LOCAL PRESS

 

Fule: Create conditions for Union of Serb Municipalities (Politika)

EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule has stated after the meeting with the mayors of north municipalities in Kosovska Mitrovica that it is important to create conditions for establishing the Union of Serb Municipalities and that the municipalities in northern Kosovo play an important role in the implementation of the Brussels agreement. Politika learns that, as far as the statute of the municipalities in concerened, there is great confusion and inconsistency of all three sides: the Serb municipalities, EU and Prisitna authorities. It is also considered that the formation of the Union has been postponed for after the elections in Kosovo and the passing of the laws that would recongize this institution agreed by the Brussels agreement. Fule had talks with the mayors of Zvecan, North Mitrovica, Leposavic and Zubin Potok, and the meeting went on for almost two hours. The meeting was attended by the EU Special Representative Samuel Zbogar and member of the Management Team for the formation of the Union of Serb Municipalities Ljubomir Maric. None of the Serb representatives gave any statements to journalists following the meeting.

 

Unconstitutional diplomas (Novosti)

The Decree on the special manner of recognizing university diplomas from Kosovo and Metohija that do not perform activities according to Serbian regulations is not in accordance with the Constitution. This decision was passed by the Serbian Constitutional Court whereby part of the agreement, reached by negotiators Borko Stefanovic and Edita Tahiri in the course of 2012, has been challenged. The Serbian Constitutional Court rejected the request to abolish solutions that were so far adopted based on this decree.

 

Amendments to the statute of North Mitrovica municipal assembly (Beta)

The councilors of the North Mitrovica municipal assembly have adopted the amendments to the statute of the North Mitrovica municipality at the request of the Ministry of Local Self-Government. “During the voting, Albanian representatives were divided, some abstained, while some voted against,” it was announced after the session that was closed to the public. The request from the session was sent to the Kosovo Central Election Commission to proceed according to the law and assign mandates to the councilors from the SDP Civic Initiative list – Oliver Ivanovic and the Serbian (Srpska) Civic Initiative, because in their opinion, this issue is being politicized, while the councilors have been waiting for 36 days to have their mandates verified. They also sent an appeal to the Ministry of Local Self-Government to create technical conditions for normal operation of the assembly. This was the resumption of the third regular session of the North Mitrovica municipal assembly that started on 25 April.

 

Pupovac: Emergency measures for the protection of Serb returnees (Radio Serbia, by Mladen Bijelic)

Fourteen Serb refugee families that have returned to their homes in Croatia are required, according to Croatia’s final court decisions, to pay immense sums of money to the Croatian families that had occupied those houses in the meantime, in order to compensate for the construction works conducted by the latter. The Serb returnees have been threatened with enforced collection of their alleged debts and even with the auction sale of their homes. The president of the Serb People’s Council Milorad Pupovac has announced emergency measures of the protection of rights of the Serb families. The Croats that had been occupying the Serb houses for years allegedly worked on them, maintained them and had them renovated. Despite the fact that they did all that of their own self-will, without asking the owners for permission, the Croatian court ruled in their favor and ordered the owners to compensate the funds spent to the usurpers. Thus, the house of a Serb returnee, Petar Kunic, of Karlovac, will be put on auction on 20 May. The Karlovac County Court ruled that Kunic should pay as much as 170,000 Euros (!!!) of compensation for repairs to the heirs of Vinko Petrovic, a Croat that obtained that house for use from the state after the Storm operation. By the way, Kunic has been waging the battle with the Croatian state authorities for 19 years and has already won the suit filed at the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg due to the unreasonably lengthy court procedure.

Pupovac emphasized that Croatian courts are guided by nationalist criteria in their rulings. The state is generous to those it should punish for their illegal activities and is taking again from those who have been deprived of their right of ownership. In addition to the aforementioned case, there are another fourteen such cases and the alleged claims total around 650,000 Euros, explained Pupovac. Should the state fail to put an end to this injustice, it is the Serb People’s Council that will do that, said Pupovac, adding he will do everything he can to prevent the auction. Commenting on this situation, the Croatian press quotes the Karlovac county deputy prefect for the Serb national minority, Sinisa Ljubojevic, as saying that in these cases, through the judiciary and with elements of national discrimination and nationalistically motivated decision-making, the state is infringing upon the Constitution and is inflicting damage on its citizens.

The president of the Coalition of Refugee Associations in Serbia Miodrag Linta condemned the ethnic discrimination against Serbs in Croatia. He emphasized that resolving the aforesaid cases was one of the prerequisites for the closing of Chapter 23 – Judiciary and Fundamental Rights, on 30 June 2011, in Croatia’s EU accession talks and Croatia did not fulfill that prerequisite at the time. Instead, Croatia was bound by the Action Plan for the Fulfillment of Remaining Obligations from EU Accession Talks to resolve the aforesaid 14 cases before joining the EU on 1 July 2013, but it has not done that even to this very day, stressed Linta.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Inzko: No progress in key reforms (Srna)

The High Representative in B&H Valentin Inzko has stated in Sarajevo in talks with the OSCE High Commissioner for national minorities Astrid Tors that there has been no progress over the past several years in adopting key reforms, the Office of the High Representative stated. Inzko said that, on the contrary, the situation has deteriorated over the significant increase of rhetoric of divisions. He pointed out that the rights of minorities in B&H must be protected completely and that the agreement on implementing the decision from the Sejdic-Finci case must be reached as soon as possible.

 

Verification of residence in RS before B&H Constitutional Court (Politika’s correspondent in Sarajevo)

Member of the B&H Presidency Zeljko Komsic has announced that he will request the assessment of constitutionality of the decision of the Republika Srpska (RS) government on verification of the authenticity of data during registering residence on the RS territory, because it is considered that this decision violates the Constitution and the Dayton Accord. The RS Minister of Justice Gorana Zlatkovic has assessed that this appellation doesn’t have legal basis and that it can be expected to be rejected. Zlatkovic opines that it is in the interest of all citizens, not only in the RS but in B&H, for data on the place of residence to be real and truthful. “We can’t allow having a greater number of people to be registered at one address,” she said. Bosniak officials have been criticizing this decision, claiming that it limits the right of returnees to the RS.

 

Nimetz: No significant progress in the name talks (Republika)

The latest round of name talks has not made significant progress, UN mediator Matthew Nimetz said Tuesday in New York after meeting Macedonian and Greek representatives, Zoran Jolevski and Adamantios Vassilakis respectively. Nimetz said he would visit Macedonia and Greece in late June or early July. “The positions of both governments are clearly presented. I’ve tabled several proposals. However in some spheres the governments are not very satisfied with the aspects of what I’ve suggested. We shall seek solutions for these spheres to see if there are new ideas for addressing the problem. Considering the situation across the globe and the growing interest in security issues, I believe that this is a good time for the leaderships of both countries to see if there are new ways for resolving the problem,” Nimetz said. Nimetz’s visit to Macedonia and Greece, after completion of the European Parliament and Greece’s local elections, is expected to clarify if Macedonia may hope for a positive outcome from the NATO Summit, scheduled for this September. Nimetz said his visit to Macedonia and Greece would enable him to determine how the election processes affected the readiness of both countries for reaching an agreement. “I believe that in all negotiations there is a limit to how much the mediator can do. Ultimately the leaderships in Athens and Skopje will have to solve this problem,” Nimetz said.

 

Russian MP: If Montenegro enters NATO it will be a target of Russia missiles (In4s)

MP in the Russian State Duma Mihail Vladimirovich Degtiarev has stated that Montenegro will be a legitimate target of Russian missiles if it eventually enters NATO. “According to the Russian military doctrine, we are obliged to direct our misslines at any state that is a NATO member, so if Montenegro becomes a member we will direct them towards Montenegro as well,” Degtiarev told the Podgorica portal In4s. “For taking these shameful steps, (Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo) Djukanovic is forcing us to cautiously monitor what is happening and to have a negative relationship towards our brotherly state. The only solution is to decide at a referendum on Montenegro’s NATO membership, and I am convinced that Montenegrin citizens will never pass a decision on entering this military alliance that bombed them.”

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Brussels sets priorities to aid Serbia's EU bid (EUbusiness, 6 May 2014)

(BELGRADE) - Serbia should focus on economic reforms, the implementation of rule of law and further negotiations with breakaway Kosovo as it works toward becoming a member of the European Union, an EU official said Monday.

"We are fully committed to help Serbia with the necessary reforms," EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele told reporters in Belgrade after meeting Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic.

Fuele said Brussels would assist Belgrade with "technical expertise for Serbia's alignment with the EU legislation, as well as with targeted financial support adjusted to Serbia's needs and in particular to the needs of Serbian citizens."

Serbia opened EU membership talks in January, after last year's historic deal on the normalisation of relations with Pristina.

"Serbia does not promise the impossible, but Fuele knows that we have done all that we have promised," Vucic said after talks with the EU official.

A week ago, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said in Belgrade that Brussels was "determined to help and support Serbia in its efforts to ensure a strong economic path for its citizens."

Vucic said his government's goal was to conclude EU accession talks by the end of his four-year mandate and bring the Balkan nation into the bloc in 2020.

Serbia -- the largest country to emerge from the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, with a population of 7.2 million people -- has to reform antiquated labour and other economic laws and cut down on bureaucracy.

More than 20 percent of the workforce is unemployed, and those with jobs struggle to survive on an average monthly salary of 350 euros ($480).

 

Serbian Leaders Confirm Warm Ties to Russia (BIRN, 7 May 2014)

As Belgrade sticks to an officially position over the conflict in Ukraine, Serbia's President and Foreign Minister have restated their desire to maintain close ties to Moscow

“Serbia remains a loyal friend of Russia,” Ivica Dacic, Serbia's Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, told his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on the sidelines of a ministerial session of the Council of Europe held in Vienna on Tuesday.

The two ministers discussed bilateral ties and confirmed the good relations existing between the two countries, the Serbian Foreign Ministry said.

Serbia is struggling to balance its friendship with both the EU and with Russia - sorely tested by the conflict in Ukraine.

In his first interview as Foreign Minister last week, Dacic said that Serbia would remain neutral in the dispute between the European Union and Russia over the country.

Ever since the crisis in Ukraine escalated, Serbian officials have tried to maintain a diplomatic silence over the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine, attempting to preserve good relations with all sides.

Serbia started EU accession talks in January and hopes to join the club in 2020. On the other hand, Serbia depends on Russia for its gas supply, and Russia is a traditional diplomatic ally of Belgrade's.

Meanwhile, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic met Sergei Naryshkin, Chairman of the Russian State Duma, and told him that he empathized with Russia's position on the Ukraine crisis.

Nikolic praised the cordial Serbian-Russian relationship and expressed interest in intensifying work on the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline with Russia.

Nikolic said that the project will provide long-term energy security for Serbia and help Serbia's struggling economy.

Speaking on the margins of the Russian-Serbian science meeting on Tuesday, Naryshkin said Russia was very grateful to the Serbian public and politicians for their support.

He expressed gratitude to Serbia for refusing to back EU and US anti-Russian sanctions, which he said were completely illegal.

“I believe Serbian politicians are monitoring developments in Ukraine very objectively and are deriving very precise conclusions from the events,” he added.

Both the EU and the US have accused Vladimir Putin's government in Moscow of fomenting a separatist insurgency in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.

 

Russia to support Serbia’s stance on Kosovo - Duma Speaker (RIA Novosti, by Vladimir Fedorenko, 6 May 2014)

Russia will support Serbia in its ongoing diplomatic efforts to solve the Kosovo and Metohija issue, a speaker of the lower chamber of the Russian parliament said during a visit to Serbia Tuesday. "Russia has always supported stances based on norms of the international law. We will always support a decision that would benefit the Serbian people" State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said.

Kosovo, a landlocked region with a population consisting mainly ethnic Albanians, declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008. More than 90 nations, including the United States and leading European Union members, acknowledged Kosovo's independence. Both Serbia and Russia do not recognize Kosovo as an independent state.

Kosovo and Serbia signed a groundbreaking accord to normalize relations on April 19, 2013. The implementation of the agreement is vital for the start of the talks on Serbia's accession to the European Union. The government of Serbia has approved a plan to improve relations with Kosovo in May 2013.

 

Ukraine Crisis Hitting Serbia, Bank Chief Warns (BIRN, 7 May 2014)

Jorgovanka Tabakovic, governor of the National Bank of Serbia, said Serbia was feeling the impact of the crisis in Ukraine - and she hoped a deal with the IMF will be signed soon.

Tabakovic said Serbia was already experiencing payment problems as regards payments in US dollars due to the crisis in Ukraine.

“We are taking a risk if the destination [of payments] is Russia with which we have well developed relations and is one of our most important foreign trade partners, alongside Germany and Italy," Tabakovic said in a talk about the impact of international financial institutions on Serbia's monetary policy.

The bank governor said that highly indebted Serbia needed to cooperate with international financial institutions, especially with the IMF, to lower the risk level for potential investors.

An IMF mission visited Belgrade ahead of March 16 elections conducting a broad review of public finances but it is waiting for a new government to be formed.

Belgrade urgently needs to strike an IMF deal. The projected budget deficit for this year already stands at 7.1 per cent of GDP, and some economists fear it could be much higher.

Public debt in January 2014 increased by €136 million compared to 2013 and now stands at €20.2 billion, which is 62.3 per cent of GDP.

Serbia also faces disappointing levels of foreign direct investment, FDI. During the first nine months of 2013, FDI totalled about €606 million, well short of the €2 billion foreseen by the government for the entire year.

Tabakovic said a solid basis for an IMF arrangement had been created, and Belgrade sought only a stand-by precautionary arrangement, emphasizing that Serbia would not enter into an arrangement that would entail more debt.

According to the governor, Serbia's foreign currency reserves are more than sufficient to cover imports and settle state obligations towards foreign creditors.

She said it was significant that the state's foreign currency reserves account for 70 per cent of total foreign currency reserves, which are worth more than 7 billion euro.

Serbia has taken a neutral position over the Ukraine crisis, reluctant to offend either the EU, which is wants to join, or Russia, its traditional ally.

 

Cash-strapped Bosnian region sells 6-month T-bills at lower yield (Reuters, 6 May 2014)

Bosnia's cash-strapped autonomous Bosniak-Croat Federation on Tuesday raised 20 million Bosnian marka ($14.3 million) at an auction of six-month treasury bills, helping shore up its finances after the IMF withheld a loan payment.

The average weighted yield fell to 0.74 percent from 0.81 percent at the last sale of six-month paper, held in April. Investors bid for 47.4 million marka worth of T-bills against 20 million marka on offer, the finance ministry said.

The Federation had planned to issue 260 million marka worth of T-bills and 50 million marka worth of bonds this year to help cover its budget deficit, which it expects will come to 661 million marka due to loans it has extended for infrastructure projects by public companies.

It had expected to plug the rest of the gap of 350 million marka with funds from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. But the IMF in February froze the disbursement of funds under its 385 million euro ($534.32 million) standby deal over the failure of Bosnia's two regions, the Federation and the Serb Republic, to implement economic measures on which the loan deal depended.

So far in 2014 the Federation has raised 110 million marka from T-bills and has received one IMF loan tranche worth some 50 million euros, leaving it well behind schedule for the year.

Federation Prime Minister Nermin Niksic said on Tuesday the government would most likely revise its 2014 budget or cut its spending to secure budget liquidity if it fell short of IMF funds.

 

World War I History Divides Balkan Schoolchildren (BIRN, by Denis Dzidic, Marija Ristic, Milka Domanovic, Josip Ivanovic, Edona Peci, Sinisa Jakov Marusic, 6 May 2014)

A hundred years on from the Sarajevo assassination, schools in former Yugoslav countries are teaching different histories about the causes of the 1914-18 war, reflecting more recent conflicts.

“Those people were terrorists – Gavrilo Princip and the rest of them,” said Salih Mehmedovic, standing at the spot by the Latin Bridge in central Sarajevo where the young Bosnian Serb Princip shot dead Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary 100 years ago – an assassination that sparked four years of devastating conflict.

Mehmedovic, a Bosniak, said he had no doubt that Serbia was responsible for the murder. “They did what they did on the orders of Serbia. We should blame Serbia for the war,” he insisted.

As Balkan countries prepare to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War I this summer, each of them is teaching their children a different interpretation of the killing that set the conflict in motion.

Princip is portrayed in the history textbooks of the various former Yugoslav countries either as a terrorist or as a rebel with a cause – perceptions that reflect contemporary divisions in a region that is still recovering from the deadly conflicts of the 1990s.

While they were part of Yugoslavia, children in all these countries were taught the same history. Now they all have their own versions of the truth, shaped by the more recent wars, and are passing it on to the next generation.

“There used to be only one discourse about World War I while the country was still Yugoslavia. That country disappeared 23 years ago and the discourse disappeared with it, because the new countries that came out of the former Yugoslavia had different perceptions of the past,” explained Nenad Sebek, executive director of the Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe, which has analysed school textbooks in the region.

“Now the past is being adjusted to fit whatever discourse the ruling elites in these countries want at the present moment,” Sebek said.

Bosnian teaching reflects ethnic splits

In ethnically divided Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is no commonly held view either about Princip or about the origins of World War I.

Bosnian Serb children are taught a different interpretation of history to Bosniaks and Croats. For the Bosniaks and Croats, Princip was a Belgrade-backed political assassin. For Bosnian Serbs, the murder served only as a pretext for Austria-Hungary and German to commit military aggression against Serbia.

These divisions are also reflected in the rival commemorations of the upcoming centenary that will be held in Bosnia.

A series of events will be held in Sarajevo, including exhibitions, concerts and a meeting of young peace activists from around the world.

However, Bosnian Serbs will hold their own events in the eastern town of Visegrad, programmed by film director Emir Kusturica, while a statue of Princip is due to be installed in Serb-run East Sarajevo.

In mainly Bosniak areas, like Sarajevo, the Bihac region in the northwest and the central Zenica-Doboj area, school textbooks highlight Princip’s links to Serbia.

The Sarajevo textbook says that Princip’s group, Young Bosnia, was “supported by secret organisations from Serbia”, while the Bihac textbook states more directly that the plotters were “supported by Serbia”. The Zenica textbook describes Young Bosnia as a “terrorist organisation”.

The history book used by Bosnian Croat pupils also describes Young Bosnia as a “terrorist” group.

But in the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity, Young Bosnia is simply described as an “organisation” and textbooks stress that Austria-Hungary “used” Franz Ferdinand’s assassination “to blame Serbia” and declare war on the country.

Unsurprisingly, this description of the outbreak of the conflict is similar to the one contained in textbooks used in Serbia itself.

Zeljko Vujadinovic, a history professor from Banja Luka in Republika Srpska, said that in Bosnia, “what we are looking at is the current political mind-set transferred to the past”.

Suggestions that Young Bosnia was a “pre-World War I Al-Qaida” were a result of the 1990s conflict, he insisted.

“The characterisation of Young Bosnia and Princip as terrorists is an attempt to place the blame for huge worldwide events on ‘Serbian territorial expansion policies’, which is evidently flawed,” Vujadinovic said.

Sarajevo history professor Zijad Sehic agreed that the past had been redrawn in the aftermath of the 1992-95 conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It was only since the collapse of Yugoslavia that Princip was now described as a Serbian nationalist rather than as a fighter for Yugoslav unity, he noted.

“Now that there is no more Yugoslavia, his actions are being viewed more narrowly and he has been reborn as a Serbian hero,” Sehic said.

Serbia highlights Austrian ‘war crimes’.

A new monument to Gavrilo Princip is also due to be installed in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, where schoolchildren are taught that the killer was struggling for a just cause.

Serbia will be minting a silver coin with the assassin’s face on it to mark the centenary, while the government will be staging several commemorative exhibitions.

The Serbian Orthodox Church meanwhile has proclaimed the assassin a national hero. “Gavrilo Princip was just defending his freedom and his people,” a leading cleric, Metropolitan Amfilohije, said recently.

“In Serbia, there is still the old narrative from the former Yugoslavia, which says that the First World War happened because there was this great hero called Gavrilo Princip,” Sebek noted.

“He assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was the personification of the occupying forces of Austria-Hungary, and then Austria-Hungary and the German Empire invaded Serbia, and the brave Serbs struggled and suffered during the war but were on the right side,” he said.

On Gavrilo Princip Street in Belgrade, many people insisted that Serbia did not cause the 1914-18 war.

“Serbia was exhausted after two Balkan wars [in 1912-13] and didn’t want war in 1914. The Great War was a result of the imperial aspirations of Austria-Hungary and Germany,” said Aleksandar Dasic, a web editor.

“The blame for World War I should be on Austria-Hungary and its imperial desire to capture the whole of the Balkans for its empire. Serbia should not take any blame for Princip,” said Jelena Cebic, a salesperson.

Serbian school textbooks maintain that the overall cause of World War I was “the fight between the big powers for economic control and domination of Europe”.

The seventh-grade textbook says that Austria-Hungary “used” the Sarajevo assassination as an excuse for a “long-desired” war against Serbia, “even though the Serbian government was not responsible for the assassination”.

The Sarajevo assassin is described simply as “a young Serb from Bosnia”.

“Princip was part of the Young Bosnia movement and he believed that assassinations and personal sacrifices could change Austro-Hungarian policies towards the Serbs and other South Slavs,” the book says.

A chapter is devoted to Serbia and Montenegro’s heroic victories during the conflict, while Austria-Hungary’s alleged war crimes against Serbs are given prominence.

“The Austrian army committed horrific war crimes against Serbian civilians,” the textbook says, detailing mass detentions in camps, the burning of villages, the torture of civilians and the banning of Serbian national symbols and the Cyrillic script.

But Dubravka Stojanovic, a professor at Belgrade University, argued that the history of the war is taught in Serbia “in the context of national myth and the interpretation of Serbia as a nation that sacrificed itself”.

Princip had been used as a tool to promote the ruling ideology, Stojanovic said.

“During the era of [former leader Slobodan] Milosevic, the caption under Princip’s image [in textbooks] said ‘Serbian hero’,” she said.

“It is not like that anymore - but it is written that he was a Serbian nationalist, although he said himself that he was a Yugoslav nationalist,” she concluded.

Croatia blames Serbian expansionism

Schools in Croatia however teach that Serbia was to blame for helping to spark the 1914-18 conflict, by seeking to expand its territory and supporting a terrorist. Croatian history textbooks maintain that Serbia was one of the countries responsible for the outbreak of World War I.

While acknowledging that Austro-Hungary wanted to secure control over south-east Europe, the fourth-grade secondary-school textbook says that Serbia “sought territorial expansion over areas that were under Ottoman rule up until the [1912-1913] Balkan Wars, and was unsettled with the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, due to Serbian territorial pretentions towards Bosnia and Herzegovina”.

It describes Young Bosnia as a group that carried out “illegal terrorist actions” and which favoured Serbia taking control of Bosnia and Herzegovina with a view to creating a ‘Greater Serbia’.

“A secret organisation named ‘Unification or Death’ (also known under the name of the ‘Black Hand’) was formed in Serbia in 1911, with the mission of achieving Greater Serbian aims through terrorist activities,” it says.

“The aim of the organisation, defined in its constitution, was the ‘unification of Serbs’,” it adds.

Historian Martin Previsic argued that the idea of a plan to create a ‘Greater Serbia’ is a theme that runs through Croatian textbooks, beginning in the 19th century, stretching through both World Wars and on into the history of the former Yugoslavia.

“That line leads also to 1991 and the ‘Homeland War’ [against Serb forces in 1991-95],” he said.

Some parents in King Tomislav Square in Zagreb were not so sure however if Serbia was to blame. “The idea of liberation from the Austro-Hungarian Empire was legitimate, although it is still hard to see Gavrilo Princip as a hero,” said one of them, Drazenka Kosic.

Kosovo stays neutral despite 1990s war

Parents in the capital Pristina, with recent memories of Belgrade’s violent repression of Kosovo Albanians, insisted that Serbian aggression was definitely a factor behind the outbreak of World War I.

“The whole world has suffered because of Serbia,” said one Pristina local, Ajvaz Abazi.

“Serbia has harmed many people, as well as those from Kosovo, so naturally they give high importance to their own criminals [like Princip],” said another, Xhevdet Hoxha.

But Kosovo’s schoolchildren are actually taught a version of history that still closely resembles the narrative in the old Yugoslav textbooks, in which Serbia is treated relatively sympathetically as a country trying to avoid a war.

The passages on WWI, written after the 1998-99 conflict between the Kosovo Liberation Army and Belgrade’s forces, describe Princip as a “Serbian nationalist” rather than a Yugoslav one – but they do not accuse Serbia of responsibility for the conflict.

Describing the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia after Franz Ferdinand’s murder, the textbook suggests that Belgrade had legitimate reasons for rejecting it.

“For Serbia, accepting such a request would mean losing its independence,” it says.

Arben Arifi of the Kosovo Institute of History said there was a practical reason for the relatively benign interpretation of Serbia’s role.

“The authors who wrote the history schoolbooks before and after independence are, more or less, the same,” Arifi said.

But Shkelzen Gashi, a political scientist who specialises in history, argued that Kosovo schoolbooks are full of “inaccuracies, lies and falsifications, which very much increase suspicions amongst schoolchildren regarding Serbia”.

“Serbia is not directly accused [of starting the war], but indirectly, by saying the war began because of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand committed by a member of this nationalistic Serbian organisation, Gavrilo Princip,” Gashi said.

Macedonia accuses ‘imperialist’ great powers.

Macedonian school textbooks describe the conflict as “the first world imperialist war” and focus on the division of Macedonian territory that followed. However, Macedonians blame neighbouring Bulgaria in particular for aggressive expansionism, not Serbia.Macedonian historian Novica Veljanovski was also keen to exonerate Serbia. “It has been proven that the Serbian state had no intention or plan to kill the Archduke Franz Ferdinand,” he explained. “Serbia cannot be blamed for the start of the war.”

The Macedonian school textbook says Austria, Italy and Germany were the instigators, using the assassination by Princip’s “secret revolutionary organisation” as a pretext.

“Austria-Hungary used this event to accuse Serbia of organising the assassination, sending an ultimatum to Belgrade with almost unacceptable terms,” it says.

Bulgaria is accused of conducting an “expansionist policy” and of joining the war to “take the whole of Macedonia”.

Many people in the capital Skopje also did not blame Belgrade for WWI.

“Why Serbia? No. Everyone knows that the assassination that [Princip] carried out was only used as an excuse to start the war,” said one Skopje resident, Slavjan Radenski. “An entire country cannot be blamed for the actions of one man,” said another, Milanka Malinova.

No hope of a common truth?

At the spot where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated 100 years ago Sarajevo, some locals said they were not concerned about what schoolchildren were taught about WWI.

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” said Adnan Tepic. “We should just forget such a distant past.”

Others argued that only the facts should be taught, without any bias. “We should teach children the fact that the assassination happened, but we should leave it to each individual to find their own interpretations for themselves,” said Atija Masic.

But as the centenary approaches, there is little hope that rival ethnic and political groups in the Balkans will find a shared view of the causes of the 1914-18 war, said history professor Zijad Sehic.

“We will never have agreement on this issue. The views are too far apart,” he said. “There will never be a common truth.”