EU funds and would organise fund-raising conferences.
"It is important that we prepare our lobbying actions together," the Croatian minister said.
Vrdoljak said that the Croatian government would also take steps to encourage the reconstruction of the flood-hit areas in Croatia and that it would propose such steps to Bosnia and Herzegovina. He said that Croatia would seek funds from the EU Solidarity Fund to rebuild its flood-affected areas, just as it had in the case of the Gorski Kotar region which was devastated by icy rains last winter.
 Bosnia and Herzegovina is not counting on support from the EU Solidarity Fund because, not being a candidate for EU membership, it is not entitled to it, but it is counting on the solidarity of the EU, Lagumdzija said.
 According to Lagumdzija, Bosnia and Herzegovina will finalise the report on the damage caused by the floods by June 18, using the methodology of the World Bank and the UN Development Programme, after which it would call an international conference to raise funds for reconstruction.
Lagumdzija said that it was still impossible to assess the flood damage, but that the damage to the main road infrastructure alone exceeded 100 million euros. He said that the authorities would amend the laws to make it possible for flood victims to receive land for free to build their homes, which would be financed from donations.
Lagumdzija said that Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina would apply for funding together, while the fund-raising conference would be organised for Bosnia and Herzegovina alone. He said that it was yet to be seen if there would be any joint arrangements with Serbia.
Lagumdzija said that certain ideas for joint actions by the three countries for post-flood reconstruction were abandoned because such procedures would take too long.
Lagumdzija and Vrdoljak also discussed overall economic cooperation between the two countries. They said it was in the joint interest of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia to continue their participation in such projects as the Ionian-Adriatic Pipeline and to encourage joint ventures on third markets.
During his visit to Sarajevo, Vrdoljak also met with Nermin Niksic, Premier of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country's Bosniak-Croat entity, for talks on problems faced by the Mostar-based aluminium factory Aluminij, the chief supplier of raw materials for the Sibenik light metals factory TLM. Aluminij is majority-owned by the Federation and Croatia owns 12% of shares.
Because of increased electricity prices, Aluminij has been operating at a loss for quite a while and is facing the cessation of production. Vrdoljak and Niksic discussed possible action to resolve the present crisis.