Belgrade DMH 051213

LOCAL PRESS

New round of Belgrade-Pristina dialogue (RTS)

The bilateral meeting between the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton and Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic within the new round of the Belgrade-Pristina negotiations in Brussels started around 1.30 p.m. Underway is the trilateral meeting among Ashton, Dacic and Hashim Thaqi. They are discussing the formation of the Union of Serb Municipalities. Dacic pointed out

Dacic voiced expectation on Wednesday that the most problematic part of today’s talks with Pristina will be the one dealing with the establishment of a basic court in northern Kosovska Mitrovica that is a home to the Serb majority, which authorities in Pristina oppose as they think that, in this way, Serbia wants to create a state within the state.”No. We simply want the ethnic structure of employees at the court to mirror the ethnic structure of population in that part of Kosovo and Metohija,” Dacic said. Dacic has said that the talks in Brussels will address the formation of a community of Serb municipalities and the establishment of Serb courts, about which working groups have held intensive talks these days.

Kocijancic: Full implementation of agreement – positive report from Ashton (Tanjug)

“The Brussels agreement has not been fully implemented, so harder work is needed on its realization so the report of EU High Representative Catherine Ashton can be as positive as possible,” stated Ashton’s spokesperson Maja Kocijancic. During today’s round of Belgrade-Pristina dialogue in Brussels, she reminded that Ashton will report to EU foreign ministers on 16 and 17 December on the achieved progress, so it is necessary to invest additional effort on implementing the agreement. Today, Ashton is having talks with Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Dacic and his Kosovo counterpart Hashim Thaqi, discussing the possibilities of accelerating the implementation of the agreement, Kocijancic added.

Still uncertain - Kosovo in one or two chapters (Tanjug)

EU member states have two more weeks to harmonize the negotiating framework for Serbia’s accession talks. The remaining dilemma is whether the issue of normalization of Belgrade-Pristina relations will be included in one chapter, which would suit Serbia, or in several ones as requested by certain EU member states. The solution, as emphasized in Belgrade, is not just a matter of formal character, but it will significantly affect the way and dynamics of negotiations with the EU. Head of Serbia’s team for negotiations Tanja Miscevic stated that the logic behind Serbia’s position is conviction that the EU integration process and the process of normalization of relations with Pristina should mutually strengthen rather than bloc each other.

EP: Committee asks for negotiations with Serbia in December (Politika/Tanjug)

The foreign policy committee of the European Parliament has adopted the draft of the resolution on Serbia, which asks for the accession talks to start in December already. The document is based on the report of rapporteur Jelko Kacin on the progress of Serbia in European integrations, and has been adopted unanimously. We have never had such consensus, Kacin said, adding that a positive signal must be sent to Serbia for hitherto efforts. In the suggested resolution, the Serbian authorities are invited to persevere in the normalization of relations with Pristina, internal reforms and battle against corruption.

Skrbic: Sarajevo will not recognize Kosovo (Novosti)

“Serbia and B&H still have a number of issues to resolve, such as borders and succession, but the overall relations between the two countries have never been better,” the newly appointed B&H Ambassador to Serbia Ranko Skrbic has in an interview for Novosti. Skrbic said that at present, it is not possible to change and the B&H Presidency is not considering changing the common position of both its entities - the Muslim-Croat Federation and Republika Srpska (RS) - not to recognize Kosovo’s independence. He recalled that the B&H Presidency was very clear when it said that B&H will follow closely and honor that which Serbia considers acceptable when it comes to the Kosovo issue. Skrbic is a former minister in the RS government and the first Serb diplomat appointed by Sarajevo to a position in Serbia. Skrbic said that he will represent official views adopted by the tripartite presidency of B&H. “The special ties between Serbia and Banja Luka are no hindrance to the relations between Belgrade and Sarajevo and B&H interests. Contrary, they can only contribute to them,” he said. Skrbic believes that regional reconciliation course is unstoppable and that Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and B&H are working on it in a constructive manner. Skrbic said that it is not realistic to expect a revision of the Dayton Agreement, which ended the civil war in B&H in November 1995, or border changes in the Balkans, stressing that a joint interest of the countries in the region is EU membership.

REGIONAL PRESS

Radmanovic: PIC less and less interesting to anyone in B&H (Radio RS)

Member of the B&H Presidency from Republika Srpska (RS) Nebojsa Radmanovic said that the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council in B&H (PIC) meets twice annually, but it is less and less interesting to anyone in B&H. “Of course, because of this it keeps the attention around the Office of the High Representative (OHR) and itself, they speak bombastically about what they will say,” said Radmanovic, adding that it is already difficult to deal with it. “The High Representative and his team constantly rewrite the same reports, and probably to this ‘little PIC’ as well, at the ambassadorial level they present what was said in the Security Council, which really isn’t an image of B&H, but rather a completely distorted view on the basis of a few individual quotes. This is headed in the direction that some people from the RS are accused of obstructing Dayton. The truth is the opposite. Dayton, in this last phase of development, is obstructed by the High Representative and he violates it most directly. This isn’t difficult to prove, either. Several politicians from Sarajevo have done the same thing since 1996, and no one accuses them of this,” claims Radmanovic. He believes that a message needs to be sent so the OHR leaves B&H. “It is time for you to leave this country and leave us to fix things ourselves, it would certainly be better for us,” said Radmanovic.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Police detain 9 former Bosnian Serb policemen suspected of crimes against humanity (AP, 4 December 2013)

Authorities say police arrested nine former Bosnian Serb policemen suspected of having expelled, deported, illegally imprisoned, tortured or killed non-Serb civilians at the beginning of the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

The state prosecution office said Wednesday that it had ordered the police to detain the suspects — seven in the northern town of Kotor Varos, one in Bileca and one Trebinje in southeast Bosnia — on suspicion of crimes against humanity.

The towns where the suspects lived and allegedly committed the crimes now are controlled by Bosnian Serbs, following the wartime expulsions and killings of the Bosniak and Croat population.

The suspects will be questioned by prosecutors who will determine whether they will be arrested.

Bosnia survivors outraged at war criminals' release (AFP, 4 December 2013)

SARAJEVO - In a bid to rectify a legal error, hundreds of convicted Bosnian war criminals are set to be released and retried under a more lenient criminal code, outraging survivors who say they fear being traumatised all over again.

Twelve war criminals have already walked free since mid-October, six of whom were found guilty of genocide for their role in the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, the worst atrocity on European soil since World War II.

"It's scandalous!" said Hatidza Mehmedovic, who heads the Srebrenica Mothers association and whose husband and two sons were among those killed by Bosnian Serb forces in the eastern town at the end of Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

"Shame on those judges who reward genocide and who continue to punish the victims! We are disgusted and we are also scared since they already started to release the worst butchers," she said.

Shame on those judges who reward genocide and who continue to punish the victims! We are disgusted and we are also scared since they already started to release the worst butchers.

The legal upset comes after the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in July ruled in favour of Goran Damjanovic -- a former Bosnian Serb soldier sentenced to 11 years for war crimes -- who argued he had been tried under the wrong criminal code.

Damjanovic said he should have been judged under the 1976 penal code that was in force when the crimes were committed, instead of being subjected to a stricter 2003 law that punishes war crimes with jail terms ranging from 10 to 45 years.

Under the previous criminal code, sentences ranged from five to 15 years, or capital punishment. Since Bosnia no longer applies the death penalty, 15 years would be the maximum punishment.

The Sarajevo-based war crimes chamber of the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina began operating in 2005 to assist the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague by dealing with lower-level cases on a national basis.

The local court has so far closed 110 cases, handing down several hundred guilty verdicts -- under what has now been deemed the wrong criminal code.

Bosnia's top constitutional court has given the war crimes tribunal three months to set a date for the retrials of those already released.

Prosecutors and the accused may also use this time to reach a deal on fast-tracking new sentences.

'A bad message'

Citing a flight risk, state prosecutors have requested that those released be kept in detention while they await their new verdicts.

But for the dozen already freed, war crimes chamber judge Dragomir Vukoje said there were currently no restrictions on their freedom.

"Since there is no longer a valid verdict against them, there is no legal basis for their detention. They are free... there are no obstacles to them having (identification) documents," Vukoje said.

Dozens of appeals for retrials are already pending, according to Dusko Tomic, a lawyer who specialises in war crimes cases.

With the scope of the fresh trials still unclear, Tomic predicted an uphill legal battle ahead if "we start all over again".

The Mothers of Srebrenica said victims had lost faith in the legal process and accused the court in a statement of sending out a "very bad message to future generations".

"The genocide verdicts were my only satisfaction," said Zejneba Cengic, whose husband and two brothers were murdered. "Is there anything human in those judges who decide to annul their verdicts?"

Bosnian Prime Minister denies plans to sell BH Telecom (CET, 4 December 2013)

The Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nermin Niksic, has told Fokus that BH Telecom will not be sold. Niksic was cited as saying these stories serve only to draw public attention from other issues. He said the government will intensify the privatisation process for companies in which it has a minority share, but that is certainly not the case with BH Telecom. He added that as long as BH Telecom achieves the results it achieves, there is no reason to privatise it.

Dzenana Karup Druško: the painful importance of the ICTY (Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, by Caterina Bonora, 4 December 2013)

Bosnian journalist Dženana Karup Druško is one among many human rights activists who sent a letter to UN Secretary General asking that an investigation be opened after the recent ICTY controversial judgments

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has always been a highly contested institution, prone to spark controversies and protests primarily but not only among the nationalist groups of the countries whose last war veteran had been found guilty at the Hague.

But this time is different. The protesters are not the nationalist crowds taking to the streets wrapped in their national flags, but those human rights groups that had always wholeheartedly supported the ICTY. They are flanked by many intellectuals, both from the region and abroad, who have been following the steps of the Tribunal since its very establishment. Though they are not all in the same degree critical of the late work of the Tribunal, they all agree that the Gotovina/Markac, Perisic and Simatovic/Stanišic judgments, issued between November 2012 and June 2013, constitute a sort of watershed in the history of the Hague Tribunal.

All of these three cases had the potential to show the direct involvement of Croatia or Serbia in the crimes committed in other countries (Bosnia Herzegovina and Croatia) during the wars of the 1990s. For instance, the condemnation of Gotovina and Markac would have sanctioned the responsibility of the Croatian army in the crimes committed against Serb civilians in Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina (BiH) during the operation Oluja (Storm) in 1995; that of Perišic would have proven the involvement of the Serbian state in the crimes committed by the Army of the Republika Srpska in BiH, among which the siege of Sarajevo and the genocide in Srebrenica; and that of Stanišic and Simatovic, the responsibility of the Serbian security services for the crimes committed by the paramilitary groups active in Bosnia Herzegovina and Croatia.

However, in all of the three cases, Serbia’s and Croatia’s involvement was denied – and not so much on the basis of lack of proof. The decisions were rather based on an interpretation of certain legal principles and standards for the attribution of responsibility that, according to some experts (e.g. Marko Milanovic and Eric Gordy), diverges from the prior jurisprudence of the Tribunal. Such alleged change in the work of the ICTY, still denied by other experts, (Marko Attila Hoare and Bogdan Ivanisevic), coupled with the presence of President Meron in the Appeals Chamber of the first two cases (he voted both times for the acquittal of the accused) provided a basis to the first doubts about the Tribunal’s impartiality. The subsequent publication of a personal letter of an ICTY judge, Frederik Harhoff, claiming that Meron had exerted pressure on the judges for acquitting the accused in all of the three cases, only further fueled the suspicions.

Finally, in late September, the international panel judging the crimes of former Liberian president Charles Taylor explicitly rejected the legal position of the ICTY in the Perišiæ case on aiding and abetting, thereby corroborating the widespread opinion that the standards lately adopted by the ICTY may be too strict.

The protest

While Judge Theodor Meron was speaking on November 27 at an event in Sarajevo to mark the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the ICTY, representatives of victims’ associations turned their back on him. Another group held up a sign with the words “R.I.P. Justice” before walking out of the hall (IWPR)

We have asked Dzenana Karup Druško, journalist for Sarajevo’s weekly magazine “Dani”, to give us her point of view of an expert who has followed the work of the Tribunal since its very establishment, as well as to comment on the reaction of the activists in Bosnia Herzegovina and in the region.

Do you think that there has been a conscious change in the way the Tribunal is making its decisions?

Most of the people that follow the work of the International Tribunal, those who have been following it constantly for a long time, all agree about one thing: this sudden change in the decision-making is attributable to fear. Fear that the standards [to attribute responsibility] established at the Hague could potentially be applied by other International Ttribunals to other countries. Some powerful countries that have concerns thousands kilometers away from their borders have a precise interest that these standards are not sanctioned by the ICTY.

Why now and not before?

It is unquestionable that the tribunal issued some excellent judgments in the past. I follow the ICTY since its establishment – it is such an important institution for Bosnia Herzegovina. If it wasn’t for the ICTY, no other Tribunal would have issued such judgments and collected such extensive documentation, so it is an institution of incredible value for us.

However, there are two problems. The first is that the Tribunal was established rather to clean the conscience of the international community for not having intervened effectively during the conflict. Hence, the architects of the Tribunal never thought it would go so far. It is thanks to the judges and prosecutors that were working for the ICTY in those first years that we have such excellent judgments.

The second problem is that in the Gotovina, Perisiæ and Simatoviæ/Stanišiæ cases there is a new international dimension. These are judgments that could have shown the international character of the conflict in Bosnia Herzegovina and proven the responsibility of the politicians and the high officials of other countries [Serbia and Croatia]. So far, the majority of the decisions of the ICTY were about local criminals, who acted within the borders of Bosnia Herzegovina and on behalf of local forces. When there was an opportunity to go a step further, with the decision of the International Court of Justice in the case Bosnia v. Serbia [in 2007], this simply did not happen. The international community could have recognized that Serbia bore responsibility for the conflict in BiH, but the international powers were not ready for that. Although they recognized that genocide was committed in Srebrenica, they proclaimed the army of the Republika Srpska as the main responsible for what happened, while Serbia was only considered responsible for not having duly prevented and punished the genocide. Similarly, Gotovina and Perisiæ, a Croatian and a Serbian official, were not considered responsible for the crimes committed in Bosnia Herzegovina and Croatia. And this brought it all to a halt.

And then the decision in the case of Stanišic and Simatovic came out, and you decided to react…

Yes, what happened with the Stanišiæ and Simatoviæ case just confirmed what was decided in the cases of Gotovina and Perišiæ. And it was interesting to see so many reactions from media and intellectuals abroad. I mean, they had never criticized the Tribunal before, for instance Eric Gordy on the New York Times. And then the letter by Harhoff came out, confirming our thesis. So we had three judgments and the letter, it became very clear to us what was going on, and we started thinking about what we could do. In fact, it was symptomatic for us that nobody from the ICTY had reacted to the publication of judge Harhoff’s letter, accusing Meron to put pressure on the judges. My informants from the ICTY say that people at the ICTY were told not to react in any way to Harhoff’s letter, and that Harhoff himself had been under pressure following the publication of his letter.

So what did you do?

We decided to go ahead and write a letter to the UN about the ICTY. At first it was just us from Novinari BiH [Journalists of Bosnia and Herzegovina] and the Center for Humanitarian Law in Belgrade. Then the Center for Humanitarian Law in Kosovo, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights from Zagreb and from Belgrade also joined, and together we wrote a letter and a petition, and sent them around to our contacts from the region. And I was surprised how fast it worked out, how readily people were replying to our emails, even people who do not normally follow the Tribunal, and some people from which I would have never expected a positive answer on this matter. But in 48 hours we collected about 300 signatures, and 100 only in the first couple hours: we had journalists, professors, doctors, and many others…

What did the letter say?

We asked Ban Ki-moon that some kind of investigation is carried out about the role of Meron, based on the allegations that Harhoff expressed in his letter, since nobody ever reacted to what happened.

Some experts of the region (Marco Attila Hoare and Bogdan Ivaniševiæ) have argued that, even if one has the right to ultimately disagree with the tribunal, protesting against it because of the acquittal of a few officials equals failing to understand the moot character of courts decisions. They claim the Tribunal has the ultimate right to decide according to the law and the evidence it possesses. And that the fact that the Tribunal decides in different ways in different cases maintains a “genuine pluralism”, as Marco Attila Hoare has called it, and bears witness to its impartiality…

All those who always supported the Tribunal now are protesting against it, yes. And? First of all we are not protesting against the Tribunal, but only against three precise judgments and a very concrete person. And why should we not have the right to comment on the judgments? I think we do have the right to comment, like anybody else. It is easy to defend the Tribunal merely on the basis that it is a Tribunal and hence only it can decide, and that it may take different stances in different cases. Also, the problem is not that it took different stances, but that in the last few judgments its stances were the same. Before, we had lower standards of responsibility and then we had judgments that established important facts: the aggression by Serbia, by Croatia, several joint criminal enterprises, we had judgments that found that genocide was committed. But now, for the first time, we have high officials on trial, who should respond for all of that. And it would be fine if there was just one judgment rejecting their responsibility, or maybe even two, Simatovic and Perišic, or Gotovina and Perišic, but all of these judgments together, denying responsibility, and right when the international nature of the conflict in Bosnia Herzegovina could have been confirmed.

Still, these latter decisions of the ICTY very clearly state that these crimes were committed and that these countries (Croatia and Serbia) were involved in them. Only, they couldn’t prove that these specific people were responsible…

You know, when the last of these decisions came out [ Stanišic and Simatovic], Dino Mustafic, one of the best known Bosnian film directors, calls me and says, “well, nothing has been proven”, and I reply “everything has been proven: the Tribunal found that all these crimes were actually perpetrated – but nobody is responsible for that”, so he asks me to explain and I say “well, the Scorpions and the other paramilitary units were armed and paid by Serbia, they did get logistical help from there, and they did kill, they did commit war crimes, but nobody is responsible for that.” And Dino replies “my human brain cannot get what you are talking about…”

So yes, of course these judgments do talk about the crimes committed and do not deny them, but the responsibilities of these countries are not sanctioned thereby. In the end, only history will be able to question or confirm what the Tribunal has done so far, but it might be too late. I mean, Bosnia has these problems now, what will happen with this war, all the armies and paramilitaries that have been on Bosnian territory? There is a lack of serious research about it in our countries, and when there is something, it is often tainted with nationalistic views.

So that’s why the decisions of the Tribunal are so important for you and you felt the need to react to what happened…

Yes, what the Tribunal says is so important for us because currently only the Tribunal enjoys the authority to write the history of what happened in Bosnia Herzegovina, and that’s about it. And this is something that the judges do not understand, not even the good ones. They think that it is enough to deliver the judgments, but they do not think about the broader context – that these judgments can be used by our politicians for their own purposes. I actually asked Brammertz [current Prosecutor of the ICTY]: isn’t it strange that victims are unhappy with these judgments, whereas politicians are satisfied with them?

 

Time to resolve the Greece-Macedonia name game (EUobserver.com, by Mose Apelblat, 3 December 2013)

BRUSSELS - The countries in Balkans find themselves in different phases in the pre-accession process but normally they do progress over the years and pass to next phase in the lengthy accession process.

The recent enlargement package of strategy and progress reports draws the attention to the odd situation of Macedonia - or as it is internationally called: the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It is the only country in the Western Balkans that has been blocked from starting negotiations because of a dispute with its neighbour Greece on a name issue.

The European Commission states with some exasperation that this is the fifth time it recommends the opening of accession negotiations with this country.

It confirms that the political criteria continue to be sufficiently met by Macedonia. The so-called High Level Accession Dialogue has contributed to progress in most priority areas, including the elimination of court backlogs and progress in the fight against corruption.

The country has already reached a high level of alignment relative to where it is in the accession process.

Dialogue on key priorities in the accession process is a useful tool and surely a lot of preparations can be done in advance of accession negotiations but it cannot replace them.

The commission warns that failure to act on its recommendation to start negotiations poses potentially serious challenges to Macedonia and to the EU.

It calls into question the credibility of the enlargement process, which is based on clear conditionality and the principle of own merits. The lack of a credible EU perspective also puts at risk the sustainability of Macedonia’s reform efforts.

Until now the name issue has been considered as a bilateral issue which needs to be solved by the two countries concerned with some mediation by United Nations.

However this approach does not seem to work. Although the issue concerns an EU member state and a candidate country, the commission has mainly stayed outside the dispute.

It seems surprising considering that the EU can use considerable leverage on both countries. To this can be added that EU is more heavily involved in trying to contribute solving other conflicts not directly in its own back-yard.

Greek Nato veto

In April 2008, Greece used its veto to block Macedonia’s bid to join the Nato. The Greek foreign minister at the time threatened that Greece would not endorse Macedonia’s EU membership so long as the name problem had not been resolved.

Since then little progress has been made. Macedonia is the name of a sovereign country and a region in northern Greece. From time to time proposals on how Greece and Macedonia should be able to agree on how to share the name, eventually by adding geographic or other identifiers, have been floated but without resulting in any agreement.

New governments have come and gone in Greece but all of them have adhered to “national red lines” on the name issue and taken the position that a solution must be found before further progress is made in Macedonia’s accession process.

Greece decided to ignore the advisory opinion issued in December 2011 by the International Court of Justice at the Hague. Following a complaint by Macedonia back in November 2008, the court ruled that Greece, by objecting to the admission of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to international organizations, breached its obligations under an Interim Accord from 1995.

A Roman province

Historically, the last reminiscence of Macedonia in ancient times was a Roman province with that name which existed for hundreds of years. The province included parts of present Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania and Greece.

Modern Greece acquired Aegean Macedonia in the first Balkan war in 1912 and it became Hellenized as the result of the exchange of populations with Turkey in 1923 after the failed Greek invasion of the Turkish main land.

To an outsider the name issue, despite its sensitiveness to both sides, seems to have grown out of all proportions.

For Greece the name Macedonia is part of its ancient history notwithstanding the fact that the Macedonian kings conquered the Greek city states and put an end to their independence. For modern Macedonia the name is part of its national identity but its attempts to usurp Alexander the Great as its national hero or founding father have been provocative.

Previous Greek governments have blamed today’s Macedonia for the losses in the Greek civil war 1946 - 49 and for having territorial claims on its northern region with the same name.

The current Greek government does not repeat such allegations. If Greece really feared ultra - nationalism in Macedonia, it had better speed up the country’s accession into EU.

Greece would have an opportunity to do it when it takes over the presidency of the EU next year but it would have to make enlargement a priority.

No country today can claim historical exclusivity to the name. Greece and Macedonia would have to agree on how to share the name.

A mutually acceptable solution can be found but it may take more time. In the meantime there is no rational reason to delay the start of accession negotiations.

Such negotiations should start under the internationally accepted name “former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and the name issue could be resolved at any time during the accession process or postponed until the very end of the process.

The writer is a former official of the European Commission and is writing in a personal capacity