LOCAL PRESS

 

Djuric: Dangers produced by Kosovo precedent become clear (Beta)

The Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric says the clear dangers produced by the Kosovo precedent are now becoming evident. “As the darkness of war and the redrawing of borders once again loom over Europe, the danger of the ‘Kosovo precedent’ - as it was referred to by those soothing the conscience of the world, claiming what was happening to Serbia, dismembering of its territory, would never happen again - has become more visible than at any time during the past seven years.” According to Djuric, “in light of the turbulent events today on the European and world political scene, it can be concluded that taking international law lightly when it came to Kosovo was a big mistake and a misconception”. “The newly created events on the world stage teach us in an extremely clear way the lesson that unilateralism, disrespect for the positions of others, extreme acts and the ultimate subjectivity in international politics are introducing a defeat of humaneness and a moral and social crisis,” he said. Djuric added that the decision to proclaim Kosovo as independent was unlawful and as far as Serbia is concerned, does not produce any legal effect today, just as it did not then. Serbia, as he pointed out, continues to provide unconditional support to Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija in the protection and fulfillment of their living, civic, religious and property rights. Djuric said he was deeply convinced that, as long as Serbs gather in monasteries and churches in Kosovo, as long as there are teachers and students and new generations are born, Serbia will, with its people, survive in Kosovo despite anyone’s desires, wishes, interests, the redrawing of international law and attempts to falsify history. Serbia, as he pointed out, opted for the difficult Brussels talks for the sake of the Serb community, holding a principled belief in dialogue as the only possible way to establish lasting peace and stability, and not only in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija.

 

Vulin: No hope that the situation will improve in Kosovo (RTS)

Serbian Minister of Labor, Employment and Social Policy Aleksandar Vulin said there was no economic security or security in terms of property in Kosovo and Metohija, no social policy and no hope that the situation will improve. Commenting on the fact that, today, seven years have elapsed since Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, Vulin assessed that what people have seen is that several families rule Kosovo, that various clans decide on the fate of the people and that, by going abroad, Kosovo Albanians are making the best statement about what they feel about Kosovo’s unilaterally declared independence. A state is not created through the mere fact that it has been recognized, but on the basis of economy and the rule of the law and also ability to create a social and political consensus in the area one calls one’s state, said Vulin.

 

Vulin requesting new investigation into the murder of Serbs near Podujevo (Politika)

Serbian Minister of Labor, Employment and Social Policy Aleksandar Vulin requested the international community to open a new investigation into the terrorist attack on the Nis Ekspres bus on the Serbs in Livadice near Podujevo and bring the responsible parties before justice. “Here is an opportunity for the international community to correct that mistake and bring to justice the perpetrators of the massacre and clearly show how the rule of law looks in practice,” Vulin said in Leposavic while opening the bridge on the Ibar River named after Danilo Cokic, the youngest victim of the terrorist act. He reminded that Danilo was killed while in arms of his 8-month pregnant mother, and then they killed her and another 10 people and wounded 43 persons and nobody was held responsible for this crime. “We are seeking the truth so at least the soul of the youngest Danilo could be at peace. After 14 years, let the truth and justice meet on this bridge,” said Vulin. Politika’s journalist wondered how the Minister comments the increasingly informal rumors that the Albanians are preparing a landing on Trepca, but also public threats by the leader of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo Ramush Haradinaj pronounced in the Kosovo Assembly that “people will occur in the spring” since the Serbs fear a new 17 March 2004. Minister Vulin replied: “The international community will not allow 17 March repeating. The international community should condemn inflammatory statements of Pristina politicians and it must thwart the rhetoric that could eventually cause conflicts.” Politika was also interested in whether domestic intelligence services, but also foreign, are able to prevent eventual unrests scheduled for March, so that 2004 would not repeat, when intelligence officers were “dissimulated”. Vulin said: “I don’t have an answer to that question.”

 

Anniversary of the crime in Livadice (Tanjug)

February 16 marked 14 years since the attack against the Nis Ekspres bus in Livadice near Podujevo, northern Kosovo, which killed 12 and wounded 43 displaced Serbs who were travelling to Gracanica on All Saints’ Day. Two-year old boy Danilo Cokic was the youngest victim of the unsolved crime in Livadice. The Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric stated that it is humiliating that perpetrators of the crime committed in Livadice in 2001 have still not been punished. Even after so many years, no one has been charged or convicted of this crime, while innocent people are jailed for political reasons throughout Kosovo. It is clear that there is no rule of law here, Djuric emphasized.

 

New arrests of migrants at Serbia-Hungary border (Tanjug)

The number of illegal crossings at Serbia-Hungary border, as well as the number of persons from Kosovo and Metohija illegally trying to reach the Schengen zone, increased slightly this Saturday, but, according to the Hungarian police, it is still several times lower compared to last weekend. In the last 24 hours, the Hungarian police arrested 550 persons illegally crossing the border, which is 75 times more than on Friday. The charges were filed against three persons for human trafficking, and against another three for forgery. It was communicated that the largest group of 50 persons from Kosovo who had illegally crossed the “green border” was arrested in the vicinity of Asotthalom.

 

Djuric: We will not discuss succession with Pristina (Danas, by Jelena Tasic)

“Serbia has stable support for its independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity in the highest body of the United Nations – the Security Council. The UN is our house and we find basis precisely in the UN Charter and other basic documents of the world organization, which were adopted based on the lessons drawn by humanity from the horrors of World War II, so small countries like Serbia would be protected from seizure of territory and violent re-tailoring of borders. The Brussels agreement that refers to the formation of the Union of Serb Municipalities has absolutely nothing to do with that,” the Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric tells Danas in response to the question how much is Kosovo today, seven years after declaring independence, closer to the “seat” in the UN, having in mind the results of the Brussels negotiations, the announced legally binding agreement between Belgrade and Pristina and the number of 96 states that recognized it.

Why are Belgrade negotiators, including you, “bombing” the public with numbers and “ethnic keys” from the agreement on the judiciary, while keeping silent about the fact that the adopted solutions in the document on the judiciary are mostly taken from the existing Kosovo law on courts and that Kosovo laws will be applied?

“The initial premise of your question is not correct. The reached solutions will require amendment of the existing legislation on courts in the province, which the provincial assembly is already debating, just as the Albanian press in Pristina is fiercely criticizing the government there over the reaching of this agreement, along with claims that it creates prerequisites for ethnic segregation in the judiciary, which I personally think is not true and that attacks on the provincial government in regard to this are groundless. All judges working on the territory of our province will always be judges working in the system of the Republic of Serbia, and we are aware of the fact that there are those Albanians, and maybe others as well, who think that the province is an independent state. We, as a state and majority nation will never accept that.”

According to what laws will the courts operate in northern Kosovo and Metohija?

“Since the arrival of the international forces in 1999, the legislative framework created by the assembly in Pristina has been operating in our southern province, autonomously from other parts of the country.”

When is the deadline for abolishing court judicial institutions in Kosovo and Metohija and what are the guarantees that Serbs who have been opposing for years, at barricades and in other ways, integration into the legal and political system of the self-declared Kosovo state, will not be tried?

“This agreement creates new judicial institutions in Kosovo and Metohija in replacement of those that, unfortunately, due to the circumstances since 1999, have not been operating. We expect this process to start as soon as possible. As regards the processing of those who had been exposed to political persecution, the Law on Amnesty, which is part of the package of the Brussels agreements, obliges the Pristina side not to implement harassing exercise of rights against anyone. I must recall that Oliver Ivanovic and many other arrested and accused Serbs, who were not tried by Serb judges because there were none, are still in the jaws of the non-functional judiciary system, which we want to change and improve with this agreement. This agreement creates preconditions to change this kind of atmosphere.”

Why does Belgrade insist so much on the case of the dismissed minister Jablanovic – over violation of the coalition agreement and principles or pressure by Aleksandar Vulin who is now, apart from you, trying to pull the strings in Kosovo and Metohija?

“We insist on the fact that the legally voiced will of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija be respected, that the coalition agreement be respected and that nobody can ‘mop the floor’ with the Serb community in Kosovo and Metohija in the political sense.”

What does Belgrade concretely propose when it comes to the Union of Serb Municipalities?

“As a correct negotiator, we haven’t published the details of the working version of the draft statute of the Union of Serb Municipalities. However, it is clear that we insist on essential jurisdictions of the Union so the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija would be guaranteed property, legal and any other safety. We don’t imagine the Union as territorial autonomy, which is impossible over physical separation of the region with the Serb majority in Kosovo and Metohija, but as an instrument of survival and development of Serbs and regions in which they live. It is necessary to form such a community, not on the existing legal regulations that are valid in Kosovo and Metohija, but with a completely new legislation. The negotiators from Pristina committed themselves to this by signing the first Brussels agreement, and they confirmed this commitment later on by signing the coalition agreement with the representatives of the Serb (Srpska) List whereby they entered the provincial government.”

Since Kosovo and Metohija is part of Serbia according to the Constitution, whose property is Belgrade requesting to negotiate in Brussels and will this be a dissolution process, as Western sources claim, in which Serbia will transfer its rights to the Kosovo Serbs, which would enable, with appropriate Kosovo laws for all mineral and natural resources south of the Ibar River, including the lignite deposits for the next 16 centuries, all chromium reserves in Serbia, mineral resources of Stari Trg….handing over to Pristina?

“The public knows that Pristina representatives would like to discuss succession in Brussels. Of course, this discussion is impossible for us, since no state can discuss this with part of its territory. However, what we wish to discuss is the status of state, public, church, private and any other property. A large part of that property has been usurped or even privatized with unilateral pseudo-legal acts by Pristina. Therefore, we don’t have any factual control over this property. However, law is on our side. Property is sanctity in the civilized world, and we have, so to speak, deeds – documents that prove where and how much the state of Serbia had invested in Kosovo and Metohija. Neglecting the law in this matter, i.e. legalization of some revolutionary justice, I believe, is not even in the interest of the most influential Western states that recognize the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo and Metohija. This dialogue has not even commenced and it is too early for anyone to anticipate its outcome.”

When do you expect a new round of the dialogue and could it happen that Belgrade cracks under pressure before the negotiations on the Union of Serb Municipalities to first resolve the issue of civil protection, special area code for Kosovo, energy, while Isa Mustafa is mentioning the demarcation of borders and war reparation?

“The talks we have conducted were so exhausting that we haven’t even managed to mention the date of the future meeting. Based on experience from the talks with Ms. Ashton, these talks had been conducted approximately each month. We will see whether we can expect this. Ms. Mogherini said she knew how many hours Ms. Ashton spent in these talks and that she was ready to devote more time to them. As regards the other part of the question, this could not happen.”

What do you expect from the announced new Kosovo platform of President Tomislav Nikolic, have the government and President discussed this and how big are the differences among them when it comes to the Kosovo policy?

“That document is being harmonized by the President and Prime Minister of Serbia. The public will be acquainted with its content when the President and Prime Minister consider it to be expedient. Nobody questions the need of the Serbian public to be acquainted with the details of the state policy, but the moment of publishing one such important document must be chosen by considering the course of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue and the overall context of our relations with the EU.”

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Colak, Tadic and Softic part of leadership of B&H Parliamentary Assembly (Nezavisne novine/Srna)

Borisa Colak was elected the Chairman of the House of Peoples of the B&H Parliamentary Assembly, Ognjen Tadic was elected the first deputy chairman and Safet Softic was elected the second deputy chairman of this house. Colak was proposed by the Croat caucus and 12 delegates voted for him, while three abstained from voting. Since the Serb caucus didn’t manage to harmonize a single proposal, delegate Darko Babalj proposed Tadic for the leadership of the House of Peoples. Eleven delegates voted for Tadic, while four delegates abstained from voting. Softic was proposed by the Bosniak caucus and he received the support of 12 delegates, while three abstained from voting. In the first address after being appointed the Chairman, Colak wished the House of Peoples in its four years of mandate to do a good job for B&H, its nations and citizens. “I hope the atmosphere will be constructive and I want to make progress in all spheres, especially in EU integration,” said Colak, after which he concluded the constitutive session of the House of Peoples that commenced on 29 January. Members of the three-member collegium of the House of Peoples rotate at the post of the chairman and first and second deputy chairman every eight months.

 

Vucic: relations between Belgrade and Sarajevo are “good” while their improvement “is expected” (Dnevni avaz)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has said that relations between Belgrade and Sarajevo are good while their improvement is expected. Speaking about his trip to Zagreb on Sunday where he attended the inauguration of Croatia’s new president, Vucic told Dnevni avaz that his attendance was an indication of the desire to improve regional cooperation. “The situation is good. I do not see problems that are too big, other than what has already been present for years and decades. I see a new momentum for the future of the region,” said Vucic, according to the news agency Fena. “I believe that everyone thinks and expects that. I think that the era of the thinking where someone expects to win or humiliate another is over. I see those times behind us,” he said. Asked about the current cooperation between Serbia and B&H and resolving of outstanding issues, Vucic said that things could be better. “We have good relations and I think that they will go for the better,” he said, adding that while in Zagreb, he met with all three members of the B&H Presidency. Vucic stated that he expected to meet with the Bosniak member of the Presidency soon, whom he last saw nine months ago, which, according to him, is a long time. Commenting on the signing of a joint statement of Bosnian leaders in favor of reforms on the road to EU, Vucic said that was a sovereign decision made by domestic political leaders. “It is a sovereign decision of the representatives of all three peoples in B&H. Whatever I told you, I’m afraid that someone could interpret it the following way: ‘There he goes, meddling in B&H’s internal problems’,” said Vucic. “I do not want to interfere in the internal problems of B&H. That decision was brought by the people in B&H. So, it is a decision of all the constituent peoples, i.e. Serbs, Bosniaks, and Croats. The signing of this statement is a clear answer to what the peoples of B&H want,” he said.

 

Grabar-Kitarovic prepared to assist B&H on EU path (Oslobodjenje)

Mladen Ivanic, chair of the B&H Presidency, and Presidency members Dragan Covic and Bakir Izetbegovic spoke in Zagreb with Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, the newly appointed Croatian President. The members of the B&H Presidency at the start of the meeting congratulated the president of Croatia on assuming her duties and wished her success in her work. During the meeting, they jointly assessed that relations between B&H and Croatia are friendly and good-neighborly. They stressed the expectation of good continued cooperation. They also spoke about B&H’s EU path and activities and priorities of the B&H government on this path. The Croatian President expressed Croatia’s willingness to offer support and assistance to B&H on its EU path, the B&H Presidency said in a statement.

 

Serbia, Macedonia sign seven cooperation agreements (Tanjug)

The governments of Macedonia and Serbia held a joint meeting in Skopje on Monday, discussing ways to improve cooperation between the two countries, focusing primarily on the economy, after which they signed seven bilateral agreements on cooperation. Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told a press conference afterwards that the second joint meeting of the two governments had been much more successful than the first one in Belgrade in 2013. “Not only have we ended up with the seven agreements, but we also got a lot of projects to bring to completion, some of them this year and some in 2016. We managed to find common interests in all spheres of society,” said Vucic. Vucic said that the meeting discussed ways to complete the Corridor 10 construction by September 2016, the construction of 400-kV power line between Nis and Stip, which he said could be opened in December of the current year, the construction of a gas inter-connection between Vranje and Kumanovo, and building railroads to Greece. We also talked about opening joint diplomatic and consular missions in some countries and about joint procurement of vaccines, Vucic said. Commenting on the Macedonian government’s efforts to implement reforms in the country, Vucic said that the Serbian government highly respected the work of their colleagues in Macedonia. “We have a lot to learn from our Macedonian friends,” Vucic said. Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said that the visit by the Serbian delegation was proof of a high level of relations between the two countries, which he said was a good basis for economic cooperation and prosperity aspired to by both Macedonia and Serbia. One of the topics discussed was European integration, and Gruevski said that Serbia and Macedonia had to work hard on strengthening dialogue, closing the issues of the past, respecting the principles of international law, strengthening good neighborly relations, easing the effects of the global economic crisis and implementing joint projects to help create new jobs. We had a constructive and productive meeting of the two governments and I expect that these agreements will be a new economic plus in the best interests of both countries, Gruevski said in conclusion. Representatives of the two countries’ governments signed agreements on economic cooperation, cooperation in tourism, cooperation in science, education and technology, cooperation in the field of sustainable development and environmental protection, cooperation in the field of culture, an agreement on establishing border procedures for the Tabanovce-Presevo rail border crossing and a plan for the holding of consultations between the Serbian and Macedonian Foreign Ministries in the period 2015-2016. The Serbian government’s delegation, headed by the prime minister, included Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Construction and Infrastructure Zorana Mihajlovic and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Telecommunications Rasim Ljajic. Also on the delegation were Defense Minister Bratislav Gasic, Economy Minister Zeljko Sertic, Minister of Energy and Mining Aleksandar Antic, Minister of Health Zlatibor Loncar, Minister of Agriculture Snezana Bogosavljevic-Boskovic, Minister of Education, Science and Technological Development Srdjan Verbic and Culture Minister Ivan Tasovac.

 

President Ivanov and Serbian PM Vucic discuss EU integrations, regional issues (Republika)

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov met with Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Monday, for the second joint government session between Macedonia and Serbia.

According to the press release from the Office of the President, Ivanov told Vucic that the joint government sessions are indicative of a positive political dialogue between the two countries.

“Contacts at top level give strong impetus to further develop our good neighborly relations and the cooperation between our two countries. Joint government sessions are a new chapter in our mutual communication that opens doors for direct and efficient cooperation in many areas of joint interest”, President Ivanov told Vucic at the meeting. Ivanov added that Macedonia and Serbia share a joint vision for a common future in the European family of nations. Ivanov said that Macedonia is willing to continue to cooperate with Serbia in exchanging experiences on European integrations and in regional initiatives. In this line, a major area of cooperation would be joint work on improving regional infrastructure, where the two countries can apply together for European priority projects. Regarding regional issues, President Ivanov added that dialogue between the countries is the only way to solve open issues, and that these issues shouldn’t be used as obstacles in the integrations.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Kosovo Serb MPs to Consult Belgrade Before Quitting (BIRN, by Una Hajdari, 16 February 2015)

Kosovo Serb MPs will hold talks with the Serbian government before deciding whether to leave both the Kosovo government and the parliament.

Members of Srpska List, the Serbian party in the Kosovo government, are to consult with Serbian government officials later this week and discuss whether to continue to participate in Kosovo government institutions. The politicians, who make no secret of their close links to Belgrade, will make their minds up only after consultations with the Serbian Prime Minister, Aleksandar Vucic. Serbian MPs in Kosovo started mulling whether to quit the coalition government led by Isa Mustafa - and their seats in parliament, after Mustafa on February 3 axed the ethnic Serbian Minister for Returns and Communities, Aleksandar Jablanovic. Jablanovic was fired after making a controversial statement at Orthodox Christmas, when he called Albanians who blocked a bus full of Serbian pilgrims "savages". Srpska List still has two ministers in the government as well as nine seats in parliament. The participation of the Serbian MPs is considered crucial for the implementation of the 2013 Brussels agreement on the "normalisation" of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. This foresees Serbia abandoning its system of parallel government bodies in the north of Kosovo and the creation a semi-autonomous Association of Serbian Municipalities. Political analyst Belul Beqaj said the party's withdrawal from government would have serious consequences for both Kosovo and Serbia. "It would slow down the process of signing the Stabilization and Association Agreement for Kosovo and also slow down Serbia’s EU membership negotiations," Beqaj said. The continuation of the EU-facilitated dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, which started more than two years ago, is considered crucial for the EU membership aspirations of both countries. The status of Kosovo remains unresolved in the eyes of Serbia, which has refused to recognise Kosovo's independence. The EU-led talks mark the only official contact between top politicians in the two countries. Beqaj said Serbia might well instruct the Serbs to remain in the government for sound strategic reasons. "Although it seems like the Srpska politicians might want to leave the government, this would mean Serbia losing its influence over Kosovo politics – which most Serbs in Kosovo don’t want," Beqaj, added. Kosovo Albanians regard the Serb MPs in parliament with suspicion, partly because they continue to refer to the country under the old Serbian formula of "Kosovo and Metohija" and because they take their orders from Belgrade. The latest drama began on the eve of Orthodox Christmas when a group of Serbs attempted to go by bus to the monastery in Zociste. After local Albanians protested, claiming that some of the Serbs on the bus were war criminals, Jablanovic called the protesters "savages". Protests were held in several towns, culminating in two big protests on January 24 and 27, the largest rallies seen in the country since the declaration of independence in 2008. Soon after, Prime Minister Mustafa was pressured into removing Jablanovic.

 

Serbia Honours Chomsky for Criticising NATO Bombing (BIRN, by Marija Ristic, 16 February 2015)

President Tomislav Nikolic honoured US philosopher Noam Chomsky after he wrote that the West showed hypocrisy for not condemning the deadly NATO attack on Serbian state TV in 1999.

Nikolic marked the country’s Statehood Day on Sunday by bestowing honours on a large number of people including Chomsky and Serbian Army chief Ljubisa Dikovic, who was recently accused of being responsible for war crimes in Kosovo. Chomsky was given the Order of Sretenje in his absence after he published an article recently comparing the murders at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo with the NATO attack on Serbian public broadcaster RTS that killed 16 people in April 1999. He wrote that it was an example of Western hypocrisy that “there were no demonstrations or cries of outrage, no chants of ‘We are RTV’ [sic], no inquiries into the roots of the attack in Christian culture and history” when the Serbian broadcaster was bombed. Meanwhile Dikovic, the head of the general staff of the Serbian armed forces, was awarded the Order of the White Eagle with Swords, First Class, for his outstanding contributions to the country’s defence system and command and control of military units. The honour was bestowed just over two weeks after the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre published a report alleging that Dikovic, as wartime commander of the 37th Brigade of the Yugoslav Army, was responsible for attacks on four villages in the Drenica area of Kosovo in 1999, in which at least 69 Kosovo Albanians were killed. The report also claimed the 37th Brigade was responsible for the subsequent removal of the bodies from the villages in an attempted cover-up. The bodies were found last summer in the mass grave near the town of Raska, close to the Kosovo border. Dikovic has strongly denied the allegations. In his address, Nikolic said that Statehood Day was an opportunity to reward the most valiant and successful people. “I do not want to hold back words of praise for those who give their best. I am looking forward to an increasing number of them every year, because the number of decorations indicates that as a society in the community of nations, we are becoming more and more successful,” Nikolic said. Nikolic also honoured Smilja Avramov, a retired law professor known for being a strong supporter of the politics of Yugoslav late president Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2006 during his trial for war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Avramov was the first one to testify in Milosevic’s defence at his trial. Activists from the Serbian NGO Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR) staged a protest in front of the Serbian parliament and presidency on Sunday, saying that army chief Dikovic should be investigated for war crimes. A group of around 100 activists held up banners with slogans like “General, you shoot civilians”, “Investigation, not award” and “I love Serbia, but I love truth more”. “We believe this award is offensive for the whole of society and for the victims,” said Anita Mancic from YIHR.

 

The Privateers and the Protesters (Transitions Online, by Uffe Andersen, 13 February 2015)

A year after riots swept Bosnia amid anger over rotten privatization deals, signs of change are in the air.

“We’re leaving Bosnia to the bandits, let them do what they want with it.” So read posters borne by some 200 Bosnian workers as they set off on foot from Tuzla in late December, heading for the Croatian border. Hoping to get asylum in the European Union, they left behind Tuzla’s now mostly empty factories – formerly the pride and backbone of Bosnian industry. In February 2014, protests in Tuzla against years of incompetent governance and widespread layoffs at privatized companies spread into the worst wave of social unrest in years. Crowds torched government buildings in Tuzla, Sarajevo, and Mostar; some officials lost their jobs and the government promised action. Since then, a trial in Sarajevo saw one privatization deal annulled in December. A month earlier, a court in the country’s Republika Srpska entity canceled the sell-off of a soft-drink company called Fruktona and sent the buyer and his associates to prison. Those are just two firms of the approximately 2,000 in Bosnia that have been sold to private investors. Unions say tens of thousands of Bosnians have lost their jobs because of bogus privatizations engineered by the “bandits” so hated by the Tuzla workers. But authorities may now finally be getting serious about rooting them out. On 16 February a former energy minister of the Bosniak-Croat Federation – the country’s other ethnically defined political entity – is due to testify in court about the 2006 partial privatization of oil company Energopetrol. One of the defendants is Nedzad Brankovic, a former Federation prime minister who, along with eight others, is accused of causing a 16 million euro ($18.1 million) loss to the entity. A Sarajevo court confirmed the charges last March, a month after protesters demanded a review of “criminal privatizations,” beginning with some of Tuzla’s once-prospering industries. In April the Federation government set up an agency to review privatizations, and although auditors were not hired until December, they expect to deliver their first report to prosecutors in the spring. Yugoslavia began privatization in 1990 by allowing employees to buy shares in the companies for which they worked, but during the 1992-95 war Bosnian authorities brought those firms back into state ownership. In Yugoslav times, company managers were appointed by the workers, said Ismet Bajramovic of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but now managers were named by politicians responsible only to their parties. As Transparency International wrote in a 2009 report (pdf), the partial re-nationalization “opened the door to an uncontrolled destruction of the companies.” The “general view” was that many companies were gutted on purpose, TI said, with managers bringing a firm’s value down so they or their associates could buy it cheaply then sell off its assets. In the Federation, with a population of 2.3 million, 150,000 people have lost their jobs because of “bad privatizations,” Bajramovic claims. Most post-socialist countries went through a phase of job losses for many and instant wealth for a few as state companies were privatized, but Bosnia began from an even worse position than most after three years of internecine conflict that cost 100,000 lives and split the country into two autonomous entities. After the war, the European Union and international lenders made financial aid conditional on privatization. Even free marketeers agree that Bosnia’s sale of state businesses has been deeply flawed. Privatization had to happen because “the existence of public companies and state monopolies makes a market economy impossible,” said Milenko Colak, a board member of the Employers Union in the Federation. But in Bosnia’s case, he acknowledged, “the profit which should have gone to the citizens instead went to the government and to political elites placed in managing positions and in company boards.” In its 2009 report, Transparency International castigated the government’s role as a business owner, saying that “the state’s further involvement in managing business is worse than any kind of privatization.” Today, however, Ivana Korajlic of TI Bosnia and Herzegovina in Banja Luka qualifies that statement. Privatization may help dysfunctional state companies get healthy, she wrote in an e-mail, but only if “it’s carried out systematically, adhering to adequate procedures and rules, and transparently.”  That has not happened to date in Bosnia, Korajlic continued; rather, authorities have seemed oblivious to the need for transparency. “In some cases, even the buyer’s ownership structure was unknown,” she wrote.

OIL AND ALUMINA

A notorious case of hidden ownership concerns the privatization of Republika Srpska’s oil and gas industry. Refineries in the neighboring towns of Bosanski Brod and Modrica, as well as a chain of filling stations, were sold in 2007 – not by tender but to a chosen buyer, with the law defining conditions for the deal coming into force a month later. The Russian state-owned oil company Zarubezhneft bought 40 percent of the shares, but the rest were sold to unknown persons, leading to “suspicions that some of the owners are, in fact, political leaders from RS, or someone connected with them,” Korajlic said. TI’s 2009 report reckons that the sale of the Bosanski Brod plant cost the Republika Srpska government 549 million convertible marks ($320 million). The “Birac affair” saw a once-proud company brought low in a different scenario. In Yugoslav times, the Birac ad Zvornik alumina refinery was the country’s largest exporter, earning $312 million abroad in 1989. In 1991 the firm had 2,600 employees. A decade later Birac was taken over by Lithuania’s Ukio Bankas for 3 million euros in a sale the bank had controversially prepared itself, as a consultant. Ukio failed to honor pledges to invest 25 million euros in the company and retain workers; meanwhile, Republika Srpska's budget was tapped for millions of euros to cover Birac’s old debts and new ones run up by a Ukio-owned local bank. In 2013, Ukio went bankrupt, forcing the entity to take over Birac, now with only 1,000 workers and huge liabilities. A widely cited estimate is that Ukio took 400 million to 500 million euros out of Bosnia before the bank collapsed. The Special Prosecutor’s Office in Banja Luka confirmed it is investigating several Lithuanian citizens in connection with the Birac deal; whether charges will be filed depends on cooperation by Vilnius. Russian authorities last year rejected Lithuania’s request for the extradition of Ukio’s former majority owner to face embezzlement charges. The story of Birac’s sale, leading to huge job losses and money flowing into unknown hands, embodies what TI’s Korajlic calls “the normal scenario” for Bosnian privatizations, often including “contracts that damage the state, and no consequences to the buyers from not fulfilling their obligations.” The Bosnian public itself, however, has often been persuaded to support damaging privatizations. In the Birac case, trade unions backed Ukio’s takeover. A telling example from the Bosniak-Croat Federation is that of the pharmaceutical maker Bosnalijek. In January, the newspaper Oslobodjenje named several people it said were under investigation in connection with the Luxembourg-based investment firm Haden’s share purchases in Bosnalijek. (The Prosecutor’s Office in Sarajevo confirmed that it was working on privatization cases but declined to elaborate.) Some of the alleged suspects have been central to Bosnalijek’s privatization story since 2010, when the American company Alvogen launched a takeover bid. Bosnalijek management hit back with a campaign against Alvogen, placing ads aimed at discrediting its “suspicious investment plans.” A story about the Americans’ dubious intentions spread across the region via Bosnia’s largest paper, Dnevni Avaz. Alvogen invested elsewhere, while Haden bought 30 percent of Bosnalijek in 2012-13 – at a price one-third lower than Alvogen’s offer.

‘AN ACT OF DESPAIR’

In 2012, the Bosniak-Croat Federation parliament voted to revise the entire privatization process, to little effect. But after Bosnians took to the streets last year, demanding not only jobs but accountability for politicians who greased the skids of privatization, the entity’s leaders responded: the government issued a list of several dozen large “suspect privatizations.”

As victims of bad privatizations flooded the government with complaints, Federation Prime Minister Nermin Niksic said officials were “just as frustrated with the fact that we demand [action] and highlight [suspicious privatizations] but in the judiciary, nothing happens.”

Admir Arnautovic, spokesman for the Prosecutor’s Office in Tuzla, said the issue was not judicial will but political will, characterizing comments like Niksic’s as “an act of despair” in the face of social unrest. If some privatization was carried out illegally, Arnautovic said – “and given the way things look in Bosnia, it probably was” – prosecutors can act only on evidence supplied by a law enforcement agency. “In the Tuzla Prosecutor’s Office, we’ve received nothing of the kind,” he said.  The spokesman cited another seeming sign of scant political will to take on such cases: the Federation’s privatization review agency until recently had just one employee. In Republika Srpska, a similar revision of the privatization process several years ago brought little real action, TI’s Korajlic said. She hopes things will be different this time in the Federation.  Even setting aside the myriad scandals, Bosnia’s privatization record is grim, with most of the 2,000 firms sold off eventually closing. Nevertheless, the Federation’s privatization agencyis planning to sell 14 large public companies in 2015. The announcement was made in late December while privatization-hit Tuzla workers were marching into the European Union. They have since returned – by bus – accepting a government grant of 200 euros per person to come home.  On 7 February, people marked the anniversary of last year’s riots in towns across Bosnia, this time quietly and in their hundreds rather than thousands, some carrying placards mocking “the oligarchs.” Activists from Tuzla contend that nothing is the same since last year’s unrest. There is change on the political front – after months of political stasis following October’s elections, new entity and national-level administrations are taking shape. But few in Bosnia share the Tuzla firebrands’ optimism.

Uffe Andersen is a journalist in Smederevo, Serbia.

 

Croatia will become rich, pledges new president (The Scotsman, by Amer Cohdzic, 16 February 2015)

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic is sworn in. She said she would restart the economy.

KOLINDA Grabar-Kitarovic was sworn in as Croatia’s first female president yesterday after a surprise election victory in the European Union’s newest member state. The nationalist won the largely ceremonial presidency by edging liberal incumbent Ivo Josipovic in a run-off vote in January amid deep discontent over economic woes in Croatia. The inauguration ceremony of Grabar-Kitarovic, a former foreign minister, ambassador to Washington and an ex-assistant to the Nato secretary general, was attended by thousands of cheering supporters at a square in the old part of the capital, Zagreb. Dozens of regional leaders and foreign officials attended the event. After taking her oath, Ms Grabar-Kitarovic said she will work on making Croatia -–which has a 20 per cent unemployment rate and a six-year recession -–“a rich state” . She said that after Croatia joined the EU in 2013, “I wish we start living the lives of people in the European Union.” During her election campaign she used tough words about neighbouring Serbia, Croatia’s foe during the war for independence in the 1990s. But yesterday she called for resolving the differences and said all neighbours should join the EU for the sake of lasting peace in southeastern Europe. “We are seeking for a better life in the future, without looking to the past,” she said. The victory for Grabar-Kitarovic – giving her a five-year term – boosts the chances of her centre-right Croatian Democratic Union regaining power in elections due this year. Grabar-Kitarovic, 46, is the fourth Croatian president since independence from the former Yugoslavia. Autocratic nationalist president Franjo Tudjman and his conservative HDZ party ruled Croatia until his death in 1999, marking the start of democratisation that put Croatia on track to the EU. Ms Grabar-Kitarovic won the January elections by the narrowest of margins. She secured 50.5 per cent of the vote while incumbent Ivo Josipovic was on 49.5 per cent. The election was seen as a key test for the main parties ahead of parliamentary elections expected to be held towards the end of 2015. Ms Grabar-Kitarovic is a politically conservative member of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), which pushed the country towards independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991. The 46-year-old is a former foreign minister and assistant to the Nato secretary general. “I will not let anyone tell me that Croatia will not be prosperous and wealthy,” she told jubilant supporters in the capital Zagreb, calling for national unity to tackle the economic crisis. Mr Josipovic, a 57-year-old law expert and classical composer, had been president since 2010. He had been so popular for so long that it seemed impossible he could fail in a bid for re-election. Political commentators said his problem was that he was backed by the governing, centre-left coalition that has failed to pull Croatia out of a six-year-long recession. Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic apologised for being a “burden” to the outgoing president. Croatia, which became the newest member of the European Union when it joined in July 2013, has an unemployment rate close to 20 per cent. The Croatian president has a say in foreign policy and is head of the army, but running the country is primarily left to the government. Mr Josipovic proposed constitutional changes to solve the economic crisis.

 

Macedonian opposition releases new wiretaps exposing the government (EurActiv, 16 February 2015)

Macedonia's opposition leader - accused by police of plotting to seize power illegally - published audio tapes on Sunday (15 February) that he said demonstrated the government's total control over the judiciary.

It was the second file of alleged evidence released by Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev since he was accused by Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and police on 31 January of colluding with a foreign spy service to bring down the government. Last week, Zaev published excerpts of what he said were illegally recorded conversations, some including himself talking with journalists and members of his family. He accused Gruevski's government of wiretapping 20,000 people, including reporters, religious leaders and political figures. The government has dismissed the accusations, but the West is watching closely to see how it handles the unfolding scandal, given the former Yugoslav republic's quest to join the European Union and NATO. On Sunday, Zaev published what he said were audio excerpts from five phone conversations involving a deputy prime minister, ministers of interior and finance, the secret police chief and others talking about arranging court cases and placing judges in senior positions. "The wire-tapped conversations confirm what all citizens and the public know and have felt on their skin," Zaev told a news conference. "You will be convinced of the direct linkage between the government and the judiciary," he said. "You will hear what kind of control these people, headed by Gruevski, have taken over the courts and the judicial system in Macedonia." Gruevski, who has led the landlocked Balkan country of two million people since 2006, last month accused Zaev of trying to blackmail him into calling a snap election during face-to-face talks last September and November. He said Zaev had threatened to use anti-government intelligence gathered with the help of a foreign spy service. Zaev denied the charges saying authorities were trying to prevent him from publishing incriminating evidence about the government. Macedonia's state prosecutor has cautioned media not to publish information about the case that may be used in any subsequent trial, in what reporters and diplomats speculated may be an attempt to smother any material released by Zaev.

 

Macedonia PM Leaves Opposition Charges Hanging (BIRN, by Meri Jordanovska, 17 February 2015)

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said he had ‘nothing to add’ right now to his previous remarks about opposition allegations.

Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski declined on Monday to comment directly on the latest press conference of the opposition Social Democrats SDSM on Sunday, where five recordings were presented involving discussions between state officials, judges and a pro-government news editor on appointments of judges as well as court cases and prosecutors’ work.

“I already had a press conference and predicted that in the period that follows there would be these kinds of materials,” Gruevski said. “I had four meetings with [Social Democrat leader] Zoran Zaev when he informed me that he had taped materials from foreign services that he would publish if I didn’t agree to form a technical government [including the Social Democrats],” Gruevski added, noting that he had “nothing more to add right now, but would have concrete comments in the near future”. Last week, the opposition accused Prime Minister Gruevski and the secret police chief, Saso Mijalkov, of eavesdropping on more than 20,000 people, and released what it said was the first batch of recordings in support of its allegations. The opposition said it would continue publishing more recordings that would unmask the real nature of Gruevski’s regime. The first of the five audio recordings published on Sunday contained a conversation between what is alleged to be Police Minister Gordana Jankuloska and the former Justice Minister, Mihajlo Manevski. In the conversation, Jankuloska urges Manevski to resolve a request by Lina Petrovska, a member of the Judicial Council, the body that appoints judges, by influencing a Supreme Court verdict involving her brother. Like Gruevski, Manevski has since declined to comment or respond to the materials published by the SDSM. “I have no comment,” he told BIRN on the telephone before hanging up. In another recording, Filimena Manevska, the wife of Manevski and a former judge of the Skopje Appeal Court, appears to be in talks with the editor at a pro-government TV station, Sitel TV, Dragan Pavlovic Latas. Pavlovic appears to be asking Manevska for favours over court cases in which he is involved, to which Manevska seems willing to help. The voice attributed to Pavlovic complains to Manevska that several verdicts previously ruled in his favour have been overturned in the Court of Appeals. The male voice calls Manevska “Boss”. “I don’t have any comment on this,” Manevska told BIRN on Monday before hanging up. Pavlovic Latas on Monday gave a statement to Sitel TV, saying he had never won a case against a Macedonian journalist so far. He did not deny the authenticity of the taped materials that the SDSM has published. Another SDSM recording on Sunday revealed an alleged conversation between Police Minister Gordana Jankuloska and Finance Minister Zoran Stavreski. Jankuloska appears to inform Stavreski that she got word from chief prosecutor Marko Zvrlevski that certain criminal charges against Stavreski had been dismissed. Stavreski conveys his gratitude to Zvrlevski through the Police Minister. “I did not tell him [Zvrlevski] directly to reject the charges but I told him to take a look and take care of it. He knows what that means,” the voice that the opposition claims belongs to Jankuloska says. Zvrlevski on Monday claimed that he had never handled a case that involves the Finance Minister. “Nobody asked from me to dismiss criminal charges,” he said. Jankuloska and Stavreski have declined to comment. Zaev and several others are charged with espionage and with threatening top state officials. Five people have been arrested in the case and Zaev has been ordered to hand over his passport. Gruevski previously called Zaev a foreign spy, but has not yet said for which country he allegedly worked. Gruevski has also accused Zaev of threatening him in order to seize power.

The ICJ’s conservative stance in the ruling on Serbian and Croatian claims of genocide (Journal of Turkish Weekly Op-Ed, Dilek Kütük, 17 February 2015)

A heated topic of discussion in the Balkans nowadays is the final ruling of the International Court of Justice, which is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN), on 3 February, 2015 to dismiss the genocide claims of Croatia and Serbia.
In short, Croatia was the first to file a claim against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in 1999. Yet seeing that FRY consisted of the two states known today as Montenegro and Serbia, after Montenegro declared independence in 2006, Serbia was left as the sole defendant state for the remaining duration of the case. Nonetheless, Croatia resumed legal action against Serbia, alleging that it had violated the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of the Genocide during the War between Serbs and Croats before 27 April, 1992. In response, Serbia filed a counter claim on 4 January, 2010 against Croatia, challenging that systematic genocide was in fact actualized by Croatians in Kninska Krajina, a region that was inhabited by a Serbian majority. Conversely, Croatia claimed that Serbia committed genocide in Vukovar, where a majority of Croats had lived during the War of Yugoslavia.
After the announcement that the ICJ had dismissed the claims made by both parties, the two countries’ governments issued statements on the decision. Namely, Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic specified that the decision was on the one hand a total disappointment, but on the other hand the rejection of the Serbian counter-claim was satisfactory. Nonetheless, the Croatian government announced that it would not give up pursuing the rights of Croatians on topics such as the issue of missing persons, the return of stolen cultural heritage, etc. By contrast, the Serbian authorities were rather pleased with the ICJ’s decision stating, “It will positively affect the future of Serbia”. Furthermore, President of Serbia Tomislav Nikolic declared that “Croatia and Serbia would resolve their issues together in order to bring the region to peace and prosperity”. In this way, it can be said the relations between Serbia and Croatia will not break down due to the decision as both sides have already accepted it in a civilized manner.
Indeed, both sides failed to adequately prove their claims according to the framework of the ICJ’s definition of genocide. Here, genocide is defined in Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” by way of “killing members of the group”; “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group”; “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”; “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”; or “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”. With these parameters in mind, Serbia and Croatia’s cases were based upon claims that did not consider the historical implications of the case or the shifting borders of the times. Thus, based on a lack of evidence, the ICJ decided that genocide was not explicitly committed by one side or the other.
To better understand the issue, one should take a closer look at the breakup of Yugoslavia. The roles of Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman and Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic during the period of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) were of great importance. Considering the economic hardship, rising nationalism, and the sense of Serbian hegemony by way of Milosevic rule, Slovenes and Croats thought the best solution was to secede from the SFRY with a vote. Throughout the process the Croatian and Serbian sides became engulfed in a vicious circle that was characterized by the Serbs fearing the revival of the Ustasha, and the Croats fearing the revival of Serbian hegemony. In addition to the poor economic circumstances of the times, this endless loop of understanding reinforced the growing strength of both the Croatian and Serbian nationalist movements. In this context, attempts for secession were kicked off with the fiery rhetoric of self-determination movements. In this vein, the Republic of Serbian Krajina (Republika Srpska Krajina) had established itself as a self-proclaimed independent territory within the Republic of Croatia during the War employing Milosevic’s argument that “All Serbs should live in Serbia”, a discourse which represented the idea of “Greater Serbia”. Respectively, the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) was reconfigured, its ranks were filled with Serbs, and its attacks against Croatians intensified.
It’s a well-known fact that the United Nations tried to prevent the conflict, especially through the efforts of Representative Cyrus Vance and General Secretary Boutros Ghali. During the conflict, however, the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) did not apply physical force, either by way of deploying armed forces or by conducting air strikes. This owed in large part to international reluctance to get involved and the unpredictability of the conflict itself. UNPROFOR operated primarily in the United Nations Protected Area (UNPA), consisting of East Slavonia, West Slavonia, and Krajina, where its mission was not only to keep the peace but also to ensure the safe access of migrants to the UNPA. The presence of UNPROFOR in the UNPA facilitated the withdrawal of JNA troops from these areas. Throughout this period, UNPROFOR’s mission was extended from time to time and the body was reorganized to include the United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation in Croatia (UNCRO) and the United Nations Preventive Deployment (UNPREDEP). After UNCRO’s mission was concluded with the Basic Agreement on Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Sirmium, the United Nations Transitional Administration in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, Western Sirmium (UNTAES) was established in cooperation with the UNHCR to contribute to peace and security in the region. Here, the United Nations Civilian Police Support Group (UNPSG) and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) worked together for a period of time with the latter’s role in ensuring security eventually being increased by the UN. The actual performances of all organs are still contested due to the fact that they failed to disarm the UNPA and thus were not so successful in providing favorable conditions for the return of refugees to the Area.
The ICJ’s decision, which specifies a lack of international elements of genocide in the cases, can be read as a manifestation of the general agreement today that the UN would like the states of the Balkans solve their conflicts in line with EU regulations, free of direct outside intervention. Although the ICJ admitted that crime was committed at the time of the Croatian and Serbian claims, the acts were not classified as “genocide” according to the decision of the ICJ. However, the final judgment, despite Croatia’s discontent therewith, will positively influence Serbia’s EU accession process and has set a precedent in the eyes of international organizations. Notably, of the litigating states, one is a member of the EU and the other is a candidate country that could be the 29th member granted access to the Union; although this is not likely to happen until 2020.
Nonetheless, it should be noted that the decision does not mean that there was no injustice, that people were not killed, that inhabitants weren’t forced to emigrate, or that residential areas were not destroyed. The ICJ’s decision was issued based on a conservative attitude in order to set the bar high when it comes to the judicial body’s official recognition of genocide.
*Assistant Specialist at Istanbul based think-tank,Turkish Asian Center for Strategic Studies - TASAM.

 

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Media summaries are produced for the internal use of the United Nations Office in Belgrade, UNMIK and UNHQ. The contents do not represent anything other than a selection of articles likely to be of interest to a United Nations readership.