LOCAL PRESS

 

Vucic – a press conference (RTS/Radio Serbia/Tanjug/Beta)

The Prosecution will establish responsibility for the death of seven persons killed in a helicopter crash, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told an extraordinary press conference in the Serbian government. Vucic stressed that the crew of the military helicopter that crashed recently while transporting a newborn baby in life danger were heroes. It is up to the Prosecution now to establish responsibility for the crash and nobody will interfere in their work. As for the Smederevo steel works, in the past months it has managed to reduce its losses and will start making profit as early as in May. In April, the production will amount to some 90,000 tons and in May it will reach the maximal level of 95,000 tons, said the Prime Minister. By November, we expect to put the second high furnace into operation and to aspire towards record production results in the steel works, stressed Vucic. As for macroeconomic indications, Vucic said that in the first three months the deficit had amounted to some 21 billion dinars. Some 2.5 billion were not spent on capital investments as planned and expenditures are to be increased in April, May and June, he said. Electric power production has dropped due to floods and water in the Tamnava coal mine, so that should return to the previous level as well. Food processing industry has grown by 3.5% and trade in retail stores by 1.4%, said the PM. In two years, citizens’ standard will grow and so should pensions and salaries provided that the positive trend, i.e. the good fiscal results as in the first three months of 2015, continue, said Vucic. He also said that he himself would make a decision regarding Vojislav Seselj after Serbia obtains a request from the Hague Tribunal with legal reasoning. He said that he and the Croatian Prime Minister would discuss the misunderstandings stemming from that case after Easter holidays. Asked by the press when he is going to extradite Seselj to the Hague Tribunal, Vucic replied he would decide on that when he obtains papers confirming that Seselj is well. Seselj is a Serbian citizen – I do not approve of his political views, but it is my job to protect Serbian citizens and their rights guaranteed by the Constitution, added Vucic. Our government has dignity and pride, said Vucic, wondering why the Hague Tribunal, after almost twelve years, will not pronounce a verdict in Seselj’s case. Vucic also said that he and Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic would discuss the misunderstandings stemming from that case after Easter holidays. The two will try to find a way of overcoming any moments of crisis between the two countries. Vucic said that the two nations’ and states’ differing views of the past were not going to change, but that one must look at a future in common. Croatia celebrates the Storm operation, while in Serbia, that day is the saddest one as 250,000 Serbs were banished from their homes during that military operation. He said that no one, least of all the citizens of Serbia and Croatia, had any interest in the deterioration of relations between Serbia and Croatia and added he was grateful to Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic and Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic for their messages. He said he would give his best in order that the two countries build the best mutual relations possible.

 

Djuric: Resolution on genocide against Albanians is political adventure (RTS)

Instead of enacting a resolution on the alleged genocide against Kosovo Albanians, the Kosovo Assembly should be looking for the perpetrators of the genocide committed by the KLA, said the Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric. The proposition about the resolution on the alleged Serb genocide against Kosovo Albanians is just a political adventure of those who have guilty conscience about their own role in the war in the 1990s, Djuric told Radio Television of Serbia (RTS). He assessed the move as irresponsible and the adoption of the resolution as uncertain. As for the return of Serb ticket representatives to Kosovo institutions, Djuric said they had not left the institutions on a whim, but because the political will of Kosmet Serbs was not respected. As for the Brussels agreement, Djuric said Belgrade fulfilled its obligations and had no additional ones to be fulfilled, but as for the Kosovo side, the situation is quite different. The first element of the implementation plan is the adjustment of Pristina’s legal framework so the Union of Serb Municipalities is formed, said Djuric. Instead, Kosovo Albanian representatives keep inventing new reasons why they are not fulfilling the obligations they have assumed.

 

EULEX’s hunt for the Serbs in Zubin Potok (Politika, by Biljana Radomirovic)

The Serbs in Ibarski Kolasin, Zubin Potok municipality, have been under real siege of EULEX members, in constant fear of arrest, because more than 30 people from this place have been suspected or accused of taking part in three criminal offences – for the murder of the member of the Rosu intervention unit Enver Zumberi in 2011, for the attack on the EU mission vehicle, as well as for the murder of EULEX customer officer in 2013. Namely, about ten days ago, the Kosovo Special Prosecution commenced, in cooperation with the EULEX Basic Prosecution in Kosovska Mitrovica, started an investigation against 25 Serbs from the region of the Zubin Potok municipality and vicinity in connection with the murder of the EULEX custom officer from Lithuania, Audrius Shenavichius, who was mortally wounded on 19 September 2013, on the Kosovska Mitrovica-Leposavic road, in the place called Balaban, when his jeep underwent bursts of fire. Attorney from Kosovksa Mitrovica Ljubomir Pantovic, who is involved in all three cases as the defense attorney of the suspects and defendants, tells Politika that that “the EULEX Prosecution is conducting an offensive on the residents of Ibarski Kolasin, while people are being suspected at random for the most serious crimes”. “In connection to the murder of Zumberi there is very unusual behavior of the EULEX Prosecution as underway is the main trial by the indictment against Radovan Radic and Milovan Vlaskovic, while an indictment has also been issued against Radomir Kasalovic and Slobodan Sovrlic, but without a commenced trial. A parallel investigation is being conducted against a dozen people. At the end of last year, EULEX in Kosovska Mitrovica accused eight people of several criminal offences in connection to the attack on the EU mission vehicle, when one rearview mirror was broken,” says Pantovic, stressing that “when we add to this the opening of an investigation against 25 people for the murder of the EULEX customer officer from Lithuania, it is clear that EULEX has obviously decided to discipline the residents of Ibarski Kolasin with a large number of criminal proceedings against people who live in this region”. All these incidents are linked to the period during and after the placing of “barricades” in northern Kosovo and Metohija against the integration into the Kosovo institutions. It was evident even then that the greatest resistance came precisely from the Zubin Potok municipality. Pantovic says that EULEX, in the absence of real evidence, is trying to detect the offenders by suspecting a large number of people. This is also confirmed by attorney Miodrag Brkljac, who represents Radomir Kasalovic, who thinks that EULEX Prosecutor Paskal Persons doesn’t possess concrete evidence. “My client is accused of taking part in the murder of Zumberi, but he is also suspected of murdering EULEX customer officer. He absolutely denied that he has anything to do with this case,” Brkljac tells Politika, with a hint that “these cases are aimed at something else, but not at identifying the real perpetrators”. “It seems to me quite incredible the fact that only one region, in this case Zubin Potok, has been put under such serious suspicion, even for an offence that doesn’t belong to it geographically. It is known that the murder of the custom officer from Lithuania occurred in the Zvecan municipality, and more than 20 people called as witnesses are precisely from Ibarski Kolasin,” says Brkljac. Politika unofficially learns in Zubin Potok that there is fear and concern that “EULEX will arrest all Serbs who were at the barricades”, and not only those who are allegedly suspected or accused of certain events. This is also corroborated by the fact that under investigation is also Slavisa Ristic, former Zubin Potok mayor and one of the most influential leaders in northern Kosovo, as well as the current Mayor Stevan Vulovic, who both voluntarily went for questioning to the EULEX court at the beginning of December last year.

 

The Association of Families of the Kidnapped from Kosovo: We will fight for justice (RTS)

The Association of Families of Persons Kidnapped and Murdered in Kosovo and Metohija from 1998 to 2000 announced they would fight for justice and to shed light on the fate of Serb victims, while asking if it is possible that “the war and post-war criminals have the audacity to sue Serbia for genocide against Kosovo Albanians”. In an open letter to the top state officials of Serbia, the Association states that victims will not allow reconciliation with criminals. A blow was dealt to justice, the victims’ families were humiliated, and this is proof that the international community is ignoring Serb victims, the letter reads.

 

Linta: Kitarovic’s decision scandalous (Tanjug)

The President of the Coalition of Refugee Associations in Serbia Miodrag Linta called on Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic to change the “scandalous” decision on the appointment of generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac as advisors with the Homeland Security Council, if she is truly committed to ensuring better relations with Serbia. Generals Gotovina and Markac were “part of the criminal organization led by Franjo Tudjman, whose aim was the creation of an ethnically clean Croatian state”, Linta said. “Various means were used so as to realize that objective- mass killings, the torturing of Serb civilians and prisoners of war, constant arrests of Serbs, the plundering and mining of Serb properties, unlawful seizure of land, houses and apartments of expelled Serbs,” he noted. Linta also pointed to the fact that the ICTY passed the first-instance judgment in April 2011, convicting Gotovina and Markac of war crimes against Serbs, based on numerous pieces of evidence. In November 2012, the Appeals Chamber cleared both generals of all charges, thus ridiculing the suffering of the Serb victims, their families and the entire Serb people, Linta said.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Dodik: New proposal can have far-reaching consequences for the RS (Srna)

The Republika Srpska (RS) President Milorad Dodik said that the latest proposal on a simpler coordination mechanism in B&H is not naïve at all and that it represents a very dangerous political game which can have far-reaching consequences for the integrity of the RS. Dodik explained that anti-constitutional attribution of jurisdictions to the B&H Presidency and Council of Ministers to the detriment of the RS is behind a proposal on allegedly simpler coordination mechanism which means a transfer of decision making process from the RS to B&H. “This is a culmination of a story to which we will have to respond adequately. This is a beginning of my reaction. In the next days I will inform people in the RS of what all this means,” Dodik told reporters in Belgrade. Dodik said that the Chairman of the B&H Presidency Mladen Ivanic should have got informed of his jurisdictions so he would have seen that it is impossible for any coordination mechanism in the B&H Presidency or the Council of Ministers to be arbitrary or to be resolved there. Dodik said that the Council of Ministers is a not a Cabinet, but a Council which is composed of elected or proposed ministers who come and gather there, and that the ambitions they are demonstrating now in order to move some things speak of how all this is caricature-like in B&H. “All of a sudden, people who have not been able to agree on seats in the Council of Ministers for six months are sending optimistic and pompous messages that they will do this or that. Of course, they will do nothing, since they are incapable of doing anything,” Dodik said. He said that a proposal on a simpler coordination mechanism is not an original proposal and that this is a proposal earlier put forth by the “Sarajevo circle” and later assumed by some European circles, which was drafted in the EU office in Sarajevo. Dodik said that the former head of the B&H Mission to the EU Osman Topcagic proposed the same model, the SDA kept it and it was also seen in an agreement reached by the SDA and the DF in Sarajevo. Dodik said that Mladen Ivanic is foisting the idea since he obviously “owes the Muslims” and is putting on the agenda things that “have been known and removed from the agenda”. “This issue should have been resolved between the Cantons and the federal level, and Mladen Ivanic is now returning it to a period of two and a half years ago in an attempt to attribute importance to himself or to repay a debt,” Dodik said.

 

Cvijanovic: Police an integral part of RS identity (Srna) 

The RS Prime Minister Zeljka Cvijanovic said that police are very important for the RS and that they are an integral part of the RS identity. Cvijanovic said that her cabinet has recognized the need to reorganize the police force in order to ensure greater efficiency, and that the cabinet supported all ideas put forth by Interior Minister Dragan Lukac. “I am pleased that this process has started. I always point out how the RS police force was important in creating the RS, but also important for its survival,” Cvijanovic said in Banja Luka at a ceremony marking the RS Police Day. She added that despite all challenges of regular policing, police are facing global challenges, and that the RS cabinet is giving full support to the training of police for these challenges. “The cabinet firmly supports everything that should be done in police, but is also aware that all RS institutions and all individuals holding any public office in the name of the RS should take care of these challenges and that we should jointly act and work to the benefit of the RS citizens,” Cvijanovic has said.

 

Twenty-six mercenaries from B&H killed (Fena)

The RS Minister of Police Dragan Lukac has announced that 26 peoplpe from B&H, including women, were killed in foreign battlefields so far. Lukac noted that hundreds of people from B&H are on foreign battlefields, and that some of them go through European countries “in order to cover their tracks”. Their movements upon return from B&H or movements of persons who are preparing for departure to foreign battlefields and those who pose a potential security threat will be monitored by a new administration that will be tasked with combatting terrorism, Fena reports. “Considering the events in the world, the fight against terrorism has to be raised to a higher level,” said Lukac. The new Rulebook on internal organization and systematization of the RS Interior Ministry will also include the formation of the Administration for Protection of Persons and Facilities with over 300 policemen, and it will be tasked with protecting the RS representatives in B&H institutions in Eastern Sarajevo. The Rulebook also includes the traffic police in the RS.

 

Montenegro in NATO – most important goal (Antena M)

The Montenegrin National Coordinator for NATO Vesko Garcevic has stated that NATO invitation has been the most important event for Montenegro following independence. According to him, this is the most important goal of the state in 2015. Montenegro is aware of the geopolitical circumstances in which it expects the invitation, but “the open door policy should be an option”, he says. Garcevic opines that NATO should send a clear message “that the open door policy cannot stop and that nobody can control in what way NATO member states will decide on enlargement”, Antena M reports. He is certain that invitation to join NATO would not be an historical act for Montenegro only. “This would be also an important step for NATO, because after Albania and Croatia, there has not been enlargement and I think it is high time that NATO expands again and that this be another country from the Balkans – Montenegro,” said Garcevic. NATO was discussed at the conference in Ulcinj, organized by the Institute for Scientific Research and Development and the municipal assembly.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Borrowing Cupid’s wings: Romeo and Juliet helps heal the scars of Kosovo war (The Guardian, by Kit Gillet, 5 April 2015)

More than 15 years after the bitter conflict, a staging of Shakespeare’s tragedy brings Kosovans and Serbians together to foster reconciliation

There are few more poignant places to stage a play about “star-crossed lovers” than in former Yugoslavia, where a rehearsal for a gritty production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is under way in Belgrade’s trendy but rundown port area of Savamala. With a cast chosen to reflect the deep divisions that remain in this part of the Balkans, Romeo and the Montagues will be played by Kosovan Albanians while Juliet and the Capulets will be played by Serbians. The production is seen as a chance to push forward dialogue and reconciliation in the region. “I think this is going to mark the end of the Serbia-Kosovo conflict, symbolically,” said Jeton Neziraj, a Kosovan playwright and one of the play’s co-producers. The play opens on Sunday at the Serbian National Theatre in Belgrade, before moving to the National Theatre of Kosovo in Pristina next month.

I think this is going to mark the end of the Serbia-Kosovo conflict, symbolically.

Jeton Neziraj, co-producer

After years of bloodshed and tension, Kosovo declared itself independent from Serbia in 2008. Although the Kosovo war ended in 1999, animosity and political difficulties remain, with Serbia refusing to recognise Kosovo and flashpoints between the two countries continuing. “The gap between these two nations is deep,” said Alban Ukaj, the Kosovan Albanian actor playing Romeo, sitting in a dressing room one morning before rehearsals began. Ukaj, 34, was a student in Pristina during the war and experienced the bombings first-hand, though he now lives in Sarajevo. “I started to lose faith that this story was ever going to end, so it was important for me that we start something,” he said. The play is a joint production by two theatre organisations, Belgrade-based Radionica Integracije and Pristina-based Qendra Multimedia, and is partly aimed at showing that Serbians and Kosovans can engage and work together, at least on stage. “We are doing a play and this process together, that is our statement,” said Miki Manojlović, the director. “It is much more profound than saying: ‘I think this’. Do something together. If we merely talk about reconciliation it is just words.” The play will be performed in both Serbian and Albanian, depending on which character is talking, with scenes involving both families interplaying the language. No subtitles will be offered to theatregoers. “There are people in Belgrade who don’t speak Albanian but they will understand,” said Manojlović. “It is easy to understand why somebody loves somebody, or someone hates someone.” This is not the first attempt to use cultural events to bridge the gap between the countries. Polip, a literary festival in Pristina, first held in 2010, has Serbian writers among those regularly invited to participate. Co-founder Saša Ilić, a Serb, says he set up Polip “because I understood there was no cooperation between Pristina and Belgrade in a cultural sense and someone had to start that.” He was also involved in two books published in 2011: From Belgrade with Love, an anthology of Serbian literature translated into Albanian and published in Pristina, and From Pristina with Love, a volume of Kosovan literature published in Serbian in Belgrade. “The goal is that one day they might become part of the school curriculums,” he said.  “It is like throwing a stone in the sea, with ripples and ripples,” said Borka Pavićević, the director of the Centre for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade, discussing the importance of the theatre and arts in rapprochement. The centre has put on more than 5,000 events since its founding in January 1995, at the height of the Bosnian war, many related to addressing or opening dialogue around unresolved regional issues.

I went through period of looking at my generation as victims. Seeing yourself as a victim doesn’t move you forward

Uliks Fehmiu

“We have people who get very angry about what we do here, but we also have people who support us and say they agree with what we are doing,” she said. “This new Romeo and Juliet will also mean a lot as it will create discussions.” Ukaj is cautious about how the play will be received locally: “Right now I just want to make the best production possible of Romeo and Juliet. How the reactions will be, I don’t know.” Adding poignancy to this production is the fact that many of the actors have first-hand experience of the impact of deep divisions between “feuding families”. Friar Lawrence is being played by Uliks Fehmiu, a 46-year-old actor based in New York. Fehmiu is the son of ethnic Albanian actor Bekim Fehmiu and Serbian actor Branka Petrić. In 1987 Bekim Fehmiu walked off stage in the middle of a performance in protest at the vitriolic speeches of Slobodan Milošević, the Serb leader later tried for war crimes. Fehmiu never acted or appeared in a public role again, and killed himself in 2010. “My father suffered through this period terribly,” said Fehmiu. “Hatred is something that is so dangerous and so contagious. I went through a period of looking at myself and my generation as victims. This seeing yourself as a victim doesn’t move you forward.” He added: “What is happening here shouldn’t be an exception, it should be a normal mainstream thing. This makes sense. You have to believe, at least a bit, that this seed we are planting will continue to grow.” The Romeo and Juliet the ensemble has created is set in modern-day Verona but clearly channels some of the feelings that come from living in the region. “I really want to tell something about hatred, about love, about what kind of communication we can make,” says Anita Mančić, a Serbian playing the part of the Nurse. “If I live with you, I must talk to you,” she added. “We exist in one place, why are we not talking with each other? That is the problem. We are living in the past.” But there are signs that relations between Serbia and Kosovo are starting to thaw. On 19 April 2013, Serbia and Kosovo signed an agreement in Brussels in an attempt to normalise relations. Last week, Serbia’s foreign affairs minister, Ivica Dačić, attended a conference in Pristina, the first official visit to the city by a leading Serbian politician since the end of the conflict.  “Until 2008 there was absolutely no support from governments; they actually tried to block things like this,” said Neziraj. “This was really the case until last year. The fact that the governments are now communicating and meeting has an impact on society. People think: ‘Okay, if our ministers are meeting why can’t artists meet?’” In fact, according to those involved this will be the first theatre production that has been supported by both governments, and there are already plans to take it beyond Belgrade and Pristina to perform it elsewhere in the region. “It isn’t easy to build a bridge,” said Manojlović. “But it is much easier for us – we are not making policy, but art. But we are fragile: some politician can come in and say goodbye, and this bridge no longer exists. Can you see how courageous this step is, and how right?”

 

Liberals May Regret Their New Rules (Townhall, by Kurt Schlichter, 5 April 2015)

That photo is me about ten years ago, standing in the ruins of a land where people rejected the rule of law in favor of the rule of force. I think a lot about my year-long deployment to Kosovo these days. I think a lot about people today who, for short term political points, cavalierly disregard the rules, laws and norms that made America what it is. I think a lot about how liberals, especially those who boo God, should pray to Him that those rules, laws and norms are restored.

I am most certainly not smiling – I am squinting in the winter sun, having doffed my ever-present Ray-Bans. Behind me is – well, was – a village along the Ibar River in northern Kosovo. In the 1990s, it was full of Serbs and gypsies (The new, politically correct term is “Roma”). Back then, after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Kosovo was a province of Serbia. Without rehashing the centuries of ancient animosities and grievances, the Orthodox Serbs found themselves unrestrained by the political consensus that Josip Tito had enforced and began an escalating series of petty and not-so-petty oppressions against the Kosovar Albanians. The “K-Albs” are about 10% Christian but mostly moderate Muslims (we called them “party Muslims,” and our troops used to love to go on patrol through K-Alb towns during the spring when the gorgeous Albanian women were in full effect). They were a minority in Serbia as a whole, but a majority in the province of Kosovo. Now, there’s no understanding Balkan hatreds – don’t even try. But basically, the tensions really kicked in after Slobodan Milosevic came to the battlefield at Kosovo Polje in 1989 on the 500th anniversary of the Muslim Ottoman Turks annihilating the cream of Serbian nobility. Thereafter, the campaign of exclusion and harassment against the K-Albs by Serbs ratcheted up. Where they had lived together in peace before, now the Serbs – unrestrained by laws, rules or norms – became increasingly despotic. Eventually, the Serbs tried to drive out the despised minority K-Albs. NATO intervened and saved the Albanians, who promptly came back and drove the Serbs out. The Roma, perceived as allies of the Serbs, fled too. That village behind me wasn’t blown up by explosives. That damage was done by people, with picks and shovels and bare hands. Which brings us to America in 2015. It’s becoming a nation where an elite that is certain of its power and its moral rightness is waging a cultural war on a despised minority. Except it’s not actually a minority – it only seems that way because it is marginalized by the coastal elitist liberals who run the mainstream media. Today in America, we have a liberal president refuses to recognize the majority sent to Congress as a reaction to his progressive failures, and who uses extra-Constitutional means like executive orders to stifle the voice of his opponents. We have a liberal establishment on a secular jihad against people who dare place their conscience ahead of progressive dogma. And we have two different sets of laws, one for the little people and one for liberals like Lois Lerner, Al Sharpton and Hillary Clinton, who can blatantly commit federal crimes and walk away scot free and smirking. Today in America, a despised minority that is really no minority is the target of an establishment that considers this minority unworthy of respect, unworthy of rights, and unworthy of having a say in the direction of this country. It’s an establishment that has one law for itself, and another for its enemies. It’s an establishment that inflicts an ever-increasing series of petty humiliations on its opponents and considers this all hilarious. That’s a recipe for disaster. You cannot expect to change the status quo for yourself and then expect those you victimize not to play by the new rules you have created. You cannot expect to be able to discard the rule of law in favor of the rule of force and have those you target not respond in kind. Liberals ask how a baker can believe that making a cake for a same sex wedding violates his conscience, but they don’t think about how the standard they are setting is that the government now gets to determine the validity of individual beliefs. Do they want us passing judgment on them? Liberals imagine that their president can simply take whatever actions he pleases – including ones he previously admitted were unconstitutional – and that the next Republican president won’t do the same. Except then it will be to negate their cherished policies. Liberals praise Harry Reid for lying about Mitt Romney and for ensuring the GOP’s voice can’t be heard on Capitol Hill, but they don’t think about what happens to them when they are out of power in an environment where slander is the norm and where minorities have no say. Conservatives have principles, but human nature is a powerful thing, and human nature favors payback. The revolt has begun, peacefully. In 2010, and again in 2014, the Silent Majority returned and sent an unmistakable message to the liberal elite. When Bill Clinton got that message in 1994, he recognized that opposition and worked with it. But under Obama, the liberal elite acts to ignore and delegitimize the opposition. 2014 was not a tantrum; it was a warning, and the liberals are betting that they can bluff and bluster their way through it. When you block all normal means of dissent, whether by ignoring the political will of you opponents or using the media to mock and abuse them, you build up the pressure. In 30+ years as an active conservative, I’ve never heard people so angry, so frustrated, so fed up. These emotions are supposed to be dissipated by normal political processes. But liberals are bottling them up. And they will blow. It’s only a matter of how. Liberals need to understand the reality that rarely penetrates their bubble. Non-liberal Americans (it’s more than just conservatives who are under the liberal establishment’s heel) are the majority of this country. They hold power in many states and regions in unprecedented majorities. And these attacks focus on what they hold dearest – their religion, their families and their freedom. What is the end game, liberals? Do you expect these people you despise to just take it? Do you think they’ll just shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, I guess we better comply?” Do you even know any real Americans? Do you think you’ll somehow be able to force them into obedience – for what is government power but force – after someone finally says “Enough?” In my book Conservative Insurgency, I offer a scenario set in the late 2010s where the Texas governor refuses to allow Hillary Clinton to enforce an unconstitutional handgun ban within his state. It devolves into a brief, bloody spasm of violence, after which a sobered country walks back from the precipice and returns to resolving conflicts through the Constitution (albeit, with some lingering damage to our political and social norms). But there is no guarantee that things might not spin out of control the other way. And then liberals would be well advised to ask themselves who will be willing to fight and die to preserve their power and policies. In contrast, there are an awful lot of people willing to fight and die for their religion and our Constitution. And let’s be blunt – these are the people with most of the guns and the training to use them. That’s the reality of the rule of force. I’ve seen it – it’s there behind me in that photo. Now, this will no doubt draw the lie that I am somehow advocating violence. The current liberal habit of shamelessly lying about their opponents makes civil debate impossible. Similarly, the mockery of non-liberals before stacked audiences of trained seals a la Jon Stewart is part and parcel of the same strategy of delegitimizing any opposition. Closing down the option of discussion leaves their opponents with only the option of action. So far, the action has only been in funding campaigns for oppressed pizzerias and in the voting booth – though they’ve trying to nullify that too. I’m not advocating violence – I am warning liberals that they are setting the conditions for violence. And that better worry them, for the coastal elites are uniquely unsuited to a world where force rules instead of law. The Serbs were, at least, a warrior people. The soft boys and girls who brought us helicopter parenting, “trigger warnings” and coffee cups with diversity slogans are not. I know the endgame of discarding the rule of law for short-term advantage because I stood in its ruins. Liberals think this free society just sort of happened, that they can poke and tear at its fabric and things will just go on as before. But they won’t. So at the end of the day, if you want a society governed by the rule of force, you better pray that you’re on the side with the guns and those who know how to use them.

 

Serb Leaders Quarrel Over Bosnia's EU Path (BIRN, by Srecko Latal, 6 April 2015)

With the troubled formation of new governments finally complete, a fresh dispute has erupted among Bosnian Serb politicians over a new mechanism for the coordination of EU projects.

Leaders of the Bosnian Serb ruling and opposition parties exchanged harsh words over the weekend as the political struggle moved from negotiations about the formation of new governments to the next highly-disputed issue – a new mechanism for the coordination of EU projects. The row began after Mladen Ivanic, the chairman of Bosnian tripartite presidency and leader of the opposition Serb Party of Democratic Progress, PDP, told local media on Friday that Bosnia’s presidency or the state government, the Council of Ministers, should be a part of this mechanism to make decisions when lower administrative levels fail to agree. This triggered strong reactions over the weekend from the premier and president of the Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska, who accused Ivanic of corroborating with Bosniaks and betraying Serbs. The EU coordinating mechanism is supposed to establish clear responsibilities for each of Bosnia’s numerous administrative levels in the implementation of EU projects and the overall EU accession process. In Bosnia it has been blocked since 2013 by political disputes arising from the conflicting views which Bosniak, Croat and Serb leaders have about the future of Bosnia. While Bosniak politicians expected the EU accession process to make Bosnia much more centralised, the Bosnian Serb leadership insisted on maintaining the full semi-autonomous status of Republika Srpska with all its broad responsibilities – even at the cost of abandoning the EU accession process. This debate has been on the back burner for the past three years as Bosnia’s path to the EU remained blocked by political quarrels related to the constitutional reforms which the EU required during the period. However after the EU dropped constitutional reform as a part of its new approach to Bosnia, the new EU coordinating mechanism became the next frontline for local political battles. After Bosnia’s main parties finally elected new governments at the state level and in the Bosniak-Croat Federation last week, they are now supposed to start negotiating a new EU coordinating mechanism which is the next condition for Bosnia to move on with its EU reform agenda. Conflicting views on the future of Bosnia, as well as the readiness to use this issue for new political quarrels and the scoring of political points, became visible again over the weekend following Ivanic’s proposal on Friday. “There should be a simpler mechanism [for the coordination of EU projects] so when there is no consensus, the final decision can be made by the chairman of the Council of Ministers and his deputies, or by the presidency,” Ivanic told media. Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik reacted immediately by saying that Ivanic’s proposal was his “payback to the [Bosnian] Muslims” who voted for him and allowed him to win a position in the presidency. Dodik added that this is only his first reaction to Ivanic’s proposal and that more will follow after he informs people in Republika Srpska about “what this really means”. Republika Srpska premier Zeljka Cvijanovic also slammed Ivanic’s suggestion. “The attitudes of Mladen Ivanic and solutions that he is proposing are absolutely unacceptable. The coordinating mechanism must fully take into account the decentralised structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina as envisaged by the constitution,” Cvijanovic said. “The solutions proposed by Ivanic are a threat to the constitutional position of Republika Srpska,” she added. Cvijanovic said that Bosnia’s presidency cannot adjudicate between entities because it has no authority over them, and insisted that the Republika Srpska government would not take part in such “dangerous political ploys”. Ivanic responded on Sunday by saying that his proposal referred to eventual arbitration in case of disagreements within the Bosniak-Croat Federation and did not refer in any way to Republika Srpska. He also claimed that the reactions from Dodik and Cvijanovic indicated that they were “ready to invent non-existing problems” to divert attention from corruption scandals allegedly linked to tycoons close to the Serb-led entity’s leadership. “These scandals have been going on too long. It is obvious that Dodik and Cvijanovic owe something to the people who are involved in them and that as long as they are in the government, Republika Srpska will do nothing to fight crime and corruption,” he said.

 

Serbia's President: War Crimes Cooperation Not Question of Truth or Justice (Reuters, 3 April 2015)

BELGRADE— Serbia must cooperate with a U.N. war crimes court seeking the return of an ultra-nationalist defendant, not on the basis of truth or justice but because it's the law, the Balkan country's president said on Friday. The remarks by President Tomislav Nikolic underscored the disdain many Serbs feel for the Hague-based tribunal, which released firebrand politician Vojislav Seselj in November on grounds of ill-health only to demand his return this week. Nikolic was Seselj's right-hand man during the war years of Yugoslavia's collapse in the 1990s, when both men were disciples of a 'Greater Serbia' ideology. But both Nikolic and Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic - another former Seselj ally - turned their backs on him in 2008 when they pushed instead for Serbia's Western integration. Seselj's return to Serbia, and his subsequent refusal to heed the tribunal's call for him to come back, has put them in an awkward spot, confronting them with the unpalatable prospect of having to extradite a man who was once their close friend. "It's always tough when you have to cooperate exclusively because of the law, and not because of justice, God or the truth," Nikolic told local TV Chuprija late on Thursday, in comments carried by the state news agency Tanjug on Friday. The president also warned the media to keep its distance, echoing an often hostile tone used by officials in Serbia's conservative government towards its press critics. "The media shouldn't be meddling in this, because they'll only make things worse. I know who's on which side. And I can tell you honestly, none of them is on the side of Seselj. They want to use any opportunity to bring down the government," he said. Serbian cooperation with the U.N. tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has long been a key condition of the country's closer integration with the European Union. The government is likely to face increasing Western pressure to arrest Seselj if he does not agree to return voluntarily. Serbia wants the EU to open the first so-called 'chapters' of accession talks this year. Seselj, who has cancer, has said police will have to carry him to the plane, though Vucic has appeared to rule out using force, saying Seselj would not be arrested in a "raid." Seselj handed himself into the tribunal in 2003, but was released in November on compassionate grounds before any verdict was reached in his long-running trial. This order was revoked on Monday because he had publicly said he would not return to the court once a verdict was reached.

 

News Analysis: ICTY's Order On Seselj Puts Belgrade In A Bind (RFE/RL, by Goran Jungvirth, Iva Martinovic and Dusan Komarcevic, 3 April 2015)

In Releasing Seselj, ICTY Solves One Problem -- But Creates Many Others

When The Hague tribunal opted this month to provisionally release war crimes suspect Vojislav Seselj to seek cancer treatment in Serbia, it was attempting to amend one of the longest, most mismanaged cases ever to come before the court. But sending the fiery Seslj home may be the start of a whole new type of trouble, for the Balkans and the tribunal alike.

BELGRADE -- The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) continues to cause headaches for Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic. First, the court made the surprise decision in November 2014 to grant provisional release to war crimes suspect and Serbian ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj. Seselj was barely off the runway in The Hague before he stated bluntly he would ignore any summons to return to the court. Then ICTY appellate judges on March 30 ruled that Seselj had violated the terms of his release and ordered him to return to ICTY custody. That order obligates Belgrade to detain Seselj and hand him over to the tribunal, where he has been in custody since 2003. Failure to comply could become an obstacle to Serbia's European-integration ambitions. But sending the populist, ailing Seselj back to a tribunal that has already held him for 12 years without convicting him is a politically perilous course for Vucic. And some Serbian officials suspect that this is precisely what the ICTY was trying to do. The ICTY's decision to order Seselj back to The Hague, said Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia's minister of labor, veteran, and social affairs, "is mainly aimed at the destabilization of Serbia and at toppling the government of Aleksandar Vucic and Vucic himself."Vulin added that if the government moves to arrest Seselj, it could cause unrest in the streets. "This decision is directly aimed at toppling this government, and its goal is to remove Aleksandar Vucic from the political life of Serbia," he said. Seselj, 60, responded to the court's order by burning a Croatian flag in front of a Serbian government building in Belgrade on April 1, a provocative act over which Serbia has launched a criminal investigation. Croatia recalled its ambassador for consultations. "When I arrived [in Belgrade], I said that I will not go back of my own free will," Seselj said after the flag-burning. "I am not going to cooperate in any detention." The following day, he said he intends to go to Croatia someday "armed on a tank." The Seselj case is as twisted and torturous as any in the history of the ICTY. Accused of plotting the ethnic cleansing of towns in Croatia and Bosnia during the conflicts of the 1990s and of making speeches that "planted the seeds of ethnic hatred" in the region, Seselj voluntarily surrendered himself to the ICTY in 2003. But his trial got under way only in 2007 and the proceedings were concluded in 2012. However, Seselj managed to get one of the three judges hearing the case removed from the tribunal, leading to the appointment of a new judge and the postponement of the verdict from October 2013 until at least June 2015. In the meantime, Seselj was diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent surgery in 2013. The court decided in November 2014 to grant him provisional release on health grounds and released him on condition that he not try to influence any witnesses in his case and that he return when summoned. Analysts said ICTY officials were reluctant to risk Seselj dying in custody as former Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosovic did in 2006. "So they essentially decided to dump him back into Serbia," University of Nottingham law professor Marko Milanovic told RFE/RL at the time of Seselj's release. Seselj has since resumed his calls for a "Greater Serbia" that would encompass large parts of Croatia. He continues to head Serbia's ultranationalist Radical Party. "The accused war criminal Seselj is trying to influence relations between Serbia and Croatia through hate speech, war rhetoric, and symbolism," the Croatian Foreign Ministry said in an April 1 statement. Despite a long and tense political history between Vucic and Seselj (Vucic was once a top official on the Radical Party), Belgrade has been tolerant of Seselj's theatrics out of respect for his popularity on the political right, says Sonja Biserko, president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. "They have tried some sort of normalization of Vojislav Seselj, but he is an embodiment of everything that happened during the 1990s," she says. "The lack of sensitivity to such a phenomenon is a matter of great concern." So far, Belgrade has restricted its comments on the ICTY's order for Seselj to return, saying only it would issue a statement soon. Vucic, in a statement on March 30, connected the ruling with a March 24 speech he gave criticizing the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999. "If I expressed everything I feel at this moment in words, someone might think I am not able to hide my anger at the decisions made by certain people -- immoral decisions," he said. "It is clear my March 24 speech on the anniversary of the NATO aggression was not well received in the world." The government in Croatia criticized the ICTY's decision to release Seselj, and many there have been outraged by Seselj's war-mongering. However, Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic tried to strike a conciliatory note in a statement on March 31. The case "has unnecessarily stirred up negative emotions in the [Balkans] region and placed the Serbian government, to a certain extent, in an awkward position," Milanovic said. "On the one hand, I understand that. At the same time, I expected more explicit reactions from the Serbian government [to Seselj's inflammatory statements], as I said a few months ago." However, Croatian parliament deputy speaker Zeljko Reiner said on April 2 that Zagreb is watching the Serbian government's reaction to Labor Minister Vulin's defense of Seselj. "It is not important what Seselj did -- we all know who he is," Reiner said. "What is much more important is what the Serbian government will do about the statement of a government minister. We are very closely watching to see what they will do."

 

Bosnia prosecutors indict 3 people for war crimes against Serbs (Jurist, by Ashley Hogan, 3 April 2015)

The Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina [official website] on Thursday indicted [press release] three people for war crimes committed against Serb victims. The indicted, Zdenko Andabak, Muamir Jasharevic and Sead Velagic, are accused of committing crimes against humanity against more than 300 Serb civilians between April 1992 and July 1993. The indictment charged the men with torturing and detaining civilians in inhumane conditions and killing 16 people of Serb ethnicity while they were members of the Croatian Defense Council Military Police in Livno. The prosecutors included 120 pieces of evidence to support the indictment, which will be forwarded to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for confirmation.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] and the Balkan States continue to prosecute those accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity that left more than 100,000 people dead and millions displaced during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. In February Serbian war crimes prosecutors charged [JURIST report] five people with committing a wartime massacre during the Balkan conflict. Also in February the International Court of Justice ruled [JURIST report] that Serbia and Croatia did not commit genocide against one another's citizens during the 1990s war. In January the war crimes division of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina confirmed [JURIST report] the indictment of Dragomir Vasic on charges of genocide. The charges stemmed from the executions of Srebrenica Muslims during the Bosnian Civil War.