LOCAL PRESS

Dacic: Problems in Kosovo solved every day (Tanjug)

Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic has stated that the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue will continue in Brussels after the holidays, but an exact date is yet to be determined, and he also underlined that problems in Kosovo are being resolved every day. “For the time being, it is certain that the working groups of Belgrade and Pristina will hold a meeting on 9 January,” Dacic said, adding that, even without that meeting, everyday problems are being solved, that being mostly the responsibility of Aleksandar Vulin, Serbian Minister without Portfolio in charge of Kosovo and Metohija. The idea of Brussels is that the next round of the dialogue be held on 17 January, he said, adding that he has not approved that date yet.

Vulin: Pristina trying to slow down forming of Union of Serb Municipalities (RTS)

Serbian Minister without Portfolio in charge of Kosovo and Metohija Aleksandar Vulin has accused Pristina of attempting to slow down the process of forming the Union of Serb Municipalities. They are trying to hinder the constitution of municipal authorities in northern Kosovo, thus impeding the establishing of the Union of Serb Municipalities, Vulin emphasized. He said that Pristina will also have to discuss with Belgrade the subject of the industrial complex “Trepca” and the state property in Kosovo and Metohija. Since 2003 Serbia has paid more than 500 million Euros for interests and principles of the loans taken to build the thermal power plants “Obilic A” and “Obilic B”, and which the state is not using, Vulin specified.

Vulin: 2014 – year of stabilization for Kosovo Serbs (Novosti)

Minister Vulin has stated that 2014 will be the year of the political stabilization and economic progress for the Serbs in Kosovo. He pointed those were two aspects that go hand in hand. Without political stability for the Kosovo Serbs there can be no economic progress, and without that there can be no life, Vulin stressed, while adding that is the aim of the action “Thousand jobs by 1 July”. The Minister has attended the mining of the Buljanovac hill on the road Kosovska Mitrovica-Zubin Potok, in northern Kosovo, for the purposes of building a tunnel as part of the works on the construction of a regional water supply system.

Bishop Teodosije: Serb heritage important issue (Beta/Jedinstvo)

The Raska-Prizren Bishop Teodosije has said that it is very important to open the issue of long-term protection of the Serb spiritual and cultural heritage in Kosovo and Metohija as part of the Brussels negotiations. At the moment, there are certain laws and privileges which have been secured by the Kosovo institutions under the international influence, but this is not enough, Bishop Teodosije said in an interview for Kosovska Mitrovica-based weekly Jedinstvo. Without written guarantees and the EU’s consent to provide long-term guarantees for uniqueness and inviolability of the Serb holy sites, the survival of our heritage will be extremely uncertain, Bishop Teodosije underlined.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

Dodik: RS shows stability in year full of challenges (Oslobodjenje)

The Republika Srpska (RS) President Milorad Dodik has stated that the RS, during this year “full of challenges, showed the capability to operate with reduced resources,” and that “there were constant attacks on the status and autonomy of the RS and socio-economic challenges.” “We succeeded in preserving the economy, and all statistics show slight GDP growth. We retained full liquidity and we serviced all our obligations on time,” he said. He noted that constant claims by the opposition – that there would not be regular payment of pensions – proved to be untrue, and that they even increased. Dodik said that no one would say “the milk and honey are flowing” in the RS, but it is important that in terms of challenges it showed the ability to not collapse the entire system. “And there were challenges. We were exposed to enormous pressures for constitutional changes in B&H,” said Dodik in a statement to reporters in Banja Luka, where he noted that it is important that the RS has no visible questions of being threatened, and forthcoming is the persistent struggle for better socio-economic positioning.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Santa gangs rob jewelry shops in Albania, Kosovo (AFP, 27 December 2013)

TIRANA: Four armed men dressed as Santa robbed a jewellery shop in a Tirana mall, police said Thursday while another "Santa gang" injured two people during a robbery in neighbouring Kosovo.

The four thieves, armed with automatic weapons, burst into the Tirana shop on Tuesday, threatening the owner at gunpoint as they filled sacks with luxury goods, Interior Ministry spokesman Florion Seriani told AFP.

Seriani said their abandoned car was found two kilometres (1.2 miles) from Tirana´s TEG shopping mall.

Police found two automatic weapons in the trash can near the mall, believed to belong to the thieves.

And in neighbouring Kosovo on Thursday, two people were injured when three armed men dressed as Santa fled a jewellery shop after robbing it in the southern town Prizren, media in Tirana reported.Kosovo police were not available for comment.

8 Bosnian war victims identified (World Bulletin, 26 December 2013)

Found and identified are 8 bodies of Bosniaks who were killed in the Bosnian war, 17 years old boy among them.

8 victims from the Bosnian war were identified on Thursday at the Commemorative Center Tuzla (CCT).

Victims are Bosniaks from municipalities of Srebrenica, Zvornik, Vlasenica, Kalesija and Osmaci whose bodies were found at the mass graves at the Podrinje site in eastern Bosnia, confirmed Lejla Cengic, spokeswoman to the Institute for Missing Persons (IMP) in Bosnia.

"Identified are bodies of 2 women and 6 men. Among them is Hazim Hasanovic, who was 17 years old when he was killed in 1995 in Srebrenica," said Cengic.

At the CCT families of the victims today again recalled and experienced the horrors of war.

After 20 years of search, Aisa Mustafic from Srebrenica on Thursday identified the body of her husband who disappeared in 1992. The last time she saw him was when he went to Srebrenica.

"I have only heard that he was wounded and that was all. For 20 years I waited to hear something about him. My children and I wanted to know where his bones were, at least," said Aisa.

As she explained, she was called 2 days ago and told that some of her husband's body remains were found. She came to identify him.

Identity of the victims was determined based on the DNA analysis and today their familly members identified them officially.

Next to the families of the victims at the CCT present were a forensic pathologist, representatives of the Prosecutor's Office in Bosnia and Herzegovina and IMP.

20 years after the war, in Bosnia and Herzegovina families are still searching for 6,500 missing persons. Body excavations from the discovered mass graves at different locations around the country are still ongoing.

Izetbegovic blames SDP for chaos in Bosnia (Hina, 26 December 2013)

Bosnian Presidency member Bakir Izetbegovic said on Thursday the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina was "chaotic", blaming the parties making up the parliamentary majority for that, notably the coalition leader, the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

Speaking to the press in his capacity as vice president of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), he did not rule out the possibility of discussing a possible alliance with the SDP after elections in October 2014, even though the SDP ousted the SDA from the ruling coalition in 2012.

Responding to a question, he said a coalition with the SDP might happen, "depending on their results."

Izetbegovic did not rule out the possibility of drawing closer to the Alliance for a Better Future, led by incumbent Security Minister Fahrudin Radoncic. However, Izetbegovic accused him of a "destructive relationship" that had hampered such cooperation so far.

Izetbegovic praised Zeljko Komsic's Democratic Front as a new party with "the biggest potential."

He voiced confidence that the SDA would win the majority vote among the Bosniak people at next year's election.

Creeping towards fascism? Croatia tests European (The Conversation, by Binoy Kampmark, 25 December 2013)

The European experiment, managed through the ever clunky apparatus of the European Union, has attempted to paper over historical fault lines

Europe is filled with historical fault lines – the Greek-Anatolian, the Balkans, Iberian and central Europe. The European experiment, managed through the ever clunky apparatus of the European Union, has attempted to paper over these problems.

Bureaucracy shall neutralize conflict. At the very least, it will create new products of paperwork: the new European, one of moral uplift and aware of the civil and social liberties associated with the project.

The recent referendum in Croatia, in which 66% of its population supported a constitutional ban on gay marriage, creates the latest flashpoint in the battle over what the paperwork European should look like. The centre-left Croatian government of prime minister Zoran Milanovic has supported same-sex marriage. The petitioners favoring a ban got the required 10% or more of registered voters to put the issue to a referendum and the majority rejected the state position.

The initiator of the referendum, Vice John Batarelo, an Australian-born Croat with a nationalist vice, has been saddled with the tag of pioneer – if launching a conservative revolution qualifies him as that. He was opposed to “gender ideology” and keen on using a citizen’s initiative regarding unions.

Gay marriage ban, language next

The referendum on same-sex marriage is to be followed by another: a vote on banning the use of Cyrillic.

Anti-Cyrillic campaigners got a fillip in September when war veterans expressed indignation at the use of new bilingual signs in Latin and Cyrillic in Vukovar, scene of savage fighting during the Balkans wars of the 1990s. In fits of rage, many of the signs were torn down. This inspired Ivan Gavric of the Committee for the Defence of Croatian Vukovar to push for a collection of signatures to force a referendum.

The administrative measure regarding language was understandable: a third of the population in that region remains Serb. But Gavric, with a cunning, even beguiling manner, argues that Croatia is simply conforming to EU laws. No, the Croatians would not be discriminating, but simply keen to: Synchronize Croatian law with that of progressive, Western EU member states.

Minority rights, by Gavric’s rather obtuse reasoning, should only apply where the minority is a near majority. How easily does nationalist sentiment gnarl logic.

Such views are tense and tedious nonsense. The Serbo-Croat language was a composition of genius, a creature unusual for having both Latinate and Cyrillic script. Serbs use both, while Gavric and his followers insist that all residents should only use one. Invariably, such battles of language have repercussions. The Cyrillic dogmatists are bound to want to make a point across the border when the time comes.

Nationalists on the march

When Croatia decided to remove itself from the Yugoslavian federation, it was clear that the nationalist disease had become irrepressible. Croatia proceeded to secede with resolve, removing what Serbs it could from its territories and continuing its effort to build a nationalist Catholic state.

In April 1997, Chris Hedges wrote in The New York Times that fascism had been reborn “as Croatia’s Founding Fathers”. He was not exaggerating. Fascist war songs were sung; the Ustaše Nazi-allied wartime government was being rehabilitated. Much of this was the work of president Franjo Tudjman and his Croatian Democratic Union party.

Hedges noted opposition then, just as there is opposition now, to such nationalist indulgences. Newspaper editor Viktor Ivancic, known for his contrarian work for the satirical Feral Tribune, claimed that the “majority of Croats oppose this rehabilitation”. They were simply crippled by fear, concerned about the potential violence of neo-fascist groups. And so, history repeats itself in bloody rhyme.

The Balkans seemed to be that very invention designed to pose nationalist problems with nationalist non-solutions. Schemes of co-operation have been tried and have not worked. Dissent would disintegrate into bloodshed.

Croats voted by a two-to-one margin to limit marriage to being between a man and a woman. EPA/Antonio Bat

Foreign powers capitalized on this. It is striking that some observers, notably from the non-Western press, argue that the EU’s liberal “dictatorship” is propelling the Croatian nationalist movement. In the Russian paper Pravda, the rather glib observation was made that the “European Union takes Croatia to fascism".

In the same paper, the views of researcher Anna Filimonova, of the Centre for the Study of the Balkans Crisis Institute of Slavic Studies, make interesting reading. Filimonova told Pravda:

The EU is governed by the norms that seemingly have never been recorded, but that everyone must comply with. We can talk about a certain neoliberal dictatorship…

As the Croatian economy was going to seed, it did not want the EU to dictate “how to behave in intimate life”, Filimonova said. When the house is falling down, you want to preserve all you’ve got.

Of course, the laws do no such thing. The ban suggests compulsion, and the same-sex rules imply choice. But the view is correct on one vital aspect: many states in the EU have had their sovereignty worn down, so much so that their governments remain merely the glorified retainers of Brussels and Luxembourg.

A titanic battle between government will and the voters has ensued. The Croatian government has claimed that it will refuse to abide by a vote for a ban on Cyrillic. It is none too enthusiastic about the negative vote against same-sex marriage either.

These events demonstrate all too clearly how the Croatian problem is a European one writ large, as traditionalist pressures and democratic tensions collide.

Binoy Kampmark does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.