LOCAL PRESS

Both Pantic and Ivanovic announcing victory in Mitrovica (Politika)

Three days remain until the second round of the local elections in Kosovo and Metohija that will be held in 25 municipalities in Kosovo and Metohija. The biggest battle in the mayoral competition will be conducted in Kosovska Mitrovica and in six municipalities south of the Ibar River – Gracanica, Strpce, Ranilug, Partes, Klokot and Novo Brdo. The election atmosphere in Kosovo doesn’t resemble the one from the previous round on 3 November. Passions have calmed down, and the campaign is rather tepid. Oliver Ivanovic, the mayoral candidate for Kosovska Mitrovica on the SDP Civic Initiative list, tells Politika that Krstimir Pantic, the mayoral candidate of official Belgrade on the Serbian (Srpska) Civic Initiative list, will receive half the votes this time since his rival and he are interlocutors of the state. “I assert that I will win and that Pantic can realistically receive only about 700 votes. People trust me, and the past before 1999 is on my side. I have recognizable capacity both in the economy and politics, a program that we will realize within certain deadlines and a team that can do a lot for northern Mitrovica. I also count on the votes of those citizens who didn’t go to the polls last time,” says Ivanovic. Pantic is convinced that he will win on 1 December and tells Politika that he counts on the votes of not only those who voted for him on 17 November, but also on those from the ranks of Bosniaks, Turks, Goranis and other minorities who have been loyal to the state of Serbia for the past 14 years. “It is impossible for me to lose from Oliver Ivanovic, because my advantage of 500 votes on 17 November gives me the right to believe in victory. Besides, Ivanovic is not the person who will lead northern Mitrovica, because the people know that he has been more inclined to the other side,” says Pantic. There has been a turnaround in Gracanica before the second round of elections. The Independent Liberal Party (SLS) led by Slobodan Petrovic, which is part of the Kosovo government, has announced that it will support the Serbian list candidate Branimir Stojanovic. Such denouement is completely unexpected because the SLS and the Serbian list had been fiercely accusing each other in the first round of the local elections. According to Srdjan Popovic, a SLS official, the decision to support Stojanovic on 1 December was passed by this party’s Gracanica board because it opines he is a better candidate than Bojan Stojanovic, their former deputy leader who now has his civic initiative Union of Kosovo Serbs. According to Bojan Stojanovic, the present Gracanica Mayor, the SLS is deceiving voters with this decision. The Serbian list responded to these accusations that the SLS is only proof that the Serbs are starting to realize where Serbia is and to identify that the Serbian list wishes them only a better future. The SLS will support the Serbian list candidate Sreten Ivanovic in Novo Brdo. The local SLS board in Ranilug has decided to support the candidate of the Serb People’s Party Milan Aritonovic. The SLS will have mayoral candidates in the second round in Klokot, Partes and Strpce. Two Serbs are competing in Zvecan, the SDP list candidate Nebojsa Vlajic and the Serbian list candidate Vucina Jankovic. 

Stefanovic: Union of Serb Municipalities guarantees survival of Serb people in Kosovo and Metohija (RTS)

“Serbia considers Kosovo and Metohija part of its territory. ,” Serbian parliament Speaker Nebojsa Stefanovic has stated in Kosovska Mitrovica, pointing out that the Union of Serb Municipalities will guarantee the survival of the Serb nation not only north of the Ibar River but throughout the province. He said that the Serbian parliament and other institutions will never allow for anything that would imply that Serbia’s statehood in Kosovo and Metohija would be trampled on. Stefanovic noted that there is a false dilemma as to whether Serbia is selling Kosovo in exchange for the EU membership, stressing that it is absolutely not true. “The Brussels agreement guarantees that we can exercise our rights to a greater extent, Kosovo cannot be an independent state, Serbia will never recognize Kosovo's independence, and Serbia has many friends across the world that will not do that either. Kosovo cannot receive UN membership,” Stefanovic said. “By receiving money from both Serbia and the EU, the community of Serb municipalities will have an opportunity to take care about citizens through economic development, which will be within its competences, through healthcare, regional police commander, courts and prosecution,” Stefanovic said at the Faculty of Philosophy in Kosovska Mitrovica.

Serbian list candidates detained (Tanjug)

The Office for Kosovo and Metohija has once again warned that pressure and intimidation of the Serb population before the second round of the local elections is a daily occurrence, noting that the Kosovo police had detained in Strpce the candidate of the Serbian (Srpska) Civic Initiative Nenad Filipovic and two more activists. “The detained people are still in the police station and they are giving statements,” reads the statement of the Office, most harshly condemning the detainment of the Serbian list candidates. The Office demands the international community, especially EULEX and the OSCE, to put an end to blatant violence that has been conducted against members and sympathizers of the Serbian list, recalling that their mandates also bind them to do this. “No pressure will intimidate honest people from the Serbian list from becoming definite winners in the second round of the local elections on 1 December,” reads the statement. The Office reminds that it has been nearly 24 hours since the detention of Zoran Stojanovic from Pasjane.

Serbs united in Novo Brdo (Radio Serbia, by Snezana Milosevic)

The Serbs make a two-third majority in the municipality of Novo Brdo, but in the first round of the elections the Albanian candidate won most votes. Namely, there are five Serb candidates running for the post of a mayor. With such a dispersion of votes, it was natural that the Albanian candidate profited, but there are realistic chances to change the situation. The Serbs from Novo Brdo have finally got together and decided unanimously to vote for the candidate of the Serbian (Srpska) Civic Initiative list. A wide consensus of politicians and public officials in this region is completed by the distinguished citizens, who believe Ivanovic’s victory is in the interest of all Serbs who live there.

The representative of the Independent Liberal Party (SLS) Ranko Makic has invited the citizens to vote for the Serb candidate in this round. The same message was sent by Sasa Milosevic, on behalf of the Civic Initiative “Survival”. Srdjan Jovanovic, who was the candidate of the Civic Initiative “Future” in the first round, believes that the time has come to change some things in the municipality. “A few of us have tried to win the Serb electorate in the first round, but we failed. I think Svetislav Ivanovic is now the best choice for our municipality, and I hope the voters understand it, too,” Jovanovic pointed. Dragan Zivkovic, representing the list “Joint future for Novo Brdo”, also expects that in the second round Ivanovic will get the trust of the Serb community.

As a candidate for the mayor of the Novo Brdo municipality, Svetislav Ivanovic himself is of the opinion this is the decisive moment for the Serbs in this area. “The support I got form all political subjects is very important to me, and at the same time it is a great responsibility. I will try to justify their trust,” says Ivanovic.

In the first round, the Albanian candidate Bajrush Imeri, from the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo, got 1,652 votes, i.e. approximately 300 more than Ivanovic. Based on the unofficial data of the Central Electoral Commission, out of 15 delegate seats in the municipality of Novo Brdo, the Serbs have won 10, and Albanians 5.

Lagumdzija: B&H-Serbia relations improving (Tanjug)

“Relations between B&H and Serbia are on the upswing, and the Serbian leadership is obviously more than willing to improve relations with its neighbors, particularly with B&H,” B&H Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija has told Tanjug. “I think the climate in the entire region is better now than it was in the past 15 years. Relationship between any two countries in the region, especially in the group of countries made up of Serbia, B&H and Croatia, and also Montenegro, have never been better, despite the many open issues,” said Lagumdzija, who is also deputy chairman of the B&H Council of Ministers. Commenting on the upcoming joint meeting of the Council of Ministers and the Serbian Government, which has been postponed due to a B&H government reshuffle, Lagumdzija said that the meeting is a milestone in overall relations between B&H and Serbia. The meeting, Lagumdzija said, carries “a lot of content and symbolism.” It is seen as an opportunity to resolve outstanding issues and step up cooperation and is therefore awaited with great impatience. One of the major open-ended questions is the border question, as formally, it has not been fully drawn yet. Another issue is the claims of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia states for their share of the former country, and the resolution of property issues. “I believe that we will be able to resolve these issues. During my last visit to Belgrade, I had meetings with Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic, First Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar)Vucic and Foreign Minister Ivan Mrkic and I really saw an openness to our working together,” said Lagumdzija. The meeting will be a good opportunity to discuss starting certain economic and other projects, pointing out that B&H is preparing for the World Cup in Brazil, where the country does not have an embassy mission, and Belgrade has. I expect that Serbia will help us there, and I have found an open door, Lagumdzija said. Lagumdzija said that Serbia has made great strides in European integration, especially after the April 19 Brussels agreement between Belgrade and Pristina, while B&H is still where it was 12 years ago. “I wish to congratulate Serbia for its achievements on the European path,” Lagumdzija said, adding that he is happy about Croatia’s becoming an EU member, as it will help B&H move faster on its road to Europe. He stressed that B&H foreign policy consists of three main objectives, which are also the three “instruments of change” for domestic affairs – the EU, moving towards NATO integration and regional cooperation.

REGIONAL PRESS

Radoncic: Arabs should be banned to purchase real estate in B&H (BH Radio)

B&H Minister of Security Fahrudin Radoncic has confirmed that B&H is facing the problem of the settlement of Arabs and announced the possibility of soon passing a law that would stop citizens of Arab countries to massively come to B&H and purchase real estate on its territory, with the intention of also staying. “I don’t expect there will be a problem of passing this law in the B&H Parliamentary Assembly, and then it is the turn of the B&H Prosecution to do its job,” Radoncic told the BH Radio. “We will request legal solutions for the country to be protected from that kind of virus,” stressed Radoncic, who opines that at issue are no Kuwaitis, but a tendency for Kuwait to free itself from people who have in a way moved to this country from different countries. “They are giving them money to purchase real estate throughout B&H, they are removing them from their territory and throwing them to us.” Due to the more massive departure of B&H citizens to the battlefields in Syria, the B&H Ministry of Security has initiated the passing of a legal solution that would sanction participation in paramilitary and parapolice forces. The draft law is already under parliamentary procedure. Commenting on this law, Radoncic told BH Radio that B&H was paying the price of frivolity when the mujahedins were brought during the war. “After that we got the Wahabis, now we have the departure of young people to Syria and an indication and political sponsorship of brining so-called Kuwaitis and their settlement in B&H.”  

Ban for all flags, except the Montenegrin (Politika’s correspondent in Podgorica)

Not only the Serbs, who make up more than 32 percent of the population in Montenegro, but also Croats, Muslims, Albanians, and Bosniaks, will not be able to use their national symbols, as they used to in the past, because this right will be denied to them with the new law on usage and public display of symbols. Representatives of Albanian parties in the Montenegrin parliament have stated they will not support that law even though its author is the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights. The new law envisages fines between 2,000 and 20,000 Euros (for legal entities) for not respecting the regulations. The fine for “a responsible person in the legal entity” is between 300 and 2,000 Euros, and the same amount is valid for the individual, while the fine for entrepreneurs is between 500 and 6,000 Euros.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

EU Serbia Talks May Start December, Ambassador Says (BIRN, 27 November 2013)

German ambassador said he was optimistic about Serbia’s chances of starting EU membership talks as soon as December 20.

Heinz Wilhelm told the Serbian news agency Tanjug on November 26 that he hoped Serbia would start EU membership talks on December 20.

According to Wilhelm, Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic should by then have held two meetings with his Kosovo counterpart Hashim Thaci, with the first on December 5 and the second on December 13.

“It is too early to say whether the European Council will adopt a decision to launch Serbian accession talks on December 20,” Wilhelm said, adding that he was optimistic that the decision would be made, however.

He underscored that much work had now been done and that several points have been implemented in terms of the Brussels agreement between Belgrade and Pristina on normalizing their relations.

But he said it was common knowledge that more progress needed to be made in the two remaining areas, covering police and the judiciary, by December 20.

Wilhelm said it was essential for concerns about the police and the judiciary to be tackled before the meeting of the European Council.

The EU granted Serbia candidate status in March 2012. In April 2013, the Commission recommended opening negotiations on accession.

“The Commission considers that Serbia has met the key priority of taking steps towards a visible and sustainable improvement of relations with Kosovo,” it said.

Serbian bid to house asylum seekers foiled after barracks burnt down (Reuters, by Ivana Sekularac, 28 November)

BELGRADE - Serbian authorities suffered a setback in their bid to relocate hundreds of asylum seekers from a freezing forest on Thursday after a barracks they planned to use was torched following a protest by local residents.

The government in the European Union candidate country has faced growing criticism over its failure to house a rising tide of migrants, mainly from Africa and the Middle East, who have legally sought asylum.

With the arrival of the first winter snow, around 300 migrants have been living rough in a forest because Serbia's two asylum centres are full.

Attempts to build a third centre have so far been thwarted by local protests.

On Wednesday, authorities tried to move dozens of the asylum seekers to temporary accommodation in an abandoned workers barracks some 30 kilometres southwest of the capital Belgrade. Villagers, however, blocked roads and the migrants spent most of the day on buses.

One of the barracks, of some 400 square metres, was razed to the ground overnight and two others were damaged by fire, police said. One person was arrested.

"Last night they (the asylum seekers) were accommodated in a hotel in Obrenovac so they could get a meal and take a shower," said Jelena Maric, a spokeswoman for Serbia's Commissariat for Refugees and Migration, which deals with the issue on behalf of the Serbian government.

"This is temporary," she said. "We are not going to give up."

As the EU squeezes traditional migration routes via the Mediterranean, migrants are increasingly trying their luck through the countries of the former Yugoslavia to reach Serbia's northern neighbour Hungary in Europe's borderless Schengen zone.

The turmoil of the Arab Spring, and particularly the war in Syria, have fed a rise in numbers, mainly through Turkey and Greece.

In Serbia, the number of people seeking asylum has shot up from 52 in 2008 to almost 4,000 so far this year. Serbia's two asylum centres hold around 250 people.

Serbia is obliged by law to provide accommodation and identification papers to anyone who seeks asylum, until their request is dealt with. Serbia rarely grants asylum, but requests can take up to a year to be processed.

Josip Simunic and Croatia: Fifa opens proceedings (BBC, 25 November 2013)

Fifa has begun disciplinary proceedings against Josip Simunic and Croatia for the events that followed the World Cup play-off win over Iceland.

Defender Simunic, 35, was fined £2,600 by Croatian prosecutors for "spreading racial hatred" after appearing to lead fans in a chant with pro-Nazi connotations following the 2-0 win.

He denies any political intent.

But Croatian prosecutors say he knew the chant was used by the country's pro-Nazi regime during World War II.

Fifa was awaiting a report from match officials and gathering information from Football Against Racism in Europe observers before deciding whether to take action.

“Even the thought that someone could put me in the context of incitement of hatred or violence is horrible”   said Josip Simunic.

A spokesman has now told BBC Sport: "Proceedings were opened against Simunic for his own behaviour and other proceedings were opened against Croatia for improper conduct of the spectators."

Footage shows Simunic shouting "for the homeland" over a microphone - the fans respond "ready".

The chant has associations with the Ustasha, Croatia's rulers during World War II.

The Dinamo Zagreb player was celebrating with team-mates and supporters after the southern Europe side reached next summer's finals in Brazil with Tuesday's 2-0 victory in Zagreb.

Australia-born Simunic said in a statement released on Wednesday: "Even the thought that someone could put me in the context of incitement of hatred or violence is horrible.

"As a Croatian who was born and grew up outside my homeland, I associate home with love, warmth and positive struggle - everything that we showed on the pitch to win our place in the World Cup.

"And these were the only reasons I got carried away with my emotions and why I started the kind of exchange with the supporters."

The chant, coupled with the Nazi salute, has been used by Croatia fans in the past, leading to disciplinary punishments from Fifa and Uefa.

Immediately after Tuesday's match, Simunic said: "Some people have to learn some history. I'm not afraid. I'm supporting my Croatia, my homeland. If someone has something against it, that's their problem."

Bosnia region’s president charged with abuse of office (Reuters, 27 November 2013)

SARAJEVO - The president of Bosnia's autonomous Muslim-Croat federation was indicted on Wednesday over alleged corruption and abuse of office for pardoning convicts sentenced for grave crimes, the highest-ranking Bosnian official to face such charges.

The Bosnian state prosecutor's office said in a statement Zivko Budimir and six others faced charges of taking bribes and illegal mediation, in a case it said had "endangered the security of citizens".

The indictment is the latest twist in a long-running saga which saw Budimir detained and briefly jailed earlier this year. He has denied any wrongdoing in the case.

The state court must still confirm the indictment and Budimir's political fate remains unclear. He can be dismissed from office only by the Constitutional Court on an initiative by a two-thirds majority in the Federation parliament.

Under a deal that ended Bosnia's 1992-95 war, the country was split into a Federation, dominated by Muslim Bosniaks and Croats, and a Serb Republic.

Bosnia, in Peril Once More (New York Times, by Kati Marton Op-Ed Contributor, 28 November 2013)

Early in President Obama’s first term, in May 2009, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. paid a visit to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Addressing Parliament, he told Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian members, “My country is worried. ... We have seen a sharp and dangerous rise in nationalist rhetoric.” Such inflammatory speech, he said, “must stop.” Otherwise, he warned, “You will descend into the ethnic chaos that defined your country for a decade.”

Since then, other than the inauguration of a new American Embassy in Sarajevo by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2010, there has been little engagement by the United States and no follow-up to Mr. Biden’s words. Instead, the situation Mr. Biden described is being enacted: Bosnia is slipping back into a dangerous sectarianism.

Milorad Dodik, president of Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb entity, is rewriting the narrative of the war — claiming that Muslims started it. Mr. Dodik denies Serbian responsibility for genocide in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys; he recently testified on behalf of the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, on trial in The Hague for war crimes.

Eighteen years ago, it was American diplomacy, backed by force, that ended Europe’s most savage conflict since World War II. The 1995 peace treaty forged in Dayton, Ohio, stopped ethnic cleansing — the term coined in those Balkan wars — and gave birth to a new country. Now, while Bosnia and Herzegovina’s fragile unity is fraying, the international community is as disengaged as when war first erupted in 1992. The United States has much at stake; it needs to return to Sarajevo.

Superficially, peace and prosperity reign in Sarajevo. Its skyline of mingled minarets, Orthodox domes and synagogues belies the West’s convenient myth of Bosnia’s “ancient ethnic animosities.” The city has been largely rebuilt, with a fine opera house and one of the world’s richest libraries. But a visit to the Sarajevo tunnel, built by the Bosnian Army to resupply the besieged city surrounded by Serbian forces, is a ready reminder of how quickly that shiny metropolis once turned into a city of cave dwellers. The tunnel is a dark and damp hole in the ground through which 4,000 Sarajevans hauled potatoes and guns each day, crawling in mud for 40 minutes each way, to keep from starving.

The European Union has now claimed authority over the country, and the United States has yielded. This is akin to returning a child to abusive parents. Sarajevans still recall Sir David Owen, one of a string of European “peace” negotiators, warning them not to dream of Europe’s coming to their rescue. So, for nearly four years, Serbian snipers were able to pick off women and children as they lined up for bread. The siege lasted three times longer than Stalingrad and cost 11,000 lives before Washington engaged and ended the massacre.

During those negotiations, the architect of the Dayton Accords (and my husband), Richard C. Holbrooke, sometimes asked me to take whichever of the warlords he was having trouble with for a walk: “Make him talk about his dreams for his children and grandchildren.” That proved impossible: These men were entirely focused on war, on holding on to land and power. The current crop of Bosnian politicians reminds me of those I knew in Dayton.

True, the Dayton Accords have held the peace, but no treaty can serve as a nation’s permanent constitution. Richard predicted it would be only as good as its implementation — and Dayton is being neither implemented nor updated. Washington’s current policy, as declared by Assistant Secretary of State Philip H. Gordon in Sarajevo in 2011, was summed up by an embassy official for me as “Pull your socks up!”

Bosnia’s fractious Parliament can’t agree on words to a national anthem, much less common foreign or economic policy. Meanwhile, Washington’s disengagement has only emboldened nationalists like Mr. Dodik.

“They are just playing with our wounds,” Orhan Pasalic, a Bosnian soldier turned banker, told me. Muslim, Serbian and Croatian leaders address only their own peoples. No one speaks to the country as a whole.

In Sarajevo, Mr. Pasalic’s children no longer share classrooms with other ethnicities. They have no personal memories of war’s horror, yet they will soon face an economy with 40 percent unemployment and may not stay passive for long. How long before the next Milosevic lights the fuse?

The European Union is empowered to stop this slide. Yet its high representative, Valentin Inzko, who has broad powers under Dayton, spends roughly two days a week in Sarajevo. For the rest, I hear, he tends his stables outside Vienna. If Bosnia disintegrates — already the Republika Srpska threatens to secede — the guns may return to the hills around Sarajevo. Then another flood of refugees will pour across European borders, and Europe will again be mired in an avoidable, predictable spasm in the Balkans.

After more than a decade of the “war on terror,” the United States is wary of intervention, but no one is advocating American boots on the ground. In Bosnia, where we did once intervene to stop the massacre of Muslims, all it will take is the kind of determined diplomacy that ended the war in 1995. Only the United States, which has so much moral authority invested in this fragile peace, is up to that job.

Kati Marton is a former chairwoman of the Committee to Protect Journalists and is the author, most recently, of “Paris: A Love Story.”