LOCAL PRESS

 

Brasseur: CoE not giving up on Dick Marty’s report (Novosti/Politika)

The Council of Europe (CoE) has not given up on establishing truth about allegations of Dick Marty on trafficking in human organs in Kosovo, stated the President of the CoE Parliamentary Assembly Anne Brasseur in Belgrade, where she gave a lecture to students of the School of Political Sciences. According to her, it is important to establish truth on the missing and the CoE continues to work towards that goal. Brasseur pointed out that the CoE treats Kosovo in accordance with UNSCR 1244, and that Kosovo is not a member of the CoE. When it comes to the fight against corruption, Brasseur assessed that Serbia has made progress, but still has a lot to do. She said that Serbia should ensure freedom of expression and protection of journalists, and to solve the issue of media ownership.

 

 

 

Brasseur praises Serbian authorities (Tanjug)

The President of the CoE Parliamentary Assembly Anne Brasseur praised the Serbian authorities and political actors for initiating the reform process in a resolute manner. In an address to Serbian MPs, Brasseur noted that great progress has been made in strengthening democratic institutions, in the judicial reform, the fight against corruption and the reform of the electoral system, as well as in strengthening local self-government and exercise of minority rights. Serbia must not stop half way through implementing the reforms and all political factors must become involved in strengthening democracy and ensuring rule of law and protection of human rights, she said. Brasseur also welcomed the positive developments in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. I am confident that even greater progress will be made in the future, because we need that, Brasseur said during a special session of the Serbian parliament.

 

Stefanovic: We will discuss integration of Serb policemen (RTS)

Serbia’s Police Director Milorad Veljovic and representatives of the Kosovo police will discuss integration of Serb police officers from the southern Serbian province in the Kosovo police structure, Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said. Speaking at a meeting of the Serbian parliament’s Defense and Internal Affairs Committee, Stefanovic said that the meeting between the heads of police from Belgrade and Pristina would also be used to discuss other issues related to the security of the Serb population in Kosovo and Metohija and problems facing the Serb community. Stefanovic said that Belgrade would continue to insist on finding those who killed Serbian Gendarmerie member Stevan Sindjelic in the Ground Safety Zone, along the administrative line between Serbia proper and Kosovo and Metohija. Stefanovic said that answering a question by committee member Goran Bogdanovic about what would happen to those Serb police officers who could not get integrated in the Kosovo police structures because the Pristina authorities did not want that.

 

Filimonova: West will demand loyalty from Belgrade (Danas)

We should assess the development of Russian-Serbian relations starting from the resulting complex global strategic circumstances, in which on the one side the Euro-Atlantic world has moved into a phase of continuous crisis and on the other side the undoubted desire to preserve the unipolar world at any cost. The Western factor that is enhancing the aggressive propaganda rhetoric and real military threat against Russia will undoubtedly look for a loyal, if not completely subordinate position from Serbia whose ruling regime has taken the course towards EU integration. “Such is the logic of the historical process in the given phase, and the immanent characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon policy as extremely anti-Russian, remains unchanged,” research associate of the Balkan Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Anya Filimonova assesses for Danas the current relations between Serbia and Russia. She points out that a country whose leadership “permitted itself the luxury not to understand the essence and meaning of Western policy, giving up from independence, is paying this with loss of territory, resources, economic potential, collapse of sovereignty, with the threat of its complete disappearance, extorted with loss of traditional allies”. In regard to the announcement by Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic that he will visit, together with Defense Minister Bratislav Gasic, NATO headquarters in Brussels on the occasion of the agreement on the Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP), Danas’ interlocutor notes that the IPAP “practically represents NATO membership”. “NATO’s logic is clear: an attempt to distance Serbia from Russia, in case of full cooperativeness of the authorities, even to place it in the ranks of Russia’s strategic opponents. For Serbia this will mean further demolition of the defensive capabilities of the country and practically liquidation of its own army that is turning into a pendant of NATO military operations. The exertion of the West will be directed precisely on achieving these goals,” claims Filimonova.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Former camp inmate welcomes trial of Mensur Peljto (Srna)

Vasiljko Todic, a prisoner of war who spent 83 days in prison camps in Gornji Rahic and Maoca near Brcko, welcomes Tuesday’s resumption of trial of Mensur Peljto, expressing belief that justice will finally be served. Commenting on the statement by Peljto’s lawyer Faruk Balijagic that the indictment against the defendant aims to change history and that he would do all in his power to reject it as such, Todic told Srna that Peljto and Asmir Tatarevic had changed his life completely. “If there is anyone who changed something during the war, then it is our torturers who changed our lives. One of them is definitely Asmir Tatarevic whose cruelty I will remember for as long as I live. Not lagging much behind was Mensur Peljto, who would often come over and beat us prisoners,” said Todic, adding that he could still very well remember the punches by Mensur Peljto and his taking it out on the detained Serbs. Todic recalls that during his time in the prison in Gornji Rahic near Brcko, Peljto would often come over together with Redzep Salaj aka Sok (‘Shock’) to beat the prisoners. “He would make us kneel in a circle and then he’d kick us with his boots in the chest and we’d fall on the floor. We’d hardly manage to get up but he’d make us do it and kept practicing on us as if we were punching bags,” recounts Todic. Todic claims that Peljto would also bring a group of soldiers with headbands, who too would beat the prisoners. “Arrests of Asmir Tatarevic, Mensur Peljto and Redzep Salaj gives me hope again, which I had lost after so many years, that justice will be served after all. Any justice, but it will be served,” said Todic. The main hearing in the case against Mensur Peljto will resume before the trial panel of the Court of First Instance in Brcko on Tuesday. Following a recent hearing when the indictment was read aloud, Peljto’s defence counsel Faruk Balijagic applied for the disqualification of the prosecutor and the hearing was suspended. Mensur Peljto is charged with war crimes against Serb civilians and prisoners committed in mid-1992 in the pre-war municipality of Brcko. He was arrested in Sarajevo on June 30, 2014 but was soon granted provisional release.

 

HDSSB official hopes Const. Court to rule on Glavas in reasonable time (Dalje)

Member of Parliament Josip Salapic of the Croatian Democratic Party of Slavonia and Baranja (HDSSB) has said that two complaints were filed on Monday with the Constitutional Court, asking for the politician Branimir Glavas to be released from custody, and he expressed hope that the court will make a decision within a reasonable period of time considering Glavas's health. “We visited him yesterday at Remetinec (prison) and according to our latest information, Mr Glavas in the afternoon refused to be examined by a doctor or to stay in the prison infirmary, and he was returned to the Remetinec prison. He keeps refusing to take food and water, and we are particularly worried about his refusing to take liquids because it can be fatal to his condition,” Salapic told a news conference on Tuesday. Glavas was brought to Zagreb’s Remetinec prison after he was arrested in his flat in the eastern city of Osijek on March 5. The Supreme Court said he could remain in custody until completion of the criminal case against him, but no longer than the length of imprisonment imposed by the non-final verdict. The detention order was issued after the prosecution appealed against the February 6 decision of a non-trial panel of Zagreb County Court judge’s ruling that Glavas remain at liberty pending completion of his trial. On January 20, Glavas was released from prison in Mostar, B&H, where he had been serving his eight-year sentence, following a ruling made by the Croatian Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court on January 12 partly upheld Glavas’ complaint and quashed his final verdict for war crimes against Serb civilians in Osijek in the early 1990s, which sentenced him to eight years in prison, and returned the case to the Supreme Court for re-examination. In late January the prosecution requested investigative custody for Glavas, saying that after the Constitutional Court quashed his final verdict, the Zagreb County Court’s non-final verdict of 10 years’ imprisonment was in force. Under the non-final verdict, Glavas was given ten years in prison and the Supreme Court later reduced the sentence to eight years.

 

Luksic: International community interested in stability of Montenegro (Nezavisne/Hina/Dnevni avaz)

Igor Luksic, Montenegro’s Foreign Minister, said that the US and EU have shown interest in the stability of the country as the B&H launched the initiative for a new delimitation and return of Sutorina areas at the Kotor Bay under the sovereignty of B&H. “As soon the issue of Sutorina gained on its intensity, everybody was interested, all those factors that are interested in the stability of Montenegro. I’m talking about the European Union, the European Parliament and the USA. I expect this issue to be resolved in the most efficient manner,” said Luksic in an interview for Dnevni avaz. The US Congressman Mike Turner warned recently B&H officials that the Washington could suspend its assistance if the official Sarajevo does not withdraw from the dispute with Montenegro in regard to Sutorina. Given that the Turner addressed his letter to the Bosniak member of the B&H Presidency Bakir Izetbegovic, he in the meantime has replied to Turner saying that that it is not his initiative, reminds Hina agency. Head of Montenegrin diplomacy explained that this country will send a new ambassador to B&H when Bosnia stops claiming its right to Sutorina, which is considered inalienable territory of Montenegro, and called the debates that are taking place in the Sarajevo an internal political issue of B&H. “We want to put the end to this issue by signing the agreement that is on the table, which was initialed by the two governments,” said Luksic, noting that the boundary lines were established at the time of the Yugoslavia breakup of. For tomorrow’s session at the B&H House of Representatives the vote on the resolution on Sutorina was announced, but it will most likely be delayed. The members of the Constitutional-Legal Commission of the Parliamentary House estimated that they need more consultation with the experts on international and constitutional law in order to make a final decision on the Sutorina issue. The territory Sutorina, on the coast of Montenegro, covers an area of ​​eighty square kilometers. A draft contract on the state border between B&H and Montenegro was established by the Council of Ministers in November 2014, after the demarcation that began in 2008. The SDP MP Denis Becirovic submitted a resolution demanding that the B&H Parliament deemed unacceptable agreement on the border with Montenegro, stating that Sutorina belongs to B&H.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Slobodan Milosevic Street? Not likely, warns Kosovo government (Reuters, by Fatos Bytyci, 9 March 2015)

PRISTINA - Kosovo's government warned ethnic Serbs on Monday not to follow through on a decision to name a street after late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, whose crackdown in the former Serbian province triggered war with NATO in 1999.

An estimated 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed in Kosovo and almost 1 million were put to flight during a brutal counter-insurgency war waged by forces under Milosevic in 1998-99, before NATO intervened with 78 days of air strikes and Kosovo embarked on a path to independence in 2008.

Ninety percent of the young country's 1.8 million people are ethnic Albanians, but a small Serb minority remains.

Online newspaper Gazeta Express reported at the weekend that the ethnic Serb-run municipality of Ranilug in eastern Kosovo had decided in September last year to name a street after Milosevic. The report carried pictures of the nameplate ready to be erected.

"For the Kosovo government such a decision is unacceptable," Bajram Gecaj, the deputy minister of local government administration, told Reuters.

"We expect from the Ranilug municipal assembly to sit and change the decision and if that does not happen then we will take the necessary action based on the law," he said.

In response, Ranilug municipal assembly head Sasa Aleksic said the decision had been shelved "for more discussion".

Milosevic was ousted from power by popular protests in Serbia in October 2000, and died in 2006 while on trial in The Hague for war crimes including genocide during the disintegration of socialist Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Inter-ethnic violence has largely subsided in Kosovo, but relations between Serbs and Albanians remain tense. Kosovo has been recognised by more than 100 countries, but Serbia refuses to follow suit.

 

Russian FM calls for equal attention to Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Libya issues, not only Crimea (TASS, 10 March 2015)

The facts of violations of international law must be studied by historians and should not be forgotten, says Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

MOSCOW Western partners should pay equal attention not only to the Crimea issue, but also to bombardments of Yugoslavia, Kosovo’s situation and Libya's collapse, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.

"As for the international law and the attention it attracts lately, primarily in connection with Crimea, we wish our Western partners were no less zealous in other cases which have happened recently in the modern history," Lavrov said.

"These include bombardments by members of the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] of another OSCE member, I mean Yugoslavia, and the situation with Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence without any referendum… alongside aggression against Iraq under blatantly false pretences, and abuse of the United Nations Security Council mandate in Libya," he said, noting that the whole state had been destroyed, and the only question now is how to prevent the collapse of other countries in the region.

"All these facts should probably be studied by historians, while we should pursue real and practical policy," Lavrov added. "But we will fail to achieve any results in this practical policy if we forget why certain events occurred in the international arena, crudely violating the international law. This should be remembered."