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LOCAL PRESS

 

Dacic on UN Security Council session (RTS’ correspondent Nenad Zafirovic in New York)

The United Nations Security Council will hold a session where it will examine the regular quarterly report by the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, and where outgoing Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic will be speak. In a statement for Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS), Dacic pointed to the problems that still exist and that concern the non-respect of some basic human rights, as well as issues of security and property of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Dacic said it was very important to note that Serbia doesn’t want to “throw out” completely the UN from the dialogue process with Pristina. “The previous government accepted, with a General Assembly resolution, for the dialogue to be conducted with the EU mediation, but all this based on the mandate that exists on the basis of UNSCR 1244,” explains Dacic. He points out that Serbia has not and will not change its stand on the status issue of Kosovo and Metohija, but that it is working on normalization of relations. “If someone wishes to discuss this issue, we are ready. That issue has not be resolved finally as Pristina states, and it hasn’t because this issue can never be resolved without Serbia’s consent and an agreement with Serbia, and it can’t be resolved without the UN in the first place,” stresses Dacic. He says he will mention the arrests in Kosovo over the past ten days, primarily the arrest of Oliver Ivanovic, one of the mayoral candidates for Kosovska Mitrovica, as well as several issues that are undermining stability in Kosovo. He reminds that he will leave from New York for Brussels, where he will be joined by the outgoing First Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic in order to continue the talks on the judiciary with the Pristina representatives. “We have presented our compromise proposals and I don’t know what else we can do. It is obvious that Thaqi has estimated in this election period that it doesn’t suit him to make political compromises and it is a question if we will be able to reach a compromise at all,” concluded Dacic.

 

Government guarantees for four arrested Serbs (RTS)

The Serbian Government has provided guarantees that Oliver Ivanovic, Dragoljub Delibasic, Laza Lazic and Zarko Veselinovic, who are in custody in Kosovo and Metohija, will be available to EULEX for the duration of the entire trial, the Government said in a release. The guarantees provided by the Serbian Government represents a request to the EULEX Mission to enable them to be released pending trial, reads the statement.

 

Deadline expires for four Serb municipalities (Beta)

The sessions of four assemblies in northern Kosovo, where the municipal leadership should be elected, could be held today. Beta learns that the sessions in northern Kosovska Mitrovica, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposavic have not been scheduled officially, but it is mentioned in consultations that they could be held at 10p.m. If the municipalities do not elect leaderships in the legal deadline, the local elections could be repeated.

 

Goranis support SNS (Beta)

The Main Board of the Gorani Civic Initiative has decided for this party to support the list headed by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) at the early parliamentary elections, the Gorani Civic Initiative announced. “The Gorani Civic Initiative calls all Goranis who reside in Serbia proper and in Kosovo and Metohija to vote for the coalition, i.e. list headed by Aleksandar Vucic. “This Initiative will launch tomorrow an active campaign on promoting the list ‘Aleksandar Vucic – the future I trust’ among its voters,” said the leader of this Initiative Orhan Dragas. This party has announced that, as the only political and national organization of the Goranis in Serbia, “it has recognized only in Aleksandar Vucic and the list he heads a chance for a better life of all citizens in Serbia and establishment of a strong state.” “Without a strong state, the Goranis remain on the bleakness of human rights violations and they would be silent observers of the increasing destruction of the only state they have, Serbia,” reads the statement.

 

Radic: Pristina forming army (Radio Serbia, by Suzana Mitic)

The intention of the Albanian authorities in Pristina to form its armed forces is beyond doubt, and it is clear they have the support of the West in such striving, military analyst Aleksandar Radic told Radio Serbia, in comment to the reports of some media that the Kosovo government had discussed behind closed doors the possibility of transforming the Kosovo Security Forces after the model of the U.S. National Guard. In a way, it is a logical step after the international recognition of Kosovo by the countries that have political domination in the modern world, Radic says. Regardless of the intensity of disagreement from the Serbs, the forming of those forces is now practically imminent, Radic explains, adding that the model is sought to somehow soften the fact that at issue are the armed forces, probably through the use of certain titles or symbols. No matter if such forces are called the national guard of security forces, as the current case, it is certain that Serbia will have to face the reality of Kosovo having its own armed forces, our collocutor underlined.

Asked why this subject is brought at this precise moment, Radic responds there is no place for looking for some daily political moments in something that is essentially a process. Now that Serbia has accepted the political agreement regarding Kosovo, there is no doubt we are counting the last days until finding out that the Albanian political authorities in Pristina have their own armed forces, he believes.

Radic is of the opinion that in the future we may also expect the pressure on Serbia to accept as a fact the existence of those forces. NATO sees this region as a unified area, and will probably persevere in including all west Balkan countries through various activities, thus achieving some degree of security predictability in the area, but it will be a serious challenge. Namely, since the very beginning of the Albanian armed forces we will have the situation in which Serbia will, naturally, express its political protest by distancing itself from all joint activities with those forces. It means not partaking in any regional maneuvers, or those on a wider international scale, in which the soldiers wearing the symbols of Pristina authorities might appear, said Aleksandar Radic.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Vucic: Solving disputes in elections (RTS)

I guarantee peace in this country, First Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said at the joint press conference with the leaders of two strongest parties in the Republika Srpska (RS) Milorad Dodik and Mladen Bosic. Beatings, violence, hooliganism and vandalism cannot lead to any good, and all differences among the political rivals in B&H and the RS ought to be solved in a democratic atmosphere and fair elections. Vucic has said that the matter of political, economic and social instability of the RS is also important for Serbia, which strives for the stability in the region, as it is of central importance. “Serbia is one of the rare states in the region that has not been exposed to some kind of instability in the past year and a half, and it is the key reason for its progress and praise around the world. In line with the Dayton Accord, Serbia has certain role in its implementation, and our desire is to preserve the stability in the region, both political and economic. I will not say anything bad about B&H, as Dodik has the right to do it, but I do not,” Vucic pointed, adding that Serbia is a sovereign country and respects the sovereignty of others.

 

Dodik: Serbia must be involved in B&H (Srna)

The Republika Srpska (RS) President Milorad Dodik said that Serbia, as a signatory to and guarantor of the Dayton Agreement, must be involved when it comes to the situation in B&H, stressing that Vucic’s interest should be taken as well-meaning and the purpose of the meeting as a need to stay informed. Dodik said that he informed Vucic of the stable situation in the RS, in which all institutions are functioning, and that every possible escalation of protests will be prevented in the RS, adding that the protests in the B&H Federation are politically motivated.
“The RS will remain stable and will demonstrate its attitude towards democratic development in the elections, and we are all united in this,” Dodik said.

 

Bosic: We will not remove Dodik from power in the streets (Srna)

The SDS leader Mladen Bosic stressed that they agreed at the meeting with Vucic and Dodik that the events in the FBiH are dangerous processes which could escalate and that it is crucial for Republika Srpska to remain stable. “These are violent protests which resemble the ‘Arab spring.’ It is clear that no one in the RS wants violent protests and riots. We know that many RS citizens are dissatisfied, that there are problems with corruption and low living standard, but we in the SDS do not intend to remove Dodik from power in the streets,” Bosic said.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Bosnia draws back from unrest, protesters vow to persist (Reuters, by Maja Zuvela and Daria Sito-Sucic, 8 February 2014)

SARAJEVO/TUZLA - Bosnia drew back on Saturday from three days of unprecedented unrest over unemployment, political paralysis and corruption that for some brought back painful memories of the Balkan country's 1992-95 war.

Small protests were held in the capital, Sarajevo, in northwestern Bihac, where protesters threw stones at the home of the head of the cantonal government, Mostar in the west and the central town of Bugojno.

But there was little sign of the kind of rioting that has left hundreds of people injured, most of them police officers.

Police in Mostar were out in force, stopping and checking cars entering the town, which is divided at the Neretva river between Croats and Muslim Bosniaks. In Tuzla, epicentre of the demonstrations, dozens helped clear debris from the gutted building of the local government.

"I'm glad we did it," said Sanela Fetic, an unemployed 35-year-old who took part in both the protests and the clean-up.

"Now we'll clean up this mess, like we'll clean up the politicians who made this happen."

The unrest began on Wednesday in Tuzla, when anger over factory closures in the once-healthy industrial hub turned violent, spreading by Friday to Sarajevo and other towns.

For years, fear of a return to conflict has kept a lid on anger over the dire state of the Bosnian economy and the inertia of a political system in which power is divvied up along ethnic lines.

In Sarajevo, protesters set fire to the Bosnian presidency building and the seat of the cantonal government, with part of Bosnia's national archive lost in the flames.

The presidency, with its three members from Bosnia's Serb, Croat and Muslim Bosniak communities, has become symbolic of the division and dysfunction of the former Yugoslav republic.

Sarajevans streamed past the charred buildings. Broken glass crunched under foot and chairs hurled from offices by protesters lay strewn on the ground.

To some, the scenes were uncomfortably reminiscent of the wartime siege of the city by Bosnian Serb forces in surrounding hills, a 43-month bombardment that claimed more than 10,000 of the estimated 100,000 lives lost in the war.

"I'm struggling not to cry," said Enisa Sehic, 46, an economist. "This is like a flashback to the not so distant past."

"LET IT BURN"

The agreement ending the war created a highly decentralised and unwieldy system of government, splitting the country into two autonomous republics joined by a weak central authority. One half, the mainly Bosniak and Croat Federation, is split again into 10 cantons, each with its own prime minister and cabinet ministers.

The apparatus is hugely expensive and feeds networks of patronage political parties from each side are reluctant to give up.

The former warring sides have little common vision of Bosnia's future. While Bosniak leaders want greater centralisation, Croat hardliners are pressing for their own entity, while Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik says he sees no future for Bosnia at all.With governance frequently hostage to ethnic politics, the economy has struggled to keep up with its ex-Yugoslav peers. More than one in four of the Bosnian workforce is jobless.

Failure to reform the constitution to open up high-level state jobs - such as the presidency - to those not from Bosnia's three main communities has frozen the country's bid to become a member of the European Union, which neighbouring Croatia joined last year.

Some Sarajevans argued that force was the only language their leaders would understand.

"This had to happen. If they were smart, it wouldn't have," said 56-year-old Mirsad Dedovic.

"Part of me was sorry when I saw what was happening yesterday. But then again, let it burn."

Calls went out on Facebook for country-wide protests at midday (1100 GMT) on Monday.

The United States, which brokered the 1995 Dayton peace deal, and the EU that Bosnia wants to join, have proven helpless in prodding the country's divided political leaders toward reform and greater centralisation.

On Saturday, the head of the Sarajevo cantonal government, Suad Zeljkovic, joined his counterpart from Tuzla in resigning, Fena news agency reported. But it was unclear if the unrest would have any greater political consequences, or serve as a wake-up call for the national leadership.

"This is about 20 years of accumulated rage coming to the surface, and it's very difficult to assess what will happen next," political analyst Enver Kazaz told the Bosnian daily Dnevni Avaz.

"The protesters come mostly from a generation of youngsters without hope, whose future has practically been taken away from them."

 

Bosnia protesters attack presidency building (Al Jazeera, 8 February 2014)

Protesters smash windows and set ablaze section of government building in Sarajevo on third day of demonstrations.

Demonstrators have set fire to a section of the presidency building in the Bosnian capital city of Sarajevo as the anti-government protests have spread across the country.

AP news agency reported that central Sarajevo was in chaos on Friday night with buildings and cars burning and riot police in full gear chasing protesters and pounding batons against their shields to get the crowd to disperse.

At least 200 people were injured in Friday's clashes, according to AP.

Also on Friday, protesters set fire to a local government building in the northern town of Tuzla, the hotspot of violence that began on Tuesday. Authorities in Tuzla had ordered schools to cancel classes earlier in the day.

AFP news agency reported that about 100 hooded men were seen storming the building with flames, and thick smoke billowing from the first floor windows a short while after. Protesters outside prevented two fire engines from reaching the building.

At  least 6,000 people took to the streets in Tuzla, according to Reuters news agency, who also reported that protesters lobbed stones at police in Sarajevo.

Al Jazeera's Alma Brnicanin reported that demonstrators gathered in the northern city of Bihac on Friday.

Tuzla's protests spread to other parts of the country on Thursday and have morphed into widespread discontent in an election year about unemployment and rampant corruption.

Police on Thursday fired teargas to drive back several thousand people throwing stones, eggs and flares at a local government building in Tuzla, once the industrial heart of Bosnia's north, which has been hit hard by factory closures in recent years.

A strong police contingent dispersed the crowd in the evening after protesters started rioting, smashing shop windows and setting garbage bins on fire, a Tuzla police spokesman said.

The town's emergency service said it admitted 104 police officers who were seriously hurt, and 30 civilians with lighter injuries.

Hundreds of people turned out in solidarity protests in Sarajevo and the towns of Zenica, Bihac and Mostar. In Sarajevo, protesters clashed with police who had blocked traffic in the city centre. Four officers were taken to hospital, officials said.

Public resentment

The prime minister of Bosnia's autonomous Bosniak-Croat federation, where the protests took place, held an emergency meeting with regional security ministers and prosecutors.

"We put on one side the workers who were left without basic rights, such as pensions and health benefits ... , and on the other side all hooligans who used this situation to create chaos," Prime Minister Nermin Niksic said after the meeting.

"We will not come to the solution by destroying property, damaging vehicles and windows and fighting the police," Niksic said.

The protests highlight public resentment over the political bickering that has stifled governance and economic development since the 1992-1995 war in the Balkan country.

The protesters were initially made up mainly of workers laid off when state-owned companies that were sold off collapsed under private ownership. They have been joined by thousands of jobless people and youths.

At 27.5 percent, Bosnia's unemployment rate is the highest in the Balkans.

 

Bosnian Protesters Accuse Police of Brutality (AP, by Aida Cerkez, 8 February 2014)

Hundreds are marching in Sarajevo to protest alleged police abuse of people arrested during anti-government protests and to call for their release.

The head of the local police station, Mirsad Sukic, told the crowd in front of the station Sunday that none of the 44 people detained were mistreated or were minors. He says all but 10 have been let go.

Harun Cehajic, 17, showed scratches on his face and said he had just been released. He said he and others were beaten in the police station basement and not allowed to sleep for 26 hours.

Protesters yelled "Let the kids go, bandits!" at riot police in full gear.

Bosnians are angry over high unemployment and rampant corruption. Protesters on Friday set the presidency and other government buildings ablaze.

 

Bosnia parties call for snap election (AAP, 10 February 2014)

Two parties in Bosnia's ruling coalition have called for early polls to defuse mounting anger over corruption and unemployment that has sparked violence not seen since the 1992-1995 war.

The move came as 1000 people gathered in front of Bosnia's tripartite presidency building in downtown Sarajevo on Sunday, demanding the resignation of rulers they blame for their economic woes.

The Social Democratic Party said in a statement it was necessary "to stop the violence, restore security for citizens and urgently organise early elections".

Bakir Izetbegovic, one of the nation's three presidents and leader of the Party of Democratic Action, joined the call for polls to take place before the scheduled October date.

"I believe that people want a change of power. I believe that within three months we should offer citizens a chance to choose who they trust, because it's obvious that this isn't working anymore," he told local television.

Protesters took to the streets for the fifth day running on Sunday but the gatherings were peaceful.

Several hundred people have been injured since Wednesday, when protests broke out in the northwestern town of Tuzla and turned violent before spreading to several other towns, including Sarajevo.

Protesters set fire to the presidency building and several other institutions, in scenes that brought back memories of the violence that tore the nation two decades ago.

The riots were triggered by anger over rampant corruption in the political class and its failure to reverse a downward economic spiral that means nearly one in two Bosnians is unemployed.

 

Bosnia violence orchestrated by same choreographers as Kiev protests – expert (The Voice of Russia, 10 February 2014)

Bosnia is bracing for more violence as anti-government sentiment is building in the country. Following Thursday’s protests that left over 130 people injured Bosnia, which has the highest unemployment rate in the Balkans, is expecting more demonstrations on Friday. Police reported about 2,000 people took part in the anti-government demonstrations in Tuzla, whereas the opposition said the number of protesters reached 7,000. Amid the unrest federations’ Prime Minister Nermin Niksic held an emergency meeting with regional security ministers and prosecutors. The Prime Minister condemned the violence in the country and urged people to stop using the situation to create more chaos. Stefan Karganovic, head of Srebrenica Historical Project, shared his insight on the issue with the VoR.

Stephen Karganovic asked the Voice of Russia to share the image below with its readers. This picture appeared today on a site in Bosnia that supports the disorders that are taking place. The street scene is similar with what is going on in Kiev and the fist emblem that was the symbol of Otpor in Serbia in 2000, noted Karganovic. He underlined that one can see the finger prints of the same choreographers from Belgrade, to Tbilisi, Kiev, now again Kiev, and simultaneously in Bosnia.

Bosnia has the highest unemployment rate in the Balkans. Why?

Essentially the color revolution that I have been expecting here in Bosnia for over a year has finally started but the fundamental point that needs to be stressed is that contrary to what many people expected that this is not going to be a regime change only in the Republic Srpska, it is sipping up as a country-wide putsch that will included both the Muslim Croat Federation and the Republic of Srpska. That is a very important point because it implies that western intelligent services and their governments of course want to have a clean slate in the entire country to use mounting social dissatisfaction, for which there are many reasons, no doubt, to provoke general chaos and to use that chaos, the illusions for a better life their propaganda agencies would generate in the minds of the people, to install a new team of puppets not just at the entity but also at the central level.

The basic goal of course remains – to get rid of president Dodik, and his independent policies in the republic of Srpska, and to bring the power to Banja Luka team of collaborators who will cooperate in the absorption of the Serbian autonomy into centralistic Bosnian structures. But further goals however are to bring Bosnia as a whole into NATO and to integrate it completely within Western European Atlantic structures and now a protectorate of some autonomy here and there is to be transformed to a completely dominated colony. So, the protestors in Bosnia like those in Kiev are motivated by illusion that their actions will result in a vaguely better life. However, that will not happen, if it is left to western installed puppets to do the job. As we saw in Ukraine, only Russia now can step up to the plate and make a large economic contribution to improve their lives, but EU has made it clear that they will not have the resources to contribute to the reconstruction of Ukraine, although they of course have the small change with which to buy the services of the writers, and the same applies to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Do you think that these people who are in the streets are just Bosnian citizens, or is it orchestrated by some other third party?

It goes without saying that it is orchestrated but most of the protesters are genuine Bosnian citizens.

Who was pulling the strings?

Ultimately it is those who are implementing the color revolution as outlined by Gene Sharp and his group that we have seen happen over and over again, first in Belgrade, then in Georgia, and then in Kiev in 2004, now again in Kiev, and at the same time it has started up in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is all exactly the same playbook and if you look at the symbols that are being used here in Bosnia, first of all, on the pictures you can see the same things that are going on in Kiev, they are burning cars on the streets, throwing Molotov cocktails exactly the same, then you can see the fist symbol, the emblem Otpor, that is their first and probably the most successful color revolution so far in Belgrade, in Yugoslavia, in 2000, and oddly enough on their cites, here in Bosnia you can see lots of English. I don’t know how to interpret that, it seems like a lapsus linguae. I think they need to correct that or people will get the right idea that they are puppets from somebody in English-speaking world.

 

Unrest Spreads in Bosnia (Transitions online, by S. Adam Cardais, Ioana Caloianu, and Karlo Marinovic, 7 February 2014)

1. Violent protests erupt in Bosnia over economy

Police clashed with demonstrators 6 February in the second straight day of economic protests in Bosnia's third-largest city, Balkan Insight reports. The unrest is also spreading to other cities.

Some 70 people, including 50 police officers, were hospitalized after clashes erupted in Tuzla, northern Bosnia, when demonstrators threw rocks and eggs at a local government building. Thousands were rallying over unemployment and the economic collapse of the industrial town.

"The people have nothing to eat, people are hungry, young people do not have jobs, there is no health insurance, no basic rights," a protester identified only as Maja told Balkan Insight. "It can't get any worse."

In Sarajevo, meanwhile, several hundred gathered outside a government building in solidarity with the Tuzla protestors, the news agency reports. They also expressed anger over an abysmal Bosnian economy beset with high double-digit unemployment.

"Everyone must go out [onto the streets] because this Titanic will sink soon," protester Sanin Cepalo told Balkan Insight.

Two police were reportedly injured in Sarajevo. At least two smaller towns also saw protests 6 February.

The Tuzla unrest began 5 February when 600 people tried to break into a regional administration building over the closure of Dita, a detergent company, and several other local factories. Saying they hadn't been paid for months, the protesters accused the government of illegally privatizing state-owned companies and then allowing them to fail, Radio Free Europe reports.

The protests quickly escalated into a broader demonstration against the state of Bosnia's economy.

 

Macedonia Albanians Warned Against Poll Boycott (BIRN, by Sinisa Jakov Marusic, 10 February 2014)

The Macedonian prime minister told Albanian parties that they would be making a mistake if they heeded one NGO’s call to boycott the April presidential elections.

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski on Sunday warned against the idea of a boycott, which was suggested recently by an NGO seen as close to his ethnic Albanian partners in the current ruling coalition, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI.

“I hope that Albanian parties will not do that. If they decide to do it, I think that they would realise that they had made a big mistake,” Gruevski said, without elaborating further.

An ethnic Albanian NGO called Wake Up has called for an Albanian boycott of the forthcoming elections due to the refusal of Gruevski’s main VMRO DPMNE party to take up the DUI’s Idea for a ‘consensus’ president agreed between Macedonian and Albanian parties.

“We call upon other organisations from civil society, the Islamic religious community and the Albanian-language media to actively engage in preventing the election of Macedonian president whom Albanians do not recognise,” the NGO said in a press release.

“No Macedonian president can claim to legitimately represent the country without the votes of the Albanians. We say that in the future the president should be chosen in parliament with a double majority of votes [from both Macedonian and Albanian MPs],” the NGO added.

The call for boycott reflects a rift within the government coalition’s ranks. The NGO’s close links with the DUI were evident at last year’s local elections, when the party endorsed the longstanding head of Wake Up, Artan Grubi, as candidate for mayor of Skopje.

The call for boycott comes after last week Gruevski’s party indirectly refused DUI’s proposal for an inter-party consensus on a new president when it said it would select its own candidate through an open call instead.

A possible boycott could jeopardise the success of the entire election process because, in the second round of voting, many say it will be very hard to secure the required 40 per cent voter turnout without the participation of Albanians, who make one quarter of Macedonia’s population of 2.1 million.

It has also been rumoured that the call for a boycott is a step towards a premeditated government scenario for setting up parallel early general elections along with the second round of presidential polls on April 27.

According to this scenario, media have speculated, the prime minister could use the boycott as an excuse to call early general elections to boost voter turnout.

Various opinion polls have shown that Gruevski’s party would be the favourite if early elections were held.